For the first time ... "Safe Agriculture" products on store shelves in Gaza

Abdel Raouf Zaqout - Gaza

Glowing tomatoes reflect sunlight inside the greenhouse of farms Medhat Subuh, east of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip, amid his joy at the abundance of his production without using pesticides or chemical fertilizers, after he joined the "Safe Agriculture" project.

Safe agricultural practices
"Safe agriculture" is defined as environmentally responsible, robust, economically robust and socially desirable agricultural practice, so that recommendations and available knowledge are applied to on-farm production as well as post-production (harvesting) in a sustainable manner leading to safe and healthy food products.

With him, 150 farmers and livestock keepers in the Gaza Strip joined the "Safe Agricultural Practices System" project that started three years ago. And its results appeared in a practical way during the current year, whether at the level of supervisors or funders, as well as at the level of farmers.

The local international partnership between the Islamic Relief France-Gaza office as a funding agency and the project-based Al-Azhar University in Gaza managed to achieve important and accelerating results in the field of safe agricultural production, to ensure food safety and security, consumer protection and environmental preservation.

Safe .. expensive
Ahmed Abu Shaban, director of the "Safe Agriculture" project, associate professor of agricultural economics at the Faculty of Agriculture at Al-Azhar University, said: The problem of agriculture in the Gaza Strip lies in the extensive use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers without supervision, which caused many diseases, including serious ones, according to research.

Al-Azhar University conducted research and found that the problem of agriculture in Gaza is economic, as safe agriculture is costly in nature, in addition to being marketed in the same form of regular agriculture that depends on fertilizers, and therefore will not be feasible, unless a project of its own is developed, hence the idea.

The university designed the "Safe Agriculture" program with the efforts of a number of colleges, funded by Islamic aid, which is based on a set of practices through which a safe product is introduced in the market, and the farmer is encouraged to grow this product through a private marketing channel, with a brand that gains the trust of the user.

Stages and results
Abu Shaban explained to Al-Jazeera Net that the first stage was for training university students, and the second stage came to apply the students and agricultural engineers what they learned, after selecting 150 farmers for plant and animal production.

And on the stages of the project, he says that he included five stages during his working years which are: selecting farmers, providing them with production inputs from seeds, seedlings and irrigation systems, training of farmers and agricultural extension, inspection of farmers, marketing of products.

The project was able to obtain a special label affixed to "safe agriculture" products, which earned him confidence among consumers, and farmers were linked to marketers and agreed to increase their rate by 40% over the price of the products, due to the high cost of production.

Abu Shaaban added that the products were displayed in a number of stores and received great popularity and confidence from consumers, even with a slight increase in prices, "and we seek in the future to provide services to more farmers."

new Horizons
In the context, Adel Qaddoum, head of the Islamic Relief Office, France-Gaza office, affirmed that for the first time, a safe agriculture project can produce crops available at points of sale in the Gaza Strip such as (tomatoes, eggplant, celery, beets, cucumbers, etc.) in addition to licensing them and registering them with the Ministry The Palestinian economy.

The project is not only limited to the farmers involved in it, but also gives the marking or poster of safe agriculture to any product outside the project, after examination and following up on agricultural practices by the university, which gives the marking a scientific and legal value.

As for the implementation of the project in the other side of the country, Kaddoum pointed out that "aid with its international partners is keen to implement the project on the entire Palestinian lands, and there are steps to communicate with farmers in the West Bank, which opens the door to a new opportunity that contributes to building a strong Palestinian national economy."

He added, "With this kind of activities we create a job opportunity for young people who are able to give, which opens new markets for them to produce safe agricultural products, and we are confident that the export capacity and confidence in the Palestinian product exist, but we only need the opportunity to deliver these products abroad."

Increased production
Regarding the practical application of the project, Medhat Sobh, the crop farmer, emphasized that working within the "Safe Agriculture" project had increased his income and his family's income significantly over the past years, and also helped him choose the best agricultural products for the market.

In his speech to Al-Jazeera Net, he explained that the project provided them with information and guidance, which is the most important, in addition to seeds, irrigation networks and fertilizers, indicating that he is slowly preparing for the exit plan that the project developed to benefit a new number of farmers.

In the context, the young Sami Al-Nadi (Breeders) cows agreed with Sobh that the project was able to increase production of his farm significantly during the past year, due to the instructions and assistance provided to him.

The club told Al Jazeera Net that it raises cows, and depends mainly on milk production, as it benefited from the drugs, feed and treatments provided by the project, along with the valuable and scientific information provided by the engineers.

The organizers of the "Safe Agriculture" project in Gaza crowned their efforts with an exhibition of the products of the project in the Gaza Strip, amid a large official, public and media presence, hoping that farmers will open the doors for their products to reach all countries of the world.