Jaffa

====Late Ottoman agriculture; Jaffa oranges====
[[File:Oranges leaving Jaffa.jpg|thumb|Crates of Jaffa oranges being ferried to a waiting freighter for export, circa 1930]]
{{main|Jaffa orange}}

Until the mid-19th century, Jaffa's orange groves were mainly owned by Arabs, who employed traditional methods of farming. The pioneers of modern agriculture in Jaffa were American settlers, who brought in farm machinery in the 1850s and 1860s, followed by the Templers and the Jews.<ref>''Jaffa: A City in Evolution'' Ruth Kark, Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem, 1990, pp. 244–246.</ref> From the 1880s, real estate became an important branch of the economy. A 'biarah' (a watered garden) cost 100,000 piastres and annually produced 15,000, of which the farming costs were 5,000: 'A very fair percentage return on the investment.' Water for the gardens was easily accessible with wells between ten and forty feet deep.<ref>Thompson, page 517.</ref><ref>''Jaffa: A City in Evolution'' Ruth Kark, Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem, 1990, p.262.</ref>

Jaffa's citrus industry began to flourish in the last quarter of the 19th century. E.C. Miller records that 'about ten million' oranges were being exported annually, and that the town was surrounded by 'three or four hundred orange gardens, each containing upwards of one thousand trees'.<ref>Miller, page 97: 'The orange gardens are the finest in the East; and during the late winter and early spring, little white sailed vessels from Greece, Constantinople and the islands of the Archipelago, lie in calm weather at a short distance from the coast, waiting to carry away the fruit'.</ref> Shamuti or Shamouti oranges, aka "[[Jaffa oranges]]", were the major crop, but [[citron]]s, lemons and [[mandarin orange]]s were also grown.<ref>''Jaffa: A City in Evolution'' Ruth Kark, Yad Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Jerusalem, 1990, pp. 242.</ref> Jaffa had a reputation for producing the best [[pomegranate]]s.<ref>Thomson p.517: Sidon has best bananas, Jaffa the best pomegranates, oranges of Sidon are more juicy and have richer flavour. Jaffa oranges hang on the trees much later, and will bear shipping to distant regions.'</ref>

Developed the mid-19th century, the Jaffa orange was first produced for export in the city after being developed by Arab farmers.<ref name=Issawip127 /><ref name=Basanp83 /> The orange was the primary citrus export for the city. Today,{{dubious|reason= Maybe elsewhere, but in Isr/Pal it stopped being a cash crop decades ago. |date= January 2024}} along with the [[navel orange|navel]] and [[bitter orange]], it is one of three main varieties of the fruit grown in the [[Mediterranean]], the [[Middle East]], and [[Southern Europe]].<ref name=Basanp83 /><ref name=Ladaniyap48>Ladaniya, 2008, [https://books.google.com/books?id=zaOK8bsvENQC&pg=PA48 pp. 48–49].</ref>

The Jaffa orange emerged as a mutation on a tree of the 'Baladi' variety of [[sweet orange]] (''C. sinensis'') near the city of Jaffa.<ref name=Issawip127 /><ref name=Basanp83>Basan, 2007, [https://books.google.com/books?id=-7wnpIi3VRwC&dq=%22jaffa+orange%22&pg=PA83 p. 83].</ref> After the [[Crimean War]] (1853–56), the most important innovation in local agriculture was the rapid expansion of citrus cultivation.<ref name=Kramerp91>Krämer, 2008, [https://archive.org/details/historyofpalesti00krea/page/91 <!-- quote="jaffa orange" history. --> p. 91].</ref> Foremost among the varieties cultivated was the Jaffa (Shamouti) orange, and mention of it being exported to Europe first appears in British consular reports in the 1850s.<ref name=Issawip127>Issawi, 2006, [https://books.google.com/books?id=t2UESIFL0tkC&dq=%22jaffa+orange%22+history&pg=PA127 p. 127].</ref><ref name=Kramerp91 /> One factor cited in the growth of the export market was the development of [[steamship]]s in the first half of the 19th century, which enabled the export of oranges to the European markets in days rather than weeks.<ref name=Gerber1982>Gerber, 1982.</ref> Another reason cited for the growth of the industry was the relative lack of European control over the cultivation of oranges compared to cotton, formerly a primary commodity crop of Palestine, but outpaced by the Jaffa orange.<ref name=LeVinep272>LeVine, 2005, p. 272.</ref>

The prosperity of the orange industry brought increased European interest and involvement in the development of ''Jaffa''. In 1902, a study of the growth of the orange industry by [[Zionist]] officials outlined the different Palestinian owners and their primary export markets as England, Turkey, Egypt and [[Austria-Hungary]]. While the traditional Arabic cultivation methods were considered "primitive," an in-depth study of the financial expenditure involved reveals that they were ultimately more cost-efficient than the Zionist-European enterprises that followed them some two decades later.<ref name=LeVinep34>LeVine, 2005, [https://books.google.com/books?id=pG8LmsJAUPcC&q=%22jaffa+orange%22 p. 34].</ref>
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