From Commercial Scales to Tiny Plots
In the Jabalia region of northern Gaza, the agricultural landscape has undergone a violent and sudden transformation. Mohammad al-Halabi once managed a vast, productive enterprise spanning 40,000 square meters, where he cultivated a diverse array of crops including strawberries, tomatoes, potatoes, flowers, and eggplants alongside his four children. Today, his scale of production has been reduced by orders of magnitude. He now tends to a mere 300-square-meter plot of tomato and eggplant seedlings in the Nuseirat refugee camp. While such individual stories are often framed as emblems of human resilience, the transition from a large-scale commercial operation to a makeshift survival plot highlights a deeper, more systematic decline in Gaza's food systems.
The reduction in farm size is not a choice made by farmers for efficiency, but a direct consequence of the physical destruction of their livelihoods. In February 2024, al-Halabi's original farmland was bulldozed, removing not just the crops but the fertile topsoil and the fundamental infrastructure required for large-scale agriculture. This shift from high-yield commercial farming to minuscule subsistence plots signals a forced descent from economic stability toward a precarious state of mere existence. Where there were once diverse ecosystems designed for market export, there are now scattered, tiny patches of greenery struggling to provide basic caloric needs.
The Process of De-development
Sociologists and economists often describe the systematic dismantling of Gaza's economic base as "de-development." This process involves the deliberate destruction of productive capacity, turning a territory that once aimed for food sovereignty into one that is entirely dependent on external aid. The destruction is not limited to the visible crops; it includes the invisible infrastructure of irrigation systems, soil health, and the stability of the groundwater table. When large-scale greenhouses are destroyed and arable land is leveled, the capacity to generate surplus wealth is replaced by an endless struggle for subsistence.
The loss of control over agricultural inputs is another layer of this systemic erosion. Farmers face extreme difficulty in accessing essential biological materials, such as high-quality seeds, and chemical inputs like fertilizers and pesticides. This lack of access creates a bottleneck that prevents even small-scale farmers from scaling their production. Without the ability to plan multi-season crop cycles or invest in soil nutrients, the small plots managed by families like the al-Halabi's or Isa Shamallah's become isolated responses to a broken system, rather than foundations for future economic recovery.
Survival Tactics in a War Zone
Despite the overwhelming destruction, some farmers attempt to leverage whatever resources remain. In the Gaza City area, Isa Shamallah and his sons are attempting to salvage their grape cultivation by engaging in labor-intensive, primitive methods, such as digging into the earth to tap into shallow groundwater veins. This method of irrigation is far less efficient than the modern systems that once serviced Gaza's orchards, but it represents the only available method to keep the perennial plants alive. Such actions are not signs of a recovering economy, but rather desperate measures to prevent the total death of long-standing agricultural investments.
In the Az Zawaida area of Deir al Balah, veteran farmers like Kareem exemplify the struggle to maintain existing structures. Having worked in greenhouses for over thirty years, Kareem specializes in tomatoes, cucumbers, leafy greens, and wheat. However, the modern warfare has directly targeted these tools of production, with gunfire damaging the specialized greenhouse plastics that protect crops from heat and pests. Even for those who maintain some semblance of professional farming, the economic math is increasingly grim. High production costs, coupled with unstable markets and mounting debt, make the act of farming a financial gamble with life-threatening consequences.
The Illusion of Sustainability
While the presence of greenhouses and rented plots offers a visible sense of life and activity, it is important to question whether these efforts constitute a sustainable path forward. The reliance on greenhouses is often a temporary coping mechanism rather than a return to prosperity. Because the broader macroeconomic environment remains controlled by blockades and movement restrictions, even the most productive small-scale farmers cannot reliably reach larger markets to sell their goods for a profit. This creates a cycle where farmers are caught in a state of permanent vulnerability, unable to accumulate the capital necessary to repair the large-scale infrastructure they have lost.
The tension between individual grit and systemic deprivation is central to the reality of Gaza's farmers. A farmer may exhibit incredible determination by planting seedlings in rubble, but individual agency cannot compensate for the structural loss of fertile land, the destruction of water tables, and the collapse of trade routes. When the macro-economic reality is one of total dependency on aid, small-scale gardening acts more as a stopgap against immediate famine than as a genuine engine for rebuilding a stable, independent agricultural sector. Without a fundamental shift in the conditions affecting land access and movement, these tiny plots will likely remain mere fragments of a much larger, once-thriving ecosystem.
