Wazzani farmers destroy their harvest because of shortage in labor and marketing outlets

The harvest season in the southern plains of Al Wazzani are perishing due to shortage of Syrian labor, disruption of export routes and saturation of domestic markets. Overcome by the problems, farmers decided to destroy thousands of acres of planted watermelons, tomato, cantaloupe and the Egyptian cucumber thus incurring hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses. It is also to be noted that the frost and hail storms that hit the area last winter delayed production for 10 days thus enabling production from the Beqaa areas to gain first access to domestic market. Adding to the misery of farmers, was the General Security’s decision to restrict the entry and residency permits of Syrians in Lebanon through the imposition of the Kafala sponsorship system resulting in a decline of 70% in Syrian labor force. All these factors compounded to affect the harvest season. Farmers of Al Wazzani areas were forced to leave non-harvested their fruit trees, like apricots, peaches and prunes and other agricultural produces. Farmers are now appealing to authorities to revise the decision on labor sponsorship decision in the interest of the agriculture sector. (An Nahar, 26 June 2015)