Overall aim: To support the steadfastness of farmers, especially in areas severely affected by Israeli occupation measures and to ensure food security and a sustainable environment for all.

Agriculture is vital to the lives of many of Palestine's population of 3.9 million. According to Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) data, almost one-third of the total area of the West Bank and Gaza is cultivated with field crops, fruit trees, vegetables, and cash crops. Latest national figures put the annual value added of agricultural production of the Palestinian Territory at around $557 million, indicating the crucial role the agricultural sector plays in ensuring job opportunities and employment, and in achieving food security for Palestinian families who depend on agriculture for small family-supported domestic projects.

However, production and capacities in the sector have been severely compromised by Israeli occupation measures. Israeli settlements in the West Bank, combined with the extensive network of settler roads and restrictions on Palestinians accessing their own land, dominate more than 40 percent of the West Bank. Hundreds of thousands of dunums of productive land now lie behind the apartheid wall, inaccessible to farmers. Since September 2000, Israeli military tanks and bulldozers have destroyed agricultural land and uprooted more than 1 million productive trees. In the Gaza Strip, where agriculture employs over 15% of the labour force, closures and Israeli-incurred damage has resulted in losses of more than $400 million since 2001.

Palestinians in the WBGS also face deteriorating environmental conditions and loss of biodiversity. Recent reports note that 25% of Palestinians in the WBGS do not have sufficient access to water. More than 70% of the population is not connected to a sewerage network, with great variations within the WBGS. Access is denied to waste water treatment plants or landfills in several municipalities; in other instances the Israeli military has closed landfills. Across the West Bank, transportation distances have risen, resulting in a proliferation of temporary, environmentally hazardous dump sites. Given the extent of the crisis in the agriculture and environment sector, the NGO sector plays a critical complementary role to the Ministries of Agriculture and Environment and related governmental agencies in this sector.