Bekaa Valley, Lebanon – A heat wind blows over the rocky, arid panorama of the Lebanon-Syria border, ruffling the silhouettes strolling slowly by the mountain move, clambering round two large craters.
What was a densely packed highway stretching all the way in which from Beirut in Lebanon, by the Bekaa Valley and on to Damascus in Syria by way of the Masnaa Crossing, has been decreased to rubble by Israeli bombardment. All journey has develop into close to unimaginable.
Households now move solely on foot, carrying their baggage over their heads, rigorously avoiding dropping their stability whereas navigating the particles.
Till a fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah was reached on Wednesday, Israel had been carpet-bombing Lebanon since late September. On October 4, its forces bombed Masnaa, the most important border crossing into Syria, on October 4 because it ramped up its assault on Lebanon practically a yr after it began a battle on Gaza.
What’s left of Masnaa is barely sufficient to permit folks by, to not point out the once-familiar vans filled with recent vegetables and fruit that used to wind by the move, going each methods.
“Because the strike, no produce has been coming in or going out, neither avocados nor bananas, regardless that the season is in full swing,” Abu Hussein, a younger labourer who often works on the web site loading and unloading vans, tells Al Jazeera.
Since no business vans move by now, he spends his days sitting within the shade on the facet of the highway or serving to folks carry their belongings by the particles. “This can be a tough financial blow for us,” he provides.
In 2023, Lebanon exported between 250 and 350 tonnes of agricultural produce every day to the broader Center East area by Masnaa, producing annual gross sales of $176m, in accordance with Lebanese customs knowledge, together with industrial exports.
Israel claims it hit the highway to Masnaa to stop Hezbollah from importing weapons from Syria, but it surely may nicely be step one in a blockade of the nation, locals worry.
Since that incident, all different official border crossings between Syria and Lebanon even have been bombed, and Israel imposed a maritime blockade on south Lebanon in October.
Throughout the nation, Israeli bombs have burned greater than 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of farmland, whereas 12,000 hectares (practically 30,000 acres) have been deserted by farmers fleeing for security.
Which means that 10 p.c of Lebanon’s arable land has been misplaced – though that is thought-about a really conservative estimate. Of the remaining, a lot has been left fallow.
Earlier than Israel’s assault, practically one in 4 Lebanese folks had been already fighting starvation due to the nation’s financial disaster and inflation, in accordance with the World Meals Programme. With Israel’s escalation of its attacks on Hezbollah within the nation since September, “Lebanon’s meals insecurity is about to worsen,” the company has warned. “The battle additionally threatens… greater than 60 p.c of Lebanon’s agricultural manufacturing.”
Whereas Gaza has been affected by an Israeli blockade for 17 years – now leading to extreme famine – many in Lebanon worry the identical destiny may await them.
Getting ready for battle – the farm
In Saadnayel, a couple of kilometres from Masnaa, a mudbrick farmhouse stands surrounded by plentiful fields.
That is the house of Buzuruna Juzuruna (“our seeds are our roots”), an agroecological collective with Lebanese, Syrian and French members.
Because the mild autumn wind brushes by the orchards and goats bleat, the farm looks like a haven completely faraway from Lebanon’s bloodshed.
Like most of Lebanon’s progressive agroecological collectives and farms, it has skilled a lot upheaval for the reason that Israeli assaults. Nevertheless, this specific collective has ready itself for battle.
“In case there’s a whole siege, now we have ready our ‘seed library’ and pure fertilisers and may obtain self-sufficiency if the borders and ports are closed,” Walid Youssef, one of many collective’s co-founders, tells Al Jazeera as he leads the way in which across the farm’s premises.
As he walks, he brushes apart beneficiant bushes of rosemary subsequent to the fields earlier than heading into the barn which is full of the nice and cozy, stingy odor of goats and sheep.
Based in 2015 by a bunch of 5 as an experimental venture, the farm has steadily expanded to embody two hectares of land (5 acres) on which it grows fruit and greens as goats, sheep and chickens roam round.
The animals and birds are helpful for clearing weeds, producing cheese, labneh and ghee, whereas additionally creating their very own pure fertiliser from their waste. “We additionally eat and promote the meat, the eggs, every part – we developed our personal self-sufficient financial system right here,” Youssef explains.
Near the animal farm is the plant nursery the place the collective cultivates greater than 1,000 forms of seedlings into crops – from crops and ornamental crops to fragrant herbs.
“I actually love the summer time crops, like tomatoes, cucumbers, and eggplants, in addition to our various sorts of wheat,” Youssef says.
The seed library
However most necessary of all on this farm is the darkish, dry room in the primary mudbrick constructing that holds a useful treasure: an intensive “seed library”.
Right here, rows of packing containers full of heirloom seeds are stacked on picket cabinets, every with its species and selection written in Arabic and French.
“Right here, now we have about 1,000 sorts of seeds,” Youssef mentioned, foraging by the packing containers. “We have now about 50 kinds of tomatoes, and as a lot of chillis, eggplants and lettuce, in addition to 75 sorts of native and conventional wheat seeds from everywhere in the Mediterranean basin,” he provides proudly.
Buzuruna has collected the seeds from farmers from the south of France to Syria and even Palestine, because of its relationships with different like-minded collectives in these international locations. Generally, members of the collective would journey to France to gather seeds from these farmers or Syrian members of the collective would deliver them to Lebanon.
In the dead of night room which serves as a “library” of seeds, Youssef rifles by a field of red-white textured cranberry beans which stream between his fingers like beads. “These are very particular for Lebanese farmers, they’re a standard sort discovered everywhere in the nation,” he says.
He joyfully presents a few of his favorite seeds – a uncommon sort of tomato referred to as “pleasure of the orchards” in Arabic, a Syrian apple tomato and a big Lebanese mountain tomato.
Buzuruna Juzuruna now has sufficient to produce all of the farms in Lebanon if they need to want it.
However first, the seeds have to be shielded from the bombing, which is getting nearer by the day. Buildings only a few hundred metres from the farm have been struck in latest weeks.
Youssef picks up a clear plastic field crammed to the brim with small luggage of seeds.
“This field has samples akin to fava beans, pumpkins, tomatoes and eggplants that we are going to disguise someplace removed from right here in order that if there have been strikes on this place, we’d have a security field in one other place,” he defined.
“It’s a small fortune; you possibly can’t discover seeds like these on the [general] markets any extra. We have now not solely to save lots of them but in addition to disseminate them.”
To this finish, Buzuruna Juzuruna supplies seedlings to farmers in want – presently it’s offering vegetable seeds to 14 farms, and wheat seeds to a different 4. The collective supplies the seeds and coaching on tips on how to domesticate them without cost. Different farmers are welcome to purchase seeds. “These are seeds which can be reusable, to allow them to then develop their crops on their very own,” versus industrially produced seeds, Youssef provides.
Most seeds accessible within the normal markets that farms purchase from are hybrid – genetically modified – and are produced by simply 4 fundamental multinational firms, akin to Monsanto, explains Lea Martinet-Jannin, one of many French members of the collective. She speaks to Al Jazeera by phone as she has been unable to return to Lebanon from France for the reason that begin of Israel’s onslaught.
For the time being,“Lebanon’s farming sector depends closely on synthetic hybrid seeds,” says Martinet-Jannin.
Hybrids are engineered to be extra immune to sure ailments or to yield a bigger quantity of produce, however the profit comes on the value of being single-use solely.
The crops can’t be used to supply new seeds to be replanted within the subsequent season. That is costly and creates a dependency as a result of farmers have to purchase them yearly anew.
The seeds that the collective makes use of to domesticate crops aren’t hybrid and could be replanted.
For that reason, the collective’s seed library initiative is revolutionary in Lebanon – a rustic depending on agricultural imports for as much as 80 p.c of its wants, together with fruit, greens, meat and dairy merchandise in addition to seeds. Wheat, fertilisers, pesticides and equipment are additionally nearly fully imported.
The collective has held instructional coaching programs for native farmers. “The aim was to lift consciousness and information the Syrian, Lebanese and Palestinian farmers of the realm to have an thought about sustainable agriculture and in order that they’ll have safe nourishment for themselves and their households,” Youssef explains.
“As we speak we’re witnessing a battle in Lebanon – this library’s aim is to assist make sure that the farmers have self-sufficiency, in order that they can develop crops from the seeds they’ve between their palms,” he added.
Meals: ‘The final security internet’
“The multinational firms that produce and promote these hybrid, one-way seeds are subjugating small farmers and their households by making them depending on a capitalistic, colonial system of agriculture. Creating heirloom seeds is an act of resistance,” Martinet-Jannin says.
The collective additionally goals to reverse the disappearance of meals traditions and to protect native heritage and tradition, particularly throughout occasions of battle.
“For example, our Syrian colleagues – they’ve misplaced their houses, they’ve misplaced their villages, their lives, in the course of the Syrian civil battle. However right here, we are able to nonetheless develop the particular sorts of small, heirloom eggplants and zucchinis they want for his or her conventional dishes – they’ll nonetheless maintain on to one thing. Meals could be the final security internet left whenever you’ve misplaced every part,” Martinet-Jannin explains.
“It’s flagrant how the battle is destroying native agricultural programs and traditions, notably in Palestine just lately – however this has occurred over the entire area over the course of the final conflicts,” she mentioned, referring to incidents akin to when the US bombed Iraq’s seed financial institution in Abu Ghraib throughout its 2003 invasion.
This autumn, a few of Buzuruna’s members took half in a collection of conferences and conferences about heirloom seeds and sovereignty in France. Though the collective often attends such occasions, the area’s bloody context has introduced it with a very severe agenda this yr.
“These occasions targeted quite a bit on Palestine, Sudan and Lebanon, speaking about tips on how to restore meals sovereignty amidst the wars,” Martinet-Jannin says.
After attending the Worldwide Farmer Seeds Gathering in Antibes, France, which is held each 4 years, the collective members gathered for a one-week retreat in southern France alongside related collectives from Syria, Iran, the Kurdish area of northern Iraq, Palestine, Egypt and the broader MENA area.
“We had longstanding connections to all these folks and actions, however that they had by no means met earlier than. It was stunning to lastly create this connection between our native fights, discuss concerning the points we face, and the way we are able to organise collectively,” she says.
As farmers everywhere in the area face the mixed spectres of local weather change, drought and battle, the assembly created an area for shaping an alliance.
Farmers face the dramatic results of local weather change, warming the MENA area by about 1.5 levels Celsius (34.7 levels Fahrenheit) greater than the remainder of the world on common by 2030. This poses many dangers: droughts, wildfires, desertification, and lack of pure habitat.
On the similar time, political reforms in lots of international locations which have favoured massive, industrial-scale farmers have additional challenged family-sized and collective farming everywhere in the Mediterranean basin. Regional wars and unrest have simply added to the challenges confronted by farmers.
“It was uplifting to really feel that we’re not alone in our wrestle. There are a lot of different people who find themselves getting organised and with whom we share widespread values, similar horizons and fascinating futures,” Martinet-Jannin says.
Again on the Buzuruna Juzuruna farm in Saadnayel, Youssef is sitting within the shade of a tree, flowers rising in entrance of the tent he lives in together with his household. He has simply been checking on the shops of dry meals that his farm will distribute to meals kitchens across the nation to assist feed those that have been displaced by Israel’s bombardment.
His kids are doing their English homework whereas he sips a small cup of Turkish espresso.
“Often, there can be rain now, however the seasons are completely unbalanced by local weather change,” he sighs, trying on the shiny, sunny sky. “That is why now we have to struggle right here and now, in order that our kids can inherit an excellent world.”
