At least one million people need food aid in Lebanon. Humanitarians are far from it at the moment. With 150,000 meals distributed every day by the WFP, the World Food Program, because each more day of war means less arable land.
2 mins
With our correspondent in Geneva, Jeremy Lanche
Israeli bombings have already ravaged nearly 2,000 hectares of land in the SouthLebanon to which must be added 12,000 hectares abandoned by their operators. With the Bekaa plain to the east and the Akkar region to the north, South Lebanon is one of the major agricultural areas of Lebanon.
Except that the war makes access to the fields impossible, explains the director of the WFP in Lebanon, Matthew Hollingworth. “ In South Lebanon, we will not harvest olives, bananas or citrus fruits this year. Vegetables are rotting in place in the fields », he explains. “ The country is already dependent on imports for food. And there, food security is even more fragile because what Lebanon could produce is being decimated. “.
An agricultural sector that has collapsed in recent decades
Some 46,000 farmers have been affected in one way or another by the war. The question now is in what state will they find their farms?
“ We hope that farmers will be able to return to farms as quickly as possible. But come back for what? Very often, they will find fields that will no longer be able to be exploited for years. », summarizes Matthew Hollingworth.
Despite having one of the largest arable areas in the entire region, the agricultural sector has collapsed in recent decades in Lebanon. The vast majority of foodstuffs today are imported. Keeping Beirut airport open is from this point of view essential to avoid worsening the food crisis.
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