Riverside Daily Press · Riverside, California · 15 June 1933

CP-1933-001

Palestine Citrus Industry Theme of Address Given at Kiwanis Club

Transcribed from the clipping

“That Palestine will soon become a real competitor to other citrus producing countries was disclosed to Kiwanis club members today by facts and figures quoted by an Arabian, Taji Farouki, whose father owns 1700 acres planted to oranges. Since 1925, he said, practically all the available acreage in Palestine, whose citrus district is confined to an interior valley, has been planted to oranges. England has been the country’s best market, and Germany is coming to be a good customer… Questioning on the part of the members of the club, which he addressed on the subject of ‘Palestine Today and Tomorrow,’ brought from the speaker the disclosure that fruit which costs the grower $1.20 per box to get to market has yielded returns of around $5 a box. The annual production is now approximately four and a half million boxes… The country’s citrus industry was described as being extensive rather than intensive, which the speaker admitted was bad. His business in California, he said, was not to learn how to grow oranges, but rather how to learn about cooperative marketing. Formerly the grower realized well enough on his fruit without bothering personally about the marketing, but now the grower is handling it himself, and the opportunity is ripe to perfect a cooperative organization. Further questions developed that the navel orange proved a failure in Palestine; that water for irrigation is available with a pump lift of from 150 to 200 feet; that labor is available for 50 cents per day; that barnyard manure is the principal fertilizer used; that the rainfall averages 18 to 20 inches per annum, and that the production averages about eight field boxes (40 pounds each) to the tree… He said the differences between the Jews and the Arabs were not racial, since they are ‘cousins,’ as he termed it, but due to the fact that the influx of the Jews, principally from Russia and Poland, constitutes an unemployment problem… The older generation still opposes the education of women, he said… Politically, the younger generation realizes the necessity of working in harmony with the Jews, who are already in the land in large numbers.”

Context added by this archive

A Palestinian citrus grower’s son addressing a Kiwanis club in the California citrus belt, with costs, yields, rainfall and pump lifts. The paper calls him “an Arabian.” The line about cooperative marketing is the paper’s summary of what he said, not a direct quotation, and it is shown here in italics for that reason. Earliest record in the archive from 1933.

Cite this item

"Palestine Citrus Industry Theme of Address Given at Kiwanis Club," Riverside Daily Press, 15 June 1933. Covering Palestine archive, CP-1933-001. https://coveringpalestine.org/archive/cp-1933-001

Elsewhere in the archive

• Citrus Is Possible Basis For Jewish, Arab Co-operationSioux City News · 7 July 1933 · the same year
• Palestine Protected By 361 Jewish CopsSioux City News · 7 July 1933 · the same year