More than three years into a crippling economic and financial crisis that plunged over half of the population in poverty, food security in Lebanon, a country that imports up to 80 percent of its food supply, is becoming increasingly precarious.
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Lebanon has never been food secure, as it has always relied heavily on imports accounting for more than 80% of its food needs. But the meltdown of the economy and the steep devaluation of the Lebanese pound, compounded by the COVID-19 pandemic and the August 4, 2020 explosion that destroyed the wheat silos at the Beirut seaport have thrusted the country into an unprecedented food insecurity.
According to the World Food Program (WFP), an estimated 42% of Lebanese, the equivalent of 1.46 million people, are food insecure, in addition to 800,000 Syrian refugees. With the minimum wage covering only 25% of food needs, one in every three persons in Lebanon depend on food and cash assistance provided by the international organization to survive.
“The main key driver for increasing food insecurity is the skyrocketing inflation,” WFP spokesperson Rasha Abou Dargham said in an interview with This is Beirut.
“In 2022, WFP supported 2 million people, including 1 million Lebanese, with food baskets and cash money. People’s access to food is highly compromised… they simply can no longer afford it,” she added.
Between September and December 2022, some 2 million residents entered the crisis phase, or phase 3 and above on the 5-phase scale of the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), phase 5 being the famine level. The chart prepared by WFP and FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization) estimated that only 16% of the population of more than 6 million is food secure.
The analysis projected that between January and April 2023, the number will increase to 2.26 million people, including 1.91 million who will be in IPC Phase 3 (Crisis) and 354,000 in IPC phase 4, known as the emergency level.
The Lebanese pound has lost more than 98% of its value since the economy began unravelling in 2019. For many people, assistance by international organizations has become a lifeline as they quickly slip into poverty.
“What is needed at this point is social safety nets to mitigate the risks of food security, such as the National Poverty Targeted Program and the Emergency Social Safety Net with the World Bank, which WFP is helping the ministry of social affairs to implement,” Abou Dargham said.
Since 2019, the main pillars of food security, including food stability, food accessibility and availability and quality of food products, have been severely disrupted.
“Food security in Lebanon is mostly linked to poverty and the inability of (many people) to purchase food,” Rami Boujawdeh, Chief Operating Officer at Berytech, which has been carrying out several programs to support actors in the agriculture and food sector, told This is Beirut.
“Lebanon still has major issues in food safety and quality related to irrigation, untreated water and excess use of pesticide. But since the crisis, food has only become available for people who can afford it.”
The presence of more than 2 million Syrian refugees has had an indirect impact on food security in Lebanon, Boujawdeh argued. “The impact is doubly felt at the level of the country’s infrastructure and job opportunities. When it comes to food security, food basket programs from the UN agencies are feeding refugees and people under the poverty line. However, agricultural lands which could be exploited are occupied by Syrian refugee camps in some places. “
A less gloomy side of the crisis, however, is that it led to an increase in local product substitution that reduced imports, creating a positive economic cycle.
An increasing number of big businesses are diverting some of their investments into agri-food industries to save their money blocked in banks using the so-called “lollar” currency, Boujawdeh said.
He noted that the Ministry of Economy has registered 3,000 new trade marks in the last two years, 65% of which are linked to food.
“We started seeing a new breed of people in the sector that were not there before. We are far away from optimal agricultural production but there are seeds of hope amid good practices followed in the sector… In a way, the crisis has helped the sector move forward.”
Boujawdeh emphasized the key role of the government in uphauling the agri-food industry, as he stressed that “the government has two main jobs: to set the guidelines for a food strategy and to make sure they are followed and to provide the right environment for the economy to grow with the right mechanism.”
Abdallah al Wardat, WFP’s director and representative in Lebanon, summed up the situation as follows:
“I have been in Lebanon for five years now, I never had (Lebanese) people coming to ask for food assistance, but this has changed dramatically in the last year.”
