Poetic relationship: farmers & land

Fair trade farmer Abu Kamal and organic sage in Palestine

A gift for you this harvest: a beautiful photo essay by Maggie Lemere in Pilgrim Magazine:

Today, more than 1,600 smallholder farmers in the West Bank participate in the Canaan fair trade project through 55 village cooperatives. Olive oil prices have more than quadrupled since the project began, and regenerative farming is a movement so attractive that many have abandoned factory work to return to sustainably servicing their land full time.

“Agriculture is the basis of every culture. There is no place on earth where this is more true than Palestine… But the relationship between the farmers and the land goes far beyond the materiality of earning an income. It is an experience; it is a poetic experience between the land and the people who live in it. It is give and take, an exchange, a relationship. This poetic relationship between the land, the trees, and the people is something to nurture and something so beautiful to keep and learn from.” — Nasser Abufarha