� finding out about Palestinian olive oil
Can the way you shop make a difference to the world around you? In October we visited a Palestinian olive farmer and his village co-operative to see where the extra virgin olive oil we sell on the Traidcraft stall every month comes from.
We spent the day in Nus Jbail with Khader Mansour from the�Palestinian Fairtrade Association (PFTA), helping a local farmer harvest his olive crop. Olive groves have been in families for generations and the whole family, including the children, are involved in the harvest. His family had been cultivating these groves for over 300 years, and the groves sustain two generations of the family who are still working the land and raising the next generation.
The farmer and his wife spread sheets under each tree in turn, and the olives were stripped by hand or using sticks to reach the upper branches. The farmer�s wife and a couple of younger members of the party even climbed up into the trees to shake them a bit more. Falling olives tumbling down your back is a unique feeling.
Olives collected in the sheet were then cleaned using a simple inclined sieve to get rid of leaves and twigs, and the olives were packed in sacks. This form of harvesting is low-tech but effective and has been going on for 4,000 years. At midday we were treated to an amazing lunch under the olive trees, which arrived by tractor.
The olive harvest in October (which follows the harvests for apricots, dates and other crops starting in July) takes over the life of the village because of the priority it has in generating each family�s annual income. Every other activity, including school, weddings and university, is put on hold until the harvest is completed. Once the harvest is over the farmer will prune the trees and plough the land twice to open up the soil � once to kill weeds by scorching them and later in readiness for the next rainy season. Such traditional ways of farming are a sustainable way of protecting the environment and the soil from erosion and mineral depletion, and of managing with little water in this arid climate.
From the farm we visited the local PFTA olive press to see the farmer�s crop washed, crushed, centrifuged, settled and bottled, and we sampled the fresh raw olive oil with taboun bread. Only top quality olive oil is sold as extra virgin oil. If it doesn�t have the right level of acidity and make the grade it goes into cosmetics and soap. Each farmer is allocated a strict time slot to deliver his sacks and put his olives through the press so that the co-operative can keep a record of how much each farmer brings and its quality.
From about 4-6 trees our team had harvested two sacks of olives, weighing about 50kg each. If it takes 3-4kg of olives to make 1litre of oil then our morning�s work had generated 25-30 litres of oil for sale through the co-operative. Since the farmer had an olive grove of about 300 trees, his annual harvest might amount in an average year to 1500-2000 litres of oil, whilst the solid residue is recycled as fuel for cooking or heating.
Farmers are vulnerable if access to the fields is prevented or anything happens to disrupt marketing the oil. This happened between 2001 and 2008, when Israeli government action prevented Palestinian farmers from selling their crops.
The Palestinian farmers face numerous challenges. Most farms are in what is called Area C which is controlled by the Israeli government, who also control movement, development and access to utilities (including power). Palestinian farmers face other commercial biases:
Numerous checkpoints make it difficult get goods in and out of the area. Since olive oil has to be kept at a controlled temperature, more expensive packaging is needed to make allowances for possible delays.
The export regulations they face are more complicated, take more time and increase costs (e.g pallets need to be smaller so that sniffer dogs can get up onto them.)
The marketing boycott of Israeli has forced their prices down making it harder for Palestinian farmers to compete on price, whilst at the same time Israeli farmers get discounts on VAT and other taxes not available to the Palestinians
Palestinian olive oil is more expensive in European markets because of import duties levied on Palestinian olive oil, whereas Israel has negotiated a special EU trade deal.
Zaytoun, a UK social enterprise, was founded in 2004 to support the resilience of Palestinian farmers under occupation through fairly trading their olive oil. It was initially funded by hundreds of customers who put up payment in advance of receiving their oil, and has now expanded into other artisanal products from Palestine. Zaytoun also supported Palestinian farmers�to pioneer the world�s first Fairtrade certified olive oil in 2009, selling it through the UK market.
On our trip we met Taysir Arbasi, Zaytoun�s Coordinator in Palestine. He explained that, if you work out what the farmer�s household income might be from the sale of his oil, you begin to understand why Fairtrade � which pays farmers a better price for their produce than commercial middlemen � is so important. Often, it is the difference between sustainability and destitution. And the co-operative gets back a proportion of the profit to spend on community projects.
Our Traidcraft stall (on the first Sunday of every month after the main service) sells Zaytoun olive oil. Please buy their olive oil and support these Palestinian farmers. Eating well in London can contribute significantly to others eating well in Palestine, or perhaps not at all.
Zaytoun organises trips each year to help with the olive harvest. Visit their website to find out more – www.zaytoun.org/visit_palestine.html