TUC Aid Gaza Plant Nursery Appeal Project Update

This is a TUC Aid project update on the Gaza Plant Nursery Appeal reported here 

A TUC delegation visited Palestine in January/February and while in East Jerusalem the delegation was able to meet representatives of APHEDA, the Australian trade union movement’s aid agency, and MA’AN - the organisations responsible for running the Nursery Project in the Gaza Strip that TUC Aid has helped to fund.

In 2013, MA’AN Development Center with £15,000 from TUC Aid established a nursery with the objective of supporting sustainable livelihoods for small-scale farmers in the Gaza Strip. Beit Lahia was selected as a location for the nursery. Beit Lahia is considered as one of the most vulnerable localities in the Gaza Strip where the poverty rate is 31.16%, unemployment is 32.3%, and the food insecurity rate is 55%. Agriculture is considered as a main livelihood option in Beit Lahia where the majority of farmers are small-scale.

Since the nursery was established, 180 farmers have accessed the nursery services. These services included providing poor farmers with access to high quality seedlings and to promote sustainable farming practices.

In July 2014, the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip started and continued for over 52 days. Amongst the death and destruction caused, the MA’AN nursery was a minor but nevertheless very unwelcome casualty. Some 50,000 trees, saplings, and seedlings withered and died due to lack of irrigation during the weeks of military hostilities. The losses include 1581 olive saplings, 869 poppy saplings, 44,300 tomatoes seedlings, and 12 citrus trees.

TUC Aid has, so far, transferred £9,000 to the MA’AN Development Center out of the proceeds of the Appeal launched with a view to raising £15,000 for the restoration of the plant nursery and the office badly damaged during the Israeli bombings in July 2014. The nursery services include facilitating poor farmers’ access to high quality seedlings and promoting sustainable farming practices. The TUC Aid Appeal is still open and needs to raise a further £6,000.