Lebanese President Michel Aoun met on Monday at Baabda Palace with Nora Ourabah Haddad, the newly appointed UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) representative in Lebanon, to discuss cooperation between Lebanon and FAO. Aoun asked the FAO to help export Lebanon’s agricultural products as a way to reduce the country’s severe financial crisis.
“Lebanon attaches great importance to the agricultural sector because it is an essential part of the productive economy. We were dependent for years on the rentier economy, this must change today considering that the land is the most important thing for man, and that stability in life comes from the land,” Aoun said, as reported in a statement released by Lebanon’s Presidency.
Aoun and Ourabah also discussed ways to manage Lebanon’s natural resources to ensure food security and sustainability. Ourabah said an emergency plan was needed to achieve food security while focusing on increasing production, particularly of potentially high-return crops such as wheat.