Tomatoes to spend

When Fatima goes shopping, she pays with tomatoes buying sheep’s cheese from her neighbor and oil from the shop. Her “currency” is something she planted herself. Her greenhouse is 72 square meters and positioned on her land just below the family home. Around it are borders of other vegetables such as zucchini. “Tomatoes grow the best here“, Fatima says. She has already tried cucumbers and eggplant but tomatoes have brought the biggest crop so far. She can harvest 10 kilos a day and the market price is high. The greenhouse and the knowledge and skills to grow vegetables came from CARE. The project is financed by ECHO – the humanitarian aid programme of the EU Commission. CARE and ECHO help people in the area around Jenin in the West Bank who live below the poverty line. The number of Palestinians living in poverty has increased enormously in the last few years. Since the second Intifada in 2000, a spontaneous uprising against the Israeli occupation, many men of the region have lost lucrative jobs in construction in Israel. At the same time movement and access within the West Bank has become more difficult for ordinary people who struggle to get to work or to market their goods through a network of over 600 obstacles including checkpoints, road blocks and gates. Unemployment rates have soared and an ever increasing number of ordinary people can only survive with the help of their extended families and neighbors. Palestinian Gross Domestic Product is now 40 percent less today than it was in 1999 and approximately 66 per cent of the Palestinian households live below the poverty level. Fatima’s husband had to stop working after a heart operation. Since then, with eight children to bring up, every day represents a struggle for survival. For a long time vegetables were a luxury too expensive to be put on the table. Today, it is their own, organically grown tomatoes that add variety and essential vitamins to their daily diet. Fatima takes good care of the valuable plants. Every second day she waters them, and when necessary, uses organic fertilizer. During the summer, the family waits for the autumn harvest.