Chickens in a farm in Lebanon. (Credit: NNA)
Six unions representing various livestock sectors in Lebanon called Thursday for the removal "without any delay" of the waste fee, also known as the environmental fee, which taxes certain products used by industry stakeholders and was imposed by the government last August by Decree No. 3214, while threatening to "take escalatory measures" if their demands are not "quickly" met.
The statement, published following a meeting held in Dbayeh, north of Beirut, is co-signed by the president of the poultry union, William Boutros; the representative of poultry farmers in the Bekaa, Walid Kazan; the secretary-general of the Butchers and Livestock Traders Union, Majed Eid; the president of the dairy cow breeders union, Khaled al-Hajj; the president of the feed traders union, Arslan Sinno; and the president of the Association of Veterinary Medicine and Feed Additive Importers, Tarek Traboulsi.
They are specifically targeting the fee applied to soybean and sunflower meal, cottonseed meal, sugar beet pulp, certain veterinary medicines and feed additives — products essential for poultry and livestock farming, all of which, according to customs definitions in chapter 23 of their nomenclature, fall under the category of food residues and waste.
The unions believe that imposing the 3% fee on these products is unjustified, because "they generate no waste and pose no risk to the environment," according to the statement.
"Maintaining these taxes will lead to a sharp increase in production costs and, consequently, an unavoidable rise in the prices of eggs, poultry, meat, milk and cheese, which will directly impact the Lebanese consumer and increase their expenses in a context where they are already suffering from inflation and the erosion of their purchasing power," the text states, as the country is experiencing high inflation (17% year-on-year despite a slowdown in July) and fuel prices are surging again.
This issue "directly concerns national food security," the participants at the meeting also declared.
