Fruits of Faith: A Thriving Community Farm in Lebanon

Embrace support meant our partner MERATH (Middle East Revive and Thrive) could start a new ‘Sustainable Agriculture’ project in Lebanon, cultivating previously fallow land owned by a church in an economically deprived area of northern Lebanon. It began as a small pilot project in 2021, with no guarantee of success. Now it is a thriving community farm. This year they are celebrating a bumper harvest – with over 14 tonnes of crops grown.  

The project not only promotes environmentally friendly farming techniques, but produces good quality, organic food that is distributed to vulnerable families struggling to make ends meet.

Here are a few pictures from the last 18 months on the farm:

There are two growing seasons a year. In late spring, the winter vegetables are harvested and new crops sown for the summer season, which will be ready in October. Enough food is now produced that a proportion can be sold and the profits reinvested – helping to sustain and expand the farm further. The rest is distributed for free.

A mix of vegetables are grown - all varieties that can withstand the high summer temperatures. The team are also hoping to add safflower to the farm’s crops, which can be used to make cooking oil.

Fodder, such as hay and barley, is also grown to feed the farm’s small herds of cows and goats.

The farm provides much-needed employment for the area. There are currently 7 regular staff from the community, as well as 26 seasonal workers, most of whom are women, who help sow and harvest the crops. The farm is able to provide them with around 50 days of work a year.

One of the farm’s biggest successes has been their small herd of dairy cows. The milk produced is normally sold for profit to help keep the project going. However, in the autumn of 2024 they instead distributed some of the milk to families displaced because of the Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

This year the herd grew thanks to some cute new arrivals!

The cows not only produce milk but also much needed fertilizer for the fields. This year the larger herd produced so much that, for the first time, it was no longer necessary to buy in extra compost for the fields – saving around $3,000!

This year, the church began using some of the milk to turn into cheese, which they then use for another project they run, providing free school lunches to 100 local children from vulnerable families.

The dairy is proving so successful that the team are now working on plans to buy and renovate a larger, purpose-built dairy factory so they can increase this and make other dairy foodstuffs too.  

Climate change, the ongoing economic challenges, and the still unresolved regional geopolitical tensions mean the future of the farm cannot be certain, but its success so far has made a real difference to the community. We pray that the farm will continue to grow and that more bountiful harvests await. 

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