The Palestinian farmers in the beleaguered Gaza Strip are getting ready for the olive harvest season which the Ministry of Agriculture has set on October 12 amid calls to delay it in order to enhance the production of olive oil following expectations that this season could be less productive than previous years.
The olive harvest is known for being part of the Palestinian heritage as it brings together all family members — men women and children — to help gather the crop and enjoy the yearly agricultural occasion.
Over the course of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict the occupation regime has fought olive trees almost on a daily basis bulldozing destroying and appropriating thousands of dunums of olive groves but local farmers respond every time to such Israeli practices by growing more olive trees and expand crop production because they have a deep-rooted belief that the olive tree reflects their historic presence on the land of Palestine.
Spokesman for the Agriculture Ministry in Gaza Adham Basyouni said strict measures would be applied during this year’s olive harvest in terms of abiding by certain technical standards and COVID-19 precautionary requirements.
“There is a significant drop in the olive yield rate this year as a result of fluctuating climatic conditions” spokesman Basyouni told Quds Press expecting that this rate could reach only 35 percent of the total annual production.
However he pointed out that the productive area of olive trees increased this year with 40000 dunums of land planted with olive trees.
He said that last year Gaza was 100 percent self-sufficient in olive oil as its production amounted to about 4200 tons extracted from over 26230 tons of olive drupes adding that there are 35 olive oil processing facilities in Gaza operating full-automatic and semi-automatic oil pressing machines.
The spokesman warned farmers of harvesting olives earlier saying such practice would lead to low production and poor quality.
He affirmed that the possible low volume of olive oil this year should not be a worrying issue in Gaza as the Agriculture Ministry is committed to providing the product in the markets according to the current economic situation.
“As long as the local product is available and covers the population’s needs the priority remains for it but if the product fails to cover the markets there will be measures to provide it to avoid causing any disruption to the marketing process” he explained.
“The Agriculture Ministry has announced that 2021 will be a year to improve the quality of production inputs and boost the olive sector after achieving 100 percent self-sufficiency last year” he added.
