Scarabée Regenerative

Lebanon is experiencing economic collapse due to decades of corruption and flawed policies. As a result, the Lebanese pound has devalued by 60%, threatening food security and leaving millions unable to feed themselves. In response, many Lebanese want to grow their own food and small farmers, financially crippled by costly chemical inputs, are abandoning their fields.  

The UN Human Rights Council has called for an end to conventional agriculture and a shift to regenerative agriculture. Scarabée Regenerative will offer education and training on the principles and practices of regenerative agriculture to transition and train, new and existing farmers and gardeners, helping them to create nutrient-rich soil and healthy, high-yield food without chemicals. While we will be initially tailored for Arab speaking countries, our knowledge and referral platform will be scaled and adapted for use in other developing countries.

In 2019, the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN reported that 135 million people across the world experienced acute food insecurity and in the UN 2020 Early Warning Action Report Lebanon is listed “On Watch’ because of its economic crisis. A key culprit is the costly misuse of chemical inputs, responsible for driving farmers into debt, undermining soil health, reducing pest resilience, and poisoning groundwater as well as consumers. In the poorest regions of the country, agriculture-related activities account for up to 80% of the local GDP, but a recent study indicates that more that 100,000 hectares of land have been abandoned due to depleted soils. With less crops grown in Lebanon, expensive imported foods cater only to a wealthy minority.  

Now, with 75% of the Lebanese  reportedly worried about food security, a movement is expanding among citizens to grow their own food and motivating farmers to transition to cost effective practices, yet novel and accessible information in this field is scarce. By providing knowledge and skills, we will help the Lebanese help themselves.

Scarabée Regenerative will develop a regenerative agriculture website and app in English, with Arabic content. Of the 86% of Lebanese who connect to the internet, 76% use smartphones. Our primary goal is to provide easy to follow digital Arabic content on both our website and to smartphone users, who will be able to download content to use offline in fields .  

Our English and Arabic knowledge platform on regenerative agriculture, will provide resources, links to other organizations, relevant studies, video tutorials, a public Q&A board for experts to share solutions and the sale of relevant products. Farmers and citizens alike can learn regenerative farming principles and practices such as: no-tillage, cover crops, multiple crop rotation, agroecology, animal integration, in-farm fertility and better low-carbon farm management.  

In addition, we will provide consultations, and our partner-farm, The Green Van, will host workshops with on-site demonstrations. The Rodale Institute will assist us in special larger cases. A percentage of profits from consulting fees will be re-invested into struggling farms and our long-term goal is to develop farms in remote villages to act as demonstration examples, so we can reach and train farmers without internet access.

We want to help the Lebanese grow nutritious foods in abundance. Our webinars so far, have reached Beirut universities, agronomy engineers and the general public. Our partner, Souk el Tayeb farmer markets will spearhead our effort by encouraging their farmers to use our knowledge and referral platform. Each successful farm project will set an example, helping to convince neighboring farmers to adopt our practices and join a thriving farming community. Each example will include detailed cost-gain financial data. This will help users scale their approach and help us track an improvement return-on-investment. From farms to rooftop gardens, regenerative agriculture can benefit any scale of planting and will provide the affordable nutritious foods that are desperately needed. 

The all-encompassing benefits of healthy regenerated soils are:

• Lessen input costs. Higher food yields. Farmer prosperity. Stacked enterprises.
• Chemical free food. Increased micronutrient content. Pest and disease resistance. Extreme weather resistance. Better consumer health.
• Water retention capacity. Filtered groundwater. Replenished water systems.
• Increased biodiversity. Restored ecosystems.
• Lessen CO2 gas via increasing carbon sequestration of carbon.

The problem of food security in Lebanon is caused by costly degenerative agriculture practices. Using our platform, farmers, gardeners and citizens at different scales can easily adopt regenerative practices, improve their yields and revive their soils. In doing so they will feed themselves, their communities and boost their economies.  

Our use of familiar technologies to provide all the necessary knowledge on a comprehensive and easy to understand platform allows us to achieve maximum accessibility while maintaining low-overhead, granting us the freedom to reinvest profits directly into our farmers.

Despite there being no direct competitors in the Middle East, African apps such as NURU and GeoFarmer act as hubs for farmers to network and seek information. However none provide information on regenerative or holistic  agriculture.

Our free app and website aims to give the most user friendly experience possible, making it easy for growers at any level, on any scale, to find the necessary information, in a comprehensible format and download it for easy offline access, in the field.

Farmers in Lebanon already utilize a wide range of social networking and file sharing apps to achieve the same goal as our platforms, however this solution has proven lacking in ease of use, efficiency and regenerative alternative solutions. Agricultural  apps in other countries that are tailored to specific needs  and aiming to help farmers be more efficient, have been met with resounding success, but again, we have found none that cater to regenerative agriculture methodologies .

Sacarabée Regenerative will address the food crisis in Lebanon, restore the health of the environment and strengthen Lebanon’s most vulnerable communities. Farmers, gardeners and new planters with easy access to our comprehensive information will find it simple and beneficial to grow nutritious food for themselves and their communities while bettering the environment.

We will train the Lebanese to restore degraded lands with regenerative practices. Our website and app with Arabic tutorials and extensive informative resources will provide unparalleled support to their efforts. Our demonstration farms will host training workshops, provide consultations for any scale of planting, and work with established experts to transition larger farm projects. Our long-term goal is to develop regenerative farms in villages to reach more farmers without internet and to train more consultants.

Farmers that apply these practices will benefit from reduced input, labor and fuel costs, and an increase in yields. “Farms with regenerative practices were 78% more profitable than conventional plots.” (FORBES 2020) Regeneratively grown crops are micronutrient rich (BFA 2019) and the lack of chemical inputs will address growing health concerns about pesticide contaminated groundwater. Healthy soil structure retains drastically more water as well (NRCS 2015), reducing irrigation needs.

If more people cultivate regeneratively, cheaper, more nutritious food is produced at greater efficiency. With more people fed, a major contributing factor to Lebanon's civil unrest will be abated and jobs will be created as the profitability of farming increases.

Our first webinars have reached upwards of 200 Lebanese. Once we become active on social media, we will be able to contribute on groups such as IZRAA (with 30k Facebook followers) and AGRONOTE (with 13.4k Instagram followers and to whom we will present our first webinar). Both groups were created by agronomists to answer agricultural questions. By adding our voice, we will become an active part of the community and exponentially increase our presence in Lebanon.

In our first year we hope to transition or develop at least 3 farms.

In five years, our goal is to add at least 15 farms to our network to the varied cultural and religious regions of Lebanon. These farms will be working models, serving as demonstration and training sites. We also hope to have trained more consultants in regenerative agriculture practices to be dispatched to across the country to help farmers.

We will expand our social media presence and continue presenting webinars. Surveys will follow each presentation so we can better understand agronomist, farmer and citizen's needs and specific areas of concern.

Within two years we hope to translate the appropriate content of the website in Arabic, produce Arabic video tutorials and compile list of local pest and diseases.

We will be working with Kiss the Ground who will assist our mission, and The Rhodale Institute who will offer our consultants access to their experts.

Our intention is also to expand our relationships with the Lebanese University and the American University of Beirut, to whom whom we are presenting webinars, and offer educational opportunities to their students.

Even though there is a demand for holistic farming practices, our experiences on location have brought to light an inherent distrust of newcomers with new ideas. Where educated Lebanese are more likely to adopt better practices, it will be harder to persuade established, especially large scale, farmers rooted in conventional traditions.

We have been advised that demonstration is the best way to convince  farmers to transition. This is where our partnering farm, The Green Van will play a pivotal role, hosting workshops and offering tours.

Regenerative agriculture is a farmer led movement, we expect transitioned farms to lead by example and encourage newcomers to adopt our practices.

Partnering with the established Souk el Tayeb farmers markets, has given our mission credibility and reduced the impact of our unfamiliarity with locals. 

Karine Hrechdakian - Founder - CEO

George Najm - Farmer - SustainableAgriculture and Development Consultant

Wael Yamin - Agronomy Engineer - Soil Microbiome Consultant

Samer Salloum - Agronomy Engineer -  MBA

US:

Karine Hrechdakian is a documentary filmmaker with a Masters in Science and Visual Studies from MIT. She has been developing this Regenerative Agriculture Project in Lebanon, since 2019. Certified as a Kiss the Ground Steward, Karine has attended Acres USA Eco Ag. Conference and researched the field extensively to deepen her understanding, while developing relationships with regenerative organizations along the way. Given her expertise, and U.S. contacts, as well as her childhood and connections in Lebanon, she is in a unique position to share her knowledge and curate a website to best meet the needs of the Lebanese in her home country.

Lebanon:

George Najm is an avid farmer who owns and operates The Green Van, a successful fertilizer and pesticide free farm. He is also a consultant in Sustainable Agriculture and Sustainable Development with experience conducting trainings and TOT’s (Training of Trainers) in these fields while working extensively with NGO’s and farmers across Lebanon.

Wael Yamin is an agronomy engineer specializing in soil microbiology and beneficial insect rearing. Wael is completing his certification as a consultant of Dr. Elaine Ingham Soil Food Web School.

Samer Salloum  is an agronomy engineer at UNIFERT, with an MBA in communication. He assisted Karine during her initial research in Lebanon in September 2019, and now leads our social media campaign. Samer is currently creating a self-directed PHD in Regenerative Agriculture from the AUB and LUFAVET, with the The Rhodale Institute. 

Souk el Tayeb’s farmers' markets and farm-to-table restaurants have created environments that unify people of differing religious communities and beliefs to support small-scale farmers and producers, encouraging organic, Eco-friendly practices and contributing to local communities. Our partnership will help us work with farmers from their farmers' markets and increase our credibility with locals.

The Green Van is our partner farm in Lebanon. They will host workshops and consult on our projects.

We are also working with Kiss the Ground, who will help us with networking and introduce us to organizations or individuals who can help our cause. The Rodale Institute, will answer specific farming questions and consult with us in the development of larger projects.

Key resources: 

  We need initial funding to develop our website and app.

Partners:

• Souk el Tayeb organization
• The Green Farm

Supporting organizations who agreed to help:

• Kiss the Ground
• The Rodale Institute 

Key Activities and types of Intervention:

   Events:

• Education
• Webinar presentations
• Post-Coronavirus symposiums

   Farm workshops
   Consultancies and management services.
   Retail:

• Sale of cover-crop seeds.
• Relevant farming products.

   Advertising for local businesses.  

We will reach farmers and gardeners, as well as university students who will benefit from our services.  

Webinars and social media will:

• Increase awareness
• Engage audience
• Converting practitioners 

Metrics and KII’s will help determine benefits and tailor the approach for individual farms. 

Records for each farm project include stats and short vide portraits to advertise and attract new farmers and to support future funding.

The Program will directly benefit farmers by increasing yields and reducing costs.  

Cost Structure:

Our biggest expenditure will be in the development of a website, translation of content and video production.  

We will redirect 10% of our surplus to fund challenged individuals or communities and to train more consultants.  

Revenue %:

• Events. %5
• Workshops %10
• Consultancies and management services. %70
• Retail %5
• Advertising%10

In order to convince farmers to transition away from conventional agriculture practices, and to teach new growers to adopt holistic practices, we will need to offer a website and app with easy to follow content.

Solve can help us develop these online platforms.

Since founder/CEO Karine Hrechdakian's background does not encompass business or technology, support in those arenas will be very useful to better tailor this enterprise and make the project more efficient and effective.

The MIT Media Lab Open Agriculture Initiative (OpenAg) We would love their input and expertise in digital agricultural innovation.

The MIT Food and Agriculture Club (FAC), to become a part of their community which helps to coordinate and support work in the areas of food and agriculture.

The Rodale Institute can help us expand our reach domestically and to other countries.

The American University of Beirut Agricultural school (AUB) and the Lebanese University Faculty of Agronomy (LUFAVET), have both expressed interest in integrating regenerative agriculture into their curriculum utilizing our resources and can help us reach a wider audience and develop farm projects.