Lebanon lays groundwork for first Agricultural Investment Conference

Lebanon’s Ministry of Agriculture has launched preparations for the country’s first-ever Agricultural Investment Conference, an initiative aimed at unlocking long-stalled investment in one of Lebanon’s most underutilized economic sectors.

A broad preparatory meeting was held at the ministry’s headquarters, chaired by Agriculture Minister Nizar Hani, and brought together representatives from both the public and private sectors. Scheduled for May, the conference is expected to serve as a national platform to reposition agriculture as a viable engine for growth, exports, and rural development.

The meeting was attended by Raphael Dabbaneh, head of the Agriculture Committee at the Federation of Lebanese Chambers of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, alongside committee coordinator engineer Elie Massoud. Representatives of Economy & Business Group, including Raouf Abou Zaki, Faisal Abou Zaki, and Salman Saqr, also took part. Ministerial advisers Soussan Abou Fakhr El-Dine and Nabil Hassan, who are overseeing the preparation of Lebanon’s National Agricultural Investment Strategy, joined the discussions, along with adviser Mazen Helwani.

According to the ministry, talks focused on shaping the conference’s framework and defining its core themes, with particular emphasis on identifying structural bottlenecks that have long discouraged investment in agriculture. Participants explored practical measures to remove these barriers, stimulate domestic investment, and attract foreign capital, steps seen as essential to boosting production, increasing value-added output, and strengthening the competitiveness of Lebanese agricultural products in regional and international markets.

Speaking to The Beiruter, Minister Hani said the conference “is part of a broader, long-term vision for the sector”. He explained that the ministry is currently finalizing the National Agricultural Strategy 2026–2035, which will set the direction for agricultural policy over the next decade.

“As part of this national strategy, we are developing a dedicated investment strategy for the agricultural sector,” Hani said. “We started with around 17 proposed investment ideas and worked on them as an initial investment plan. Today, we are refining that list down to six or seven concrete projects that can be presented to investors interested in agriculture in Lebanon.”

Hani noted that the investment push follows a series of initiatives launched by the ministry to reassert the sector’s economic relevance. These included a national conference under the slogan ‘Agriculture: The Pulse of Land and Life’, which highlighted agriculture’s contribution to GDP, job creation, and rural development. This was followed by Agri Lebanon, a large-scale agricultural exhibition that brought together companies operating in the sector, showcased modern agricultural technologies, and connected farmers with industry players.

The upcoming investment conference, Hani said, will represent the next step in that process. “It will be linked directly to the broader Beirut One investment framework, with a dedicated focus on agriculture”.

“We are allocating a specific investment window for the agricultural sector within Beirut One,” he said. “The goal is to present well-prepared, bankable projects to investors, backed by technical and economic studies.”

The ministry emphasized that Lebanon’s agricultural sector still holds substantial untapped potential, particularly in high-value production chains that are currently undergoing in-depth technical and economic assessment. The findings of these studies, and the investment opportunities they identify, are expected to be unveiled during the conference.

The preparatory meeting forms part of a wider cooperation roadmap between the Ministry of Agriculture, the Federation of Lebanese Chambers, and Economy & Business Group, aimed at building a structured public–private partnership. The initiative seeks to enable agriculture to play a more central role in economic recovery and sustainable rural development at a time when Lebanon is searching for productive sectors capable of anchoring long-term resilience.

Rather than treating agriculture as a subsistence activity, the planned conference signals an effort to reposition it as a strategic investment sector, one with the capacity to generate employment, strengthen exports, and contribute meaningfully to Lebanon’s economic rebuilding.