Beirut: Lebanese agricultural production could be in a crisis if the hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah do not end soon, according to government officials.
The sector has been hit very badly because all the roads have been damaged.
"There is no possibility of going from one village to another or from the field to the market, and you can't reach the fields to harvest because there is always bombing and shelling," Lebanese Agriculture Minister Talal Al-Sahili said.
The death of 33 farm workers in the northern Beqaa valley on Friday highlighted the kinds of risks many in the industry face.
The workers, mostly Syrians, were killed in an Israeli air strike as they were loading a truck with fruit in fields near the Lebanese town of Qaa.
The financial cost to agriculture is estimated to be huge. Tens of millions of dollars is only a first estimate," the minister.
He added, "The sub-sectors that had been hit the hardest are poultry and citrus farming."
Poultry farms have been unable to obtain chicken feed due to the blockade and as many as 80 per cent of stock in some farms have died.
Citrus crops on the coastal plains of southern Lebanon have been left to rot during harvest time as farmers cannot get to their fields because of air raids.
In the Beqaa valley, $40 million Liban Lait milk factory was devastated, stripping milk farmers of a market nad leaving them in debt.
Lebanon's wine industry, worth $25 million and expanding rapidly, has also suffered.
Comments
0 comment