** AGRICULTURE **

There is a large variety of Lebanon's agricultural lands. From the interior plateau of the Biqa Valley to the narrow valleys down to the sea tropical crops are grown.
Tobacco and figs are grown in the south. Citrus fruits and bananas along the coast. Olives are grown around the Shuf Mountains and in the north. Fruits and vegetables are grown in the Biqa Valley. More exotic crops including avocados are grown near Jubayl. Hashish a major crop to the Labanese are grown in the Biqa Valley. Local wines, even those produced in times of war, have won international prizes. Lebanon is not at all self sufficient with grain. Since 1975, however, Lebanon's fertile land has not been fully recovered because of almost constant warfare.


**Agricultural Lands**


**Sea**


**Citrus Fruit grown on trees**


**Tobacco Field**


**Fig**


**South**


**Citrus Fruits**


**BANANAS**


**Olives**


**Chouf Mountains**


**North Lebanon**


**Fruits and Vegetables**


**AVOCADO**


**Wine**


**international prizes**


**Grain**


**Fertile Crops**


**AFTER WAR**

**LAND AND IRRIGATION**

Almost one-fourth of Lebanon's of land is cultivable--the highest proportion in the Arab world. Most of the 240,000 hectares are rain fed, but in 1982 some 85,000 hectares were reported to be under irrigation, 20 percent more than in 1970. In the mid-1980s 400,000 hectares (including marginal land) were cultivable, with about one-fourth of this irrigated. In 1981 the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that around 108,000 hectares were permanently cultivated and that 19,300 hectares had been reclaimed for cultivation since the inception of the 1963 Green Plan, a project designed to reclaim 15,000 hectares over 10 years. The FAO estimated that no less than 280,000 hectares of land in various parts of the country were reclaimable for agricultural production.


**Rain Fed Crops**


In the early 1980s, the government prepared plans to irrigate an additional 60,000 hectares, and by 1984 studies were under way on 6 major irrigation projects, all designed to be carried out as part of the 1982-91 reconstruction plan. The biggest project, to be implemented by the Litani Water Authority, was for irrigation of some 15,000 hectares of high land (between 500 and 800 meters above sea level) in southern Lebanon over an 8 year period, scheduled to start in 1990. Observers reported in 1986 that the government planned to increase the amount of irrigated land, through various dam and irrigation schemes, from 65,000 hectares to 125,000 hectares.


**Irrigation**


In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Lebanese officials reported that small tributaries of the Hasbani River were being diverted into Israel near the northern town of Metulla. Independent water analysts stated that after the 1982 invasion, Israel engaged in a much more serious diversion of Lebanese waters by attaching stopcocks at a pumping station on the Litani River. The stopcocks were designed to switch at least part of the flow, which is generated entirely within Lebanon, to Israel via a specially constructed pipeline.


**Pipeline**


Lebanon's land tenure system is characterized by many small holdings, but the number has declined over the years. In 1961 about 127,000 farms were reported operating. The partial census of 1970, however, recorded some 75,000 farm holdings, of which 46 percent were smaller than 2 hectares while only 12 per cent had 10 hectares or more. In 1981-82 there were some 64,000 active farms, with only 50 in the 100-to 1,000-hectare range.


**Culivated Land**


Landholding patterns were also affected by massive population movements in the 1970s and 1980s. Lebanon's internal refugees strove assiduously to maintain title to their lands, many of which came to be controlled by rival sectarian or political groups. A case in point was in southern Lebanon. After the 1978 Israeli invasion, many Muslim landholders fled to other parts of Lebanon, hoping to reclaim their land following Israel's withdrawal. But instead of handing the land over to the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), as was expected, Israel turned it over to the Christian South Lebanon Army (SLA). The effect was to dispossess many of the former landholders.


**Dam Irrigating**


Two important socioeconomic trends made it difficult to evaluate the farming structure in the 1980s. The first trend was consolidation of holdings, as Beirut-based professionals began buying up small farms before the 1975 fighting. The war may have slowed this development, however, because it complicated longdistance supervision of land. At the same time, the trend toward large families, especially in the south, made the old system of dividing holdings among male offspring less feasible, although in many cases this factor was offset by the migration of males to the city or emigration abroad. Even elderly farmers acknowledged that the old land inheritance system had to be changed. But the pace of such change could not be monitored easily in the troubled conditions of the 1980s.


**Many Farms**


The number of farms dropped during the war, resulting in more tracts of untilled land rather than in more ownership transfers. Small freeholders who choose to continue farming often lived in poverty. Even before the 1975 Civil War, the average annual income for the head of an agricultural household was estimated at L£500, compared with L£1,100 for a counterpart working in industry or L£8,060 in the services sector. One report noted that 56 percent of those engaged in agriculture in southern Lebanon, most of whom were landowners, also had second jobs in the late 1960s.


**Lack of Farms**

**MINERALS**

The mineral resources of Lebanon are few. There are deposits of high-grade iron ore and lignite; building-stone quarries; high-quality sand, suitable for glass manufacture. The Litani River hydroelectric project generates electricity and also has increased the amount of irrigated land for agriculture. Some others are limestone, iron ore, salt, water-surplus state in a water-deficit region, arable land, petroleum, natural gas, phosphates and sulfur.


**High-grade Iron Ore**


**Lignite**


**Sand**


**Hydroelectricity**


**limestone**


** iron ore**


** salt**


** water**


**petroleum**


**natural gas**


**phosphates**


**sulfur**

**INDUSTRY**

The main industries of Lebanon are banking, food processing, textiles, cement, oil refining, chemicals, jewelry, some metal fabricating.


**Banking**


**Food Processing**

Lebanese industry expanded rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s. By 1974 industry accounted for an estimated 20 percent of GDP, up from 13 percent in 1968, and industrial exports amounted to 75 percent of total exports. This growth was characterized by a proliferation of small industries and was fueled by easy credit, a strong local currency, abundant and cheap supplies of skilled and unskilled labor, subsidized electric power, and trade protection at home and expanding markets abroad, particularly in the Persian Gulf countries.


**Textiles**


**Oil Refining**

By 1974 an estimated 130,000 people were employed in industry, and the total nominal capital of industrial establishments stood at around US$1.1 billion. The textile industry alone employed some 50,000 people. A further 20,000 were employed in the furniture and wood products industry and some 15,000 in the leather products industry.


**Cemicals**


**Jewelery**

Years of strife changed all this. In 1981 the Lebanese Industrialists Association reported a 25-percent decline in industrial capacity, and more than 70 percent of all industrial capacity was believed to have been idle for at least 500 days during the previous 6 years. Layoffs were heavy, with industrial employment in 1981 about half of what it was in 1974. The Union of Textiles Manufacturers estimated that in 1981 the industry employed only 12,000 workers and that less than half of the 1,200 prewar factories were still in business. One of the country's biggest factories, a knitting plant in the Beirut port duty-free zone that had once employed 10,000 workers, was destroyed. National Cotton Mill (Filature Nationale du Coton), the biggest weaving and spinning factory in the Middle East, laid off all but 450 of its workers. In Tripoli, Lebanon's largest compressed wood factory was closed in 1981, with the loss of 600 jobs. One of its problems was that it could not compete with the import of wooden products through the illegal ports.


**Metal Fabricating**

Following the 1975-76 fighting, the government could no longer afford to try to revive the economy through export subsidies. Even when capital was available, industries were reluctant to use it to expand capacity or use modern machinery. One commentator noted that producers work to concentrate on improving profits rather than productivity.
Civil strife and disorder continually hampered production, and the financial climate was rarely conducive to investment. The comparative calm of 1977-82 allowed considerable decentralization of Lebanese industry; and Zahlah, Shtawrah, Sidon, and the coastal strip under the control of the Phalange Party all enjoyed a limited economic boom. In the far north, remote villages in the Akkar region began to prosper because of their distance from the country's principal areas of conflict.
The collapse of business confidence that accompanied the political debacles of 1984 closed hopes for sustained recovery. The Central Bank's tight fiscal attitude limited the money available for investment. Capital investment in industry shrank rapidly in both real and nominal terms, which reflected pessimism over the future of Lebanese industry. For example, investment fell from US$147.4 million in 1980 to US$94 million in 1983. By 1984 investment was down to a meager US$34.9 million and to only US$10.6 million in 1985. In addition, industrial production fell 3.7 percent to US$250 million in 1984.
In April 1986, Central Bank governor Naim offered to allow the statutory reserves and treasury bonds held by specialized banks to be used as credit for industry. Although some industrial credits appeared to be available at reduced interest rates, it was clear that economic measures alone would not revitalize the nation's fragmented industries.


**Zahlah**


**Sidon**

**CEMENT**

**Cement**









Cement was Lebanon's biggest single industrial export in 1980. It was 15.5 percent of industrial exports. Sales to Syria at that time accounted for about 40 percent of all cement exports. In early 1981, however, exports to that country came to a complete standstill because the Syrians, then in the middle of a major program to construct their own cement works, could not reach agreement with the two principal Lebanese cement works on the terms and conditions of cement sales. Thus cement exports to Syria in 1981 totaled only L£34 million, down from L£119 million a year earlier. Overall cement exports dropped to L£201 million but recovered to L£227 million in 1982 as alternative export markets were found. Lebanon's principal cement works in 1982 were situated in the north, away from the fighting around Beirut, so the industry could continue exporting by sea from Tripoli and overland by truck.


**Exporting cement**


**Syria**

In early 1983, when the country's political status showed signs of stabilizing, the Lebanese Cement Company (Société des Ciments Libanaises (SCL)) secured a US$36 million syndicated loan to finance a planned US$79.3 million expansion program. Production was expected to increase to 250,000 tons a year, and unit costs were expected to decrease through a change in power supply from oil to coal (with the company running its own generating stations). The reported purchase of a 30- percent stake in the company's parent, Eternit Libanaise, by Prince Abdallah al Faisal, eldest son of the former king of Saudi Arabia, heightened international confidence in the industry's prospects.


**Prince Abdallah al Faisal**


**Saudi Arabia**

But Syria's decision to terminate Lebanese cement imports, the return of instability, and difficulties in finding fresh export markets destroyed prospects for the revival of the cement industry. In July 1983, SCL laid off 300 workers at its Shikka works as it became clear that the industry faced disaster. By the end of 1983, the scope of the disaster was starkly apparent: total cement exports amounted to only L£27.5 million--an 88- percent drop from the 1982 level.


**Shikka**

In the early 1980s, the Jumblatt family established the Siblin Cement Company, building a factory near Sidon to provide cement for the local construction industry. The Siblin plant, built with Romanian technical assistance and with a production capacity of 300,000 tons per year, was formally opened just before the Israeli invasion of June 1982. The plant was badly damaged during the fighting, and it was not until 1986 that work to get the plant back into commission could begin in earnest. A fresh injection of L£15 million in capital from local entrepreneur Rafiq Hariri made the company Lebanon's largest shareholding venture.


**Isreal Invasion**