BEIRUT, Oct. 26 (Xinhua) -- Eight hundred crates. Roughly 12 tons of apples. And no buyers.
In Nihad Eidi's orchard on the eastern outskirts of Machghara in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley, ripe apples in shades of red and greenish white lie exposed to the autumn sun.
Wearing a cap to shield himself from the glare, Eidi, a man in his 60s, stands among the crates as his family helps harvest the last of the fruit.
Rather than pay mounting cold-storage fees, he is considering a desperate alternative: turning the apples into apple molasses, a thick syrup traditionally made from grapes in Lebanon.
"Instead of taking the apples to cold storage and paying the high fees, I am considering turning them into apple molasses," Eidi said. "I hope to find a way to sell my produce and keep the fruit from spoiling."
His predicament reflects a nationwide crisis. Lebanon's Agriculture Ministry estimated this year's apple harvest at nearly 200,000 tons. Yet the domestic market can absorb only about a quarter to a third of that volume, according to media reports. For growers, the harvest has become a race against time -- from branch to crate, from crate to cold storage, and from storage to trucks bound for foreign markets.
The ministry has attributed the surplus to a bumper crop, limited marketing and export capacity, and high transportation and storage costs. Measures introduced earlier, it said, have proved insufficient to cope with the scale of this year's harvest.
The challenge is compounded by shrinking export markets. According to the World Bank's latest report, Lebanon exported about 9,700 tons of fresh apples in 2024, down sharply from 20,582 tons a year earlier.
In response, the ministry has drawn up a roadmap aimed at exporting at least 100,000 tons of apples. Its efforts include expanding export markets, subsidizing refrigerated transport and encouraging domestic consumption. But with costs rising and sales channels limited, relief for growers remains elusive.
Naim Sahli, who owns about 1.5 hectares of apple orchards in the eastern town of Rashaya, said high transportation and shipping costs have undermined the competitiveness of Lebanese apples in overseas markets.
With few outlets for their produce, some farmers have little choice but to accept rock-bottom prices rather than pay for storage or risk watching their harvest spoil.
Trader Suhail Badawi said apples were selling wholesale for around 30,000 Lebanese pounds per kilogram, equivalent to about 34 U.S. cents. The price barely covers the costs of orchard maintenance, labor, harvesting, packaging and transportation.
The burden extends beyond the farm. Youssef Charaf, a cold-storage operator in the Beqaa Valley, said the cost of storing a crate of apples had doubled from around 4 U.S. dollars last season to 8 dollars this season.
In Baalbek, farmers are calling for more reliable sales channels, storage subsidies, fairer prices and greater investment in food processing to help absorb the surplus.
Antoine Howayek, head of the Lebanese Farmers' Association, warned that the crisis could worsen without expanded export opportunities, increased storage capacity and specialized processing facilities.
He also called for the establishment of independent agricultural chambers, a national agricultural development bank and an insurance fund to compensate farmers for losses caused by natural disasters.
The stakes are considerable. According to the Agriculture Ministry, Lebanon has more than 26,000 apple growers, and apple orchards cover approximately 16,500 hectares nationwide.
For Eidi, however, the challenge is immediate and tangible: finding buyers before mounting storage costs and spoilage eat into his earnings.
For Lebanon, the sunlit crates scattered across its orchards represent a much larger question: can the country turn an abundant harvest into a sustainable source of income for its farmers? Until better markets, more affordable storage and effective processing solutions emerge, those crates may remain symbols of a bitter paradox -- a plentiful harvest that brings not prosperity, but losses.
