Agriculture in Palestine Is No Longer Just Production — It Has Become a Battleground

I reviewed a research study titled "Policy and Practices of Avocado Cultivation in the West Bank, Contested Agricultural Perceptions and Emerging Crops" prepared by Fadia Panosetti February 2026, which reached me through new related studies linked to the research of the well-known professor Sreemati Mitter), the author of a dissertation that earned a PhD from Harvard University titled "The History of Palestinian Money from 1900 until now" published in 2014.

This study presents the theoretical framework of the global conflict over agricultural development models, showing that agriculture is no longer merely a productive sector but a battleground between contradictory visions regarding the economy, the environment, and social justice. A clear division emerged after 2007–2008 between two main directions: the first is techno-productive, promoting new versions of the “Green Revolution” that focus on raising productivity through technology, and the second is transformative, calling for restructuring agricultural relations by supporting small farmers, strengthening agroecology, and food sovereignty!

The study criticizes both directions, highlighting that dominant approaches ignore the real complexities associated with rural reality: in terms of class, gender, history, and political conflicts!

In this context, the study poses a central question: how do small farmers make their decisions between different agricultural models? and why? Here the choice of avocado is introduced as an analytical entry point, as it is a global crop that reflects shifts in demand and consumption and reveals the linkage of local agriculture to global value chains. Thus, this section paves the way to understanding agriculture as a complex political-economic field, not merely a technical activity; the avocado fruit has become one of the most traded tropical crops in the world, especially in the Northern Hemisphere!

This part moves from the global framework to the Palestinian case, presenting the West Bank as an intensified example of the intersection of settler colonialism with development policies. The study explains that the agricultural reality in Palestine cannot be understood apart from the structure of the occupation, where settler colonialism is seen as a continuous process aiming to control land and resources while dispossessing the indigenous population!

The study reveals that agricultural transformations in Palestine are not merely a matter of production or technology but reflect a deeper struggle over land, resources, power, and knowledge. The avocado case analysis shows how a single crop can embody the connection of local agriculture to the global economy while at the same time reflecting tensions between dependency and emancipation.!

This study relied on extensive fieldwork conducted in Palestine between 2015 and 2019, in addition to a shorter research residency in 2023. Most of the material used in this article was collected during the summer of 2023, when semi-structured interviews were conducted with farmers in the north of the West Bank, a region known for avocado production. I visited their farms, participated in their daily activities and meetings with local institutions and NGOs, and these interviews aimed to understand how agricultural development is framed in official discourses in the Palestinian context.

The study showed that the Palestinian agricultural sector has long suffered decline due to policies of displacement and de-development carried out by Israel for decades, which constrained farmers’ and rural communities’ ability to access and cultivate their land, while at the same time encouraging the migration of Palestinian labor to Israel. Since 1967, Palestinian rural communities entered the Israeli economy as a source of cheap labor—especially in supported sectors such as construction and agriculture—to build housing for others and to produce foodstuffs sold partly at low prices in the Palestinian market!

These policies were designed to make Palestinian agriculture economically unviable as a livelihood and to push rural communities to abandon their land, rendering these lands susceptible to state declarations, and as a result the agricultural sector contracted sharply: between 1970 and 1987, the labor force in the sector fell from 40% to 26%, and the share of agriculture in the West Bank’s GDP fell from 35% to 19%, and this deterioration did not stop after the Oslo Accords of 1993 but continued; the contribution of agriculture to GDP declined from 14% in the mid-1990s to 4.5% in 2014!

The study points out that despite the signing of the Oslo Accords between the Palestinian leadership and the Israeli government in 1993 with the aim of achieving peace and prosperity in the region, in practice these agreements represented a grim reshaping of settler-colonial power over Palestinian land and economy, which was later reinforced through neoliberal policies and foreign aid! (Neoliberal orientations are a political and economic philosophy that aims to reduce state intervention in the economy and to strengthen the role of the private sector, the free market, and privatization)!, which led to increased class inequality, and the underlying assumption was that neoliberalism and markets are not antithetical to liberation, but can contribute to it. By following this market-driven development model, the Palestinian Authority aligned with the position of the World Bank and donor countries that assumed that “the invisible hand of the market will lead Israelis and Palestinians toward peace!

At the regional level, these agreements divided the West Bank into three areas: A, B, and C. Area C, which represents more than 60% of the West Bank and includes most agricultural lands and rural areas, was placed under full Israeli control and has since been used to build and expand settlements, establish exclusive settler roads, and the separation wall, while the new Palestinian Authority was effectively granted limited authority over an archipelago of fragmented enclaves!.

On the economic level, the Paris Protocol 1994 (the economic protocol of the Oslo Accords) showed ambiguity about whether the parties sought economic integration or separation. While the freedom of movement of goods and capital was established as a fundamental principle, the freedom of movement of persons was clearly absent. In practice, the Israeli closure regime and permit policies after Oslo increased restrictions on Palestinian movement and deepened economic dependency!

Land was gradually transformed into a source of profit for the emerging Palestinian capitalist class, while agriculture and small farmers were marginalized, reflecting wider global trends. Between 1994 and 2000, only about 1.41% of the Authority’s budget was allocated to agriculture, and this figure fell to 0.74% in 2005 before returning to roughly 1% after 2006.... Of the total agricultural development budget, about 85% was spent on Ministry of Agriculture salaries!

This article presents an in-depth analysis of ongoing transformations in Palestinian agriculture by tracing the rise of avocado cultivation as a developmental and political model, thereby positioning the avocado as a strategic crop that combines economic profitability and political symbolism, being portrayed as a means to strengthen resilience on the land and to build state capacities. It shows that agriculture in Palestine has ceased to be merely an economic activity and has become a central arena for reshaping relations between land, market, and politics under the conditions of settler colonialism!

But this orientation essentially reflects the adoption of a neoliberal model that links agricultural development to global markets and reframes the idea of liberation through market mechanisms rather than through disengagement from them! The article reveals an important historical paradox: the avocado, which was introduced to Palestine within colonial contexts, is today being repurposed as a “sovereign” crop. This new utilization is not free of contradictions, as it remains tied to an unequal economic structure and to conditions imposed by the occupation!

The spread of avocado cultivation has led to structural transformations in the Palestinian countryside, most notably: the expansion of relatively large farms, increased reliance on leased land, the entry of investors and businessmen into the agricultural sector, the decline of cooperative farmers’ roles, and thus land is gradually transformed from a space of communal livelihood into an economic asset for private accumulation, reflecting a process of class restructuring in the countryside!

Moreover, the avocado model relies on monoculture agriculture and intensive use of resources, especially water. Despite the relative profits it yields, it entails significant risks: environmental fragility due to soil and water depletion, high vulnerability to failure in the event of climatic or market fluctuations, deepening dependency on external markets, and its limited labor needs reduce its capacity to create jobs, which weakens its overall developmental impact

The article poses a fundamental critique of the idea of achieving sovereignty through integration into global markets. While avocado is presented as a means of liberation, it: reinforces the logic of profit and competition, entrenches dependence on export, reproduces social inequalities, and therefore “sovereignty” here becomes an ambiguous concept, situated between relative economic independence and structural dependency!

In response to this model, a growing movement for ecological agriculture has emerged, seeking to: reclaim control over seeds and land, reduce reliance on external inputs, build fair local food systems, and these initiatives represent an alternative vision based on: community solidarity, local knowledge, environmental sustainability, and regard agriculture as a daily act of liberation, not merely an economic activity.

The article affirms that all these transformations occur within a colonial context that imposes: restrictions on land and water, direct violence (seizure, uprooting, destruction), a systematic dismantling of the agricultural infrastructure, and consequently agriculture itself becomes: an act of survival and resistance at once! ....Moreover, the destruction of more than 98% of the agricultural land in Gaza, and the escalation of settler violence in the West Bank, reflect a strategy aimed at: destroying the foundations of material life, controlling the land, and one writer summed this up by saying:"Palestinian farmers are seen as an obstacle that must be removed!

The Palestinian case is not exceptional, as the study indicates, but reflects a broader global agricultural crisis resulting from: neoliberal policies, neglect of agriculture, the logic of (post)coloniality, and these factors have led to: the impoverishment of small farmers, turning them into precarious labor or urban poor, yet in the West Bank this crisis takes a more violent form, where agriculture itself becomes part of the colonial conflict, and farmers find themselves effectively:       they are planting on the front line”!

The study concludes that the future of Palestinian agriculture will not be decided by the type of crop, but by the way fundamental questions are answered: who owns the land? and how are resources managed? and what is the purpose of production: profit or continuity? Between these two paths, Palestinian farmers move—not as victims or idealized models—but as actors who reshape their reality daily, under conditions of extreme complexity!