About the documentary

Land of Canaan

Land of Canaan is a cinematic meditation following Palestinian farmers tending to some of the oldest olive trees in the world: living symbols of livelihood, heritage, and resistance. When Dr. Nasser Abufarha, a Palestinian American entrepreneur, returns to the occupied West Bank and finds the olive oil industry in crisis, he leads a movement to preserve an ecosystem and thousands of years of ecological knowledge, helping to build one of Palestine's most influential fair-trade networks. While Palestinian land, culture, and livelihood face erasure, Land of Canaan documents a way of life, shows us what is at stake, and why it must be protected.

About the filmmakers / panel

Nasser Abufarha, Ph.D.

Producer / Protagonist

Raised among the olive groves of Jenin, Abufarha founded Canaan Palestine, the world’s first fair‑trade and organic olive oil company. Through his work he has connected more than 2,000 small‑scale Palestinian farming families to global markets, brought Palestinian olive oil to international recognition and funded scholarships and women’s cooperatives. His vision of sustainable, community‑based trade has been celebrated worldwide and is even more relevant today as conflict threatens to sever farmers from their land.

Maggie Lemere

Director

Award‑winning filmmaker and oral historian Maggie Lemere is a National Geographic Explorer and co‑founder of the Rhiza Collective. Lemere’s storytelling focuses on the intersections of humanity and the environment; she is currently directing Land of Canaan, “a National Geographic Society‑supported feature film about Palestinians’ relationship with ancient olive trees” . In a recent interview, she said that making the film has become one of the hardest things she has ever done; as violence escalated in the West Bank the project “became a historical document … because of the horrible escalation of violence in the communities where we filmed” . Lemere’s approach uses oral history to foreground love, joy and connection rather than trauma alone, revealing a seldom‑seen side of contemporary Palestine.

Meryl Marsh (moderator)

Board Member, On The Ground Global

Meryl has been volunteering with OTG since she participated in Run Across Palestine and Run Across Congo and is thrilled to be on the board. She is based in Traverse City, MI. 

About On The Ground Global

Sustainability starts where inequity ends.

On the Ground partners with coffee farmer communities to improve standards of living. Our changing climate and unfair global economic structures are threatening the future of coffee. We understand that industry sustainability won’t come from self-serving attempts to protect a valuable crop. It will only come from a collaborative, industry-wide effort to support and develop coffee-growing communities. Our duty is to encourage others to look past their cup and to see those farming families who are still struggling.

We view our coffee-producing colleagues as equals, as friends. We believe that families who farm coffee deserve the same access to basic human rights as the people who trade, roast and consume their coffee. Our dream is to see inequity ended in the specialty coffee industry and to see our friends thrive.



Freed from the burdens of tainted water, malnutrition, disease, illiteracy and economic and political instability, farming communities are capable of producing higher-quality coffee, which supports further development and enriches their entire supply chain. Learn more about On The Ground Global.