The General Director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Louis Lahoud, monitored the work of inspection teams on agricultural drug warehouses and sales outlets across all Lebanese regions during a meeting at the Mount Lebanon Agriculture Department. The meeting included the presence of the Head of the Mount Lebanon Agriculture Department, Aboud Freih, the Head of the Plant Pharmacy Department at the Ministry of Agriculture, Lama Haidar, and heads of agricultural wealth departments in regional offices.
Lahoud provided instructions from the Minister of Agriculture in the caretaker government, Abbas Al-Hajj Hassan, to the inspection teams in the regional offices to continue their routine and surprise inspections of agricultural drug warehouses and sales outlets. This is to ensure compliance with the specified conditions and specifications as outlined in the relevant laws, regulations, and organizational decisions, and to verify the presence of prohibited or expired agricultural drugs.
Lahoud stressed to the teams the importance of combating expired agricultural drugs and those banned by the Ministry of Agriculture that enter Lebanon illegally. He requested that the inspection teams confiscate any prohibited, expired, or non-compliant agricultural drugs under the supervision of the competent judiciary and in coordination with security agencies.
He hoped that municipalities, civil society, and citizens would support the Ministry of Agriculture's teams in their campaign to safeguard public health and food safety as well as agricultural production.
During the meeting, Lahoud was updated by the National Coordinator of the Emergency Safe Disposal of Expired Agricultural Pesticides Project, Engineer Desiree Dayeh, on the phases of the project being executed by the Ministry of Agriculture in collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), particularly in supporting inspection teams and ensuring the expulsion of expired and banned pesticides from Lebanon for safe disposal according to international standards.
