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In February 2008, the Fairtrade Foundation launched the world's first Fairtrade certified olive oil from Palestine. The product does more than just supply the discerning international market with high-quality, organic olive oil and promise a fair deal for the producers. It is working to help Palestinian farmers work around the separation wall, checkpoints and sever trade and movement restrictions placed on them by the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.
Farms that were once crippled by crashing olive oil prices and prohibitively expensive export costs are now cooperating with supermarkets and consumers around the world to lift the families out of poverty and into competition in the international market. Profits are used to improve farming methods, increase the scale of exports and - most importantly - develop the farming communities with schools, hospitals, transportation and general infrastructure.