Three years ago, 34-year-old Palestinian farmer Mohammad Jaffar Edris Khudair never guessed he would be pivotal to his community’s food security. He had been working in the same farming operation in the city of Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip for two decades and had little hope for expanding his business.

Mohammad had left school in 2002 to join his father on the farm in order to help cover their family’s expenses. Although he managed to make a modest living producing potatoes and carrots for himself, his wife, his three children and his parents, business autonomy was a pipe dream.

A crucial issue for Mohammad, like all the farmers in this area, was that he lacked equipment to store and preserve his crops, forcing him and the other local farmers to rush to sell their produce to traders before it spoiled. Consequently, the local market was flooded with supply in the weeks after the harvest, and Mohammad and the others would have to accept drastically reduced prices for their crops.