Under the patronage of H.E The Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Ghazi Zeaiter, The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture in Lebanon held a two-day National Workshop on food loss reduction on April 24 and April 25 in the Lancaster Tamar Hotel, Beirut. The workshop presentations were held by Technical National Consultants from the Lebanese University, Project Coordinators from the Ministry of Agriculture, and experts from the FAO.

This workshop is part of an FAO Technical Cooperation Project entitled: “Capacity building for food loss reduction in the Near East” which is being implemented in Lebanon, Egypt, Iran and Jordan, where Lebanon has been focusing on the apple supply chain, under the framework of the ‘Save Food Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction’. As part of the collaboration between FAO and the Lebanese University, Faculty of Agriculture, an assessment of apple losses at the farm level, cold storage units and marketing chain has been conducted; the social and economic aspects of the food losses in the apple supply chain in Lebanon have also been reviewed, and a training needs assessment has been conducted.

Based on the needs assessment, the curriculum for capacity building, and training materials have been prepared and disseminated during a workshop on preventing postharvest losses in apples’ supply chain to around 30 staff members from the Ministry of Agriculture and a number of NGOs. Post-harvest food losses prevention kits have been also provided to relevant parties.

 This workshop aimed at validating the post-harvest food losses assessment in the apple supply chain by representatives of all concerned stakeholders. Participants to the capacity building training workshop trained on food safety and post-harvest, and ended the workshop with recommendations and an action plan.