Palestinian farmer Amjad al-Barawi 24 picks up his strawberries tenderly and places them in a wooden-box in order to export them from the Gaza Strip to the European market.
Al-Barawi exerts a lot of efforts to take good care of his strawberry farm in the town of Beit Lahyia in northern Gaza Strip in order to produce a high-quality produce to be exported to Europe to compensate for his loss during the last few years.
Plenty of Produce
Al-Barawi told the Palestinian Information Center “We started picking up the strawberry produce for this year and it is abundant unlike the previous years.” He opined that the lack of produce in the previous years was “due to the Israeli wars that destroyed the soil and damaged agriculture.”
He added “We were allowed to export our strawberries to Europe in December which opens new doors for us and allows us to make more profits unlike selling it in the local market.”
The Gaza Strip inhabited by two million Palestinians has been placed under tight Israeli siege and closure of crossings for the last 10 years which negatively impacted all walks of life.
Another farmer Mohammed Rajab told the PIC “The strawberry produce this year in my five-dunum land lot is expected to be enormous. The season is bringing good produce this year despite the late rain season.”
He noted that for the last two years farmers were not allowed to export their produce to Europe.
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture the Israeli wars against Gaza have caused a great loss for farmers estimated at 550 million dollars. Some 11% of Gaza’s labor force works in the agricultural sector with 44000 workers.
Good Produce
Tahseen al-Saqa the Director of Marketing at the Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza told the PIC “Two tons of strawberry were exported to Europe from Gaza on Thursday (1/12/2016)” adding “Big quantities of strawberry are expected to be exported to European markets this year.”
He continued “Some 600 dunums of land are planted with strawberry in Gaza and most of the produce is exported to Europe.” He noted that in the past some 3000 dunums of land used to be planted with strawberry and Gaza used to produce 7000 tons of strawberry.
“However at present only 600 dunums are planted with strawberry due to leveling agricultural lands and turning them into urban areas” he explained.
Gaza’s farmers have picked up their strawberries and got them ready to be exported to Europe through Karem Abu Salem Crossing.
The Israeli occupation authorities have only recently allowed the strawberry produce to be exported to Europe.
