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Towards Alternative Self-Reliant Agricultural Development
George Kurzom
2001
It is a pleasure to introduce this invaluable work that debates an important issue pertaining to the agricultural sector. For historical, economic and cultural reasons, the Palestinian people have depended on the land for their wellbeing. Though the agricultural sector faces many obstacles that have greatly staggered its development, concern for the sector has diminished, particularly with the ending of the Intifada. Israeli policies meanwhile have focused on destroying the agricultural capacity of Palestine and imposing it to sub serve the Israeli economy. At the same time, assistance programs do not give adequate attention to the sector, indicated by the marginal apportionment of international assistance to agriculture, funds that are far sufficient from bringing about necessary change.
The paper presents various presentations towards an alternative development model in agriculture that relies on participation, simplicity, self-reliance and environmental awareness. This involves proposals in policy-making that must be considered in strategizing for Palestinian agriculture. While the analytical approach used is concise and in depth, it does not strive to present a comprehensive strategy in agricultural development; in fact, there are question marks as to whether this strategy can be applied realistically. There is no doubt however that several local and external factors must apply in order to make the presentations realistically possible. This involves admitting to the continuous overpowering status of the capitalist market as the basis for the attitudes of producers and consumers and the use of available resources. Additionally, comprehensive research must be made on whether any of the proposed strategies can be applied. Here also comes in the importance of having confidence in the ideas presented and the importance of convincing the farmers of these ideas, given that all other circumstances favor the success of these proposals. There is no doubt that this study serves to disclose and analyze the current status of agriculture in Palestine, towards formulating an appropriate agricultural strategy, alongside formal proposals.
We hope this study receives the consideration it deserves from policy-makers, and researchers and that it contributes to the formulation of a developmental framework for Palestine, one that considers the human aspects involved. This paper was made possible through the joint partnership of two Palestinian institutions working in development: MA'AN Development Center (MA'AN) and the Development Studies Program at Birzeit University.
Dr. Nader Izzat Said Director Development Studies Program / Birzeit University
Abstract
This research paper seeks to propose informal popular agricultural production as an alternative to the formal Arab agricultural economic plans and policies, in general, and as an alternative to the formal Palestinian and international plans and policies that are set for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in particular. It includes an analytical approach to some of the most significant objective and external factors that have resulted in the distortion of the agricultural economy in Palestine. Aside from a critical analysis of the current proposals, policies, and strategies (that are based largely on the fact that the Palestinian economy is subservient to the Israeli economy), this paper also takes up the self-imposed factors that serve to deepen the distortion of the agricultural economy.
Furthermore, this paper seeks to gain support for national agricultural production through applying an agricultural strategy based on internal articulation within the local market. This entails free and unrestrained self-reliant popular production and public production projects that are inter complementary in the sector, as well as the initiation of informal agricultural activities. This means encouraging interrelated agricultural patterns that take incorporate traditional and natural organic practices that are sector articulated and which use little external inputs. All this should finally break our dependence on external inputs and guarantee diversified production and food security. This also entails that our agricultural strategy should be linked directly with industrial production.
This paper regards that the most beneficial agricultural production system is the self-reliant one. All its various components are supplied from within the system itself. In this system, overspending does not exist, there are no lost wastes that are not returned to the system, and there are no destructive hazards caused to the environment, the soil and general health.
Table of Contents
1 Introduction 2 Distortion of the Infrastructure of Palestinian Agricultural Production Due to Objective and External Factors 2.1 Destroying the Foundation of Self- Reliance 2.2 Expanding Luxury Agriculture: For Whose Benefit? 2.3 Agricultural (Development) Banks 2.4 Stolen Palestinian Water 2.5 Environmental Destruction
3 The Self-Imposed Factors in Substantiating the Distortion of the Palestinian Agricultural Economy 3.1 Lack of Sector Articulation 3.2 Practicing unsustainable Agriculture 3.3 Chemical Chaos 3.4 The Self-Imposed Factors in Destroying the Earth and the Environment 3.5 Intensifying or Modifying Technology? 3.6 Model of the Formal Palestinian Role in Intensifying Palestinian Agricultural Distortion 3.7 Examples of How Palestinian Farmers Destroy the Soil 3.8 Productive Cooperatives 3.9 Decline in Agricultural Work 3.10 Agricultural Counseling and Research
4 Towards Alternative Self-Reliant Agricultural Strategy 4.1 Sector Articulation 4.2 Informal Economics 4.3 Note on "Sustainable Development" 4.4 What is Self-Reliant Agricultural Strategy 4.5 Release From Subordination to External Production Inputs 4.6 Non-Governmental Organizations
5 Conclusion, Findings, and Recommendations
6 Endnotes
7 Works Cited
Introduction
Western government representatives and international economic and financial institutions are strongly and systematically pushing forth the concept of “Free Trade”, "globalizing" world economies and improving foreign investment potential in developing nations. In short, the West still insists on forging development onto the people of the "Third World," a development based on economic and social concepts that have nothing to do with these states' productive, economic, and social structure. The concept of "Free Trade" is a direct outcome of the economic, technological and administrative standing of the developed industrial West and it’s role in the international market. The status of the industrialized states is totally discordant with the status of "Third World" states. The latter have drastically failed in applying Western models and succeeded only in destroying the traditional economic foundation that existed before their colonization. Their economies, including their agriculture, were dependent on the local resources and markets. Western colonialism destroyed most of the "Third World" states' economic self-reliance to substantiate their subservient consumptive character and to shed them of their food security.
Despite assurances from the Food and Agriculture Organization that 1996 registered a 7% rise in the global production of strategic grains, the global supply of grains actually decreased as prices increased by 50% for the same year.1 This only shows that the periodical global wheat crisis is unreal and caused by the competition in the world wheat market between the United States (the world's largest wheat supplier) and Europe. Profit-based, this competition means control over the global wheat supply and thus control over the food sources of the "Third World."
Currently, wheat producers in the West (North America and the European Union) have indicated the need to increase the wheat-producing land area in their countries, while their international financial institutions are forcing "Third World" states to grow luxury agricultural products for export to Europe, America, and Japan. Meanwhile, most peoples in the "Third World" lack basic food staples. This economic precept that is imposed onto the "Third World" by the West means that monoculture, which is directed towards the so-called global market, has made these peoples unable to produce or ensure basic foods for themselves. All these people can do is face inevitable famine.
The truth of the matter is not that the world food production is insufficient but that the starved and poor of the "Third World" do not own the capital necessary to purchase or grow their own food needs. Quantity is not the issue.
Moreover, the large surplus created by the "green revolution" in production was a result of the inception of expensive inputs, such as high productivity seeds, fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and irrigation. The benefits though are reaped by the wealthy farmers who are able to purchase large quantities of inputs and acquire credits to expand.
It's worth noting that most of the chemical pesticides used in the "Third World" (more than 70%) were used in growing luxury products for the American, European, and Japanese markets; they were not used to grow basic, primary food staples for the poor.2
In the Arab countries, many regimes have bought "prescriptions" such as "structural adjustment," "privatization," "free market," and the "Middle Eastern Project," advanced by the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as the way to economic prosperity. These concepts however have resulted in nothing but the regression of the public sector and state planning, exasperating the continuous diminishment of the ability of most of these Arab states to provide food for their own people with their own local resources. Consequently, these states have become even more dependent on imported food. For example, self-reliant food production has decreased in Egypt and Algeria from 84% and 88% respectively in 1963 to 62% and 41% in 1995,3 despite the fact that agriculture in many Arab states can absorb more than 50% of the local work force and in some cases up to 70%.4 But the contribution of agriculture to the Arab gross domestic product does not exceed 20% at best. Besides, there are enormous land areas (910 million dunums) suitable for agriculture but are not being used. These areas constitute more than 68% of the arable land in the Arab World, which is approximately 1,330 million dunums. This means that the area of cultivated land is approximately 420 million dunums, less than 32% of the total arable land area.5 Although most Arab regions remained self-reliant until the early 70s and some even exported grain and wheat in the 50s and 60s (as did Egypt and Sudan), they have become one of the largest importers of food products in the "Third World." In 1989, the Arab countries plummeted into a food shortage approximated at more than $16.6 billion.6 The direct cause of this crisis was that the demand for agricultural products exceeded the annual growth in agricultural production (by a difference of nearly 3.5% annually).7 On the other hand, millions of workers in Arab countries today are jobless or are emmigrating, while their own countries (and particularly the Gulf States) are filled with foreign laborers, "experts," and technicians.
Additionally, conducive to privatization, some regimes have passed new legislation to legitimize the process by which the poor become poorer and the rich richer. Recently in Egypt, the government annulled the article in the "law of lessee and lessor" that protects the tenant farmer from the stranglehold of the landowners and money giants. The previous law, set by Abdel Nasser, prevented the landowner from raising the rent or evicting the farmers.8 As a result of the new law, the landowners have regained the freedom to manipulate the millions of poor farmers who have since lost their sole source of income.
It's possible to overlook this dark scene and to instead focus on agricultural production as a way to satisfying the basic food requirements of the Arab people through complementary agriculture. This type of agriculture would make use of the moderate climatic conditions in many of the Arab states and would take advantage of the large arable land areas and water resources.
In the case of Palestine, the newly achieved Israeli-Palestinian political-economic agreements impose harsher conditions and economic obstacles onto the West Bank and the Gaza Strip than those existing before Oslo, particularly that the peace process was founded on the fact that the Palestinian economy is dependent on the Israeli one. Furthermore, the international and Palestinian economic plans for the areas of Palestinian self-government were based on the false assumption that the political agreements would translate into free movement of the labor force and products between Israel and the Palestinian areas, and abroad. The only party actually enjoying free movement is Israel.
In addition, the Paris economic agreement gave Israel, similar to all the other agreements proceeding it, the right to decide for the Palestinians what goes and what doesn't go. According to the agreements, Israel has sole authority over all that deals with the Palestinian exports and imports and any economic agreements with Arab or foreign states. Not only are the political security issues subject to joint Israeli-Palestinian committees but so are economic issues. Naturally, the more dominant party in these committees is the actual decision-maker. In other words, the Israeli-Palestinian agreements granted Israel sole decisive power over what items and quantities the Palestinians would be allowed to import or export. This condition also applies to agricultural trade. To cite an example, the "agricultural calendar" that was agreed upon between the Palestinian and the Jordanian Ministers of Agriculture on October 9, 1997 is actually subject to Israeli approval.9
This is not all. The agreements signed with Israel define which sectors, consumer items and services should take precedence over others. This is founded on the "complementary" status of the Palestinian market with the Israeli market in the various sectors, particularly those sectors that ensure the marketing of Israeli items and inputs, not to mention the use of the roads that connect the areas of the self-government with the Israeli settlements.
Agricultural land is the scarcest and most precious national Palestinian resource, which this generation should to be obligated to preserve and develop for the well-being of the generations to come. However, the unfortunate irony is that in the Palestinian Occupied Territories of 1967, which have nothing but a weak consuming economy, there is a growing services sector that in 1994 registered more than 60% of the gross domestic product as the share for agriculture decreased from 35% (prior to 1967) to less than 16% (1994).10 With this decline, the ability of the agricultural sector to absorb workers decreased from 32% in the early 80s to less than 13% by the mid-90s.11 In contrast, settlers in general and those settling the Jordan Valley in particular, have not ceased to expand within the Palestinian agricultural areas, while cultivated Palestinian areas are continually diminishing, lost not only to annexations and Jewdaization but also as a result of policies and activities that are non-implicative towards the land and food production.
In light of Israeli control over our food and the movement of our labor workers and our products, and its enforcement of hunger strangulation mechanisms, what is now needed is the free movement and undertaking of popular (community) self-reliant agricultural production that produces the basic food staples for the people, based on the local resources, instead of complying to the needs of the external markets and a minority of people who are in for the profit.
This course is a mechanism of national resistance favoring the Palestinian economy, as it withstands the economic and political pressures imposed by Israel and other foreign parties. This entails investment in popular agricultural production, whether through communal, collective or individual projects.
The question that must be answered is why do international financial institutions and the European Economic Community, and Israel encourage Palestinian farmers to take up agricultural practices that have failed in their own countries, such as the case with monoculture. Why are their failures exported to us? Today, the West (Europe and North America) is calling for diversified, sustainable and environmentally safe agriculture as a necessity to survival and economic stability. This new supposition will form an alternative to monoculture, which is highly dependent on inputs that come from outside the production units, e.g. pesticides, chemical fertilizers, hybrid seeds, water, monetary loans, and others. Furthermore, monoculture presents other issues that must be faced, such as environmental pollution caused by industrial monoculture, the imbalance in the natural environment, the destruction of soil fertility, and water loss. However, Palestinian rural communities have always been characterized traditionally and historically with diversified agriculture and self-reliant food production. So why are we so eager to adopt foreign agricultural systems and patterns that are short-sighted and only aim to achieve quick and easy profits at the expense of our actual food needs, our environment, water, soil, and the well-being of our future generation? Most of the profits only go to the importers and marketers in external markets.
2 Distortion of the Infrastructure of Palestinian Agricultural Production Due to Objective and External Factors
We can say that the most alarming aspect in the Palestinian economy is characterized by the continuous process to establish a consumptive and parasitic foundation for this economy. This is embodied in the fact that Palestinian society produces far less than it consumes, and there are no indications that the large gap between production and consumption will shrink. This gap, with the trade deficit, is covered to a large extent by the financial transfers coming from abroad and not by the accumulation of capital inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip. This is clearly illustrated by the low Palestinian gross domestic product in comparison with the gross national product. This becomes further apparent if we take a quick look at the food goods, whether fresh or processed, in our local market. It is startlingly clear how few Palestinian produced goods (those produced with local materials) are compared to the total number of food goods. In fact, various types of so called "local" goods are in fact Israeli-made but marketed in the West Bank and Gaza Strip under a Palestinian label.
Being a consumer market that purchases most of its food products from Israel or abroad, including strategic foods, means explicitly that we lack food security. Here lies the true reason why we are dependent on the outside. The lack of food security means also a lack in national security, which cannot be achieved when Israel and other external markets have control over whether we eat or starve.
2.1 Destroying the Foundation of Self-Reliance At the core, Israeli economic policy conforms with the same colonial policies set by the British occupation and the Balfour Declaration with regards to the Palestinians of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, compared to the Palestinians of the occupied areas of 1948. These economic policies contend to destroy Palestinian agriculture. If land is not cultivated, it will be easier for its owners to abandon it, sell it or give it up. Work in the Israeli market has forced our younger generation to leave the land unused, especially the rocky areas and those that cannot be reached by tractor. Consequently, the land has become unproductive as the youth have opted for the quick buck thrown their way by Israel. This reality embodies the colonial policy of "enticing the people in order to keep the land unused."
In the Arab countries, as in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the West continues to push forth the so-called "free market" and "free trade" through their various "development" and "funding" institutions. Not innocently, these measures have directly contributed to marginalizing or even to totally destroying the traditional economic foundation (especially in agriculture) that existed in Palestine before colonialism and which was dependent on the local market and resources. This deterioration occurred not because our economic foundation was so "backward" but because of the will of the West to advance the Zionist policy of destroying our economic self-reliance and securing our subordination. Exasperating this is the Zionist theft of large areas of the most fertile Palestinian land. Thousands of Palestinians have lost their most important production source, constituting a major blow to a source of capital accumulation that would have gone into investing in agricultural development and other sectors. If we consider the dual dismemberment of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, i.e. dismembering the land by cutting off the Gaza Strip and Jerusalem from the West Bank and cutting off human communities, we find that the Palestinian people presently lack the natural foundation necessary for the existence and development of any natural human society.
2.2 Expanding luxury Agriculture: For Whose Benefit? The World Trade Organization's International Trade Center is trying to convince us (those living in the Palestinian Occupied Territories of 1967) that we are only "footsteps" away from entering the European market (which represents 65-70% of world trade in flowers- the world trade being about $10 billion). According to the World Trade Organization, an excess of $14 billion12 can be made by the Palestinian areas in the trade of flowers internationally. In other words, the Palestinians can produce and export a quantity of flowers that exceeds in value that of international trade! The Organization is requesting that the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture increase the land areas grown with flowers from 900 dunums (presently) to approximately 125,000 dunums "as fast as possible because the present production rate is insignificant."13
Aside from all the question marks on the true reasons behind this enthusiasm to raise the production of flowers so drastically and of who are the real beneficiaries of this scheme, it is worth stating that the total cultivated land areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are approximately 1,782,000 dunums. Irrigated areas make up approximately 217,000 dunums.14 In other words, the areas that the World Trade Organization requests that we grow with flowers would make up approximately 7% of the total cultivated land and 58% of the total irrigated land. Considering the fact that flower production requires extensive irrigation, all of a sudden and not surprisingly, pure water (which we have long suffered a shortage of, especially in the Gaza Strip) is available for this!
In addition, the World Trade Organization encourages the Palestinian Authorities and the "donor" states to provide full support to the Palestinian farmer who exports flowers and to make sure he is not set back by Israeli measures or any natural hazards.15 The basic question here is: Why all this concern by the West and by the Israelis to facilitate the production and export of flowers, considering all other Palestinian agricultural products? Why should so many accommodations be made for a luxury product and not for a basic strategic crop such as wheat? Furthermore, why isn't support being given towards alleviating the huge losses suffered annually by our farmers as a result of the Israeli border closures and natural factors?
In fact the Israeli military government in particular has since the late 80s encouraged our farmers in the Gaza Strip to grow flowers, in an effort to steer Palestinian agriculture into producing products that correlate with the requirements of the Israeli economy, whether for direct consumption or to fill the gaps in Israeli exports. Eventually, this will serve the Israeli policy of integrating the Palestinian economy with that of Israel's. This policy, based on a series of military orders and tax measures, is aimed at keeping the Palestinian farmer from competing with the Israeli farmer both within the Israeli and Palestinian markets or in the international market.
To entice Palestinian farmers, the "civil administration meanwhile “provided” loans and technical assistance," as well as assurance of a market for Palestinian flowers. It was a success. The occupation did convince some farmers to grow flowers instead of vital food crops.16 Finally, when the Israelis had made sure that Palestinian agriculture was serving its economy, the "incentives" to the farmers were cut back. Agricultural production became subject to market fluctuations. In short, the Occupier succeeded in wiping out basic Palestinian agricultural production by denying it protection against Israeli and foreign competition and encouraging Palestinian farmers to grow luxury products that do not serve the local market but the pockets of a few landowners and large businessmen.
In this regard, it must be made clear that the European market will not be freely accessible to the market of flowers or any other Palestinian products. The European Community enforces the PAC policy that imposes restrictions on imports from non-European states in order to protect the European farmers.17 Given that in specific political-economic circumstances facing the Palestinians, the European market could very well be closed to Palestinian products. Another consideration is the prices placed by the Western states on their own agricultural and industrial products and the ability of these products to compete with similar products in the underdeveloped countries. The "free trade" agreement signed in February 1997 between the European Union and the Palestinian Authority (separate from agreements with Israel) illustrates the shrewdness of European policy. Though tariff restrictions and other restraints were exempted for Palestinian-made goods entering the European market, tariff exemptions only applied to a marginal portion of agricultural products,18 as some Palestinian agricultural products may compete with their European counterparts.
More importantly, the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture has recently invested more that $300 million to cultivate an area of 100,000 dunums in the Negev Desert (south of the Gaza Strip) with large quantities of citrus trees, vegetables, olive trees, wheat and flowers. These crops will be irrigated with treated waste water from the Tel-Aviv area and will yield products that are expected to compete in the European and American markets.19 This reminds us of the time the Israelis flooded the Palestinian market with Israeli watermelons, wiping out Palestinian watermelons from the market with their much more competitive prices. In 1985, Palestinian production of watermelon reached over 100,00 tons (Jenin contributed nearly 60,000 tons). But by the end of the 80s, production fell to nearly 10,000 tons (with production dropping to nil in the Jordan Valley), despite the fact that the nature of the land and the water supply for watermelon cultivation has been unchanged.20
The inducement of Palestinian farmers to give up basic, traditional farming in favor of luxury agriculture, will eventually lead to the destruction of the remainder of our agricultural sector. All the while, Israel is exporting the same agricultural products we are to give up. Furthermore, Israel and Western goverments that are today urging our farmers and local decision-makers to grow flowers will themselves wipe out this process altogether because the priority will be given to flowers grown in the Negev. In summary, our economy will further be distorted and our farmers will fall to poverty and starvation.
2.3 Agricultural and Development Banks Some international parties have lately cooperated with local banks in the West Bank and Gaza Strip to provide short- and medium-term loans for workers in "irrigated agriculture in greenhouses and open fields," and to owners of agricultural projects "who wish to introduce new products such as seedless grapes, flowers, strawberries…" 21 These monoculture products are capital intensive and are intended basically for external markets. The provision of loans here is meant to increase capital in agriculture by setting up a debt "trap." The result is a continuous increase in the external inputs from abroad and more loans to grow the monoculture products. Eventually farmers will be drowning in debt and our subordination to the external markets and their cruel laws would be further engraved in Palestinian economics. Further, borrowers of loans are requested to mortgage their property as security on their loans.
The external markets (the West and Israel), for which luxury and monoculture products are grown (from loans) have total control over the prices, which are mostly very low. In the case that these countries stop importing these products for political or economic reasons, the results would entail a serious blow to the farmers who have adapted themselves to these markets. While the market for their goods disappears, the high production expenses remain.
Several farmers in the Jordan Valley and the Gaza Strip fell into debt and were caught by high interest rates. Unable to pay off their loans, some of these farmers received extensions on their debt payments or had their payments rescheduled, while others were unable to pay and their cases finally reached the courts.22
The loans then, which are meager to start with, are designed to establish "specialization" in monoculture on the basis of "free competition" - a system that does not forsake the weak. What should be established is one or more credit institutions that encourage agricultural development by providing affordable loans aimed at encouraging diversified self-reliant agriculture that is independent of external inputs. As a result, the farmers will be encouraged to remain on the land.
2.4 Stolen Palestinian Water Israel confiscates the water resources of the Occupied Territories of 1967. It restricts and totally controls the administration of water in these areas, denying the Palestinians the right to use or administer this resource. Israel's robbing of the water includes underground and surface water. Artesian wells and natural springs in the West Bank have been dried up as the water was directed to the West Bank and Gaza Strip settlements and Israelis within the "greenline." As we are denied our natural water, so are we denied Palestinian agriculture, as the Palestinian territories indirectly head for desertification. The Palestinians suffer a serious shortage in drinking water and are threatened with serious health and environmental risks. While Israelis rob large quantities of underground water, the proportion of underground water allotted to the Palestinians is less that 20%, while much of the water used in settlements are for purposes of entertainment and luxury (to water decorative gardens, swimming pools, grass fields, etc.) The average daily water consumption per capita in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (including Jerusalem) is approximately 40 liters. In contrast, the Israeli settlers of the West Bank and Gaza Strip have a daily water consumption that is tenfold more.23 The Israelis furthermore enjoy water that is subsidized by the government. Whereas the Palestinian farmer pays $0.07 per cubic meter, the Israeli pays $0.014 per cubic meter.24 It is approximated that Israel robs nearly 70% of the total annual water resources of the West Bank and Gaza Strip for the benefit of its settlements. Of the remaining 30%, nearly 18% of it has a high salinity content or is too difficult or too expensive to extract. Consequently, no more than 12% of the total water resources are available for the use of the Palestinians.25
The exaggerated pumping of our water resources, especially in the Gaza Strip, has led to a drastic decline in the surface water to levels below natural feeding. As a result, polluted salty water has entered into the scarce underground water reserves. The quality of the water has thus diminished and in fact has become unsuitable for home or agricultural use. In the Jordan Valley, the level of groundwater has been reduced since 1969 by an average of more than 16 meters, leading to the drying out of tens of wells.26 During 1982-1991, the total chlorine concentration rose by nearly 50%, reaching 1,700 mg/l.27
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