Apple Farmers Stage New Protests

Apple farmers held protests in several Lebanese regions on Saturday demanding a government action to help them sell their products inside Lebanon and to foreign markets.

Apple farmers in the Chouf district of Barouk blocked the road in a move that will be echoed in several other Lebanese regions on Saturday.

In the town of Tarshish in the district of Baabda the farmers chose another way for their protests as they distributed apples to passersby.

Early this week, the farmers in the city of Jbeil, north of Beirut, kicked off similar sit-ins.

The farmers blocked the Jbeil highway leading to Beirut, and threw their apples on the road blocking the traffic for a couple of hours.

After receiving assurances that a meeting with Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Agriculture Minister Akram Shehayyeb will be organized, the farmers reopened the road after a while.

Lebanon recorded a slow growth in its agricultural sector and is attributable to the Syrian crisis because a good percentage of the agricultural products were exported to Syria or through Syria to other Arab countries and the Gulf States.