NNA - Caretaker Minister of Agriculture, Abbas Haj Hassan, indicated in an interview with Al-Hurra Channel that “the Ministry of Agriculture has been working for four years on a project with the FAO organization to keep pace with combating illegal medicines, continuously conducting tours accompanied by the General Directorate of State Security and the concerned judiciary to close all unlicensed agricultural pharmacies located in many areas that sell spoiled and toxic medicines."

He emphasized that his ministry is working in full capacity and with great efforts to address this issue, and has written to all security forces and leaders, including the army command, to tighten and control the borders with regard to smuggling vegetables and fruits into Lebanon.

Hajj Hassan also revealed that "the ministry's teams carried out an inspection today in various Lebanese regions, with the support of state security and the concerned judiciary, whereby a number of non-Lebanese agricultural products were seized to protect the Lebanese products."

=========R.Sh.