A sector worth saving

“Pity the nation that eats a bread it does not harvest,” wrote Gebran Khalil Gebran back in 1934. Lebanon, which today imports up to 80 percent of its food needs (according to a yet to be published report prepared for ESCWA,) is far from harvesting its own bread and is in dire need of redesigning and modernizing its agriculture sector.     While it is unlikely Lebanon will ever be 100 percent food sufficient (producing enough food items to feed its own people) due to a variety of reasons ranging from its small size to the high cost involved in reaching that level of sufficiency, the potential to be more competitive, closer to food self-sufficiency and less food insecure (see Last Word page 104) is too big to be squandered. Lebanon has a unique climate and topography compared to the rest of the region, allowing it to accommodate the planting