Eight women farmers from the South move towards Permaculture

L’Orient Le Jour daily published a feature on June 13 on the challenges of Permaculture in Lebanon quoting 8 women farmers from Qosaybeh village located in the southern mohafazat of Nabatieh. These eight women were trained on the principles of that sustainable form of agriculture and have prepared the land for the cultivation of tomato, besides lemon, lettuce and tobacco. The training workshop was held in the village of Saydoon, in Jezzine was organized by “Toorab” environmental association with the participation of 12 people including women from Qosaybeh. According to Rita Khawand from Toorab the training session focused on practical rather than on theoretical knowledge. For his part, agriculture engineer, Fadi Kanso clarified that environmental trends in Lebanon have been developing slowly but surely due to the difficulty encountered in introducing new innovative agricultural techniques to the and instead of reliance of conventional techniques, using mainly pesticides and fertilizers. It should be noted that the Permaculture approach which emerged in Australia in the seventies is based on agricultural and human approaches that are designed to be environmentally sustainable, self-sufficient, and is aimed at alleviating the human and automated work. A world day of Permaculture is celebrated each year on May 3rd. (L’Orient Le Jour, 13 June 2015)