Growing trend of individual or community planting in Lebanon

ENAR

As prices of both imported and locally produced food items continue to increase and Lebanon’s food security is potentially threatened (see articles on agro-industry and food security), the old Lebanese proverb “fellah mekfi, sultan mikhfi”—which roughly translates to “a satisfied farmer is really a sultan”—rings true. Knowing how and being able to grow one’s own consumption needs of fruits and vegetables, is a wealth in these economically challenging times we are passing through. This awareness of the significance of a productive sector like agriculture was close to zero prior to 2019. Ramy Boujawdeh, deputy general manager at Berytech—an ecosystem that fosters innovation technology and entrepreneurship, initiated in 2002 by Université Saint-Joseph, recalls (in an earlier interview with Executive) that when they launched the first edition of accelerator program Agrytech in 2017, they struggled to attract participants. After a lot of efforts to drum up interest in agriculture, targeted mainly toward