Farming Palestine For Freedom

​The authors investigate the role of international aid in the Palestinian agricultural sectors, the lines along which it allocates funding and the impact these have on the nature of Palestinian agriculture. According to the authors, the Palestinian agriculture is characterised by small-scale farming and the land has a significance that rests on cultural and political identity and struggles. The PA has failed to protect the agricultural sector from Israel and its policies, but also from the global trend on food production. While on the one hand Israel has constantly obstructed the traditional cultivation of crops like za’atar, figs and date palms or olive trees that were once the main crops farmed – as they do not need a lot of water- or traditional forms of Bedouin agriculture, characterized for its sustainability, the PA and the international donors have designed policies aimed at placing the Palestinian agricultural products within the global market, as if the goal was to compete with other nations, and not to regain and defend the land and characterized by a top-down developmental approach. The PA was unable to protect farmers from the agribusiness products coming from the settlements – so much that products coming from the settlements have been banned only in 2010 and the law is still seldom applied. International donors budgeting and policies have been characterized by an approach to food security linked to the free-market, with a growing dependency on imported food and a decreasing dependency on locally produced food. For example, the new Palestine economic initiative, launched by USAID, forsees the development of Palestinian agriculture through industrial zones that will destroy small-scale farming, undermining Palestinian land ownership, making Palestine more and more dependant on Israel and boosting the presence of agribusiness. The authors eventually state the importance for CSOs and NGOs to protect farmers and launch a right to farm campaign.