Why is this important?
Your purchase of these products helps build peace in many ways:
- Provides a fair price to farmers, growers and women working in women-owned cooperatives.
- Sustains and creates jobs for Palestinian farmers and suppliers. This not only provides income to families but also heals, giving a sense of stability and purpose in a place where the trauma of war is a daily experience.
- Supports important projects of the Rebuilding Alliance. A portion of every sale will support our efforts to rebuild war-torn communities and make them safe. Your purchase will help us bring Israelis and Palestinians together to help rebuild Palestinian communities in the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem and tell their stories. Read more about Rebuilding Alliance projects.
- … We also hope these tasty, organic fair trade products will bring peace and happiness to your life!
This is A Healthy Way to Build Peace!!
What does Fair Trade mean to the people?
Canaan Fair Trade uses the fair trade model to empower Palestinian rural communities caught in conflict so they can sustain their livelihoods and culture, and hope for a better future. Canaan’s fair trade practices guarantee a fair price to growers, planting of new olive trees, investment in research and training, and a scholarship program for their children! Canaan’s involvement in planting projects is especially important as it helps to sustain the farmland under constant threat. Farmers live with the fear that a bulldozer might come to destroy their land at any time. Additionally, as construction irrigation systems for farming purposes is illegal, Palestinian farmers also have to deal with a lack of water for cultivation. To learn more about farming situation in Palestine go to News from Palestinian farmland.
In buying this product, you help to extend opportunities to Palestinian women as well as farmers, through Canaan’s micro-lending program for women.
Where do the products come from?
Our olive oil comes from the land where olive oil first began, Canaan, a region encompassing modern-day Israel, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Territories. The olive oil is produced by 1,700 small farmers participating in cooperatives and represented by the Palestinian Fair Trade Association (PETA). Canaan olive oils are naturally organic thanks to ancient Canaanite traditions of farming that are practiced to this day.
“Tell them I made it (couscous) with my own hands, with love from Palestine. Tell them it is a lot of work!”
Couscous, za’atar and soap are prepared in 6 women-owned Palestinian cooperatives where 60 women are employed. All products are hand made. Kitham, a woman working for one of the cooperatives preparing couscous, when asked what message she would like to pass to outside wold said:Tell them I made it (couscous) with my own hands, with love from Palestine. Tell them it is a lot of work!”
All Canaan products are certified by independent agencies in accordance with U.S.D.A. and European organic certification requirements.
