{"id":205890,"date":"2010-05-25T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-12T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?p=205890"},"modified":"2019-03-12T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2019-03-12T19:04:09","slug":"auto-insert-205890","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/auto-insert-205890\/","title":{"rendered":"Farming without Land, Fishing without Water: Gaza Agriculture Sector Struggles to Survive – OCHA FAO – Fact sheet"},"content":{"rendered":"
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May 2010<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Farming without Land, Fishing without Water: <\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Gaza Agriculture Sector Struggles to Survive<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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With technical support from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Fact sheet<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Livelihoods and lives of people living in the Gaza Strip have been devastated by over 1,000 days of near complete blockade. However, with the investment of simple inputs and increased access to land, the Agriculture Sector has the potential to make substantial improvements to the quality of life, food security and nutrition of an estimated 1.5 million Palestinian people.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Restricted Access to Agricultural Land<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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As of June 2009, a total of 46% of agricultural land in the Gaza Strip was assessed to be inaccessible or out of production<\/span>1<\/sup><\/span> owing to destruction of lands during 'Cast Lead' and inaccessible areas lying within the "security buffer zone".<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Only a limited percentage of this land has been rehabilitated due to the blockade that restricts the import of materials and equipment for rehabilitation and access to damaged areas. Farmers in these areas are unable to cultivate and produce goods for consumption or sale, and herders, unable to provide sufficient natural food for their animals, must purchase animal feed at unaffordable prices.<\/p><\/div>\n

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With limited access to agricultural areas, local production has declined and farmers' livelihoods are increasingly precarious. Food prices have risen considerably since the blockade. Palestinians are less able to afford a healthy, diverse diet that could contribute to better nutrition and health.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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This factsheet was first compiled for the United Nations Humanitarian Country Team Advocacy event on the Gaza Strip's Agriculture Sector<\/p><\/div>\n

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May 25th 2010<\/p><\/div>\n

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The Buffer Zone ("no-go" area)<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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The area inside the Buffer Zone along the northern and eastern borders with Israel contains nearly a third (29%) of the Gaza Strip's arable land, and is inaccessible to farmers and herders.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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The width of the Buffer Zone is 0.5-1km along the eastern border and 1.8-2km along the northern border.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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The Buffer Zone contains rain-fed crops including wheat, barley, beans and various vegetables, as well as olives, almonds and citrus trees. Most of the Gaza Strip's animal production is concentrated in the zone, which also contains important infrastructure such as wells and roads.<\/p><\/div>\n

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A recent Save the Children UK questionnaire found that 50% of respondents who lived in the buffer zone areas reported losing their sources of livelihood since 2000 compared with 33% of the general Gaza population. Furthermore, 73% of households near the buffer zone live below the poverty line, compared with 42% of the general population in Gaza.<\/span>5<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Livelihoods: dramatic downturn<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Fewer people are able to sustain their source of livelihoods from agriculture.<\/p><\/div>\n

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The percentage of labour force working in agriculture is 7.4 (4th quarter of 2009), which is down from 12.7% (2nd quarter of 2007).<\/span>6<\/sup><\/span> Southern governorates show a worsening trend: in Q2 2007, agriculture and fishing accounted for 15.3% of jobs in Deir Al-Balah, 20.0% in Rafah, and 24.0% in Khan Younis. By 3rd quarter 2009, these figures had fallen to 7.4%, 6.2% and 7.2% respectively.<\/span>7<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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People are scraping by on basics and rely on humanitarian aid to fill the gaps. An average household spends 56 cents of every US dollar on food.<\/span> <\/strong><\/span>The average food insecure household has between 6 to 9 people relying on one breadwinner.<\/span>8<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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A rapid recovery of the sector will reinstate the local population's former access to fresh foods, including fruit and vegetables, eggs, fresh meat and fish, which humanitarian agencies traditionally do not offer through the aid pipeline.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Approximately 3% of the total female labour force in the Gaza Strip works in the Fishing Agriculture Sector. <\/span>9<\/sup><\/span> Since the blockade, women have suffered particularly from the deterioration of the sector in their role as household managers and primary caregivers in the family.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Environment<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Operation 'Cast Lead' caused major destruction of agricultural areas; including damage to 17% of cultivated land, due to bulldozing and chemical contamination.<\/span>10<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Environmental experts predict a subsequent change in agricultural biodiversity (the variation of life forms within an ecosystem) that will disrupt the farming economy in the long-term.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Farmers will have to adjust to and absorb the costs of environmental disruption in addition to adopting already inadequate coping strategies. Long-term damage to soil, due to uncontrolled sewage dumping, salination, and other contamination, has led to a degraded ability to produce.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Between 50 and 80 million litres of untreated and partially-treated waste water has been dumped every day into the sea since January 2008, owing largely to severely compromised treatment capacity in the Gaza Strip.<\/span>11<\/sup><\/span> This raw sewage is harming marine life and contaminating fish<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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for human consumption all along the coast.<\/p><\/div>\n

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International law<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Restrictions imposed on the civilian population by the continuing blockade of the Gaza Strip amount to collective punishment, a violation of international humanitarian law.<\/span>12<\/sup><\/span> The blockade of Gaza also prevents or greatly hampers the exercise by the children, women and men living there of many human rights, including the right to food, the right to an adequate standard of living, the right to work, and the right to the highest attainable standard of health.<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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As the occupying power, Israel is obliged to ensure the free and unimpeded passage of humanitarian relief<\/span>13<\/sup><\/span> and must avoid taking measures which impede the full realization by the people of the Gaza Strip of their human rights.<\/span>14<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Protection of fishers<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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Fishing in the Gaza Strip currently presents a threat to people's lives as well as livelihoods. Fishers venturing past the imposed 3 nm fishing zone to support their livelihoods find themselves frequently subjected to arrests, seizing of boats, and shootings from the Israeli navy. Fishers are under intensive scrutiny by the IDF, which uses helicopters, and gunboats to monitor fishing activity.<\/span>15<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Since January 2009, 2 fishers have been killed and 12 injured by the almost daily shootings.<\/span>16<\/sup><\/span> Over 300 incidents of confiscation of fishing boats and equipment have been recorded since Operation 'Cast Lead'.<\/span>17<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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From January to early April 2010 alone there have been 48 reported occurrences of IDF patrol boats opening fire on fishers.<\/span>18<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Since Operation 'Cast Lead', the number of incidents in the fishing zone has increased significantly, presenting a serious protection threat and contributing to the reduction in the number of fishers in the Gaza Strip from 10,000 in 2000 down to 3,500 today.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Case study<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n

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24 February 2010 — Sami al-Qouqa, a 30-year-old former fisherman from al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza Strip, lost his left hand when his fishing boat came under fire from an Israeli gunboat in 2007, in an incident documented by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights.<\/p><\/div>\n

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"I was on my small fishing boat in Palestinian fishing waters when two Israeli warships approached me. The Israeli navy shouted at me: "Go back or we'll kill you!" Initially, I refused, so they began shooting at me. One of the gunboat's shells hit me and seriously wounded my left forearm and<\/p><\/div>\n

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hand," said al-Quoqa.<\/p><\/div>\n

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He was taken to al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City where doctors amputated his hand. He has since been unemployed and depends on UNRWA for food aid for his wife and two sons.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Fishers say ever-tightening restrictions on where they can fish and frequent attacks by Israeli gunboats are putting more and more of them out of business.<\/p><\/div>\n

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"Now, Israelis shoot all the time and without reason. The Israeli navy keeps confiscating fishing equipment and ripping up fishermen's nets" Muhamed Subuh al-Hissi, of the Palestinian Fishermen's Union in the Gaza Strip.<\/span>19<\/sup><\/span><\/p><\/div>\n

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Restricted basic agricultural inputs:<\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n