Disease and frost hit the livelihoods of 500 prickly pears farmers

Adding to the recent snow storm and blizzard that hit the country, disease is still ravaging the prickly pears orchards since last year, thus threatening the forthcoming season which extends from mid-July to early September and taking away farmers’ last hopes in saving what is left of their production. One prickly pears grower from Hasbaya, Hassan Melhem Hadifa said that farmers have, albeit unsuccessfully, tried to use different kinds of pesticides in a bid to exterminate the disease. However, he added, that the disease was only part of a bigger menace resulting from frost and snow, which destroyed some 60-70% of the orchards. Hadifa appealed to the Ministry of Agriculture, the municipalities and agriculture cooperatives and all other concerned parties to intervene and to provide the needed insecticides and fertilizers to reverse the calamity.  He also called for the assistance of some 500 households that depend mainly on prickly pears for their living, noting that the total size of production is expected to drop considerably from 30000 to barely 2000 boxes this year. He concluded that the overall cost of land rehabilitation and fruit tree treatment of plants will thus exceed total revenues from the projected production. For his part, Sheikh Samih Al Bahri, described all growing areas of prickly pears trees situated 800m above sea level as disaster areas. He noted that in one 20 acre parcel he owns more than some 100 truck loads of destroyed trees were accounted. Finally, he indicated that farmers have sought help from local research centers which promised to start countering the disease early next spring on an experimental level. (Al Diyar, 4 March 2015)