"They Planted for us to eat: We will plant for them to eat"!

That old Palestinian saying contains the philosophy of Al Zaytouna, the Palestinian Olive Tree Association, founded in 2004 a non-profit association working in all the Palestine agricultural areas that produce olives. The olive branch, used as a symbol of peace, is here a symbol of the Palestinians struggle for survival.

Palestine often said to be the home of the olive tree, has some of the oldest olive groves in the world, as much as 1500 to 2000 years old. With more than 12 million olive trees, covering nearly 200,000 acres they produce fruit that supports over half the population and dominate the agricultural landscape. But for Palestinian farmers the process of growing and selling their produce is an incredibly difficult challenge.

According to one of Zaytounas partners, War on Want, olive oil is the backbone of the Palestinian agricultural economy, providing employment for 65% of the population. But the last five years have decimated the industry with large swathes of olives groves being razed by Israeli bulldozers or burned to the ground by Israeli settlers. Large amounts of oil go to waste because it is too dangerous for farmers to harvest the crops or because of movement restrictions. Every year over half of the oil produced is literally poured down the drain due to their inability to access international markets and over the last four years the Israeli occupying forces have uprooted almost 400,000 olive trees with a value of over $60 million

This makes the hard lives of the Palestinians that much harder, but in response the Palestinian Farmers’ Union and a group of olive oil producers came together to form Al Zaytouna to find ways to protect their livelihoods and win new markets for their products. As an umbrella organization, Al Zaytouna, helps to organize farmers and focus their efforts in defense of their interests.

The Olive growers and olive pressers are organized into co-operatives with Al Zaytouna representing 14 cooperatives with a total of 1,700 olive oil producers. Six of the co-ops are organic although pretty much all Palestinian olive oil is organic because of the use of traditional farming methods and a key task is to help the co-ops obtain organic certification. Al Zaytouna is managed by an elected board of directors and run by a professional management team supported by specialized volunteer staff including several volunteers from overseas.

Just to show that the USA is not a monolithic bloc of evil doers another partner is ACDI/VOCA. The Washington based NGO dates back to the 1997 merger of Agricultural Cooperative Development International and Volunteers in Overseas Cooperative Assistance, two U.S. non-profit economic development organizations working largely in agriculture.

They have been remarkably successful under these astonishingly tough conditions. Al Zaytouna – supported cooperatives have eradicated the olive fly, a major threat to production, increased oil production some 40% between 2005 and 2008, created local committees that train farmers in harvest, storage and production techniques and provided improved storage equipment such as stainless steel tanks to maintain the oil's quality.

Even with improved products the growers need access to customers and this is where the UK end Zaytoun comes in. Zaytoun, a member of Co-operatives UK is a co-perative Community Interest Company. The Government developed the Community Interest Company (CIC) as a new type of company designed for social enterprises that wish to use their profits and assets for the benefit of the community. The first CICs were registered with Companies House in just 2005.

Since 2004 Zaytoun has imported more than 150 tons of olive oil (including now certified organic olive oil), as well as Nablusi olive oil soap, za’atar (thyme based herb mix), dates, couscous and almonds.

Heather Masoud of Zaytoun says that trade, while difficult in the current political climate, is the best way to make a difference: “The Palestinian people have long been associated with terrorism or victimhood in the popular media, and their rich culture and society has often been overshadowed by this emphasis on violence or extreme poverty. Aid donations, whilst necessary, rarely foster foundations for long-term prosperity and social revitalisation. Our trade with the Palestinian people has brought in excess of £1 million to their economy, and support for rural society.”

The current situation is indeed grave but as Heather says, “the current assault in Gaza largely does not affect Zaytoun’s supply chains. In the main the Palestinian producers we work with are in the West Bank”. However she adds, “The West Bank supply chain is also a vulnerable one; the Palestinian’s do not have any control of their sea or land borders or their air space. Relying on the Occupying force to ‘allow’ trade is a weak position and as we saw in Gaza the economy will be destroyed if Israel also decides to deny passage of goods there.”

In fact in Zaytoun did source couscous from a women’s co-op in Gaza but the business was no longer viable because Israel has not allowed any of their products to cross the border for the last 3 years.

We have all been shocked by recent events in Gaza but we can all support the Palestinians by buying Zaytoun Olive oil and their other products and it is time I think that we mounted a campaign to get their oil into our major supermarkets!

Interested in where you can obtain Zaytoun Palestinian Olive Oil?
Go to: www.zaytoun.org