Bekaa farmers push against eradicating marijuana growth in Lebanon

Old farmer inspects one of the marijuana fields in the Bekaa Valley on August 4, 2012. (Photo: Haitham Moussawi)

By: Rameh Hamieh

Published Tuesday, June 3, 2014

“Growing marijuana is the only choice we have,” answered Abu Ali when questioned about his reason for planting 27 dunams (27,000 square meters) of his land with cannabis.

Stressing that this was the first time he grows marijuana, Abu Ali, a man in his fifties, said he resorted to this measure after last year’s failed season of white and sweet potatoes. Marijuana “is going to help me pay back my potatoes’ debts to merchants and agricultural clinics,” he said, adding that “growing potatoes wasn’t possible this year unless a farmer had already secured water resources. Marijuana plants only need to be watered twice; that’s it.”

Since the last week of February, large fields of the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon were planted with cannabis. Today, the green hashish plants cover significant areas of the land.

According to a leading cannabis cultivator in the Bekaa, “it is not possible to estimate or calculate” areas planted with hashish this year.

He revealed that he and his partner planted “about 1,000 dunams (1,000,000 square meters) this season,” estimating the amount of land grown with marijuana this year in the fields of many Bekaa villages to be three times larger than that grown last year.

He indicated that alongside old cannabis cultivators, who maintained their activities this year, “new cultivators joined the club after being hit with many losses from last season’s potato and onion crops, and this season’s wheat and barley crops due to water scarcity and the presence of livestock in the fields.”

The cultivator added that, “in addition, a recent frost wave wiped out farmers’ crops and the state has still done nothing to compensate them.”

The growth of marijuana cultivation has led the demand for cannabis seeds to soar with prices going up to 2,500 Lebanese Liras a kilo (US$ 1.65), according to a local farmer.

A dunam of land needs five kilograms of cannabis seeds. Unwatered, it produces one quintal (100 kilograms) of cannabis by the end of the season, and up to three quintals if watered. Each quintal gives 2,400 grams of marijuana, meaning that three quintals give 7,200 grams, and the average price of 1,200 grams of marijuana is estimated at 500,000 Lebanese Liras (US$ 330).

However, what about last year’s abundant crops that the state refrained from eradicating? Were they sold, or are they still piled up and hidden somewhere? Were the prices affected by the growing supply?

It seems rather hard to answer these questions. However, a marijuana dealer in the Bekaa told Al-Akhbar that last year’s crops, “were excellent in quantity and quality,” adding that “three thirds of the crops” were sold in batches of varied quantities at prices “ranging between US$ 300 and US$ 400 per 1,200 grams.”

The man acknowledged that marijuana prices have dropped from US$ 500 per 1,200 grams in recent years, due to the large amounts produced in the past two seasons. However, he stressed that marijuana, “is a profitable business even if prices drop to US$ 200 per 1,200 grams, because planting one dunam only costs 200,000 Lebanese Liras (US$ 132),” explaining that “an unattended dunam of land (weeding and watering twice) produces 2,400 grams of marijuana from one quintal.”

The product’s destination “is not restricted to Lebanon” the dealer said, explaining that “it is impossible to count on the Lebanese market to sell large quantities.” He revealed that the crops were “being transferred to Syria in batches, and some to Jordan, Egypt and Gulf countries.”

“This operation takes places through border crossing points in a village in the northern Bekaa, whose residents have been notoriously smuggling goods to Syria for ages and even personally transfer them to the Jordanian borders” the dealer said. He added, “we have full confidence in them, we always get our money back within weeks after handing them the goods.”

Today, the growth of cannabis is gradually increasing in the fields of agricultural lands in the Bekaa valley. This is mainly due to policies adopted by successive governments that neglected the agricultural sector, while the state has demonstrated a limited capacity to eradicate cannabis crops in the past, and mainly in the last two years.

This has encouraged farmers, bearing losses and facing agriculture problems amid a lack of state assistance, protection, support and compensation, to opt for growing marijuana.

According to farmers’ estimates, areas planted with cannabis jumped from “70,000 dunams to 150,000” in the fields of the Baalbek-Hermel region. Meanwhile, locals acknowledge that the amount of marijuana grown this year is “multiple times” the amount grown last year.

Many farmers attributed this increase to “the guaranteed returns” of marijuana amid the current agriculture and climate challenges “that we are facing all by ourselves.”

“We are selling our lands and our homes to bear the losses while the state doesn’t bother to help us,” they said.

As a security plan is currently being implemented in the Bekaa, people are wondering about the possibility of the state launching a new campaign to eradicate cannabis this season. Though security forces haven’t announced any conclusive decision yet, local farmers are expressing astonishment that “the state hasn’t fixed our agriculture problems yet.. instead of legalizing it they want to eradicate it?”

“How dare they eradicate the source of income that allowed us to breathe in the last couple of years, the one that helped us pay back our debts and build a future for our children?” they asked.

“If they choose to damage our crops, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” the farmers warned.

This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

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