The deputy director-general of the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation has expressed deep concern to AFP about the impact of the latest Israel-Hezbollah conflict on agriculture in south Lebanon.
The latest war “puts additional pressure on farmers and rural communities that, frankly, were already facing considerable hardships”, the FAO’s Beth Bechdol warns.
“We’re deeply concerned” about the situation in south Lebanon, where agriculture is “at the heart” of livelihoods, she says in an interview in Beirut.
“It is our best assessment that 56,000 hectares, which is more than 22 per cent of Lebanon’s agricultural land, has been reported as affected or damaged,” including burned or physically damaged.
Israeli forces have been carrying out widespread demolitions affecting villages and farmland.
“Farmers and their families are no longer able to be connected to their agricultural land,” Bechdol says, noting that the conflict has also “disrupted markets and reduced access” to essentials for food production, including fertilisers.
