Time to look forward not back

Edmond Naim and his family recieved food and a hygiene kit from CAFOD's partner Caritas Lebanon. He has also recieved a loan to get his peach and apple farming business back up and running. [David Snyder]

CAFOD and its partners are helping people in Lebanon one year after the war by providing small loans to help farmers like Edmond Naim recover financially after the war destroyed his crops

Edmond Naim looks out from a small room on his farm over the flowering branches of his apple trees.

Full of life now with a new spring, they tell little of the summer that saw nearly his entire crop lost – a quiet victim of the war in Lebanon.

“We stayed at the village during the war,” Edmond said. “Sometimes when the bombardments were far away I came out to the farm and picked a little bit, but the other fruits were lost.”

Losing everything

A farmer in Lebanon’s lush West Bekaa Valley, Edmond nearly lost everything to the war. Though he managed to pick about half of his peaches and apples as the war raged, he was unable to sell them, as few braved the roads to reach the market.

Only a late season harvest in September, weeks after a ceasefire brought peace, saved him from complete disaster.

“After the war there was a kind of peach that came in September, and I was able to sell them,” Edmond said. Using that money, Edmond was able to pay off some of a large loan he had taken out at the beginning of the season to cover the costs of fertilizer and other farm supplies.

As the new season begins, however, he starts the year saddled with the remainder of that debt, as well as a new loan to buy supplies for this planting season.

Earning an income

Despite the hardships, Edmond is perhaps among the lucky ones. CAFOD funded the local catholic agency, Caritas Lebanon who reached Naim and his family during the war with a food parcel and a hygiene kit.

Edmond, his wife and seven children were identified as a vulnerable family – one of more than 2,000 such families Caritas Lebanon is helping with supplies of heating fuel.

They are also helping them earn an income for their family by replacing livestock, distributing seeds and fertiliser and providing families with small loans so they can recover financially.

Through Caritas, Edmond will receive 500 Euros to help offset the costs of the loan he still owes, a small but important contribution at a time when he faces pressure from his creditor to repay the loan – a request he simply cannot meet, having lost so much of his harvest last year. It is, he says, the first time in 13 years that he has been unable to pay back a loan.

“The loan is a big problem,” Edmond said. “The people are asking for their money, so that is the biggest problem.”

With support from CAFOD, through Caritas Lebanon, Edmond and more than 2,000 families will at least have some measure of support in a season farmers, of all people, recognise as time to look forward, not back.

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