The Palestine Fair Trade Association (PFTA) is a Palestinian national union of fair trade producing cooperatives, processors, and exporters. It was founded in 2004 by Palestinian-American entrepreneur Nasser Abufarha

Nasser Abufarha

Nasser Abufarha is a Palestinian-American scholar and founder of the Palestine Fair Trade Association.He was born in 1964 in Al-Jalama, a small farming village near Jenin, at the northern tip of the West Bank...

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PFTA established the first internationally recognized standard for fair trade

Fair trade

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...

 olive oil

Olive oil

Olive oil is an oil obtained from the olive , a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin. It is commonly used in cooking, cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, and soaps and as a fuel for traditional oil lamps...

 in coordination with the Fairtrade Labeling Organization (FLO) in 2004, and introduced fair trade

Fair trade

Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries make better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers as well as higher social and environmental standards...

 and organic farming

Organic farming

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost and biological pest control to maintain soil productivity and control pests on a farm...

 concepts to thousands of Palestinian

Palestinian people

The Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with origins in Palestine. Despite various wars and exoduses, roughly one third of the world's Palestinian population continues to reside in the area encompassing the West Bank, the Gaza...

 farmers in the West Bank

West Bank

The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...

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