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Traditional thyme “green gold” of Lebanese southerners
22-8-2017
In a special feature on thyme agriculture, Al Mustaqbal reported that the Nabatiyeh farmers in the South are busy picking the wild crop growing in holes between rocks and in the peripheries of towns or cultivated in greenhouses. Both varieties, the newspaper wrote, constitute a livelihood for farmers, where one kg of the zaatar (aromatic mix of thyme, sumac and sesame seeds) is sold at LBP 35,000. In the wake of the July 2006 Israeli War on Lebanon, an Italian non-government organization gave in-kind donations (plastic tents and herb seedlings) to grieved thyme growers in the towns of Yohmor, East and West Zawtar and Qaaqaiyat al Jisr to plant and irrigate in farmlands and produce two harvest seasons. Al Mustaqbal mentioned that some farmers who collect wild thyme work with cultivated herb growers in marketing the produce locally. There is a high demand on the crop, Abu Jibran Mohamad Jaber from Zawtar, told the newspaper’s reporter. He said he wakes up at dawn for the painstaking trip in search of wild thyme in order to sell it to the town’s inhabitants who usually stores it for eating or for making the popular Lebanese manakish (flatbread baked with thyme). Likewise, Mohamad Ulleik who owns 5 plastic tents close to Litani River, boasted that zaatar is the green gold of the South. “In one year, we reap around 500 kgs and sell them to wholesale dealers who in turn vend them to bakeries,” Ulleik said, demanding that the government stop the entry of Syrian and Jordanian thyme into Lebanon during the harvest season. Also, Sonya Jaber from Hamra who tends to a field planted with wild thyme, described this type of agriculture as ‘profitable’, but needs official support from the ministry of agriculture and the municipalities to sustain a decent living to low-income Lebanese households. (Al Mustaqbal, August 18, 2017)
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- العربية
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