UN says only 3% of Gaza cropland accessible and undamaged<\/a><\/p>\nThe bank holds seeds for wheat and barley; leafy crops such as Swiss chard, spinach and parsley, as well as some vegetables like courgette and okra.<\/p>\n
The fighting \u201ccompletely destroyed the bank and led to the loss of many seed varieties,\u201d explained 27-year-old Hanadi Muhanna, Salem Muhanna\u2019s daughter who also manages the project.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn addition, because we were repeatedly displaced, it was difficult to start over again,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
\u201cEventually we settled in Deir el-Balah and managed, thankfully, to establish a small tent. We created something simple using basic means\u201d.<\/p>\n
A collection of large hessian sacks, plastic barrels, and smaller mismatched tubs now hold what remain of the stocks, each carefully labelled and protected from pests with plastic sheets.<\/p>\n
\u2013 \u2018Safety valve\u2019 \u2013<\/p>\n
Like the rest of life in the coastal Palestinian territory, Gaza\u2019s agricultural sector was shattered by the conflict.<\/p>\n
Despite a US-backed ceasefire since October 2025, bloodshed has continued, with the Israeli military continuing to target Palestinians it says are militants.<\/p>\n
Israel says it now controls more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, up from about half when the ceasefire took effect, and has refused to start withdrawing until Hamas fully disarms.<\/p>\n
Before the war, agriculture including crop production, herding and fishing, accounted for approximately 10 percent of Gaza\u2019s economy, according to the United Nations\u2019 Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).<\/p>\n
Just three percent of the cropland in Gaza remains accessible and undamaged, the FAO said Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Tight Israeli controls on the entry of all goods into the territory has also compounded the woes of Gaza\u2019s farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no water, no fertiliser, no agricultural chemicals,\u201d Salem Muhanna told AFP. \u201cNothing is available\u201d.<\/p>\n
Before the war, Gaza was self-sufficient in fresh vegetables and used to export one-third of its production to external markets, according to Osama Al-Mukhalalati, an economic security officer with the ICRC.<\/p>\n
Now, at best, the agricultural output cannot provide more than 10 percent of Gaza\u2019s vegetable needs, he added.<\/p>\n
The Al Qarara Seed Bank works on a lending system, with trusted farmers receiving seed and then returning it at the end of the season.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the war, we considered this project our main safeguard,\u201d said Suleiman Abu Shamas, a farmer from Deir el-Balah who was out inspecting a crop of waist-high chilli peppers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWith agricultural supplies cut off and prevented from entering through the crossings, the only safeguard we had was to build a food basket based on heirloom seeds that already existed within Gaza.\u201d<\/p>\n
For Al-Mukhalalati, the bank is not only a way of continuing food production on what agricultural land remains, but is a means of preserving Gaza\u2019s agricultural heritage for the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe consider this project a ray of hope amid the complete darkness hanging over the agricultural sector,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Deir el-Balah: From a small makeshift tent in the central Gaza Strip, a dedicated team works to carefully store and document some of the war-shattered territory\u2019s most precious commodities: local seeds. Israel\u2019s military campaign in Gaza has killed more than 73,000 people, according to the territory\u2019s health ministry, which operates under Hamas authority and whose figures are considered reliable by…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65042,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":16,"label":"Pakistan"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-content\/uploads\/gaza-seed-bank-1024x555.jpg",1024,555,true],"author_info":{"display_name":"frkhokhar@gmail.com","author_link":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/author\/frkhokhargmail-com"},"comment_info":0,"category_info":[{"term_id":16,"name":"Pakistan","slug":"pakistan","term_group":0,"term_taxonomy_id":16,"taxonomy":"category","description":"All about Pakistan","parent":0,"count":3136,"filter":"raw","cat_ID":16,"category_count":3136,"category_description":"All about Pakistan","cat_name":"Pakistan","category_nicename":"pakistan","category_parent":0}],"tag_info":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65041"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65043,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65041\/revisions\/65043"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsvog.com\/ur\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}