The Lebanese Organization for Studies and Training (LOST) launched the project, “Supporting Farmers and Improving the Agricultural Environment”, funded by the German organization WHH (Welt Hunger Hilfe) at the community farm in Baalbeck, in the presence of a crowd of farmers, activists, and interested people.
In his speech on the importance of the agriculture sector, especially in the Beqaa area, the founder of LOST Dr. Rami Lakkis stated, “the project aims at developing and improving the quality of production, organizing continuous extension courses in the agricultural field, keeping up with farmers during the production process, and assisting farmers in the production marketing process. The targeted crops are almonds, grapes, vegetables, apples, olives, honey, mushrooms, potatoes, etc”.
Dr. Lakkis also pointed out that the activities of the project include training farmers, providing fertilizers, medicine and equipment, following-up and guidance, supporting committees of sales and purchase, providing farmers with information and ideas on marketing products, and promoting the participation of women in agricultural activities.
In his turn, the representative of the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Hassan al-Lakkis, Mr. Jaafar Assaf revealed that the agricultural sector suffers from several constraints, the most important of which are lack of specialized labour, hence the importance of agricultural extension and seminars, the existence of large lands in need to be reclaimed, significant waste in water resources, lack of a land surveying. Add to that, there is an absence of laws that respect and protect farmers from natural disasters, and a lack of affiliation of most farmers to agricultural associations that contribute to improving their situation.
Mr. Assaf concluded, “for the sake of better agriculture, we must all cooperate, the Ministry of Agriculture, NGOs, agricultural cooperatives, and farmers to solve our agricultural problems. And we, as the Ministry of Agriculture, are always ready to do our duty towards the Lebanese farmer”.
WHH Regional Director Dirk Hegmanns noted, “WHH is the largest non-governmental organization
in Germany, which is non-religious and non-political, and operates in more than
40 countries in the world. WHH’s work is mainly focused on agriculture, but it
has recently worked on several humanitarian issues due to the tragic events
happening all around the world”.
“We have been working here since 2013 because of the Syrian crisis, and through the work of the organization, we discovered that the displaced Syrians are benefiting from the aid, but the host community is not. So, we started working with the LOST in order to help the host community, and this project is mainly to achieve this goal”.
WHH’s project manager Lennart Lehmann explained how the organization’s work is focused in rural communities to create markets for agricultural production. “After a lot of research, we came to the conclusion that we should work in the Beqaa”, Lehmann stated.
