Within the framework of the agreement to promote rural development in the West Bank that carry out Social Promotion and its partner Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committee (PARC), with funding from the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID), have been developed in the last months a series of activities to support agricultural cooperatives, which will help achieve the overall objective of the project.
On the one hand, two new women’s agricultural cooperatives have been established: “Bal’a” and “Ematain”, which are already operational since April and May, for the processing of agricultural products in the Tulkarem and Qalquilia Governorate, respectively.
With them, there would already be 18 cooperatives set up during the development of the agreement. Like the previous ones, their establishment aims not only to empower farmers, by providing machinery, equipment, and training so that they can start their own income-generating projects but also to favor the participation of women within the chain. of the value of agricultural products.
On the other hand, to help the cooperatives in the marketing and sale of their products, at the end of last July, a fair was organized in the West Bank town of Anabta (Governorate of Tulkarem), which was inaugurated by the Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Rami Hamdallah.
With a duration of three days, the fair was visited by more than 10,000 people and the sale of products generated an income of 27,000 shekels (6,400 euros approximately). In addition, it allowed the exchange of experiences among the participants and their positive results has encouraged them to make exhibitions periodically in different places in Palestine.