The Trees for Life programme, which provides saplings to Palestinian farmers, keeps growing year on year. This season, the distribution of 42,000 olive tree saplings started on December 21st. These were planted by 600 farming families on about 2,500 dunums (250 hectares) of land.
The programme is run by the Palestine Fair Trade Association (PFTA), with whom we have been working for 16 years to support farmers to market their produce, as well as to strengthen the resilience of farming families. The tree planting programme has contributed significantly to income generation, food security and also in preserving farming and food production traditions.
Farmer Um Issam Melhem (pictured above) told us: “I have received 150 olive trees to plant on around 8 dunums (0.8 hectares). Our land is on a hillside near the Homesh settlement and is threatened with confiscation.
We have an old saying ‘They have planted so we can eat, we plant so they can eat’. This tradition is passed on from one generation to the next.”
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