Agriculture in the State of Palestine is a mainstay in the

economy of the State of Palestine The economy of the State of Palestine refers to the economic activity of the State of Palestine. History GDP per capita in the Palestinian territories rose by 7% per year from 1968 to 1980 but slowed during the 1980s. Between 1970 and 1991 ...

. The production of agricultural goods supports the population's sustenance needs and fuels Palestine's export economy. According to the Council for European Palestinian Relations, the agricultural sector formally employs 13.4% of the population and informally employs 90% of the population. Over the past 10 years, unemployment rates in Palestine have increased and the agricultural sector became the most impoverished sector in Palestine. Unemployment rates peaked in 2008 when they reached 41% in Gaza. According to

World Bank The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans and grants to the governments of low- and middle-income countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects. The World Bank is the collective name for the Interna ...

Palestinian agriculture suffers from widespread use of land for nature reserves as well as military and settler use. Because the root of the conflict is with land, the disputes between Israel and Palestine are well-manifested in the agriculture of Palestine.

History

After the Six Day War (1967), Israel's initial occupation of the West Bank led to an encouragement of agriculture.

Moshe Dayan Moshe Dayan ( he, משה דיין; 20 May 1915 – 16 October 1981) was an Israeli military leader and politician. As commander of the Jerusalem front in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, Chief of Staff of the Israel Defense Forces (1953–1958) du ...

actively encouraged its expansion, and as a result agricultural productivity increased on an annual basis by 16%. Permission was extended to expand on land that had hitherto been neglected. A change in policy occurred in 1976, and by 1979, when the new Likud government was in power, incentives for Palestinian agriculture stopped. The government considered local agriculture a hindrance to its aim of annexing uncultivated land. As a result, water quotas for Palestinian farmers were incrementally reduced, forcing cultivators to leave their lands and seek jobs as day labourers in Israel. The end effect of this decision was that by 1985, the land under Palestinian cultivation in the West Bank decreased by 40%. The sale of goods from Palestine to Israel became subjected to licensing and further restricted on European markets starting in 1984. Israel was not a commercial producer of olive products so Palestine became a captive market on things Israel needed and restricted on everything else. Palestine had three other problems that restricted farm production. Most farmers were sharecroppers having to split up to 50% with the landlords, going through middlemen to retailers meant a fourteen-fold gain over the farmers poor prices, and there was a lack of marketing.

References

Economy of the State of Palestine {{State of Palestine-stub