Cost of 2023 tobacco planting season increases ten times since last season: report

Tobacco farmers in the south, especially in Nabatiyeh, started planting the tobacco season. According to reports, the number of workers in tobacco cultivation and the area of cultivated land will increase as a result of the price improvements made by the Regie administration, as the number of southern farmers is 17,000 families, and the area of land cultivated is 5 million and 500 thousand acres.  

However, based on an article published by the state-owned National News Agency (NNA), farmers face high costs of agriculture, such as fertilizers, tillage, labor wages, and water, which have multiplied ten times over the last season as a result of purchasing them in US dollars.   

Vice President of the General Trade Union and head of the Union of Tobacco Growers in Lebanon, Hassan Fakih told NNA that tobacco cultivation is back on the map this year after it went through two leap years, and this happened in the interest of the farmers, adding that production reached 1.5 million kg this year, after the cultivated area in the south was 5,700,000 kg.  

He stated that tobacco cultivation is vital as it produces an economic cycle in the south, and its return leads to the employment of new workers since agriculture is a central pillar in the economic and social cycle in the south, the Bekaa, and the north, regions hosting the most disadvantaged and the poorest.  

Fakih also urged a budget increase for the Agriculture Ministry and the green project, restoring land reclamation, restoring the rural and environmental development project, paving agricultural roads, and securing a decent livelihood for families living in the countryside.  

In turn, the head of the municipality of Yohmor, Al Shaqif Hussein Barakat, pointed out to NNA that tobacco cultivation in the town has declined from what it was in the past, as only 3 out of 50 farmers and owners are left.