Dr. Riad Fouad Saade, CEO of Centre de Recherches et d'Etudes Agricoles Libanais (CREAL), delivered an open lecture: “Diagnosis of the Lebanese agriculture in light of the latest financial crisis: Impact on 2019–20 agricultural campaign” (January 28) at FAFS.
Being lucky to experience a century of the history, the development, and the setbacks of the Lebanese agricultural sector in its Levantine context, and being able to keep its accounts through a statistical model initiated in 1942 and constantly improved since 1981 is a very heavy responsibility to share this knowledge with academics and scientists who are deprived of the general picture of the sector that should be secured by an absent public administration.
Despite its unfavorable production factors and its endemic crisis, figures show that: Lebanese agriculture enjoys a good balance between the vegetal and animal crops and that, in both cases, the variety and quality of crops are encouraging factors for its development; and we can reach a balanced agricultural trade balance, if we produce high-quality and market it properly.
Considering the four missions of Lebanese agriculture at the social, economic, food security, and environment levels, a general wake-up is requested, especially that numerous examples of successful entrepreneurs prove that this can be a very lucrative activity.
However, the dramatic economic and financial crisis that hit Lebanon since summer 2019 is having a serious impact on its 2020 campaign with dangerous implications on food security and social levels.
In his talk, Dr. Saade presented an analysis of figures through the past five years and projections for the 2020 campaign that shed light on what is expected and how we should address it.
Watch the video here: