fair trade and standards for oil buffs
cathi on November 13th, 2005A brief note for those interested in the workings of fair trade and olive oil standards in Palestine. While we were here we attended and gave a couple of presentations to Palestinian farmers and exporters on the requirements of fair trade in Europe. It’s part of the series of fair trade seminars organised by Oxfam here. It was a long chaotic day, but at the end of it a steering committee for fair trade in Palestine was established. We talked about IFAT membership for co-ops as well as olive oil quality standards.
The Palestine Standards Institute has produced a document, modelled on a French document, which sets out guidelines and standards for olive oil production. It should be translated in the next fortnight, and will be the basis for a system of checks and monitors on the whole process from harvesting to pressing through to bottling – similar to the Hazard Analysis Control Path in the UK.
We are still waiting for final prices for olive oil – but this year the harvest has been so scarce that prices will rise dramatically, and good quality oil may be harder for us to find.
Organic inspections of some of Al Zaytouna’s co-ops will be completed within the next week or so – soon as we have the feedback we can start estimating how much organic oil we can buy from them. A French taste tester is visiting some of the Al Zaytouna co-ops next week to conduct some trainings on organoleptic testing – I’ll be going along to find out more!
The walk around Qira’s groves was inspiring – we were shown the composting around the trees, and new planting as well as grafting of new trees. – I am collecting a somewhat strange vocabulary here – I now know the Arabic for grafting!
