Khiam's olive and tobacco year — when the olives flower, are picked and pressed, when the tobacco is sown, cured and sold — with the one safety rule that comes before any of it.
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Olives and tobacco are Khiam's farming year. This page holds the shape of that year for anyone coming back to their land: when the olives flower and are picked and pressed, when the tobacco seedbeds are sown and the leaves cut and cured, and when the Régie takes delivery and pays. One thing comes before all of it: after the war, a field or grove can look normal and still hold unexploded ordnance, and much of Khiam's farmland was bulldozed. Do not work land until a clearance team has released it — read the town's unexploded-ordnance page first.
It's July
Harvests: Tobacco (تبغ / توتون)
dry season
Khiam's signature crop and the heart of its farming year. The trees are rainfed and long-lived; they bear in alternate years — a heavy season followed by a light one — and a grove's oil is pressed within days of picking. South Lebanon grows roughly a third of the country's olives.
Source: Lebanon Traveler — the Lebanese olive harvest (season, pressing, the alternate-bearing cycle); Anera on the 2025 South Lebanon harvest, checked 13 July 2026 (today).
The south's cash crop, grown under a Régie licence and sold to the state monopoly at a guaranteed price. Most of it is the sun-cured oriental leaf the region is known for; the cash arrives once a year, in winter.
sowing harvest
rainy season dry season frost risk
How the crops are watered
Both crops are grown mostly on the winter and spring rain. Olive trees are rainfed once established; tobacco seedbeds and young plants are hand-watered where a farmer has water. There is no community canal schedule to publish — watering is each farmer's own. This page describes the usual pattern of the year, not a water timetable.
These are the usual months, not a fixed calendar — the season shifts a little year to year with the weather, and it varies from grove to grove. The war has disrupted it badly: unexploded ordnance, bulldozed and damaged land and lost access have cut the southern harvest, and some fields and groves cannot be worked at all until they are cleared. Treat this as the shape of a normal year to plan around, keep off any land that has not been released, and confirm the Régie's tobacco dates each season.
Source: Olive season: Lebanon Traveler and Anera (2025 South Lebanon harvest). Tobacco: Régie Libanaise des Tabacs (Farmer Service and plantation guide), Society for Cultural Anthropology, The New Arab and Tobacco Reporter (2025). Seasonal backdrop: Weather Spark (Marjayoûn). Compiled by Town Tools., checked 13 July 2026 (today).