Compost Baladi is a Lebanese social enterprise specializing in the repurposing of organic waste into compost at different scales. Compost Baladi’s activity is based on four pillars: compost production, training and mitigation, consulting and composting machinery, and equipment trade.
Compost Baladi’s products resort to low-tech, low-cost, and locally manufactured waste management solutions; aligning with a sustainable circular economy approach. Among the different lines of services that they provide, they also raise awareness on agricultural topics and on the importance of sorting at source and composting to citizens, students, farmers, and underprivileged communities.
To date, Compost Baladi has empowered and achieved several national success stories in waste management, waste valorization, and wastewater treatment at different scales.
Container Composter for Natural Fertilizers
Compost Baladi’s proposed project under the Food System Challenge is the production of their own ‘Container Composter’ an industrial-sized composter, targeting small and medium farmers. This new line of activity aims at providing small and medium farmers with their needs in natural fertilizers, replacing imported goods.
The Container Composter is a decentralized bio-waste solution holding a temporary structure, which is standardized and modular. It is low maintenance, holds adaptive technology, and ensures continuous monitoring by off-site professionals via remote sensing.
For this project, Compost Baladi will be collaborating with 14 new poultry farmers on a 3-year basis, to properly dispose of manure generated from their farms through securing manure collection contracts with them in return for income that will sustain their farm operations.
By producing organic fertilizer material at a larger scale, Compost Baladi will be able to achieve lower production costs while benefiting from a scalable business model relying on revenues from organic fertilizer produced. This will allow Compost Baladi to provide the local market with excellent quality organic fertilizers compared to imported ones at a significantly competitive price.
The project will also allow Compost Baladi to provide organic farmers and home users with the required technical knowledge to properly use organic fertilizers and secure contracts for proper cultivation and fair-price disposition of their crops.
The Food System Challenge
The Food System Challenge is implemented by the World Food Programme (WFP) and Berytech through support from the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).
The program’s main outcomes are enhanced food security, a well-functioning local food system, enhanced efficiency and resilience of cooperatives and SMEs working across different streams of the food systems, and increased employment opportunities, especially for women and vulnerable individuals.
