Fair Trade the White House supporter, Canaan Fair Trade, made the news yesterday for their quality olive oil they sell to sustain 1,200 farmers through The Palestine Fair Trade Association.
The West Bank's gold
A Palestinian cooperative looks to trade olive oil for foreign cash
Palestinian farmer Mur'eb Kaileh, 70, with bags of olives that will eventually be processed for oil at a facility on the outskirts of Ramallah. (Muhammed Muheisen/associated Press)
By Howard Schneider
Tuesday, October 20, 2009For centuries, olive harvesting here has been a mostly local industry.
Farmers, their relatives and neighbors beat the trees with sticks or strip the olives from branches by hand, then cart them to a local press and sell or trade the oil in nearby markets. Harvest workers keep a share of the crop for their labor, and olive press owners keep a share of the oil -- a testament to the small-scale, bartered nature of the undertaking.
That model can help sustain a household, but in a new factory on the outskirts of this northern West Bank village, an effort is underway to reshape the olive industry so it can help sustain a wider Palestinian economy...
No comments:
Post a Comment