From a tent in Deir al-Balah How is a "small bank" trying to save agriculture in Gaza?

In the heart of the Gaza Strip, specifically in the city of Deir al-Balah, tents are no longer just shelters for displaced people. One has been transformed into a small space for preserving and propagating local seeds. Shelves holding large burlap sacks and simple plastic containers line its walls, in an effort to keep a semblance of local agriculture alive amidst the widespread destruction that has befallen the Strip.

Hot Topics

Completely eliminating fats is just as harmful as consuming them excessively

A storm on the surface and calm beneath the hidden face of the north winds in the Arabian Gulf

Doubles energy German discovery paves the way for a revolution in solar cell efficiency

This is not just about a place to store and carefully document seeds, but about an attempt to preserve agricultural diversity and what remains of inherited varieties, or what are known as local seeds, at a time when the occupation has destroyed or prevented access to large areas of agricultural land and the infrastructure necessary for production. 

Out of this need, a small local seed bank was reborn by the Gazan farmer Salama Muhanna, known as "Abu Hani," and his family, in an attempt to save as many local agricultural varieties as possible, and to restore what remains of the Palestinian agricultural heritage, in preparation for bringing the land back into production and restoring the afflicted agricultural sector in Gaza.

The idea of ​​establishing a seed bank came about in 2013, stemming from the need for local, indigenous seeds, after problems faced by farmers during Israel’s campaigns on the Gaza Strip in 2008, 2012 and 2014, especially with hybrid seeds, some of whose productive qualities may decline when replanted in subsequent seasons, which prompted the search for a local alternative whose seeds could be preserved and reused.

The seed bank was one such alternative, having been launched in 2017 as a family effort led by 70-year-old farmer Salama Muhanna and his 38-year-old daughter Hanadi, in the town of Al-Qarara near Khan Yunis Governorate in the southern Gaza Strip, an area now completely razed to the ground by the occupation forces and inaccessible - with the aim of collecting local seeds and providing a reliable supply of them to farmers.

Local seeds in the face of war

“Families keeping seeds was a common practice in the past, and many families continued to do so until October 7, 2023,” says Georgina McAllister, assistant professor of stabilization and stability agriculture at Coventry University’s Centre for Agricultural Ecology, Water and Resilience in the UK.