GRANDMOTHERS AND GRANDFATHERS TREES
The Sharaka Youth Forum
Ramallah, Palestine
Initiated and indorsed by PAC, the Sharaka Youth Forum brings together grassroot groups from Palestine
How do we produce alternative liberatory agricultural knowledge, one that can be dubbed "zero agriculture", that stems from the significance of our Palestinian context, and that strengthens steadfastness and liberation? How can we produce in a context like this? What kind of cultivation can endure even under the most challenging conditions?
The Popular Art Center, Ramallah, Palestine
Established in 1987, Popular Art Center (PAC) is a community cultural center grounded in dynamic progressive thought that responds to the lived Palestinian reality. Over the past 37 years, PAC has contributed to preserving Palestinian cultural heritage from attempts by the Israeli occupation to erase and appropriate; creating new cultural climates that contribute to improving the relationship of communities, especially children and youth, with culture and arts in Palestinian cities, villages and camps.
Instead of creating branches, PAC has always believed in building partnerships. Convinced that these partnerships are the path to material change that contributes to strengthening cultural heritage and building a social solidarity economy as an authentic model where Palestinians become key actors in their liberation project with steadfast resilience and cultural identity.
In this context, PAC adopted a cooperative social economy, for its national and socio-economic potentials. Land is the source of Palestinian heritage. It is the primary source of production under a Palestinian economy that strives for disengagement from the economy of the occupation. Over the past five years, PAC has contributed to supporting the development of agricultural cooperative initiatives, playing a pivotal role in spreading the cooperative experience and collective thought as an alternative to individualism, enabling a return of young people to the land and contributing to building a social solidarity economy.
Developing theoretical and practical knowledge of cooperative membersThe Sharaka Youth Forum
Initiated and indorsed by PAC, the Sharaka Youth Forum brings together grassroot groups from Palestine. Dozens of cooperatives, spread throughout the West Bank, were formed by Sharaka members, most of which are agricultural cooperatives.
Dissemination of acquired agricultural knowledge
Preservation of native heirloom seedsIt is not a coincidence that those groups turned to organic agriculture. The land is threatened by expropriation and is subject to recurring settler violence. The focus on environmentally conscious agricultural practices reflects the increased attention Palestinian activists pay to the environment as well as the influence of global movements for peasant rights, agro-ecology, and autonomy. These youths are increasingly aware that the capitalist model fueling Israeli colonization, of which cheap settlement labor is one facet and unemployment another, is the same that drives the planet to extinction. Finding non-capitalist ways to provide basic needs, especially food, seems to many of them an alternative starting point. (Mari, 2023)
