Fair Trade: Olives on the West Bank

http://smallfarmersbigchange.coop/2015/01/19/olives-occupation-and-opportunity-a-visit-to-the-west-bank/ Olives, Occupation, and Opportunity: a Visit to the West Bank January 19, 2015 by Phyllis Robinson The following post is by Darya Mattes, Community Sales ROOTED IN THIS LAND olive trees On a rainy Tuesday in late November, just a few weeks after the end of the 2014 olive harvest, I had the opportunity to spend a day with the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC), Equal Exchange’s olive oil partner in Palestine. I’ve visited a Fair Trade coffee co-op and have learned about many others during my four years at Equal Exchange, but on this visit, I was struck by how embedded olive farming and olive oil production are in every aspect of Palestinian culture. Unlike coffee, tea, and cacao, which were imported to many producer countries as commodity crops under colonial regimes, olive oil production is a centuries-long tradition for people in this region. Read more here.