A third meeting between the Lebanese and Egyptian working groups was held on the 11th and 12th of January 2017 in Cairo, organised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Land Reclamation (Department of Agricultural Foreign Relations) and in collaboration with the ENPARD South Support Programme team. Following the two workshops on “Good agricultural practices” and “Short channel distribution and marketing of agricultural products”, this workshop was held on the “The role of the advisory & extension services for more competitive agricultural products: Lessons learned from ENPARD initiative and recommendations based on value chain actors testimonies”.

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The two day workshop brought together 45 people from both national think tanks and also from different departments of the Ministry of Agriculture and of the Ministry of Trade, researchers and professors, representatives of cooperatives and NGOs as well as companies from the private sector.

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The objective of the workshop was to look beyond the contextual differences between both countries and to i) identify the common issues and obstacles related to the lack of competitiveness of agricultural products originating from Egypt and Lebanon based on the different discussions and debates that occurred in the framework of ESSP in each country whether it concerns the themes of good agricultural practices or agriculture extension. And to ii) exchange on the position of the advisory and extension system, and cooperatives in improving the competitiveness and increase the value of their agricultural products.

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The first sequence of the workshop allowed both delegations to conduct a presentation on the different activities that occurred in each country since the last Egyptian-Lebanese meeting. The Egyptian work group continued to work on the diagnosis of the extension system and establishment of three possible reform scenarios to implement. While in Lebanon, the work was concentrated on a diagnosis of six territory-based production chains and the elaboration of action plans aimed at reinforcing these production chains. These presentations were followed by the presentation of concrete actions that occurred in both countries to improve the competitiveness of agricultural products, followed by two testimonies of exporters, one for Egypt and the other for Lebanon, and another two testimonies of representatives of the agriculture extension center for each country.

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During the second day of the workshop, Dr. Gamal Siam (Professor of Agricultural Economic Studies at the Faculty of Agriculture – Cairo University) presented a diagnosis on the agricultural exchange between both countries, in order to open a debate session on the structural and situational obstacles impairing agricultural exports and the role that the extension system could play in order to improve this situation.

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The discussions and debates that followed the presentations allowed the participants to reach a consensus on the role of the agricultural extension and cooperatives:

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• Facing the low budget allocated to the agriculture sector in Egypt and Lebanon and the limited support from public bodies to the farmers, the agriculture extension and cooperatives have proven to be two pertinent tools in having a sustainable, working and competitive agriculture sector;

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• These two tools should be reinforced and reformed to better respond to farmers’ expectations notably through having adequate services suited to their needs and an increase in specialisation thanks to a collaboration between the research centers in order to have operational trainings;

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• The notion of good agricultural practices was put forth on many occasions as a solution to increase the competitiveness of agriculture and to respond to the agricultural challenges that the countries are facing (fragmentation of land, misuse of pesticides, high cost of production, quality of products …) but also as a theme that should be central for the agricultural extension services and cooperatives;

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• The extension and cooperative system could furthermore serve as adequate tools to support producers in their will to export notably by assisting them in knowing the market demands, their main concurrences, as well as their strategies, rules and regulations to follow in order to enter the European Union.

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In conclusion of this workshop, the participants established many operational recommendations to improve the competitiveness of Egyptian and Lebanese agricultural products on the international markets:

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• Create Egyptian and Lebanese companies in order to better compete with other exporting rival countries of Egypt and Lebanon;

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• Establish an Egypt and Lebanon network so that the exporters in these two countries could share their knowledge and expertise;

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• Reduce the gap between public structure, the private sector, and research center thanks to implementation of legal framework allowing the creation of a board between the three sectors;

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• Explore collectively new markets (Maghreb, Sub-Saharan Africa, Asian counties…);

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• Organise study tours in Europe in order to have a better understanding of cooperatives, their history, establishment, functioning, to allow an exchange of knowledge.

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The participants also insisted on the importance of the ENPARD South Support Pogramme and the different opportunities it established. Through the different meetings and workshops, the communication and exchange of expertise and knowledge between the two countries greatly increase which helped in reinforcing the links between Lebanon and Egypt and shed light on the common challenges but also to determine possible solutions to address these issues.