FAO Reports Only 1.5% of Gaza’s Farmland Usable, Warns of Imminent Famine
Only 1.5% of Gaza’s farmland is usable, according to the latest satellite survey released Wednesday by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). This amount equates to less than a square mile, as the organization warned that the Palestinian territory is on “the brink of a full-scale famine.”
In its previous survey, published at the end of May, the FAO reported that less than five percent of Gaza’s farmland was both accessible and undamaged, based on data from the UN Satellite Centre.
The July 28 survey revealed that while 8.6 percent of Gaza’s farmland was accessible, only 1.5 percent—approximately 2.3 square kilometers or less than one square mile—was both accessible and usable. Additionally, 12.4 percent of farmland remains undamaged but inaccessible.
The survey indicated that an overwhelming majority of Gaza’s farmland—86.1 percent—is damaged.
“Gaza is now on the brink of a full-scale famine,” stated Qu Dongyu, the FAO’s director-general. “People are starving not because food is unavailable, but because access is blocked, local agrifood systems have collapsed, and families can no longer sustain even the most basic livelihoods,” he added.
Qu called for safe and sustained humanitarian access to restore local food production and prevent further loss of life. “The right to food is a basic human right,” he emphasized.
Before the conflict, agriculture accounted for approximately 10 percent of the Gaza Strip’s economy. The FAO estimated that more than 560,000 people, or about a quarter of the population, relied at least partially on agriculture and fishing for their livelihoods.
