Trees for Life Program

Report from Mohamed, a farmer in the West Bank

Mohamed Al Weshahi is a farmer from the village of Telfeet near Jenin. He has more than 510 productive olive trees on his land; Mohamed is considered a full-time real farmer. His family owns a large flock of goats and sheep, and every morning his wife and his mother do the milking of the animals. The milk is processed and produces a high quality traditional white cheese and yogurt which is sold every day directly to the people in the area and nearby villages.

Every day he brings his tools and visits his farm to do the daily agricultural practices such as weeding, pruning and ploughing. Since 2014 when he joined the Fair Trade program, Mohamed has been selling his organic certified olive oil through PFTA to Canaan Fair Trade company (CFT).

He believes that all Palestinian farmers, even the farmers who are not registered in the PFTA programs, benefit from fair trade; he says “simply every year CFT export large quantities of our olive oil to the international fair trade markets and so the farmers of the PFTA have a direct benefit from this because they market their production, and also this process gives better opportunities for the other farmers who are not registered in the PFTA to market their production in the local Palestinian market with better prices”.

This planting season Mohamed received 100 olive saplings from the PFTA after he applied to the Trees for Life program. He hopes these trees will start producing in the next couple of years which means increasing his income and also this will help in cementing his attachment to his land, while Israel tries to uproot this attachment in Palestine.