Economy
In the Katif Bloc’s unique greenhouses, a uniquely developed advanced technology was used to grow bug-free leafy vegetables and herbs answering to the strictest health, aesthetic and religious requirements. Most of the organic agricultural products were exported to Europe. In addition, the community of Atzmona had Israel’s largest plant nursery, and with 800 cows, the Katif dairy was the second largest in the country. Telesales and Printing were other notable industries.
The total sum of exports from the greenhouses of Gush Katif, which were owned by 200 farmers, came to $200,000,000 per year and made up 15% of the agricultural exports of the State of Israel.
The combined assets in Gush Katif were estimated at $23 billion.
Of Israel’s total exports abroad, Gush Katif exported:
- 95% of bug-free lettuce and greens
- 70% of organic vegetables
- 60% of cherry tomatoes
- 60% of geraniums to Europe.
The Economic Cooperation Foundation, which is funded by the European Union, agreed to purchase the greenhouses for $14 million and transfer ownership to the Palestinian Authority, so that the 4,000 Palestinians employed to work in them could keep their jobs. Former head of the World Bank, James Wolfensohn, contributed $500,000 of his own money to the project.
When the IDF left Gaza, thousands of Palestinians looted the area, and 800 of the 4,000 greenhouses were left unusable.
Read more about this topic: Gush Katif
Famous quotes containing the word economy:
“The basis of political economy is non-interference. The only safe rule is found in the self-adjusting meter of demand and supply. Do not legislate. Meddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Even the poor student studies and is taught only political economy, while that economy of living which is synonymous with philosophy is not even sincerely professed in our colleges. The consequence is, that while he is reading Adam Smith, Ricardo, and Say, he runs his father in debt irretrievably.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Quidquid luce fuit tenebris agit: but also the other way around. What we experience in dreams, so long as we experience it frequently, is in the end just as much a part of the total economy of our soul as anything we “really” experience: because of it we are richer or poorer, are sensitive to one need more or less, and are eventually guided a little by our dream-habits in broad daylight and even in the most cheerful moments occupying our waking spirit.”
—Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)