Red-Berry Day in Gaza, as Farm Products Leave for Europe
Gaza, Palestinian Territory (TML) – Um Hajjar Al-Ghalayini, 46 years old, owns half an acre of sandy Gaza land that produces two tons of strawberries every season. Since her husband died two years ago, the crop is the sole means of support for her nine children, mother-in-law and widowed sister, so every one of the bright red berries counts.
Last year, she had no choice but to sell her produce to the local market. That filled the Gaza markets with fruits and vegetables to the benefit of consumers, but for growers like Um Hajjar it was a disaster. Her earnings dropped by more than half and the family had a tough year economically. This week, as Israel took another step in easing its economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, Um Hajjar delivered her strawberries to the Kerem Shalom checkpoint on the Israel-Gaza border, their first leg of a journey to the more profitable markets in Europe.
“Now I can say that things are getting back to normal, if not on the right track,” she told The Media Line.
Exports of strawberries and flowers from the Gaza Strip to European markets began on Sunday, as part of a wide-ranging project coordinated by the Israeli army and local farmers and funded by the Dutch government. The current undertaking involves some 2.5 tons of strawberries and some 2,000 flowers, but Israel plans expanded facilities at Kerem Shalom and stepped-up security measures that will enable exports to grow more next year.
All told, about 700 tons of strawberries and 30 million carnations will be exported from Gaza by the time the season ends – in February for strawberries and May for flowers — Yousef Shaath, the project manager of the Dutch-funded Agricultural Relief Committee in Gaza, told The Media Line.
Strawberries are just one part of a gradual easing of the blockade Israel imposed on Gaza, a Mediterranean enclave of just 360 square kilometers (138 square miles), in 2007 after the Islamic militant group Hamas seized control. Israel used the siege to pressure Hamas, which unlike the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority (PA) that rules in the West Bank, is sworn to Israel’s destruction and rejects peace talks.
While Israel and Hamas are still at loggerheads, Jerusalem has loosened some aspects of the blockade since nine people were killed last May when commandoes raided a ship trying to break the siege. As a result, Gaza’s economy will probably grow 8% this year, according to the International Monetary Fund.
While human rights advocates have focused on the pain caused by Israel’s blocking most imports, Gaza’s tiny economy has suffered by the ban on nearly all exports as well. According to the Palestinian Bureau of Statistics, Gaza’s exports plunged from $41 million in 2005 to $30,000 in 2006 and $20,000 in 2007. In 2008, virtually nothing left the Strip.
The business of export agricultural produce is fraught with politics, business and security issues. Before the first strawberries and carnations could be trucked into Israel, representatives of the Gazan agricultural associations met last week with an Israeli agriculture coordinator, a representative of the Israeli farm-export company Agrexco and the deputy ambassador of the Netherlands in Tel Aviv at the Erez crossing point between Gaza and Israel last week.
That is because the produce has a long and complicated route to get from fields like Um Hajjar and into a French housewife’s strawberry shortcake.
Hamas as the de facto ruler of Gaza had to approve the exports, but because Israel and the European Union don’t recognize the Islamic organization as the official government, representatives of the PA had to act as intermediaries. Indeed, at Kerem Shalom the PA will have an official presence as the produce moves over the border to Israel.
Israel will also need to deploy scanning machines that can x-ray cargo containers and ensure that terrorists or arms aren’t being smuggled out of Gaza. Israel has been wary about letting goods leave Gaza after two Palestinian teenagers infiltrated the Israeli port of Ashdod in 2004 by hiding in a shipping container. They blew themselves up, killing 10 people.
But Israel’s security needs have to be measured against the need for perishable produce and flowers to reach their final destination in Amsterdam and other points in Europe. Last year, Gaza suffered big losses when Israel delayed export permission by two months.
As well, farmers, in particular flower growers, need a host of inputs as well as packaging materials, which require Israeli approval to be imported.
The exports underway these days, however, aren’t enough for Gaza farmers, who form a major component of the Strip’s economy. About 900 acres is devoted to growing strawberries, which will yield a harvest of 1,000 tons, about 40% more than the current export quota. Gazans grow a cornucopia of other fruits and vegetables as well. Their natural market is Israel or the West Bank, but so far Israel has barred sales to those markets. Shaath said this is unfair as Israel now exports some $3400 million of produce to Palestinian areas and under the Oslo peace accord should accept Palestinian imports in return.
Nevertheless, Shaath is sanguine about next year’s export prospects. Gaza crops tend to mature earlier than competing ones, so that if the complicated chain of political and security arrangements can be preserved and developed, the Strip’s farmers will be the first on the market.
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