عربي English Türkçe اردو فارسى
Logo
Latest News
Features

Makeshift Bakery Turns Out Scarce Bread in Gaza City

Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP
Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP
TT
TT

Makeshift Bakery Turns Out Scarce Bread in Gaza City

Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP
Makeshift bread ovens like this one in the central Gaza Strip have proliferated across the territory as Israel's punishing air and ground offensive has forced bakeries to close - AFP

With a metal box for an oven, planks of wood for fuel and a folded strip of cardboard for a makeshift potholder, a baker on a Gaza City street turned out tray after steaming tray of flat bread on Saturday.

A staple food before the war, bread has become rarer and rarer in the Gaza Strip, with bakeries shut across the heavily bombed north and flour in short supply after mills and storage warehouses were damaged in fighting between Israel and Hamas.

To Abu Abdullah Muhaysa, the volunteer who came up with the idea to bake bread for remaining residents of the devastated city, the improvised kitchen is a "response to the catastrophic situation in the Gaza Strip".

"We crafted this by hand with iron sheets to provide bread for people and their children, to help them survive and fulfil their needs after all basic necessities were cut off," he told AFP.

Patrons are asked to pay just a token amount to cover the cost of gathering firewood.

"Our efforts and manpower are solely dedicated to the sake of God and our community," Muhaysa said.

Since Hamas's October 7 attack on Israel sparked an Israeli pledge to crush the Palestinian militant group, a humanitarian disaster has been unfolding in Gaza.

The World Food Program has warned that the population faces a "high risk of famine", and only a trickle of aid has made it into the territory.

Earlier this month, one of Gaza's last grain warehouses was hit by Israeli strikes, and at least two of its five flour mills have been damaged.

Azmi Abu Assira was among those who turned out for bread in Gaza City on Saturday, the second day of renewed Israeli bombardment after a week-long truce fell apart.

"We were compelled to come here as there are no bakeries available," he said, adding that the price of a 20-kilogramme (44-pound) bag of flour had shot up to between 300 and 400 shekels (between $80 and $100).

"The people are suffering, as you can see," he added, calling for "a ceasefire to relieve us from the hardship".

Muhaysa, for his part, urged the international community "not to apply double standards, but to grant Palestinians their right to a normal life".

"We seek attention for our cause so that Palestinian children can smile like children everywhere else in the world," he said.

Most Viewed

 
 
Features

Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
TT
TT

Climate Change Imperils Drought-Stricken Morocco’s Cereal Farmers and Its Food Supply

A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)
A farmer works in a wheat field on the outskirts of Kenitra, Morocco, Friday, June 21, 2024. (AP)

Golden fields of wheat no longer produce the bounty they once did in Morocco. A six-year drought has imperiled the country's entire agriculture sector, including farmers who grow cereals and grains used to feed humans and livestock.

The North African nation projects this year's harvest will be smaller than last year in both volume and acreage, putting farmers out of work and requiring more imports and government subsidies to prevent the price of staples like flour from rising for everyday consumers.

"In the past, we used to have a bounty — a lot of wheat. But during the last seven or eight years, the harvest has been very low because of the drought," said Al Housni Belhoussni, a small-scale farmer who has long tilled fields outside of the city of Kenitra.

Belhoussni's plight is familiar to grain farmers throughout the world confronting a hotter and drier future. Climate change is imperiling the food supply and shrinking the annual yields of cereals that dominate diets around the world — wheat, rice, maize and barley.

In North Africa, among the regions thought of as most vulnerable to climate change, delays to annual rains and inconsistent weather patterns have pushed the growing season later in the year and made planning difficult for farmers.

In Morocco, where cereals account for most of the farmed land and agriculture employs the majority of workers in rural regions, the drought is wreaking havoc and touching off major changes that will transform the makeup of the economy. It has forced some to leave their fields fallow. It has also made the areas they do elect to cultivate less productive, producing far fewer sacks of wheat to sell than they once did.

In response, the government has announced restrictions on water use in urban areas — including on public baths and car washes — and in rural ones, where water going to farms has been rationed.

"The late rains during the autumn season affected the agriculture campaign. This year, only the spring rains, especially during the month of March, managed to rescue the crops," said Abdelkrim Naaman, the chairman of Nalsya. The organization has advised farmers on seeding, irrigation and drought mitigation as less rain falls and less water flows through Morocco's rivers.

The Agriculture Ministry estimates that this year's wheat harvest will yield roughly 3.4 million tons (3.1 billion kilograms), far less than last year's 6.1 million tons (5.5 billion kilograms) — a yield that was still considered low. The amount of land seeded has dramatically shrunk as well, from 14,170 square miles (36,700 square kilometers) to 9,540 square miles (24,700 square kilometers).

Such a drop constitutes a crisis, said Driss Aissaoui, an analyst and former member of the Moroccan Ministry for Agriculture.

"When we say crisis, this means that you have to import more," he said. "We are in a country where drought has become a structural issue."

Leaning more on imports means the government will have to continue subsidizing prices to ensure households and livestock farmers can afford dietary staples for their families and flocks, said Rachid Benali, the chairman of the farming lobby COMADER.

The country imported nearly 2.5 million tons of common wheat between January and June. However, such a solution may have an expiration date, particularly because Morocco's primary source of wheat, France, is facing shrinking harvests as well.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization ranked Morocco as the world's sixth-largest wheat importer this year, between Türkiye and Bangladesh, which both have much bigger populations.

"Morocco has known droughts like this and in some cases known droughts that las longer than 10 years. But the problem, this time especially, is climate change," Benali said.