Democratic Palestine : 12 (ص 15)
غرض
- عنوان
- Democratic Palestine : 12 (ص 15)
- المحتوى
-
Palestinian Agriculture
Under Occupation
The Palestinian Agricultural Engineers Union sent a memorandum to the Federation of Arab Agricultural
Engineers, about the state of agriculture in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The memo pointed out that the area
of the West Bank is approximately 5000
km?. The area fit for agriculture is 70% of
this, while only 40% of the 5000 km? is
actually cultivated, i.e, 2 million
dunums. However, before occupation
the total land cultivated was 2.7 million
dunums. This obvious drop of about
26% is an inevitable result of the nature
of the situation imposed by the Zionist
occupation forces «who from the begin-
ning of occupation intentionally concen-
trated on the land and the people» to
force the citizens to leave their land and
replace them with Zionist settlers.
When the Zionist military forces
took over the responsibility of administ-
ration of the agricultural sectors in the
West Bank, it set to intentionally destroy-
ing the agricultural system followed by
the Arab farmers (planting melons), forc-
ing them to plant crops which were
essential to Zionist industry e.g. sesame
seed, onions, etc. after all the land was
cultivated according to this demand, the
Zionists would refuse to buy the crops
cultivated, making excuses about the
bad quality of the products, at the same
time trying to persuade the farmers to
leave this unprofitable way of earning a
living, and to work in Zionist factories
which would provide them with a better
income.
The memo underscored the fact
that the Zionist authorities confiscated
50% of the non-agricultural land and of
agricultural land not yet cultivated. It also
imposed stricter measures on the use of
water for irrigation whereby it prohibited
the digging of wells and limited the quan-
tity of water used for agricultural pur-
poses. These measures drove the far-
mers to plant fruit bearing trees (such as
olives, grapes, almonds, etc.) which
need minimum quantities of water.
This resulted in increasing the area
planted with olive trees from 600,000
dunums to 750,000 in 1984. Farmers
also went back to planting melons
(muskmelon and watermelon) bringing
the total area used for this purpose to
ne ae ri “ne:
oo RE gt weet eee nl evatee si
ae eee Jj xe...
Zionist settlements thrive on confiscated Palestinian land
35,000 dunums, keeping in mind it had
dropped to zero within the first few years
of occupation. The memo also pointed
out that the measures imposed by the
Zionists resulted in the Palestinian far-
mers’ facing the challenge of limited
means of irrigation, production, etc., by
resorting to modern techniques of
agriculture (irrigation sprinklers and
greenhouses) in order to raise produc-
tion rates while decreasing costs. Pro-
duction rates reached an all time high
after applying these techniques, thus
making up for the inability to use greater
Voluntary work at Beit Amr: Collective efforts to
counter Zionist attacks on Palestinian agriculture
areas of land for agriculture. One dunum
of land produced 5-6 tons of waterme-
lons; about 6 tons of tomatoes; and
about 4 tons of muskmelons.
The Gaza Strip
In the Gaza Strip, the area of land
utilized for agriculture is now 632,000
dunums which is 50% of the overall area
of the region. Only 56% of the above
mentioned area is irrigated, although the
Gaza Strip depends primarily on the pro-
duction of citrus fruits: 300,000 tons of
crop from a total of 71,579 dunums of
land.
Other crops of the Gaza Strip are
guava and dates, in addition to citrus
fruits. Ninety percent of the income in
this region is from agriculture. A major
problem faced by the Palestinians of the
West Bank and Gaza Strip is how to
market the surplus of agricultural pro-
duction which is much higher than
needed to cover local needs. The memo
goes on to explain that the surplus is
allowed to be sent to Jordan upon ob-
taining special permits from the Jordani-
an authorities...
However, the time limit for farmers
who want to send their crop from the
West Bank to Jordan is set before the
actual harvest; moreover due to sudden
unexpected changes of weather (e.g.
15 - هو جزء من
- Democratic Palestine : 12
- تاريخ
- نوفمبر ١٩٨٥
- المنشئ
- Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)
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