A Hungry Lebanon Returns to Family Farms to Feed Itself

To cope with the economic crisis in Lebanon, Michel Zarazir, a filmmaker, turned his roof in Antelias into a garden to grow food. - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
To cope with the economic crisis in Lebanon, Michel Zarazir, a filmmaker, turned his roof in Antelias into a garden to grow food. - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
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A Hungry Lebanon Returns to Family Farms to Feed Itself

To cope with the economic crisis in Lebanon, Michel Zarazir, a filmmaker, turned his roof in Antelias into a garden to grow food. - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times
To cope with the economic crisis in Lebanon, Michel Zarazir, a filmmaker, turned his roof in Antelias into a garden to grow food. - Diego Ibarra Sanchez for The New York Times

The falafel shop owner leaned back and listed the keys to the Lebanese kitchen — the staples that help lend this country its culinary halo:

Sesame seeds for the smoky-silky tahini sauce dolloped over falafel and fried fish — which are imported from Sudan.

Fava beans for the classic breakfast stomach-filler known as ful — imported from Britain and Australia.

And the chickpeas for hummus, that ethereally smooth Lebanese spread? They come from Mexico. Lebanese chickpeas are considered too small and misshapen for anything but animal feed.

“We got spoiled,” said Jad André Lutfi, who helps run Falafel Abou André, his family’s business, a cheap and casual chain. “We’ve imported anything you can think of from around the world.”

So it went for years, until the country’s economy caved in, before the coronavirus pandemic paralyzed what was left of it and an explosion on Aug. 4 demolished businesses and homes across Beirut — to say nothing of the damaged port, through which most of Lebanon’s imports arrive.

The country that boasts of serving the Arab world’s most refined food has begun to go hungry, and its middle class, once able to vacation in Europe and go out for sushi, is finding supermarket shelves and cupboards increasingly bare.

Hence the politicians’ sudden cry: The Lebanese, they urged earlier this year, must grow their own food.

As cures go, victory gardens might seem a poor substitute for the economic and political reforms that international lenders and the Lebanese alike have demanded to halt the country’s collapse. But the alternative is bleak.

“Even making hummus at home is a luxury now,” said Lutfi, noting that a kilogram of Mexican chickpeas has tripled in price. “These are necessities. Now they’re becoming a luxury.”

The Lebanese pound has bled about 80 percent of its value since last fall, sending food prices soaring and forcing many households to accept food handouts as the share of Lebanese living in poverty rose to more than half the population.

The potential for hunger has only grown since the blast, which displaced about 300,000 people from their homes, stripped an unknown number of their incomes and left many residents reliant on donated meals.

Well before politicians began exhorting citizens to plant, a growing number had already done so.

Late last year, Lynn Hobeika cleared out a long-neglected family plot in the village where she grew up in the mountains northeast of Beirut.

Borrowing money from a friend, Ms. Hobeika, 42, planted enough tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, zucchini, strawberries, eggplant, greens and herbs to see her extended family through the winter and beyond. She also began making fresh goat cheese for extra income.

“This is what makes me feel blessed. I can grow my food,” she said, surveying the view from her garden — terraces of olive, fig, mulberry and walnut trees sloping down to a green valley. “It’s OK, we’re not going to starve.”

Though her father, who owned a fleet of school buses, had kept chickens and a backyard garden when she was young, Ms. Hobeika and her generation grew up expecting to lead comfortable city lives. She graduated from an elite university. She and her husband earned enough to send their son to private school.

Then their fortunes slipped along with Lebanon’s economy. Her income as a private chef slumped as other families cut back; her husband’s work — buying used cars in Europe and reselling them in the Middle East — dried up with the pandemic.

They moved their son to a free school. Ms. Hobeika sold her jewelry to pay for food.

The garden in the village of Baskinta became her family’s safety net. Her father and uncle were about to sell the land, which had been in the family for generations. But Lebanese banks have barred account holders from withdrawing more than a few hundred dollars per week, rendering any bank check “as worthless as toilet paper,” Ms. Hobeika said.

“You lose the land for toilet paper, or we keep it and we eat for months,” she said she told her uncle. “You’re not making money, but you’re saving money. Instead of going to the supermarket, you’re eating something fresh.”

Her cousin, Mansour Abi Shaker, also turned to fallow family land elsewhere, planting vegetables and raising chicken and sheep in a backyard enclosure shaded by mulberry and persimmon trees.

He had been a ski instructor, a factory manager and an operator of the generators many Lebanese depend on to fill gaps in government-supplied electricity. Then he lost all three jobs.

“Suddenly I woke up, and — nothing. Like all of Lebanon, I was jobless,” said Abi Shaker, 34, who lives in the village of Aajaltoun.

“I never thought I’d do this in my life, but I have to survive. This is the only business I can live off of in the future.”

In returning to land last tilled by their grandparents, Abi Shaker, Ms. Hobeika and other newly minted farmers are also, in small measure, reversing Lebanon’s decades-long shift away from agriculture toward banking, tourism and services.

For decades, agriculture’s decline mattered little to consumers; the country could afford to import 80 percent of its food. But that outside dependence is no longer sustainable when hyperinflation is hollowing out salaries.

Though Lebanon grows plenty of fruit and vegetables, it lacks the land and technology to produce enough wheat and other staple crops for domestic consumption. Still, experts say, it could import less and export more specialty items.

“We’ll never be self-sufficient in what we produce,” said Mabelle Chedid, a sustainable farming expert and president of the Food Heritage Foundation.

“But with globalization, we started to shift to other ingredients and other food items, and I think now it’s time to re-look at our traditional diet and really see the value of it.”

The New York Times



What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
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What to Know About the Flash Floods in Texas That Killed over 100 People

 Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)
Firefighters from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, transport a recovered body on the flooded Guadalupe River days after a flash flood swept through the area, Monday, July 7, 2025, in Ingram, Texas. (AP)

Flash floods in Texas killed at least 100 people over the Fourth of July holiday weekend and left others still missing, including girls attending a summer camp. The devastation along the Guadalupe River, outside of San Antonio, has drawn a massive search effort as officials face questions over their preparedness and the speed of their initial actions.

Here's what to know about the deadly flooding, the colossal weather system that drove it in and around Kerr County, Texas, and ongoing efforts to identify victims.

Massive rain hit at just the wrong time, in a flood-prone place

The floods grew to their worst at the midpoint of a long holiday weekend when many people were asleep.

The Texas Hill Country in the central part of the state is naturally prone to flash flooding due to the dry dirt-packed areas where the soil lets rain skid along the surface of the landscape instead of soaking it up. Friday's flash floods started with a particularly bad storm that dropped most of its 12 inches (30 centimeters) of rain in the dark early morning hours.

After a flood watch notice midday Thursday, the National Weather Service office issued an urgent warning around 4 a.m. that raised the potential of catastrophic damage and a severe threat to human life. By at least 5:20 a.m., some in the Kerrville City area say water levels were getting alarmingly high. The massive rain flowing down hills sent rushing water into the Guadalupe River, causing it to rise 26 feet (8 meters) in just 45 minutes.

Death toll is expected to rise and the number of missing is uncertain

In Kerr County, home to youth camps in the Texas Hill Country, searchers have found the bodies of 75 people, including 27 children, Sheriff Larry Leitha said Monday morning. Fatalities in nearby counties brought the total number of deaths to 94 as of Monday afternoon.

Ten girls and a counselor were still unaccounted for at Camp Mystic, a Christian summer camp along the river.

For past campers, the tragedy turned happy memories into grief.

Beyond the Camp Mystic campers unaccounted for, the number of missing from other nearby campgrounds and across the region had not been released.

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday had said that there were 41 people confirmed to be unaccounted for across the state and more could be missing.

Kerrville City Manager Dalton Rice said during a Monday news conference he couldn't give an estimate of the number of people still missing, only saying “it is a lot.”

Officials face scrutiny over flash flood warnings

Survivors have described the floods as a “pitch black wall of death” and said they received no emergency warnings.

Kerr County Judge Rob Kelly, who lives along the Guadalupe River, said Saturday that “nobody saw this coming.” Officials have referred to it as a “100-year-flood,” meaning that the water levels were highly unlikely based on the historical record.

And records behind those statistics don’t always account for human-caused climate change. Though it’s hard to connect specific storms to a warming planet so soon after they occur, meteorologists say that a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and allow severe storms to dump even more rain.

Additionally, officials have come under scrutiny about why residents and youth summer camps along the river were not alerted sooner than 4 a.m. or told to evacuate.

Rice said Monday that he did not immediately know if there had been any communication between law enforcement and the summer camps between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Friday. But Rice said various factors, including spotty cell service in some of the more isolated areas of Kerr County and cell towers that might have gone out of service during the weather, could have hindered communication.

Rice said officials want to finish the search and rescue and then review possible issues with cell towers, radios and emergency alerts.

Officials noted that the public can grow weary from too many flooding alerts or forecasts that turn out to be minor.

Kerr county officials said they had presented a proposal for a more robust flood warning system, similar to a tornado warning system, but that members of the public reeled at the cost.

Monumental clearing and rebuilding effort

The flash floods have erased campgrounds and torn homes from their foundations.

"It’s going to be a long time before we’re ever able to clean it up, much less rebuild it," Kelly said Saturday after surveying the destruction from a helicopter.

Other massive flooding events have driven residents and business owners to give up, including in areas struck last year by Hurricane Helene.

President Donald Trump said he would likely visit the flood zone on Friday.

AP photographers have captured the scale of the destruction, and one of Texas' largest rescue and recovery efforts.