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 Home Overseas Projects The Middle East Project History
Occupied Palestinian Territories: Rebuilding Food Production in Gaza 2002-2005
In July 2005, Union Aid Abroad's partner organisation, MA’AN Development Centre, completed a three-year project designed to rebuild food production in three villages in the southern Gaza Strip: Qarara, Khuza’a and Abasan.
Food security recipient - Gaza
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In these areas significant farm land has been destroyed along the borders with Israel and near Israeli settlements. Closures of Israeli checkpoints meant that farmers could not get the produce to outside markets and workers could not get to jobs outside Gaza, so have little money to buy local vegetables. Over 70% of the Palestinian population lives under the poverty line of around A$3 per day.
The Gaza Strip has a population of 1.3 million, most of whom are refugees, living on 210 square kilometres, about a tenth the size of the ACT. Only 176,347 dunums are cultivated (a dunum is about 1,000 square metres). Access to water supplies and to fishing in the Mediterranean is restricted. Until Israel implemented its disengagement plan and withdrew settlers from the Gaza Strip in September 2005, about 6,000 Israelis lived in 19 (mainly beach-side) settlements that took up over a third of the Gaza Strip, producing cherry tomatoes for export to Europe.
The project trained 17 local community organisations in management skills, and has boosted family food security through training 880 women in animal raising, agricultural production, food processing and preservation, nutrition, environment, sanitation and hygiene issues. Nine hundred fruit trees and 1,200 egg-laying chickens were distributed to poor families.
To encourage farmers to keep up production in the face of losses of land, equipment and markets, the project provided 30,000 tomato, cucumber, eggplant and okra seedlings, 45 sets of protective gear, 15 safe storage units for fertilisers and pesticides, and 15 water tanks. Thirty-three dunums were rehabilitated and 12 irrigation networks constructed; 33 greenhouses and 12 irrigation ponds were restored. Almost 300 farmers took part in training on organic agricultural techniques.
The project cannot overcome the constraints caused by the occupation, closures and settlements, but it can help to build self-reliance and maintain some local food production so that nutrition in southern Gaza does not continue to fall.
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