More than a year after end of conflict, "Israelis" are still `making war` on farmers

More than a year after end of conflict, "Israelis" are still `making war` on farmers
Bomb-scorched fields blamed for meager harvests
Source: AFP, 10-9-2007
Sylvie Groult
FRUN: In the field bordering the remnants of his home, Amin Akel Saad points to skeletal tobacco plants pushing up out of land burned by "Israeli" bombs. "Look at this field."Israeli" planes dropped 30 bombs on it," said the 68-year-old. "Seventy years of work destroyed."
For many farmers in South Lebanon, the 34-day war last year meant ruin, or at best a meager harvest.
In his fields around the village of Frun, Saad and his sons grow tobacco with an average annual harvest of 5 tons. That, along with some fields of wheat, corn, chickpeas and sesame, is usually enough to provide for the 17 members of the extended family.
But the war, unleashed by "Israel" on July 12, 2006, largely destroyed the harvest in the fields near the Lebanese border with "Israel".
The Saad family managed to salvage just 800 kilograms.
This year, the family was forced to abandon part of its land because of the cluster bombs dropped by the "Israelis", which spread more than 4 million bomblets, about three-quarters of which did not explode on impact, making them as dangerous as land mines.
Instead, Saad has leased other fields to plant 15,000 square metres of tobacco.
It has hardly been worth the effort. In fields targeted by the "Israeli" Air Force, the scorched land can scarcely support a harvest and the return is expected to be very low.
"They`ve poisoned our land. Nothing can be done, not even with fertilizer. Where we used to harvest 20 kilograms, we are not getting more than one now," Saad said, forecasting a total of 400-500 kilograms for this year.
Cultivated by generation after generation, tobacco provides a living to some 16,000 families in Lebanon, mainly in the South. The state tobacco company, which maintains a monopoly, "buys 5,200 tons a year, at $8 per kilo," says Nahla Slim, the firm`s communications officer.
For Saad, the calculation is simple: "The harvest will bring around $3,300 dollars."
From that sum must be taken the $1,200 fee for leasing the land, plus pay for fertilizer and other expenses. After that, he said: "There will be practically nothing left."
Saad says the state has given him nothing, neither for his lost harvest nor for his house that was practically destroyed.
"Not even one liter of fertilizer," he said.
An official with the state tobacco company, Hussein Berro, himself a farmer, commented: "On average, the harvest will be 20 percent below that of a normal year. Normally, the farmers made a profit. This year, they will have to do everything they can to come out all right. Those who can, lease fields to their neighbors. But the situation is catastrophic for everyone."
At Deir Sirian, close up to the frontier, tobacco cultivator Hassan Karim expects to harvest 650 kilograms compared with his normal 800. That will reap an income of $4,300 - minus the $2,800 he owes to the bank in two years.
His land still bears the marks of war. "The plants don`t grow, they are sick," comments Muna, Karim`s wife, looking at the long stalks and the irregular spaces left in the soil where the plants have died shortly after pushing up from the earth.
Karim has another field which de-mining specialists have carefully checked to clear of the "Israeli" cluster bombs.
"But we dare not go there any more," he said. "We have heard of accidents in lands which have been de-mined."