farmers

Marjayoun district, Lebanon – In his southern Lebanese hometown of Hula, a few metres away from the border with Israel, Khairallah Yaacoub walks through his olive grove. Khairallah is harvesting the olives, even though there aren’t many this year.

The orchard, which once contained 200 olive trees and dozens of other fruit-bearing trees, is now largely destroyed. After a ceasefire was declared between Hezbollah and Israel in November 2024, ending a one-year war, the Israeli army entered the area, bulldozed the land, and uprooted trees across border areas, including Hula – 56,000 olive trees according to Lebanon’s Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani. Israeli officials have said that they plan to remain indefinitely in a “buffer zone” in the border region.

Israeli forces are not currently stationed in what remains of Khairallah’s farm, but the grove is fully exposed to Israeli positions in Menora, on the other side of the border. That makes the olive farmer’s every movement visible to the Israeli army, and is why he has been so afraid to venture to his trees before today.

Harvesting under fire

“This was the place where my brothers and I lived our lives,” said Khairallah, as he walked next to the olive trees that he said were more than 40 years old. “We spent long hours here ploughing, planting, and harvesting. But the [Israeli] occupation army has destroyed everything.”

Khairallah now has 10 olive trees left, but their yield is small for several reasons, most notably the lack of rainfall and the fact that he and his brothers had to abandon the orchard when war broke out between Hezbollah and Israel on October 8, 2023. Khairallah’s aim now is to begin the process of restoring and replanting his olive grove, the main source of livelihood for the 55-year-old and his four brothers.

The farm in Hula, which lies in the district of Marjayoun, once provided them with not just olives, but olive oil, and various other fruits. They also kept 20 cows on the land, all of which have died due to the war.

But with the presence of the Israelis nearby, getting things back to a semblance of what they once were is not easy, and involves taking a lot of risks.

“Last year, we couldn’t come to the grove and didn’t harvest the olives,” Khairallah said. “[Now,] the Israeli army might send me a warning through a drone or fire a stun grenade to scare me off, and if I don’t withdraw, I could be directly shelled.”

Systematic destruction

Like Khairallah, Hussein Daher is also a farmer in Marjayoun, but in the town of Blida, about five kilometres (3.1 miles) away from Hula.

Hussein owns several dunams of olive trees right on Lebanon’s border with Israel. Some of his olive trees, centuries old and inherited from his ancestors, were also uprooted. As for the ones still standing, Hussein has been unable to harvest them because of Israeli attacks.

Hussein described what he says was one such attack as he tried to reach one of his groves.

“An Israeli drone appeared above me. I raised my hands to indicate that I am a farmer, but it came closer again,” said Hussein. “I moved to another spot, and minutes later, it returned to the same place I had been standing and dropped a bomb; if I hadn’t moved, it would have killed me.”

The United Nations reported last month that Israeli attacks in Lebanon since the beginning of the ceasefire had killed more than 270 people.

The dangers mean that some farmers have still not returned. But many, like Hussein, have no choice. The farmer emphasised that olive harvest seasons were an economic lifeline to him and to most other farmers.

And they now have to attempt to recoup some of the losses they have had to sustain over the last two years.

According to an April study by the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 814 hectares (2,011 acres) of olive groves were destroyed, with losses in the sector alone estimated at $236m, a significant proportion of the total $586m losses in the wider agricultural sector.

“We used to produce hundreds of containers of olive oil; today, we produce nothing,” said Hussein, who has a family of eight to provide for. “Some farmers used to produce more than 200 containers of olive oil per season, worth roughly $20,000. These families depended on olive farming, honey production, and agriculture, but now everything was destroyed.”

Abandoned

The troubles facing the olive farmers have had a knock-on effect for the olive press owners who turn the harvested olives into Lebanon’s prized olive oil.

At one olive press in Aitaroun, also in southern Lebanon, the owner, Ahmad Ibrahim, told Al Jazeera that he had only produced one truckload of olive oil this year, compared with the 15 to 20 truckloads his presses make in a typical year.

“Some villages, like Yaroun, used to bring large quantities of olives, but this year none came,” Ahmad said. “The occupation destroyed vast areas of their orchards and prevented farmers from reaching the remaining ones by shooting at them and keeping them away.”

Ahmad, in his 70s and a father of five, established this olive press in 2001. He emphasised that the decline in agriculture, particularly olive cultivation in southern Lebanon, would significantly affect local communities.

Many of those areas are still scarred from the fighting, and the weapons used by Israel could still be affecting the olive trees and other crops being grown in southern Lebanon.

Hussein points to Israel’s alleged use of white phosphorus, a poisonous substance that burns whatever it lands on, saying the chemical has affected plant growth.

Experts have previously told Al Jazeera that Israel’s use of white phosphorus, which Israel says it uses to create smokescreens on battlefields, is part of the attempt to create a buffer zone along the border.

But if Lebanese farmers are going to push back against the buffer zone plan, and bring the border region alive again, they’ll need support from authorities both in Lebanon and internationally – support they say has not been forthcoming.

“Unfortunately, no one has compensated us, neither the Ministry of Agriculture nor anyone else,” said Khairallah, the farmer from Hula. “My losses aren’t just in the orchard that was bulldozed, but also in the farm and the house. My home, located in the middle of the town, was heavily damaged.”

The Lebanese government has said that it aims to support the districts affected by the war, and has backed NGO-led efforts to help farmers.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, Agriculture Minister Hani said that the government had begun to compensate farmers – up to $2,500 – and plant 200,000 olive seedlings. He also outlined restoration projects and the use of the country’s farmers registry to help the agricultural sector.

“Through the registry, farmers will be able to obtain loans, assistance, and social and health support,” Hani said. “Olives and olive oil are of great and fundamental value, and are a top priority for the Ministry of Agriculture.”

But Khairallah, Hussein, and Ahmad have yet to see that help from the government, indicating that it will take some time to scale up recovery operations.

That absence of support, Hussein said, will eventually force the farmers to pack up and leave, abandoning a tradition hundreds of years old.

“If a farmer does not plant, he cannot survive,” Hussein said. “Unfortunately, the government says it cannot help, while international organisations and donors, like the European Union and the World Bank, promised support, but we haven’t seen anything yet.”

Published on
18/11/2025 – 8:00 GMT+1

A resolution opposing the Mercosur trade agreement is set to be voted on Tuesday in France in the parliamentary committee on European affairs at the National Assembly.

Facing growing domestic opposition, French President Emmanuel Macron has limited room for manoeuvre when it comes to the Mercosur trade agreement, which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and Brussels wants to sign before the end of the year.

The resolution, signed by 103 French MPs, calls on the French government to refer the matter to the EU Court of Justice, arguing that the trade deal violates EU treaties.

According to the MPs, the European Commission’s decision not to submit the trade part of the agreement to national parliaments for approval is illegal.

It comes a week after Macron met with French farmers and gave them insurances he would not back the deal in Brussels.

The president “was extremely clear,” reported French Agriculture Minister Annie Genevard after the meeting on 12 November: “France cannot approve at this stage the draft agreement with the Mercosur countries because this draft agreement does not protect the interests of farmers.”

However, the French President softened his position after the Commission proposed attaching a strengthened safeguard clause to the agreement to control any disruptions to the internal market resulting from an increase in imports of products from Latin America.

The Mercosur agreement aims to create a free trade area across the Atlantic by eliminating tariffs. But France has opposed this deal for years citing the risk of competition distortion with European agricultural products and environmental concerns.

On a trip to Brazil on 7 November, Macron seemed to take a step toward the agreement.

“I am rather positive, but I remain vigilant because I also defend France’s interests,” he said before adding that France had been “heard by the [European] Commission” on several of its concerns.

A blocking minority against the deal is uncertain

If France were to oppose the agreement, it would need to move quickly to form a blocking minority in the Council, the institution that brings together the EU member states.

A blocking minority requires at least four member states representing 35% of the population. And it is not clear that he has the numbers.

So far, Hungary and Poland has said it opposed the deal, while Ireland, Austria and the Netherlands, say they wait for the text of the agreement to be fully translated before deciding. Translation work should be finalised on 11 December.

The key country is Italy and a change of heart from Rome could be game changer.

Since the President of the Commission Ursula von der Leyen visited Uruguay in December 2024 for the political conclusion of the agreement, Rome has been cautious.

EU trade commissioner Maroš Šefčovič travelled to Italy at the end of October and gave assurances that the deal will not harm Italian farmers.

Supporters of the agreement, led by Germany and Spain, argue that it is necessary in the face of Chinese competition in the region and the tariffs imposed by the Trump administration on EU exports to the US.

But the issue is far from settled in the EU Parliament as well.

A group of 145 MEPs submitted a resolution last Friday also calling for a referral to the EU Court of Justice. If it were adopted by all MEPs at the end of this month, the referral would suspend the ratification process of the agreement.

Oanaminthe, Haiti – It’s a Monday afternoon at the Foi et Joie school in rural northeast Haiti, and the grounds are a swirl of khaki and blue uniforms, as hundreds of children run around after lunch.

In front of the headmaster’s office, a tall man in a baseball cap stands in the shade of a mango tree.

Antoine Nelson, 43, is the father of five children in the school. He’s also one of the small-scale farmers growing the beans, plantains, okra, papaya and other produce served for lunch here, and he has arrived to help deliver food.

“I sell what the school serves,” Nelson explained. “It’s an advantage for me as a parent.”

Nelson is among the more than 32,000 farmers across Haiti whose produce goes to the World Food Programme, a United Nations agency, for distribution to local schools.

Together, the farmers feed an estimated 600,000 students each day.

Their work is part of a shift in how the World Food Programme operates in Haiti, the most impoverished country in the Western Hemisphere.

Rather than solely importing food to crisis-ravaged regions, the UN organisation has also worked to increase its collaborations with local farmers around the world.

But in Haiti, this change has been particularly swift. Over the last decade, the World Food Programme went from sourcing no school meals from within Haiti to procuring approximately 72 percent locally. It aims to reach 100 percent by 2030.

The organisation’s local procurement of emergency food aid also increased significantly during the same period.

This year, however, has brought new hurdles. In the first months of President Donald Trump’s second term, the United States has slashed funding for the World Food Programme.

The agency announced in October it faces a financial shortfall of $44m in Haiti alone over the next six months.

And the need for assistance continues to grow. Gang violence has shuttered public services, choked off roadways, and displaced more than a million people.

A record 5.7 million Haitians are facing “acute levels of hunger” as of October — more than the World Food Programme is able to reach.

“Needs continue to outpace resources,” Wanja Kaaria, the programme’s director in Haiti, said in a recent statement. “We simply don’t have the resources to meet all the growing needs.”

But for Nelson, outreach efforts like the school lunch programme have been a lifeline.

Before his involvement, he remembers days when he could not afford to feed his children breakfast or give them lunch money for school.

“They wouldn’t take in what the teacher was saying because they were hungry,” he said. “But now, when the school gives food, they retain whatever the teacher says. It helps the children advance in school.”

Now, experts warn some food assistance programmes could disappear if funding continues to dwindle — potentially turning back the clock on efforts to empower Haitian farmers.

The midday sun blazed over Bare village, but the heat that lingered in the air was nothing compared to the heaviness in people’s hearts. Two days had passed since three young farmers were killed in a violent attack by armed men, yet the air still pulsed with grief and fear.

Men sat in groups, deep in deliberation, while children lingered quietly around their mothers in front of their homes. The quiet was not peace—it was mourning.

A few nights earlier, the rice fields on the outskirts of Bare, a rural community in Numan Local Government Area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, had turned into a killing ground.

The night the harvest turned deadly

A few days earlier, Peter James, 24, secured a job harvesting rice on a commercial farm. He invited his friend, Cyprian, 20, and ten others to join him. It is the height of the harvest season in Bare, when labourers often camp overnight in the fields, working by moonlight. It’s a source of livelihood for many young people in the community.

But that Tuesday night, Nov. 4, the serenity of the farmland was shattered around 9 p.m.

“We were gathering the rice into bags when we heard gunshots,” Peter recalled, his voice unsteady as he spoke from a mat in his father’s compound. “The people appeared out of nowhere. When they came closer, we realised that they were herders. They didn’t say anything or take anything. They just opened fire on us.” 

Peter said he recognised them as herders because some have grazed their cattle within the community for years.

In the chaos that followed, Cyprian was hit in the neck and collapsed beside him. Peter felt a burning pain in his cheek and arm—gunshot wounds. Somehow, he fled into the darkness and staggered home, bloodied and half-conscious, arriving close to midnight.

“I heard a scream outside, and when I went out, I saw my son staggering. His face and his shirt were covered in blood,” 49-year-old Gloria James, Peter’s mother, told HumAngle. 

The farm lay an hour’s walk from the village, but Peter’s injuries slowed him to a crawl, taking him two hours. Gloria raised an alarm after she saw her son, and villagers mobilised a rescue team. By the time they arrived at the farm, the gunmen had vanished. Cyprian was dead. Two others were critically wounded. 

They carried the injured back to the village and buried Cyprian the next morning. Both wounded men died later that day.

There are currently no security operatives stationed in the community. After the incident, members of Bare reached out to the police station in Numan town; officers came, assessed the situation, and left, promising to follow up.

When contacted, Suleiman Yahaya Nguroje, the Spokesperson for the Adamawa State Police Command, told HumAngle that he had not yet been briefed on the incident. “I will let you know if I have any information,” he said. 

No arrests in connection with the attack have been made yet, according to residents and local leaders who spoke to HumAngle. 

A pattern of violence

The attack is the first reported in Bare this year and is part of a long, bitter struggle between farmers and herders in the area—a conflict that residents say has festered for nearly a decade. Bare and neighbouring communities like Mararaban Bare have seen repeated cycles of bloodshed, often triggered by disputes over land and water. 

When HumAngle visited Bare, the District Head was away in Yola, the state capital, attending a meeting convened by the Adamawa State government over the recent violence, so we spoke with his representative, Anthony Duwaro.

Anthony said that the locals lived peacefully with the herders who settled in their communities for generations. One herder we met during a trip to the area in October is 40 years old and has lived there all his life.

The herders have their settlement about half an hour away from Bare. Anthony said they traded and used resources together. But things changed in 2017, during the harvest. 

“We went to the farm and realised that they led their cattle into it. We confronted them, and that’s when the problem began,” he recalled. 

Since then, clashes have become almost predictable. “It happens every harvest season,” Anthony said, lifting his shirt to reveal scars from a previous attack. “We report to the authorities, but the cycle continues. Now, people are afraid to return to their farms.”

Despite several reconciliation meetings between both sides, he said the latest attack on the young men proved that the conflict was far from over. “One time, the clash was so brutal that people lost their lives, farms and properties were also destroyed. Most of us were rushed to the General Hospital in Numan,” he recounted. 

With no police station nearby, only one in Numan town, several kilometres away, villagers rely on local vigilantes for protection. The community’s police outpost was burnt down during a similar incident in 2018 and has not been restored. 

Anthony described the conflict as a “battle of survival”. “We depend on farming to feed our families. They depend on grazing for their cattle. But when the cattle destroy our crops, we can’t just fold our arms. If we confront them peacefully, they retaliate with attacks.”

Several peace talks have been held between the host community and the herders, yet tensions remain unresolved. Just a week before the latest attack, locals accused herders of grazing on their farms, further heightening the conflict.

While the herders have not claimed responsibility for the killings, they say worsening environmental pressures are making it harder for their cattle to find feed. “We do not wish to provoke anyone; we are only after the welfare of the cattle,” Alhaji Ngala, the chairperson of the local herders’ community, told HumAngle in an interview before the recent attack.

He blamed the clashes on the loss of “traditional grazing routes”. “If we can have access to routes and enough water supply, then our minds will be at peace,” he said. 

Another herder, Muza Alhaji Shenya, who has lived in the Bare area for two decades, said industrialisation and farmland expansion have pushed them onto the highways as they go in search of water and greener pastures.

HumAngle recently reported how nearby Mararaban Bare has faced its own crisis due to the contamination of the only local water source by cattle waste. An uneasy arrangement now exists: locals use the river in the morning, and herders use the water in the afternoon. Still, residents say they need to treat the water before drinking or cooking with it. 

“There has never been a time when we confronted the herders except when they led their cattle to our farms,” Anthony said. “We don’t have a problem with them.”

A national crisis 

The struggle in Bare mirrors a broader crisis playing out across Nigeria’s rural and urban communities. In July, a HumAngle analysis showed how pastoral life is collapsing due to climate change, farmland expansion, and urbanisation in Nigeria. This situation is forcing some herders to cross to neighbouring countries in search of food and water for their cattle. 

Authorities have attempted various interventions, but with little success. In recent years, several state governments have enacted anti-open grazing laws, requiring herders to rent land for ranching, which has been protested by some associations of cattle breeders.

Although the Adamawa State has not passed such legislation, officials announced in December 2024 plans to establish grazing reserves “as a measure to bring an end to farmers and herders clashes in the state”.  

The idea is not new. In 2019, the Nigerian government introduced the Rural Grazing Area (RUGA) scheme to establish designated settlements for herders nationwide. But the initiative was derailed by mistrust and controversy, and later suspended by the former President Muhammad Buhari’s administration.

A few months later, another intervention, the National Livestock Transformation Plan (NLTP) was inaugurated to “create a peaceful environment for the transformation of the livestock sector that will lead to peaceful coexistence, economic development, and food security…” The Plan, whose first phase execution was budgeted at ₦120 billion, has not been actualised. 

“If implemented properly, [the NLTP] could resolve many of these issues,” said Malik Samuel, a Senior Researcher at Good Governance Africa, who researches armed violence in the country. “Ranching is the most effective alternative. Moving cattle around will always spark conflict.” 

Grief remains

Back in Bare, the national debate feels distant.

Chrisantus Bong sits under a tree surrounded by relatives murmuring words of comfort. A few metres away, beside a silo, lies the grave of his son, Cyprian.

The sixty-one-year-old told HumAngle he is still struggling to accept the loss. He said if he could turn back the hands of time, he would have prevented him from going to the farm that night.

While he struggles with his grief, he fears that more tragedy lies ahead. “They have taken others before. They took my son this time. They might take someone else tomorrow,” Chrisantus said.

Residents say the killings have left the community paralysed by fear and anger.

“We have reported this issue countless times to the authorities,” Chrisantus added. “The perpetrators are not strangers. They live around us and should be interrogated.”

Peter is healing from his gunshot wounds, but the emotional scars remain. Cyprian was his closest friend, and he watched him die. “I saw the bullet pierce his neck,” he whispered. Peter’s mother said he has hardly left his room since the attack.

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) — Farmers for Free Trade, a nonprofit group that advocates for lower tariffs and expanded global market access, wrapped up its “Motorcade for Trade” tour Tuesday in Washington to urge policymakers to ease trade tensions and support struggling producers.

Dozens of farmers joined at different points along the route to participate in town halls and farm stops, contributing to discussions on trade priorities, export markets and challenges.

The organization has prioritized five issues, including tariff reductions, exemptions for agricultural necessities, such as fertilizer and equipment, and a timely review of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

The caravan began Sept. 5 in Dorchester, Neb., with a cooperative event between farmers and Rep. Adrian Smith, R-Neb. The next three stops included sessions with Reps. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., Zach Nunn, R-Iowa, and Jim Baird, R-Ind.

Although the Farmers for Free Trade team did not live in its RV, the group named it Ruth after driving more than 2,800 miles with it, spending many hours inside planning and being interviewed with their furry companion, a dog named Huckleberry.

“It’s really about getting information from farmers throughout the Midwest to understand what impact the administration’s trade and tariff policies have had on individuals,” said Brent Bible, an Indiana grain farmer. “It’s had an individual impact, not just on producers, but on communities throughout rural America,”

The caravan made 10 stops — in Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Washington.

“We hosted events throughout the Midwest — everything from meetings with members of Congress to farmer roundtables and tariff town halls,” said Brian Kuehl, the Farmers for Free Trade executive director.

Between the fourth and fifth stop, Kuehl said, it became increasingly difficult to set a schedule.

“Our No. 1 one priority was to meet with members of Congress, and a lot of times you wouldn’t know their schedule until a few days in advance. Then, in the middle of the tour, we had the government shutdown. A bunch of members we had events with canceled because they had to be in D.C.,” Kuehl said.

His team then pivoted to hosting listening sessions and trade talks with farmers, along with visiting the Ohio Chamber of Commerce, the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin and various farms.

Despite some adjustments, Kuehl shared his team’s optimism for the tour.

“One of the things that’s so cool about agriculture is how diverse it is throughout the United States,” he said. “In the Midwest, you’re looking at soybean and corn farms. As we moved east, we saw more dairies and hog farms. We even visited a winery in Pennsylvania. Pretty much the trade disruptions are impacting them all negatively.”

In Indiana, Bible said, “Our input costs have gone up dramatically because of tariffs on imports — fertilizer, equipment, steel, aluminum. If we need a replacement part or a new tractor, all of those things are impacted. We’re getting squeezed at both ends, and when that happens, there’s nothing left in the middle.”

In Ohio, corn, soy and cattle farmer Chris Gibbs said, he’s felt that squeeze firsthand. After more than 40 years in agriculture, he described 2025 as “a cash flow and working capital crisis,” noting that he’s paying well above production costs for major crops.

“We’re about $200 per acre under the cost of production for corn and about $100 under for soybeans,” Gibbs said.

Because of the shutdown — now the longest in history — the U.S. Department of Agriculture “is essentially not functioning,” Gibbs said. “They normally release reporting information that the market relies on, but that hasn’t been occurring. Farmers are having to make major business decisions without the data we depend on.”

Gibbs added: “I’ve been farming almost 50 years, and I’m struggling, If I’m having to move money around just to stay afloat, what happens to the young farmers who don’t have savings yet? They’re hanging on by a thread.”

Farmers strategically planned the finale of their motorcade to be in Washington this week in alignment with the Supreme Court of the United States’ schedule. The high court plans to hear oral arguments Wednesday on whether the International Emergency Economic Powers Act authorizes President Donald Trump to impose tariffs to the extent he has.

“We’re in a commodity business,” Bible said. “If we have a truly free, functioning market, we can be competitive. But that hasn’t been the case. Prices have been artificially manipulated by policy decisions and retaliation from other countries.”