From local to global

The agro-food sector is highlighted as a defensive value proposition that has many underused development potentials in the contexts of satisfying local demand and achieving exports. Food safety and certification barriers need to be surmounted and challenges of breaking from ethnic niche markets into mainstream markets with Lebanese exports were confirmed, with the upside crisis risks of temporary cost advantages on labor and local produce inputs presenting opportunities will erode with time but can be maximized with decisive action in the short term. “We want to go beyond advocacy and actually see things happen,” says Executive’s editor in chief Yasser Akkaoui in the welcome note and introduction to the discussion. As noted by Thomas Schellen, Executive’s editor at large and moderator, the steering committee of the roundtable project, which had been quick to agree that food processing and agro-industries warrant inclusion in the selection of industries with high job generation