JENIN, West Bank — “There are regular grapes, then there are Jenin grapes,” boasts the slogan for Jenin’s first grape festival, reflecting this West Bank province’s desire to create awareness of Palestine’s second best-known product after olives.

The festival, which was organized by the Local Economic Development platform at the end of August in Jenin province, northern West Bank, aimed to introduce new varieties of Palestinian grapes that could enter the European markets and compete with other grape varieties globally. The festival also showed the history and current developments in grape cultivation in the Palestinian territories in general and Jenin in particular through products and workshops.

“We are trying hard to encourage farmers to plant different kinds of grapes in the Palestinian territories,” Fathi Abu Ayyash, the director of the Fruit and Grapes Council, told Al-Monitor, “We want to increase and improve the production of the existing grapes, especially between Aug. 15 and Nov. 15 when it is the high season for grapes.”

Abu Ayyash said, “There are 10,000 grape farmers in the West Bank; 63,640 dunams [15,725 acres] of land are used for grape production, and we produce around 55,000 tons of grapes annually, including 27,000 tons produced in Hebron alone and 2,000 tons in Jenin.”