Women’s Farmer Field School’s success in Diarb Balout, Palestine

Under the framework of the regional project “Implementing the 2030 Agenda for water efficiency/productivity and water sustainability in NENA countries”, one of the key activities is implementing different Farmer Field Schools (FFS) in the eight studied countries. Palestine one of the countries under the project, suffers from a shortage in available water for irrigation due to the occupation authorities’ control, which is about 85 percent of the groundwater in the West Bank, depriving Palestinians of their historical right to access and use the waters of the Jordan River and restricting the use of floodwater. Therefore, the knowledge obtained from FFS’s is important for farmers as it will support them in more that proper farming methods, but also the right water practices.

In one of the sites in Diarb Balout in Palestine, there are one thousand dunums of snake cucumber and okra crops, where women are the only field workers working there. At first, it was a challenge to get women on board the projects FFS trainings, however, after several trials eighteen of the twenty women in the site accepted support and agreed to create and attend a snake cucumber FFS. Discussions with the women lead us to the base that these women have always used very basic methods of production and harvesting, they had no intention or knowledge to innovate or use any methods to increase crop productivity.  The main challenge was getting one of the women to donate their field to use during the FFS trainings. Basema Fadel, a young Palestinian woman, agreed to donate her field for trials quoting “My field does not give a lot of productivity, so I do not have anything to lose”. Basema and her family, as well as the rest of the participants have been using the traditional method for production and harvesting.

FAO, through FFS trainings have introduced the high terraces techniques and mulching of the field for better production of the snake cucumber crop. FAO have also switched the women’s use of seeds into seedlings, which was proven to be economically doable and cost efficient. During the FFS, they took around 2 000 seeds and turned them into seedling plants, which cost them around 15 USD for the whole quantity. The seedlings were planted in April, which was when the FFS trainings started, teaching them the proper irrigation methods, good agricultural practices, how to develop an agricultural record, how to control irrigation, fertilization and other farming practices, how to reduce food losses, and the different pests and diseases and how to deal with them effectively.

After the crop season concluded, a comparison was made between the results using the previous traditional method of farming and the newly introduced method. Results show that using the traditional methods (in control), 550 kg of crop was extracted from one dunum, however, using the FAO introduced method implemented within the FFS, 2 000 kg was extracted from one dunum, which is almost three times as much. Other than the above mentioned practices, the FFS also taught the women how to pickle snake cucumbers, which supported women in terms of additional household income and took part in reducing losses in the field.

This activity is implemented under the regional project “Implementing the 2030 Agenda for water efficiency/productivity and water sustainability in NENA countries” implemented by FAO under the water scarcity initiative, in collaboration with the respective ministries in every country, and funded by the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA).