Soap making revived in North Lebanon to counter declining marketing of olive oil

In its edition of today, An Nahar daily featured the revival of the soap making industry in the North after farmers failed to market this year’s production of olive oil. One olive farmer from Marh Kfarsghab, Zgharta, told the newspaper reporter that his village alone produces around 20 thousand barrels of olive oil and grieved that after years of production buildup, farmers resorted to the making of soap instead. The concentration of acid in stockpiled olive oil, he explained, increases every year, and all this, he added, is a result of the government’s slackness to protect domestic production. The farmer demanded the creation of new outlets to market the annual produce and put an end to smuggling and foreign competition. According to the Agricultural Center in Tripoli and Minyeh of the Ministry of Agriculture,  the total area of olive orchards in Lebanon is nearly 563 square km based on FAO 2010 figures. This figure is equivalent to 54% of the overall cultivated land and represents 8% of the country’s total surface area, with 41% of the olive tree grown areas located in the North. The number of olive growers in Lebanon exceeds 17 thousand farmers, An Nahar concluded. (An Nahar, June 15, 2016)