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Ethical Consumer Week 2020: Join the olive harvest in Palestine

Heather clapping
Anna Clayton
By
Anna Clayton

Anna Clayton speaks to Heather Masoud of Zaytoun about their upcoming session at Ethical Consumer Week: Join the olive harvest in Palestine.

Can you tell us a little bit about Zaytoun and your work?

Zaytoun is the Arabic word for olives. We started as a volunteer initiative in 2004 with an aim to find new market access for Palestinian olive oil in the UK amongst our friends, family and interested networks. For the first few years, Zaytoun products were sold through a network of volunteer distributors, at Palestinian advocacy group events, through faith communities, and via independent retailers such as health food and fair trade shops.

Over the years we have developed a range of Palestinian products and have aspirations to bring new tastes and supply chains into our work.

For Ethical Consumer Week 2020, you’re going to be hosting a session where we join the olive harvest in Palestine with representatives from the Palestine Fair Trade Association. Can you talk a bit about why you think this global connection is important?

It is through connection that Zaytoun was born. Through volunteering to harvest olives in 2003 we made connections with olive farmers in Palestine and wanted to do something constructive with what we had learnt whilst keeping in touch with the people we had met. Many of our core customers have visited Palestine and feel that supporting sales of products and spreading the stories of the people behind the products is a tangible (and very pleasurable) way to express solidarity.

There is increasing appetite for transparent supply chains and one of the means we have to do this is to connect people here and in Palestine to each other and enable the exchange of information with each other directly

We started Zaytoun working from our kitchen tables and that is where we find ourselves again under Covid restrictions. What has been key for us remote workers this year is the strong relationships we have with customers, suppliers and our wider network which enables us to keep connections digitally whilst we wait for physical opportunity to resume. We are still working with many of the same suppliers and customers that we started our journey with and are continually inspired by and motivated by the people we work with.

What do you see as the role of international trade and our day-to-day food buying decisions in building more resilient communities?

The connections we talk of above feed in to this. We have heard customers and suppliers wanting to know each other’s reality during the changes that have come over the years - through recession, politics and now COVID-19. Two-way feedback and concern has supported the strength of the supply chain.

Fair trade is a value that underpins your work. What is the importance of this for communities in both the UK and in Palestine?

At the time we started, olive oil was being sold at a price below the cost of production. Today it is a crop that supports sustainable rural livelihoods.

Our focus from the outset was towards the ethics driven market place, and in 2009 the Fairtrade Foundation awarded Zaytoun’s Palestinian olive oil the world’s first Fairtrade certification for olive oil which gave us an opening to wider retail distribution through wholefood and fine food stores.

In addition to the access to market, it brought Palestine into a global network with other producers and sellers. Fairtrade Fortnight has been a key time in our calendar since we started. The opportunity to make connections between communities in Palestine and the UK over this period is core to the way we work.

As Covid19 and the annexation loom heavy on an already vulnerable situation, what else can consumers in the UK do to support the situation?

Maintaining market opportunity is key in what is already a fragile economic situation. In addition we encourage keeping connected with the realities for Palestinian producers; annexation is illegal and our politicians and media need to be reminded of this. COVID-19 in some ways has built an additional insight into what movement restriction means and this has been the daily reality for Palestinians who have lived under Israeli military occupation for decades.

Ethical Consumer Week 2020

Saturday 23rd October - 12pm – 1pm

Join the olive harvest in Palestine

Join Taysir of Zaytoun and and Khader of the Palestine Fair Trade Association in the olive groves to explore the role of global solidarity trade, and hear how the harvest is looking this year. This video will be followed by a live Q&A with Taysir, Khader and Heather Masoud.

October is olive harvest season in Palestine. It is a time when extended families come together on their land to bring in their fruit. The olives are hand-picked and this labour intensive activity is one of love and livelihoods. The olive tree characterises the landscape and presents a direct connection and source of food and income for some 100,000 families.

2020 has seen increased pressure on Palestinian farmers, as Covid 19 and annexation loom heavy on an already vulnerable situation. The session will explore, through story, the role of fair trade for market access and as an avenue for hearing how these global issues affect farmers.

Hosted by: Zaytoun

Zaytoun, the Arabic word for olives, is a social enterprise founded in 2004 by four friends, to support the resilience and livelihoods of Palestinian through fair trade. 100% of the company’s profits are reinvested into furthering this mission. For the last 15 years Zaytoun have worked with the Palestine Fair Trade Association and Canaan Palestine. Canaan works with over 2,000 artisan family farms spanned across 52 different villages. They are committed to long-term partnerships with fair trade principles that ensure transparency, full direct payment, fair prices and purchase guarantee.

With:

Taysir is Zaytoun’s Advocacy and Liaison Officer in Palestine, and a non-executive director on its board. He has hosted UK visitors in Palestine’s olive groves during the harvest season for the last 15 years and has visited Khader in Nus Jubeil with groups on several occasions. Taysir has also visited the UK every year during Fairtrade Fortnight to accompany and translate for farmer representatives whom Zaytoun works with, including Khader. In addition to his work with Zaytoun he has been working with an international NGO on advocacy and development projects in Palestine for over 15 years.

Khader Khader is a farmer and board member of the Palestine Fair Trade Association, and lives in Nus Ijbeil, a small picturesque village near Nablus.  The hills surrounding the village are lined with olive groves, many of which have been in the same families for generations. Today Khader enjoys a sustainable livelihood from producing and selling Fairtrade olive oil.

Heather Masoud visited Palestine in 2003 to join human rights observers in accompanying farmers to harvest their fruit. The trip was a life-changing one. Zaytoun was founded as a volunteer initiative in 2004 and is now a sustainable, ethics driven social enterprise focused on supporting Palestinian farmers through fair trade. Heather has an MSc in Natural Resource Management from Cranfield University and a long-term interest in trade justice.

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