Tulkarm district is a semi-coastal region, located in the north-western part of the West Bank. It lies between 40 to 500 meters above the mean sea level with 641 mm average annual rainfall (Tulkarm Agricultural Department, 1995).
The district has good fertile soil, suitable climate, fair amount of good water quality for irrigation and relatively high annual rainfall. These factors resulted in prosperous rainfed farming and irrigated agriculture in the district.
Considering the ecological map of the West Bank, Tulkarm district is located in two eco-zones. The largest part of the district, including the Tulkarm and Qalqiliya cities, is located on semi-coastal region while a small part is located on the highlands but at a low elevation.
It should be mentioned here that the geographical definition of the cultivated areas described in this chapter are according to the Israeli definition of the Tulkarm District and not as defined by ARIJ. Figure 1 shows the Tulkarm district according to the Israeli definition where the Tulkarm district area is estimated at 62,000 ha, while Figure 1.1 shows the Tulkarm district as defined by ARIJ where the area is estimated at 33,453 ha (ARIJ GIS unit, 1996).
Depending on the kind of cultivating patterns, the Tulkarm district can be divided into two areas:
This strip extends along the western part of the West Bank, from Qaffin in the north to Qalqiliya City in the south. The average annual rainfall ranges between 400 and 700 mm. Rainfed and irrigated fruit trees, wide areas of covered irrigated vegetable crops (plastic houses and low tunnels), open irrigated vegetables and limited areas of rainfed field crops and vegetables are planted in this part of the district. This part also includes many of the agricultural villages such as Qaffin, Nazlat I'sa, Nazlat abu Nar, A'ttil, Deir El Ghusun, Dannaba, Tulkarm, Faro'un, Falame and Qalqiliya (See Map of the Tulkarm Build-up Area).
This area extends along the eastern parts of Tulkarm and Qalqiliya cities including Bala'a, A'nabta, Kafr El Labad and Beit Leed towns. Water resources are limited in this area compared to the western area. Rainfed field crops and olive trees are the dominant cultivation in this part of the district.
Various types of agricultural crops are planted in the district. Warm temperatures and high rates of annual rainfall are the main factors contributing to the increased productivity and diversity of the planted crops. For instance, 27 various vegetable crops, 22 types of fruit trees and 12 types of field crops are grown through the district in 1993/94 growing season, covering an area of 36,511.9 ha. Rainfed farming represents about 92% (33,577.4 ha) of the total cultivated area while the remaining 8% is irrigated. The total plant production was approximately 141,726.7 tons of which irrigated cultivation produces 74.5% of the total production and the remaining 25.5% is from rainfed farming (Tulkarm Agricultural Department, 1995) (See Figure 6.1).
Figure 6.1: Total Area and Production of Various Crops in the Tulkarm District for the 1993/94 Growing Season
In the 1993/94 growing season, vegetable crops occupied the largest area, followed by fruit trees and field crops. Fruit trees gave the highest amount of yield, followed by vegetable crops and field crops. The average capacity of the plant production varies from 2.8 tons/ha for fruit trees to 2.0 tons/ha for vegetable crops and 1.4 tons/ha for the field crops. The crucial factors resulted in increasing total capacity of production for various types of planted crops are the area of the irrigated lands and the level of technology being implemented.
Throughout the Tulkarm district, vegetable crops occupy 45.3% (2,794.8 ha) of the total cultivated area. Irrigated vegetables occupy 1,427.3 ha with a total annual production of 52,850.1 tons while rainfed vegetables occupy approximately 1,367.5 ha with a total annual production of 2,720 tons (See Figure 6.2)
Figure 6.2: Total Area and Production of Vegetable Crops in the Tulkarm District for the 1993/94 Growing Season
The area of irrigated vegetables is divided into open field vegetables (58%), plastic houses (32.1%), high tunnels (5.3%) and low tunnels (4.6%) ( See Figure 6.3).
Figure 6.3: Distribution of the Cultivated Vegetable Crops and their Production under Various Cropping Systems in the Tulkarm District for the 1993/94 Growing Season
In general, the production potential of all vegetable crops increases significantly from 2.0 tons/ha in rainfed farming to 19.4 tons/ha in open field farming and to 67.8 tons/ha in plastic houses.
Low tunnels are usually used either for protecting the planted seedlings from incidence of frost during the cold periods of winter where they are removed afterwards, or remain until fruit production is started. In general, the potential of production under high tunnels is usually higher than that of low tunnels but in the case of the Tulkarm district both types of planting systems are used in limited areas and for limited crops (See Figure 6.3).
Under plastic houses, cucumber is the dominant vegetable crop grown and occupies approximately 87.9% of the total area of plastic houses in the district. This is followed by tomatoes, hot pepper, chilly pepper, jews mallow and eggplants. The highest productivity obtained from eggplants was 100 tons/ha and the lowest was for jews mallow (350 tons/ha).
Cucumber is the dominant crop planted under high tunnels. It occupies 74% of the total area, followed by green beans and tomatoes. The average capacity of production under high tunnels is half the productivity for the plastic houses, reaching 38 tons/ha for cucumber, 60 tons/ha for tomatoes and 20 tons/ha for beans.
Eggplants occupy the largest area among the vegetable crops planted under low tunnels. They occupy 34% of the total area devoted for low tunnels, followed by green beans, cucumber, hot and chilly peppers and jews mallow. The average productivity of planted crops under low tunnels is lower than that those under high tunnels and plastic houses for the same crops. The highest productivity of eggplants was 90 tons/ha and 10 tons/ha for cucumber.
In the 1993/94 growing season, about 22 various vegetable crops were grown in open irrigated fields with a total area of 827.3 ha. Cauliflower had the largest area (226 ha) followed by potatoes (201 ha), eggplants (48.7 ha) and cabbage (39.6 ha). The average productivity varies between 35 tons/ha for turnip to 10 tons/ha for cucumber, green beans, cowpeas, radish and parsley.
For the same year, around fourteen types of vegetable crops were grown under rainfed conditions, occupying a total of 1,367.5 ha (49.9% of total vegetable area). Okra occupied the largest area (298.9 ha), followed by dry onions (211.9 ha), tomatoes (185.7 ha), garlic (121.9 ha), squash (124 ha) and snake cucumber (98.9 ha). The average productivity ranges between 2.7 tons/ha for potatoes and 0.4 ton/ha for both green beans and cowpeas (See Figure 6.3).
In the 1993/94 growing season, approximately 21 types of fruit trees were planted in the district on an area of 27,620.5 ha, with an average total production of 77,519.6 tons. Rianfed fruit trees are dominant with a total area of 26,151.3 ha (94.7%) and the remaining 5.3% were irrigated (See Figure 6.4).
Figure 6.4: Total Area and Production of Fruit Trees in the Tulkarm District for the 1993/94 Growing Season
Olive trees are the dominant fruit trees planted in the Tulkarm district, holding 85% of the area devoted to fruit trees and 64.3% of the total cultivated area in the district. This area includes 711 ha of unproductive olive trees, 22,757.3 ha of productive olive trees under rainfed conditions and only 7.5 ha under irrigation. The average productivity of rainfed olive trees in 1993/94 growing season was 900 kg/ha compared to 3 tons/ha of the irrigated olive trees (Tulkarm Agricultural Department, 1995).
Stonefruit trees are the next main fruit trees with a total area of 2,297.2 ha. Almond trees occupy 83% (1,905.7 ha) of this sector with an average production of 300 kg/ha followed by apricots with an average production of 600 kg/ha then plums with an average production of 500 kg/ha. Peaches are the stonefruit trees grown under irrigation with a total area of 14.8 ha and average productivity of 2.5 tons/ha.
Irrigated fruit trees occupy 5.3% of the total fruit tree's area in the district and contribute by 67.8% of the total fruit tree's production. Various types of fruit trees are irrigated including citrus (varieties of orange, clementine, lemon and mandarin), guava, peach and very limited areas of loquat, pecan, kiwi and avocado. Citrus trees form a total area of 1,368.5 ha with a total production of 50,330 tons. Amongst the irrigated fruit trees, peaches have the lowest productivity of 2.5 tons/ha and both lemons and clementine have the highest productivity of 4 tons/ha.
In recent years, tropical trees have been introduced to the district offering a good economic opportunity for farmers to market fruits which are in great demand locally. Further expansion of the area planted with such trees should be carefully investigated in light of the high crop water requirment of these trees. The remaining area of rainfed fruit trees consists of 278.7 ha of figs, 97.1 ha of grape vines, 22.5 ha of apples and pears and 30 ha of pomegranates.
Field crops are totally cultivated under rainfed conditions, except for 38 ha of irrigated peanuts. Wheat has the largest area of 2,437 ha and a total production of 4,631 tons with an average productivity of 1.9 tons/ha. This is followed by barley, which occupies 1,525.1 ha and produces 3,050 tons. Both crops form 65% of the total area devoted to field crops and forage and to 88.9% of their production in the 1993/94 growing season (See Figure 6.5). Food pulses, including dry broad beans, lentils and chickpeas, are planted in limited areas with an average productivity of 400 kg/ha.
Figure 6.5: Total Area and Production of Various Field Crops and Forages in the Tulkarm District for 1993/94 Growing Season
Wheat production in the Tulkarm district accounts for nearly 15.7% and 26% of both total cultivated area and production in the West Bank, respectively. Tulkarm district ranks the first in wheat production followed by Jenin (19.2%), Hebron (18.25%), Ramallah (15.2%), and Nablus (12.7%).
The total area of seed forages comprises 529.4 ha of bitter vetch and 426.4 ha of common vetch, with an average productivity of 400 kg/ha. Sesame is usually planted in the district as a summer field crop. In the 1993/94 growing season, 313.6 ha of sesame were planted with an average productivity of 350 kg/ha. Some medicinal crops are cultivated on a limited area, such as dill, nigella and fenugreek, with an average productivity of 400 kg/ha.
There is excessive fragmentation of land holdings in the Tulkarm district as a result of the traditional inheritance laws. Approximately 85% of the holdings have areas between 0.1 and 2 ha. These small holdings provide insufficient income to the farmers, who are forced to look for additional sources of income. Table 6.1 shows the distribution of holding size in irrigated lands in the Tulkarm district. These results are based on a survey carried out by ARIJ (1994-1995).
Approximately 51% of the total irrigated lands are rented, 40% are planted by the owners, and 9% are shared (ARIJ - Water Data Base, 1995). Renting and sharing systems are done in the following patterns:
In addition to providing land and water, landlords provide 50% of all other production inputs while the partners provide the other 50% and labor costs.
It is the most dominant system for intensive plantations of vegetable crops in the district. The rent is around $ 700 per hectare per year. In this system, landlords provide nothing for production input. Most of the farmers pay the money of rent at the beginning of the growing season.
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| Source: ARIJ - Water Research Unit, 1995 | |
New techniques of irrigation such as sprinkler and drip irrigation are adopted in 65.5% of the total irrigated lands in the district while 34.5% are irrigated by traditional methods such as: furrows and basins (ARIJ - Water Data Base, 1995). Approximately all of the irrigated vegetable crops in the district are irrigated by modern irrigation techniques (90% drip and 10% sprinkler).
Of the total area of irrigated fruit trees, 31% are irrigated by modern irrigation techniques and the remaining 69% irrigated by furrows and basins especially in citrus orchards. Table 6.2 shows the distribution of irrigated areas under various irrigation methods in the Tulkarm district.
Modern irrigation methods need to be introduced into the fruit trees' orchards especially for citrus where large amount of water is lost. Such adaptation will serve 25-30% of the water used for irrigation, providing an economic benefit for farmer as well as enable further expansion of irrigated areas.
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| Vegetables |
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| Fruit trees |
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| Forages |
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| Total |
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| Percentage |
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| Source: ARIJ- Water Data Base, 1995 | |||
ARIJ has conducted an evaluation of the crop water requirement for the various irrigated crops in the West Bank districts as part of the Irrigation Management Project which is funded by the Canadian IDRC and conducted by the water research unit at ARIJ. A full report is expected soon but highlights of the findings for Tulkarm district will be presentd here. The Penman method has been used in estimating crop water requirements, taking into account the climatic (adapted from Tulkarm Weather Station), soil and plant factors. Table 6.3 gives an estimation of water requirements for the main cultivated crops in the open field and plastic houses in the Tulkarm district.
In order to determine the actual quantity of irrigation water required by the various irrigated crops and cropping systems, several factors should be taken into account such as the amount of effective rainfall, irrigation method efficiency, soil texture and salinity, water required for some agricultural practices such as soil fumigation and water quality parameters including salinity, chloride and sodium content, etc.
The total amount of net water required for the various irrigated crops cultivated in the Tulkarm district in 1993/1994 growing season is found to be 20.56 MCM. Fruit trees required larger amount of water (65.2%) followed by vegetables with 33.5% and field crops with 1.3% of the total amount of irrigation water (See Table 6.4).
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| Tomato |
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| Egg plant |
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| Chilly pepper |
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| Green beans |
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| Jews mallow |
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| Citrus |
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| Olives |
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| Guava |
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| Source: ARIJ Water Data Base, 1995 | ||
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| Vegetables | Open Fields |
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| Low Plastic Tunnels |
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| Plastic Houses and high tunnels |
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| Fruit Trees |
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| Field crops |
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| Total |
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| Source: ARIJ Water Data Base, 1995 | |||
Approximately 18,100 ha of natural and human-made forests exist in the Tulkarm district. Natural forests seize approximately 43.1% of the total forest areas while 13.8% are man-made forests, and the remaining 43.1% are considered as unplanteor deforested land.
Calcotome villosa, Pistacia lentiscus and Ceratonia siliqua are the most dominant and well-known species of forest trees in natural forests. Allepo pine (Pinus halepensis) is the most dominant forest tree in the human-made forests, followed by cypress trees and Cupressus spp. These areas need maintenance and development through replanting deforested areas with suitable species of forest trees (Tulkarm Agricultural Department, 1995).
Approximately 58.8 tons of pesticide were used in the Tulkarm district in the 1993/94 growing season. The total area treated with pesticides was 9,190.3 ha (25% of the total cultivated area in the district), of which 59.4% was cultivated with fruit trees, 22% with vegetables and 18.4% with field crops. The total treated area of rainfed farming was about 6,425 ha and required 17.6 tons of pesticides, while 2,765.3 ha of irrigated lands were treated with 41.2 tons of pesticides. Figure 6.6 shows the distribution of pesticide consumption for various planted crops and cropping patterns of vegetables (Saleh et al., 1994).
Figure 6.6: Pesticide Usage for Various Planted Crops in the Tulkarm District for the 1993/94 Growing Season
There are 816 heads of the local cattle breed and 679 head of the Frisian breed in the Tulkarm district, together representing about 12.7% of the total number of cattle in the West Bank. Figure 6.7 shows the distribution of both breeds of cattle according to age and sex. The number of milk-producing cows from both breeds forms 71.6% of total cattle in the district, followed by the heifers (16.5%), calves (10.6%) and bulls (1.3%). The main target of rearing cattle is for milk production. Hence, the number of females forms 88.2% of the total number of the cattle in the district. Moreover, the strongest and most healthy bulls and calves are usually selected for studding and the rest are usually raised for meat production. Around 37% of the cows are inseminated naturally while the rest are inseminated artificially (Tulkarm Agricultural Department, 1995).
Figure 6.7: Number of Cattle in the Tulkarm District According to Sex and Rearing Stage for 1994
The average daily production of milk ranges between 27.6 liters for the Frisian cows and 4.7 liters for the local breed. Also there are hybrid cows resulting from crossing between both breeds, giving an average productivity of 15.5 liters per day each. According to the milking method, 86% of producing cows are milked manually while 14% are milked by milking machines.
Nearly 45% of total daily produced milk is consumed as fresh milk while the rest (55%) processed into various milk products as follows: 53% for cheese, 46% for yogurt and 2.0% for producing sour cream (labaneh). About 16% of fresh milk and milk products are sold in the locations of production and 84% in the markets of the district. The women farmers are usually responsible for processing the produced milk manually at their homes (ARIJ Data base, 1995, PARC and Arab Thought Forum 1994, Vol.2, No.2).
There are approximately 29,235 sheep and goats in the district. Sheep form about 61% of the total number of the small ruminants including 16,364 heads of local breed and 1,460 heads of the Assaf breed. The number of goats is smaller than that of sheep and forms only 39% of the total small ruminants. Most of the goats in the district are of local breed and few are Shami and hybrid goats.
The distribution of sheep and goats according to the grazing months during the year shows that 1.8% are totally fed on concentrates (confined system), 3.3% are mostly dependent on the range lands and 79.4% graze and supplemented with concentrates (PARC and Arab Thought Forum 1993, Vol. 1, No. 6.).
There are approximately 480 farms of broilers in the Tulkarm district. The number of broiler chicken produced in the Tulkarm district was 3.5 millions in 1994 (Tulkarm Agricultural Department, 1995). Moreover, there are approximately 160 layer chicken farms with a total number of laying hens of 137,000, of which 67% are egg producers (PARC and Arab Thought Forum 1994, Vol.2, No.2).
There are about 3,000 modern beehives in the district, forming about 14.7% of the total number of beehives in the West Bank. Approximately 22.2% of total number of the bee- hives contain local breeds, 29.8% are of Italian breed and 48% are of hybrid breeds. The average capacity of annual production for local, Italian and hybrid breeds is estimated at 7.5 kg, 21.2 kg and 15.9 kg of honey per year respectively. The average total production in 1994 was 46.8 tons of honey.
Approximately 93.2% of existing beehives are extracted using electric extractors. About 9.3% of the total produced honey is exported to the Israeli markets, either directly and/or through marketing agents, and the rest is sold locally in the markets of the West Bank and Gaza Strip (PARC and Arab Thought Forum, 1994, Vol. 2, No. 3).
1. About 29% of total irrigated area in the West Bank is located in the Tulkarm district, therefore, the development of all inputs of plant production is required to improve this sector in this district.
2. Introduce and increase the cultivated areas with high quality crops to compete in local and outside markets.
3. Start new activities and encourage investment in the agricultural sector to attract both agricultural workers and business people. Establishing new projects such as grading and storage centers, exporting and introducing new methods of cultivation are essentials.
4. Establish food factories and develop the Palestinian agro-industry.
5. Improve extension activities in order to develop farmer's experience, mainly in management and crop types.
6. Protect farmers and products during marketing crisis.
