Written by Jean Khairallah – Founder, Lebanese Farmers Markets Coalition (LFMC) and Urban Farmers Markets
These days, our region is once again going through difficult times.
Bombings, population displacement, uncertainty permeating conversations and minds. Lebanon knows all too well these moments when everything seems to be on hold. And yet, life must go on.
This weekend, the Urban Farmers markets will once again open their stalls: on Saturday in Tripoli and Zouk Mikael, and on Sunday in Beirut. Not out of defiance, but out of responsibility.
Responsibility towards the 80 producers and artisans who participate in our markets and who rely on these weekly events to support their businesses and their families. Responsibility also towards the consumers who come every week to stock up on local, fresh products, grown and processed by the women and men of this country.
In troubled times, farmers markets are not just places of commerce, they become spaces of continuity, places where the community comes together, where people talk to each other, where they remember that the local economy and daily solidarity are very concrete forms of resistance to chaos.
So yes, this weekend once again, the tables will be set.
Because in Lebanon, in troubled times, it is often the simplest gestures, such as holding a market, that keep a society standing.
