Donor: The World Food Program (WFP), funded by The Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
Objectives:
• Supporting the agricultural sector through providing capacity building and training opportunities for the local community.
• Working on developing the value chain of thyme and mountain tomatoes through paid training courses.
• Helping small and medium-sized enterprises and agricultural cooperatives to develop and improve performance and administrative systems and creating income-generating programs for people with additional needs.
• Networking and linking between different sectors (tourism - environment - agriculture - services).
The activities:
• Studying the plant and product of thyme and mountain tomatoes by preparing the value chain.
• Identifying the major difficulties facing farmers and preparing training programs based on their needs.
• Linking farmers to markets and technicians such as research centers and others - Studying the needs of small and medium service providers and agricultural cooperatives for the preparation and implementation of a technical support program.
• Establishing a pilot agricultural site for people with additional needs, in cooperation with the Rehabilitation and Development Center
• Preparing a survey and a study on wild plants and their connection to the cultural and civilized heritage, especially edible plants
• Studying the needs on the demographic level by filling out forms from the villages of the reserve with the aim of producing a preliminary version of the Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA-).
• Supporting and developing a center to assist farmers and maintain equipment - Working on networking between the various sectors in the region (tourism, agriculture, services, and others).
In numbers:
• 774 beneficiaries of Lebanese nationality, 202 beneficiaries of Syrian nationality from the cash-for-work program.
• A study on thyme and another on tomatoes.
• Developing the SEA study,
• 7 agricultural cooperatives and 6 institutions have benefited from detailed training related to management and production and marketing and food safety and more.
• 40 beneficiaries with additional needs.
• 35 beneficiaries from the networking activities.
• 45 farmers benefited from the capacity-building program.
• 3 production rehabilitated workshops and staff underwent training.
• 25 farmers benefited from the biodynamic agriculture project.
• The first version of the guidelines related to sustainable agriculture in the development area in the Shouf Biosphere Reserve.
Duration: June 2020 - December 2021