Good Agricultural Pratices (GAP) emerged as a priority for Lebanon during the discussions held through the ENPARD South support programme workshops. This theme was chosen in light of the various food safety issues that the country has been dealing with for the past few years. One of the objetives of the Lebanese agriculture strategy (2015-2019) is to apply Good Agriculture Practices as a driver to respond to these issues.

 

A first workshop on this theme was held in Lebanon on 4 and 5 December 2015. The objectives were to review the concept of Good Agricultural Practices, setting it in the Lebanese context and identifying the constraints and needs facing its implementation (see report of the workshop).

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Following this first workshop, six production chains were identified based on its territory (olive oil, vegetables milk production, citrus trees, honey, and apple) which will be further analysed under the responsibility of representatives from the Ministry of Agriculture for each production chain. To assist the actors in the realisation of these diagnoses, the ENPARD South support programme team prepared a framework for each sector under three main creteria:

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1. The caracteristics and determinants of the production chains in Lebanon based on specific indicators such as socio-economic, agronomic and environmental at a national and local level ;

2. The actors involved in the production chains, their roles, their status and possibly the institution for which they work ;

3. The main challenges facing the production chains.

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A second workshop has been organized on 14 and 15 March 2016 during which each representative of the respective production chain presented the established diagnosis and recommendations based on the discussions and analysis performed.

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Following the presentation of the diagnoses and the review of the European experience of Good Agricultural Practices carried out by Xavier CRETE, consultant in agronomy, the stakeholders of the workshop discussed the formulation of action plans for these production chains. The ENPARD South support programme team, think tank’s members and the representatives of the Ministry then raised the question of the methodology for developping these action plans and subsequently discussed guidelines for these plans according to the needs and requirements of each of the selected production chain.

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Discussions were pursued on 19 and 20 April 2016 with the of individual meetings between the representatives of the Ministry working on each of the six sectors and the ENPARD South support programme team. The action plans should be finalized by each representative to be presented at the third national workshop to be held in Lebanon on 30 and 31 May 2016.