The AgriFood and Agriculture industries are facing many challenges to operate in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.

This includes reducing the use of chemicals and pesticides, improving water quality and energy usage, optimizing packaging, reducing waste, using automatic harvesting tools, traditional breeding methods, solar dryers, manual weeding tools, shelf life extension and others.

With the increasing demand for food safety and transparency, Agrifood  startups need to find ways to ensure the safety and quality of their products throughout the supply chain.

And with a growing global population, there is an increasing demand for food. However, food production is not keeping up with this demand, and many people are facing food insecurity. There may be some relief from the problem with food alternatives and superfoods

Food loss incorporates any edible food that goes uneaten at any stage, food that’s uneaten in homes and stores, this includes crops left in the field, food that spoils in transportation, and all other food that doesn’t make it to a store. Some amount of food is lost at nearly every stage of food production.

Food waste refers to food appropriate for human consumption being discarded, whether or not after it is kept beyond its expiry date or left to spoil. Often this is because food has spoiled but it can be for other reasons such as oversupply due to markets, or individual consumer shopping/eating habits.

The Agrifood industry has complex supply chains that involve multiple stakeholders and often cover long distances, making it challenging to maintain quality, safety, and sustainability throughout the supply chain.

Adopting new technologies can be a significant challenge for traditional food producers. Agrifood & Agriculture startups need to find ways to educate farmers and producers on the benefits of technology and provide affordable solutions such as robots, GPS technology, and smartphone apps to improve food production processes and agriculture best practices.

Healthy soils are critically important to thriving crops and forests, quality pastures, diverse landscapes and wildlife. Entrepreneurs who develop solutions to protect and improve the vitality and productivity of soil quality can apply for the hackathon.

 Any solution related to agricultural best practices, agricultural software, pest and disease information, weather forecasts, and market prices could fall under this category.

Even when data is available, there is a limited capacity for data analysis and interpretation within the agriculture and agrifood sector in Lebanon. This includes a shortage of skilled data analysts, statisticians, and data scientists who can turn raw data into actionable insights. Without this capacity, the potential benefits of data for the sector cannot be fully realized.

Waste management refers to the various schemes to manage and dispose of wastes. It can be by discarding, destroying, processing, recycling, reusing, or controlling wastes. The prime objective of waste management is to reduce the amount of unusable materials and to avert potential health and environmental hazards.

Ecotourism is a type of tourism that aims to minimize the impact of human activities on the environment while promoting sustainable development and adopt sustainable and green accommodations.