Politics and practices of avocado cultivation in the West Bank: contested agrarian imaginaries and emerging cropscapes

Abstract

Contemporary debates on the future of agriculture are increasingly polarized between advocates of specialized, export-oriented, capital-intensive modes of farming, and those calling for an agroecological revolution rooted in local knowledges, crop diversity and territorial sovereignty. This article examines where small-scale farmers position themselves along this spectrum, challenging dominant assumptions that cast them either as backward and in need of modernization, or as fierce resisters of industrial agriculture who naturally lean toward agroecology. Through an in-depth exploration of the politics and practices of avocado cultivation in the northern West Bank, it shows how Palestinian small-scale farmers embrace, reject or adapt different agricultural development models, the agrarian imaginaries that inform their choices, and the cropscapes that emerge as a result.