Nothing Good Ever Comes of Violence

I’m writing this introduction to share our commitment as a member organisation of the World Farmers Markets Coalition (WFMC).
Over the last seven years, Badaro Urban Farmers (BUF) has built up a community of producers and consumers. Some farmers have left, others have joined us, as well as our customers.
In recent weeks, the violence against civilians has accelerated. The parties involved in the conflict have blown up all their limits in the deafening silence of their respective sponsors or allies. And yet…
Last Sunday, like fifty other Sundays in the year, we opened our farmers’ market in the Badaro district of Beirut.
It would have been very easy for the BUF board to cancel the market, as some of our colleagues have done. But what about our mission, our commitment to our producers and consumers?
I take up the WFMC’s vision of farmers’ markets.

Farmers’ markets are better able to withstand economic, political and climatic instability, but they are also easier to manage for :
•⁠ ⁠Preserving biodiversity and traditional family farming;
•⁠ ⁠Giving a voice to cultural diversity and preservation;
•⁠ ⁠Mitigate risks for farmers to transform their businesses and secure a future for young people in agriculture;
•⁠ ⁠Proposing to consumers to increase their purchases of local food, particularly among vulnerable and marginal consumers seeking food security;
•⁠ ⁠Empowering women to prosper through greater economic autonomy;
•⁠ ⁠Empower marginalised communities to improve their livelihoods;
So yes, it was necessary for Rania and Charles to offer their sourdough bread, Joseph his essential oils, Jad and Georges their vegetables, Lina her Armenian cuisine, Peter his honey, Maroun and Bassam their preserves, Charly his olive paste, Noha her olive oil, Samar her Lebanese dishes, Thaer her mushrooms, Salem her flowers, Elie her apple-based products, etc.

The producers took between 30 minutes and 2 hours to arrive (on time) and offer their produce to delighted customers.

So was it just another Sunday? Yes and no.

Yes, because everyone got what they expected: the farmer sold, the consumer got what he came to buy, and the market organiser fulfilled his mission of ensuring that the community came together in this incomparable moment of exchange.

No, because the environment outside the market is not the healthiest, nor the most stable.
For those unfamiliar with Lebanon and the districts of the capital, our market is located less than three kilometres from the points targeted by the air attacks on the city.

In spite of everything, I’ll see you next Sunday.
We’ll be welcoming Joseph to the community. He’ll be adding to our range of home-grown microgreens.