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= Agro-Resistance in Palestine = Agro-resistance in Palestine refers to the anti-colonial pursuit of land reclamation by Palestinians through its cultivation in hopes of fostering self-sufficiency and preserving agricultural heritage. Agro-resistance efforts are part of a long history of popular resistance in Palestine to Israeli military occupation. The concept differentiates itself from pursuits of food sovereignty due to the settler colonial context in which it is pursued. Agro-resistance is one of many articulations of sumud.

Suppression of the Palestinian Agricultural Sector
Agriculture serves as the backbone of the Palestinian economy. The sector is heavily effected by the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Access to land and control of natural resources for Palestinian farmers has become increasingly difficult over the years. Physical barriers (such as the Israeli West Bank Barrier) and the fragmentation of land (by Israeli checkpoints) renders swaths of farmland inaccessible and separates farming communities from their land.

Approximately 85% of the West Bank's grazing land is inaccessible to Palestinian farmers due to the expansion of Israeli settlements and military zones. Such conditions have transformed agricultural practices, and many Palestinian farmers have been forced into a practice of monoculture and now use commercial seeds as opposed to heirloom seeds, threatening the biodiversity of the land and the cultural heritage of Palestinians.

Olive production in Palestine, holds great economic, historical, and cultural significance, as the olive tree serves as a symbol of land, peace, steadfastness and dignity. Between 2000 and 2008, 112,000 olive trees were uprooted and destroyed by the Israeli military in the Gaza strip alone.

Widespread food insecurity in the Palestinian territories and external constraints on the Palestinian agricultural sector have made Palestinians reliant on external food aid and produce grown in Israeli settlements. It is within this context that pursuits of agro-resistance in Palestine must be understood.

Examples of Agro-Resistance
Land cultivation by Palestinians is inextricably linked to their struggle for self-determination and freedom. Caring for their land in hopes of preserving agricultural and culinary traditions and building autonomy is an act of anti-colonial resistance in and of itself. Such agro-resistance takes place in various forms.

The Union of Agricultural Work Committees serves as the only Arab members of La Vía Campesina. The organization has set up a local seed bank in Hebron to enhance food access to Palestinians. The UAWC also takes legal steps against Israeli land annexations, reclaims and rehabilitates agricultural land and water wells, and sponsored 35 women’s food cooperatives in the West Bank and Gaza.

The Palestine Heirloom Seed Library (PHSL) in Beit Sahour was founded in 2014 by Vivien Sansour, and is another articulation of agro-resistance in Palestine. The seed library works to preserve Palestinian local seeds on the brink of extinction.

The Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC) works to rehabilitate agricultural roads and other farming infrastructures in order to allow farmers better access to their land. The Committee also launched a food basket for families project, in which it worked with over 500 Palestinian farmers and producers to feed two thousand families.

The most common form of popular agro-resistance in Palestine is the employment of urban agriculture. Rooftop gardens are especially common in a context where there is a lack of garden space, such as in densely populated refugee camps. About 30 percent of homes in Gaza have a kitchen or rooftop garden.