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Beirut bakery grows its own wheat to increase food insecurity Middle East News

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Beirut, Lebanon – As the deep economic crisis progresses, the prices of basic necessities like bread have risen sharply in Lebanon below the poverty line.

Based on wheat imported by Lebanese bakers to produce their goods, the cost of traditional subsidized regular bread – which is eaten by the rich and poor in most foods – has tripled since 2019.

Mavia Bakery, a small garment stored in Beirut’s Gemmayzeh district, is trying to ensure better food security in Lebanon and is dependent on flour imported for its bakeries through a number of humanitarian projects.

Opened in 2020 by the non-governmental education organization Sadalsuud, the passionate and creative baker Brant Stewart, the bakery works in the cooperative kitchen in Tripoli and hires only women from marginalized communities.

“This space was created because I wanted to do something that was desirable and necessary, regardless of who does it, otherwise it’s not sustainable,” Stewart told Al Jazeera. “People who are willing to buy something for what they buy dry up quickly – there are only bags with so many grains that people can buy them, but everyone needs bread.”

Grown up there

Today, 80% of the wheat that Lebanon consumes is imported from countries like Ukraine, which has a large production in the vast lands that Lebanon lacks. Its sparsely grown wheat is used as freekeh or burghul (bulgur).

“Wheat as a crop of raw materials is not economically viable in Lebanon. There are people who grow their own wheat for their own use but, on an industrial scale, local wheat doesn’t happen, ”Stewart said.

“The flour we buy here from the Bakalian mill made with wheat imported here is worth 1,500 pounds a pound. [$1], the local Bekaa we buy is much cheaper than wheat, which is 5,000 pounds [$3.30] because the pound does not grow enough to cover demand.

“There have been no mills dedicated to milling locally grown wheat. These giant mills that process imported wheat can’t take a small amount of local stuff and mill,” he added. “These machines are huge and the milling is really the missing link in the chain. Milling is an art and milling that is happening on a smaller scale is not milling well and is of low quality. ”

Stewart is growing local wheat and installing a stone mill for free use by farmers [Maghie Ghali/Al Jazeera]

The price of flour goes up

Along with the decrease in the Lebanese pound, the purchase of imported flour has raised the price of bread. Since the grants will end in May, the cost is expected to increase.

Stewart’s new project is to grow local wheat and install a new stone mill for free use by farmers, funded by a grant from the Middle East Children’s Alliance, and hopes to grow more local wheat and at the same time be a cheaper option. .

The mill, which will be set up in Zahle, which is rich in agriculture in June, will allow small-scale local wheat bunches to be converted into high-quality flour.

“I know that a small mill and the quantities we’re growing won’t bite across the country, but it needs to start somewhere,” Stewart said.

“We need to start changing people’s minds on why it’s important to grow and consume local wheat, and not just grow it locally and grow it on a local scale, but to include it in the overall system, so this is our small start.”

‘Heirloom’ wheat

It is currently growing 50 varieties of wheat in the soil biodiversity area provided by Rachayan, which will allow it to conduct a variety of experiments and fully source the flour from the Mavia Bakery in the July harvest. Many of the varieties being experimented with are no longer available in the country.

“It’s going to be a bit of a transition period because the local wheat isn’t growing for use in yeast bread over the years, unlike the imported ones. But I’ve found some very good local varieties to cultivate,” Stewart said. “I’ve collected most of these samples from gene banks and I want to see what grows well, what’s tasty.

“Growing local varieties has environmental benefits because‘ landrace ’wheat – the equivalent of an inherited vegetable – adapts to the local climate,” he added. “Naturally, they are drought-resistant, pest-resistant and disease-resistant, so you don’t need so many pesticides.”

To effectively grow their dependence on foreign chemicals for chemicals, farmers cannot produce in Lebanon.

On another plot of land in Terbol, near Zahle, Stewart is growing 10 tons of local wheat, half of which will go to a bakery that opens at the Marj refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, which will provide free flat bread.

Brant Stewart is the founder of the Mavia Bakery and the NGO Sadalsudd [Maghie Ghali/Al Jazeera]

A failing economy

Syrian refugee Yousra Abdel Khatabiyeh has been working with the Mavia Bakery for several years, running a new bakery instead of the previous one, run by another NGO, which had to close due to economic failure.

“I learned how to make savory bread at Mavia Bakery and I am very pleased,” Khatabiyeh told Al Jazeera. “I really needed work and when Marj’s bakery closed, Brant took me here and it’s been wonderful.

“I’m happy to be back at a local bakery,” he added. “People really need it and that kind of bread is my specialty.”

The remaining five tons of flour will be included in a program that Stewart is still finalizing, with the goal of putting local flour in the hands of bakers to consider making the changes themselves.

If Lebanon could one day produce most of its wheat locally, the cost of bread would be less related to economic instability.

“Maybe we can fund the flour ourselves to make it viable, because right now no one is going to spend any extra money on anything,” Stewart said.

“The goal is to make lasting changes in food security. It’s part of that mill, of course, but I think this idea of ​​changing the habit of knowing where my flour comes from is important. ”



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