Olive harvest suffers under the blockade

27 November 2008

Oxfam's Mohammed Ali Abu Najela reports on the impact of Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip on the territory's olive oil industry.

The agricultural sector in Gaza has been severely affected by the ongoing conflict between Palestinians and Israelis. Since the outbreak of the Palestinian Intifada in 2000, 112,000 olive trees have been destroyed in the Gaza Strip by the conflict and Israeli military incursions. Also, one third of agricultural land - thousands of dunums (1 dunum=.25 acre) along the border with Israel - has been inaccessible to Palestinian farmers since Israeli settlements were dismantled in 2005. Israel then carved out a security zone that included valuable Gazan farming land. Farmers have been killed and injured trying to access and cultivate these lands.

When Hamas seized control of Gaza in June 2007 the Israeli government imposed a blockade on the occupied territory, which has remained in place for nearly 18 months. The agricultural sector and food security situation has deteriorated during that time. Many Gazan farmers are now unemployed and have succumbed to poverty, unable to export their crops and facing drastically decreased market trade. The availability of raw materials needed for farming fell sharply and the limited materials that are available have become very expensive.

Olives from the Gaza Strip are considered to be amongst the highest quality worldwide. Throughout Gaza there are currently 107,000 productive olive trees and 60,000 more that are maturing. The productive trees give an annual yield of 1,450 tons of oil. The harvest provides seasonal employment for an estimated 25,000 workers. Although Gazan olive farmers are not greatly affected by the export ban, as their crop is primarily consumed locally, the sector has nonetheless been greatly damaged both by the blockade and in the years prior to 2007. Many farmers are prohibited from accessing their land, tens of thousands of trees have been destroyed by the conflict and Israeli military incursions, and now, many agricultural inputs are unavailable to farmers because of the blockade.

The agricultural sector in Gaza is of special concern to Oxfam. Several projects have been carried out by Oxfam to support Gaza farmers. One of these projects is the 'Cash-for-Work Project', where local unemployed people are hired to pave agricultural roads for farmers to improve access to their fields and to markets. In a food security and livelihood voucher scheme project, Oxfam and local partner Ma'an buy fresh produce from poor farmers and distribute it to poor families. The Israeli government's blockade harms the agricultural sector because costs have increased and revenues from exports have been completely lost. Many of the 45,000 agricultural workers in Gaza are unable to make a living.

Talal Ashour, a 55-year-old farmer living in Gaza City, has three sons and one daughter. The Israeli blockade has made life more difficult for him and his family because it prevents him from buying pesticide and fertiliser, and stops him from exporting his produce. It has also caused greater poverty and unemployment in Gaza, depressing the local market and making it harder for Talal and other farmers to sell their produce at home. In 2000, the Israeli army destroyed 70 of his olive trees costing him thousands of dollars. Talal still has 20 olive trees on four of the seven dunums he owns. These remaining trees provide the mainstay of his income.

Talal is harvesting his olives. He plans to sell two tons for home use, and the other five tons will be made into olive oil. Talal works with another eight workers, four of them from his family and another four are hired for £3 per 10 working hours. Because the Israeli blockade has increased the price of available fertilisers and other inputs, and has impoverished many potential consumers, it will be much harder for Talal to sell his crop this year.

"Olives mean everything to me, they mean life. Most of the olive trees are the same age as me and some trees are older than me. I remember when Israeli bulldozers uprooted my olive trees and destroyed my land. I was deeply sad - as if I lost my family. Since then we have been living in a very hard situation with low income that barely covers my family expenses. Now, with the Israeli blockade, the situation is getting more difficult as everything is very expensive and I am afraid that people won't be able to afford to buy olives because people in Gaza have no money," Talal said.

Thousands of unemployed labourers are now working the olive harvest. Many of them used to hold jobs inside Israel and even run their own business. But due to the Israeli blockade of the Gaza Strip, they have been left unemployed and impoverished. Working the olive harvest for 10 hours per day, much of it under the hot sun, requires tremendous reserves of energy to earn a mere £3. The luckiest workers will get work for 30 days, though 20 days is more usual. This equals a maximum of £90 for one month of this seasonal work.

The smell of olive oil permeates the air around factories like this one in Middle Gaza. Total olive oil production in Gaza this year will be an estimated 1,500 metric tons according to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture. Olive oil is in high demand as it is a key ingredient of the Palestinian diet, found in many household dishes like beans and humus.

Overall, 20 per cent of the olive harvest is pressed for olive oil. Each ton of olives is worth £70. The Al Awda olive oil factory is one of the biggest factories in Gaza, running 24 hours a day for the one- month season. The factory, which employs 20 people, is affected by the Israeli blockade because necessary spare parts and lubricating oil are not available in the market. As a result the machines are working at 30 per cent of normal capacity. This season the Al Awda factory is expected to compress 10,000 tons of olives - half the pre-blockade volume. The factory normally presses West Bank olives as well; because of the blockade they could not enter the Gaza Strip this season.

Olives are set out in Gaza's market, but sales are slow. The price is £2 per kilo, the same as before the blockade, but people are buying less than previous years because of decreased purchasing power. In the past, people bought an average of 20-50 kilos of olives per family, much of which they store for future consumption. But today families are only buying an average of 5-15 kilos because of the high cost of living and the increasing rates of poverty and unemployment.