Fri 7-February-2025

Smuggled Israeli chickens in the West Bank harm local ones

Saturday 17-December-2016

Palestinian chicken farmers in the West Bank suffer from more losses when trying to sell their chickens in the local market as they find themselves forced to sell it at even less than cost price to be able to compete with Israeli chickens smuggled from nearby settlements as the Palestinian Authority is unable to control the market.

Huge Loss
With his heart full of sorrow Palestinian farmer Faheem Ibrahim told the Palestinian Information Center’s reporter “The price of a chick aged one day is three NIS and we keep feeding it for 40 days and the final cost for one kilo of meat is eight NIS (One USD equals 3.80 NIS).”

He continues “We are forced to sell at six NIS per kilo with a total loss of 2 NIS per kilo to be able to compete with Israeli chickens smuggled from nearby Israeli settlements. We do this to avoid having huge numbers of unsold chickens which will result in a greater loss for us. We have been experiencing this since the beginning of the year. I have suffered financial losses estimated at 1.8M NIS so far.”

The Problem
Farmers stress that the problem lies in exporting chickens by big merchants from the Israeli occupation especially from Israeli settlements with a total price of three NIS per kilo which forces local farmers to sell at a low price.”

Palestinian farmer Khalid Ibrahim believes that the Ministry of Agriculture is responsible for this problem (Which is in charge of this sector). He said: “The Ministry is fully aware of the situation of chicken farmers and knows the number of chickens available at the farms.”

He wondered who would benefit from smuggling Israeli chickens from nearby settlements to the Palestinian market. He added “We knew that this smuggling only takes place at the hands of official Palestinian institutions or in a situation where there is no taxes and prices monitoring.”

Palestinian farmer Ahmed Abulrub commented “The chicken farms sector is complicated to some extent. We invested in this sector to support the national product and to dispense with exported products. Yet the current Palestinian system does not give new opportunities for investment at a time a very limited number of people control the whole sector.”

Ordinary Citizens Get No Benefit
The Nablus-based agricultural Engineer Khalid Mansour told the PIC “As a citizen I don’t see any difference in chicken prices because the price at chicken farms is low compared to the market. Merchants buy chickens at lower prices and sell them at higher prices to some extent. That’s why the profits farmers should get are taken by merchants who make huge profits at the expense of farmers.”

He called for passing laws which prevent merchants from gaining much profits at the expense of farmers “who suffer from the pressure of promoting their products and find themselves forced to sell at a price proposed by the merchants.”

He pointed out “A very important problem needs to be addressed: Our market is open for Israeli products which negatively impact our national products.”

Appeal
The owners of chicken farms across the West Bank have submitted an appeal to the Palestinian Prime Minister Ramy Alhamdallah in which they urged him to stop the continuing worsening situation at chicken farms and to take necessary decisions and measures and to give instructions to concerned officials and bodies to support farmers and find solutions for their problems.”

The farmers explained in their appeal that after following with the Ministry of Agriculture and the Customs Department they realized that both bodies are aware of what is going on of smuggling chickens from Jewish settlements to the Palestinian market via well-known agents and merchants.”

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