Flower farmers in Lebanon are going out of business as a worsening economic crisis threatens one of the country’s most vibrant cultivation industries.
Millions of flowers are being dumped each year as consumers, struggling to make ends meet, shun perishable and luxury goods, Rania Younes, a flower farmer told The National.
“We dumped around six million flower stems last year,” Ms Younes said.
“They were wasted after we had spent time planting, irrigating, and caring for them. It hurts a lot.”
Ms Younes said sales began to drop in 2016 but the most serious impact on the business came in late 2019, when Lebanon plunged into one of its worst financial crises in decades.
Since then, the national currency has lost over 80 per cent of its value, eroding the purchasing power of local earners.
The crisis’ ramifications on the flower farming industry has been devastating.
Over 30 per cent of cultivated flowers have been dumped last year as demand slumped, says Elias Kamel, the head of the syndicate of flower farmers in Lebanon.
Declining sales, Mr Kamel said, have forced over 100 of the 580 Lebanese flower farms to either close shop or switch to growing vegetables.
Those who continue to grow flowers, like Mrs Younes, are shifting production to dried varieties with an extended shelf life.
“Because we live in a country where we can’t guarantee that we will be selling our harvest, I decided to plant species that can be dried,” says Mrs Younes, a 30-year industry veteran.
The shift towards the production of dried flowers however still represents an emerging trend among struggling farmers, Mrs Younes said.
“We used to sell our flowers right away,” she recalls. “When we couldn’t do that anymore due to [Covid-related] lockdowns and declining purchasing power, we started drying,” Mrs Younes noted.
Her strategy is starting to pay off. Flowers that were cultivated and preserved months ago were being sold ahead of this year’s Mother’s Day, she said.
Only a year earlier, Mrs Younes was dumping her produce and struggling to cover the costs of imported seedlings and farming equipment, as the Lebanese government introduced stringent measures to contain the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Mrs Younes now says she is looking into boosting her exports of dried flowers to traditional markets, including in the Gulf where demand for flowers of all varieties has been expanding in recent years.
“I have no right to close my business. It’s not only about the investment I made but also about all the families earning a living,” Mrs Younes said, while expressing concerns over an increasingly gloomy economic outlook.
“I keep thinking day and night about how to sustain the business…in a country where the future is uncertain,” she complained.
The uncertainty, further accentuated by a months-long political deadlock that has left Lebanon without a fully functioning government since the massive explosion that shook Beirut in August of last year, is making it harder for flower farmers to plan ahead.
“In agriculture, you have to purchase seedlings months in advance to cultivate and harvest on time to sell,” Mrs Younes explained. “I feel like I’m trying to predict the future all the time…and I’m not sure what to expect.”
