BEIRUT -- Iran's Agricultural Jihad Representative Office in Lebanon donated new relief packages comprising agricultural equipment to peasants in the eastern Bekaa Valley, IRNA reported.

This is the third phase of the relief aid extended to Lebanese farmers by the Islamic Republic of Iran within the past month.

At a ceremony held on the occasion, which was attended by a number of farmers as well as political and party officials from Bekaa Valley, the Head of Lebanese Parliament Agricultural Commission, Hussain Hadj Hassan, thanked Iran. Hadj Hassan said, "Iran has played a decisive role in providing relief aid for the Lebanese farmers through the Agricultural Jihad branch office and other institutions as well as by establishing agricultural development centers."

He criticized the Lebanese government for ignoring agriculture and said that there is no regular policy aimed at the development of agriculture.

At the ceremony, one of the officials of Iran's representative office in Lebanon, Kheirollah Parvin assessed the agricultural potentials of this country quite good.

He pointed to the fertility of Lebanon's agricultural lands and its rich water resources as two factors which might contribute to the development of the country as an agricultural pole.

At the conclusion of the ceremony, 500 manual poison sprayers were donated to the farmers of Bekaa Valley.

Also two sets of tractors, two 4,000-liter water tanks, two 16,000-liter poison-spraying tanks, six plowshares, two tractor disks, one industrial bag-sewing machine, a vacuum packing machine and 56 milk-collecting barrels were distributed among the agricultural cooperatives at Bekaa Valley.