Empty fields, missed plantings: Lebanese fields barren as Syrian farmworkers displaced by war

BEKAA VALLEY — Fertile fields stretch to the horizon in Chaat, a farming village in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley. In mid-November, most lay barren—untilled and unplanted—after many farmworkers fled heavy Israeli bombardment of the area. 

“The seasonal harvests are left on the ground,” Muhammad Shams, a Lebanese farmer who owns around 60 dunums in Chaat, told Syria Direct. 

Shams normally grows tobacco, wheat, barley and lentils with the help of six Syrian workers. However, in late September, when Israel escalated attacks on what it said were Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, all of Shams’ farmhands returned to Syria. 

The plow at Shams’ farm now sits idle. Ripe black fruit dangles untouched in his grove of dozens of olive trees. “The situation is not good at all,” the farmer said. “We’re not selling anything. We’ve lost so much.” 

Unsold watermelons rot in in Chaat, a farming village in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, 14/11/2024 (Hanna Davis/Syria Direct)

After Israel escalated its attacks across Lebanon in late September, at least 557,000 people fled to neighboring Syria, United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Lebanon spokesperson Lisa Abou Khaled told Syria Direct. Most, about 63 percent, were Syrian. 

Many Syrians who left worked in Lebanon’s agriculture sector, which relies heavily on refugee and migrant labor. As many as 80 percent of the country’s farmworkers, or 200,000 people, were estimated to be Syrian in 2016. The Bekaa Valley, the backbone of Lebanon’s food production, hosts the largest share of registered Syrian refugees in the country.

At the same time, fertile lands in the Bekaa Valley and the south were damaged by Israeli airstrikes over the past two months. Fields have been destroyed or deserted, entire harvests wasted and critical planting seasons missed. 

So, despite the prospect of peace from a 60-day ceasefire deal that went into effect on November 27, Lebanon’s agricultural production has already suffered huge losses that have left a mark on the sector and those who rely on it—Syrians and Lebanese alike.

‘Extremely significant’ damage

“The damage inflicted on the agriculture sector due to the Israeli aggression against Lebanon is extremely significant,” Lebanon’s Minister of Agriculture, Abbas Hajj Hassan, told the press on November 25. 

“All sectors have suffered damage, but the agricultural sector is the one that has been most seriously impacted,” he added.

Some 70 percent of Lebanon’s agriculture sector has been “indirectly or directly” affected by the war, Hajj Hassan said in an interview with the local Al Jadeed TV channel on November 23. In the south, 60,000 olive trees—accounting for around 20 percent of national olive production—were “completely destroyed,” he noted. 

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) reported on November 1 that 1,909 hectares (19,090 dunams) of agricultural land in southern Lebanon had been damaged during the war. 

Lebanon’s village of Chaat, in the Bekaa Valley, 14/11/2024 (Hanna Davis/ Syria Direct)

More workers needed

In Chaat, about 12 Syrian farmworkers—among the few who remained—planted strawberries earlier this month. The man overseeing the planting, who asked to go by Abu Ali Muhammad, said he used to employ 30 Syrian workers. Most had returned to Syria, meaning he could only plant a fraction of the crops he used to. 

“Before the war, we grew many types of vegetables and herbs, like lettuce, mint, and parsley, but now we can’t plant them because it requires more workers,” Muhammad told Syria Direct. 

Due to the labor shortage and surrounding danger, he was paying the remaining workers twice what they used to make: 130,000 Lebanese pounds (LBP) per hour (roughly $1.50), up from 70,000 LBP ($0.78). 

One of those planting strawberries was 20-year-old Nisreen Hussein al-Ahmad. Her parents, four brothers and four sisters have worked on farms in Lebanon since fleeing Raqqa, in northern Syria, in 2016, she said. They stayed in Lebanon despite the threat of Israeli airstrikes because their home in Raqqa has been destroyed, leaving them nothing to return to. 

When Syria Direct visited Chaat, in Baalbek-Hermel governorate, on November 14, Israel was hitting the area almost daily. “Of course we’re scared, there’s war around us,” al-Ahmad said. 

Winter planting season lost

About 50 kilometers south of Chaat, the Christian-majority town of Zahle was busier than normal. The town was safer than other places in the Bekaa Valley and, at the time, was hosting many displaced people. 

In Zahle, more fields—spared from Israeli strikes— had been tilled and plowed than in and around Chaat. Some had sprouted fresh heads of lettuce.

On the outskirts of Zahle, Nazha Muhammad al-Obeid and her husband, Muhammad Homsi, live in a small informal refugee camp, most of whose residents are Syrian farmers and farmworkers. 

Homsi is Syrian himself, and was a farmer in his native Homs. In 2011, he fled to Lebanon, where he met and married al-Obeid, who is Lebanese. The couple rent about 90 dunums of land in Raiit, a village 14 kilometers away, where they grow chickpeas, cumin, fennel and freekeh. For years, they have earned a small profit from selling their crops, even after paying the rent and farmworkers’ salaries. 

However, when Israel launched attacks on Bekaa villages, Homsi and al-Obeid stopped all work, leaving them in piles of debt. 

Nazha Muhammad al-Obeid and her husband, Muhammad Homsi, pose for a photo at their home in Zahle, 14/11/2024 (Hanna Davis/Syria Direct)

“The war destroyed us and our livelihoods,” al-Obeid told Syria Direct. They could not harvest their crops and missed a critical planting season. In October and November, they would normally till the fields and plant seeds when the ground is moist from the early winter rains. 

“With the winter planting season already underway, the window of opportunity to support rural communities is limited,” the FAO warned on November 1. “Delays in protecting rural livelihoods will result in more people falling into poverty, food insecurity and dependence on food aid.” 

Homsi said that they had to take out a loan to pay their 20 Syrian workers wages owed for work prior to Israel’s escalation. In December, the couple will also owe $3,000 for their annual rent for the land. He doubts they will be able to pay.

“Now, there isn’t work. The situation is dangerous there, we can’t even prepare the land,” Homsi said in mid-November.

When Syria Direct checked back in after the ceasefire began, Homsi planned to go back to check his land in a few days, once he could be sure the fighting had stopped. But even if his land is undamaged, it is still too late to plant as the ground hardens in the cold.

Supply chain disruptions 

“The economy of this region is based on two categories: tourism and agriculture,” the governor of the Baalbek-Hermel region, Bachir Khodr, told Syria Direct. Both have eroded during the war.

In addition to the inability to harvest, many farmers could not export their crops. Produce shipments to Gulf countries, a major export destination, used to pass through Syria, Khodr noted. However, almost all of the six border crossings into Syria were hit by Israel, in what Tel Aviv said was an attempt to stymie the flow of weapons to Hezbollah. 

The Masnaa border crossing, located on the Beirut-Damascus international highway in the Bekaa Valley, was a major route for the movement of people and goods between the two countries. In 2023, 87 percent of Lebanon’s land exports and 96 percent of land imports passed through Masnaa. Multiple Israeli strikes on the crossing have left it impassable by vehicle, with many people crossing on foot. 

“The conflict has further disrupted agrifood markets and supply chains, preventing farmers from transporting produce and consumers from accessing it,” according to the FAO. 

Despite supply chain disruptions, prices have “on average been very stable,” Nabil Fahed, the president of the Syndicate of Supermarkets in Lebanon, told Syria Direct. The price of produce coming from the south and Bekaa did see a minor increase due to shortages, he added. However, this was offset by excess supply in the local market of products that could not be exported. 

Sheep run in the Bekaa Valley’s Zahle governorate, 14/11/2024 (Hanna Davis/Syria Direct)

Will Syrian workers return? 

Back in Chaat’s fields, onions rot in the ground of Muhammad Haj Hassan’s 200-dunam farm. With most of his Syrian farmworkers gone, he could not complete the harvest. 

Haj Hassan did not believe all the Syrian workers would be able to return to Lebanon, even after a cessation of hostilities. Many of the farmhands were in Lebanon illegally, or had entered as refugees from the war in Syria. 

The Lebanese government significantly cracked down on Syrian refugees this year, imposing new restrictions and deporting hundreds. In May, the country resumed a campaign promoting the “voluntary return” of Syrian refugees. 

So, while Lebanese citizens who fled to Syria may begin to return in the coming days and weeks if the ceasefire holds, many Syrians may find it difficult to do the same, with far-reaching consequences for Lebanon’s farm sector. 

Mahmoud Ali Rifai, a Syrian shepherd in Chaat, Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, 14/11/2024 (Hanna Davis/Syria Direct)

Near Haj Hassan’s farm in Chaat, Mahmoud Ali Rifai, a 68-year-old Syrian shepherd, gazed into the distance. “Do you see that mountain? Our country is behind it,” he said. Before the war in Syria, Rifai used to bring his sheep to Lebanon for summer grazing and then return across the mountain to his home in the Damascus countryside. 

After the 2011 revolution, Rifai and his family fled to Lebanon after Syrian rebels attacked them and their sheep, he said.  “We fled and came here at night, to this place [in Chaat],” Rifai said, “Due to what we experienced, we never went back.” 

Years later, they found themselves in danger once more, this time from Israeli fighter jets. Shortly before the ceasefire began, there were “strikes all around us,” Rifai said. “We can’t sleep. The sheep cry all night in fear.” 

Normally, Rifai would sell cheese and milk in the nearby Baalbek market, but with most people fleeing the city in recent months, he did not sell much. To get through the winter, he will have to sell part of his flock.