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Marketing support to Palestinian Cash Crops Project

In the past months, ProVerde provided marketing assistance to the Palestinian Cash Crops Project. The current Gaza cash crop export sector was evaluated, including shipping, exporting, sales and marketing channels.

Against the background of rapidly changing market conditions and a challenging political situation, plans were drawn for the future path of the cash crop sector and the role of PARC and the cooperatives in its development.

About the Cash Crops Project
PARC, the Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees, is implementing a project “Developing & improving the cash crops sector in the Gaza Strip”, funded by the Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah (NRO). The project is one of the most valuable projects through which the export-oriented sector is supported.

The project is implemented in cooperation with the five agricultural cooperatives in Gaza and supports growers of carnations, strawberries, sweet peppers and cherry tomatoes. For more than two decades, the aforementioned crops have been exported and marketed in Europe, mainly in the Netherlands, but also in France, Germany, and Belgium.

All crops for export are nowadays labelled under the recently introduced ‘Palestine Crops’ brand.

About ProVerde’s marketing support
The purpose and objectives of the assignment to ProVerde was to generally assess and evaluate the current marketing mechanism that have been used for more than two decades, and to guide the project towards better marketing mechanisms and techniques.

Support in four phases:
1. Market scans
For each crop, a market scan was carried out to obtain insight into market characteristics and market parties’ view on specific products. A market scan is performed through a combination of desk research and interviews

2. Fact finding mission
The current marketing and distribution mechanisms were evaluated during a fact finding mission in April. A meeting with growers and representatives of the cooperatives was organised.

3. Marketing plans
Marketing plans were prepared based on the findings from the market scans, the identification mission and stakeholder input.

4. Video conference
A video conference was organised to present the marketing plans to growers and cooperatives.

The marketing plan was the result of an assessment by ProVerde with, in close collaboration with Bureau Leeters, PARC, the cooperatives and the Netherlands Representative Office in Ramallah.

Source: ProVerde