LEBANON (Enmaeya News) – October 21, 2025

Lebanon’s Olive Farmers Association in Koura has issued a warning over renewed threats facing the country’s olive oil industry, accusing state officials and import lobbies of undermining one of Lebanon’s oldest and most vital agricultural sectors.

In a strongly worded statement, the association said that corruption and fraudulent olive oil imports have devastated the national olive economy since the 1980s.

“Lebanon, the land of olives and oil, was flooded with rejected foreign oils, many containing cancer-causing substances banned abroad,” the statement read.

Once-vibrant olive groves were replaced by sprawling construction sites and quarries, which, the association warned, have caused “serious environmental and climate changes,” turning Koura into a “cancerous zone unfit for life.”

The association recalled a turning point in 2015, when Lebanese courts halted operations at illegal cement quarries and banned olive oil imports.

“Hope returned to every household,” they said, as farmers began cultivating their groves again, providing “food, medicine, and resilience to the Lebanese people.”

With the start of the new harvest season, farmers are now calling for strict enforcement of the olive oil import ban and warning against any new import licenses, including those granted to state institutions such as the army.

They say illegal smuggling last season dealt a heavy blow to local producers, leaving large quantities of domestic olive oil unsold.

The association also cautioned against reopening the country’s cement quarries under what it described as “fraudulent rehabilitation pretexts,” urging authorities instead to allow cement imports and scrap monopoly tariffs that “suffocate both the economy and the environment.”