Samar Kanafani
Daily Star staff

Southern agricultural cooperatives brought their goods to Saifi Market on Friday to advertise their produce, attract foreign sponsorship and give their region’s sluggish economy a much-needed push.
“What we want is to see (southern farmers) stand on their own feet and stop waiting around for the government to step in,” said Tareq Osseiran, president of the field unit of the Socio-economic Rehabilitation Program for Southern Lebanon (SERP).
The program, which the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Council for Development and Reconstruction (CDR) launched in September 2000, intended to stir economic and social activity in the South.
Osseiran said the government’s “absence” from the region made it virtually impossible for SERP to dramatically improve living conditions.
But the UNDP and CDR have been able to organize Friday’s one-day fair in Saifi Market to attract funding from developed countries, the World Bank, the European Economic Commission and the US Agency for International Development.
“These are the usual donors,” explained Osseiran, adding that so far, SERP has operated with only $2 million
funding from UNDP and CDR.
The partnership has distributed $400,000 in grants to 24 of the region’s growing number of agricultural cooperatives since it was launched two years ago.
The 24 cooperatives jointly raised $270,000 for their production methods.
“(SERP) gave us a first step and they expect the next step to be on us, but they shouldn’t stop giving us assistance now,” said Fouad Hamra, head of the General Agriculture Cooperative of Marjayoun.
Hamra claimed the coop’s ostrich farm needs five years to yield returns and its honey bee farm two years.
Other coops already see some rewards.
A $75,000 olive oil press in the border village of Houla will save its residents a total of LL100 million a year said Ibrahim Ghanawi, head of the Houla General Agricultural Cooperative.
Instead of paying LL1,000 for a kilogram of olive oil, which was imported from other villages, Houla residents now pay LL800 per kilogram, while the families of the coop’s 200 members only pay LL600.
“People accepted the project and were really happy,” said Ghanawi who stood in front of samples of honey, thyme, fig molasses, olives, olive oil, wheat and tomato paste, which were on display in his cooperative’s stand in Saifi Market.

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