The total grant for these two industries will be NIS 28.9 million (NIS 1,700 dunams X 17,000 dunams).
The payment for the cancellation of the quotas will be made during the month of December 1994 and is subject to the fulfillment of the conditions specified in the previous sections.
This sum does not detract from the entitlement of the large carrots and onions to be included in government support for the local market – including arrangements for safety nets in the future.
- Abolishing quotas on potatoes
- The cancellation of quotas on potatoes will be done gradually in accordance with the autonomy agreements. In each of the next three years, the Ministry of Finance will fund compensation for the cancellation of quotas according to the amount that comes in from the actual autonomy and the rest (up to the full amount of the quotas), with the complete cancellation of the quotas.
- If, according to the Vegetable Council's examination, it becomes clear in the coming weeks that there are growers interested in exiting the industry and that the scope of their quotas is higher than the quantities actually coming in from the autonomy, the issue will be examined separately, subject to the annual budget constraints for the subject.
- The total grant will be NIS 1,700 per dunam of potatoes.
- The compensation to the Potato Corps will be paid at the end of each compensation year and against quantities that actually entered and no more than the trade quota.
- The growers may choose the option of monetary compensation in the first year and not the cancellation of the quota , but the amount of compensation will be deducted from the cost of canceling the quota. (All emphases in the original - M. 8)
The agreement is concerned – as stated in the title of clause 5 – the compensation of the farmers "for the cancellation of quotas", a cancellation that came due to the exposure of the Israeli market to agricultural crops from the Authority. The body of the agreement distinguishes between potatoes and "other vegetables"; While the quotas for "other vegetables" were immediately canceled and it was determined that the farmers would receive compensation of NIS 1,700 per dunam, a special arrangement was made for potatoes. Thus, in paragraph F, entitled "Cancellation of Quotas on Potatoes", it was determined that the cancellation of the quotas would be done definitively (as it stands to be) in the fourth year after the signing of the agreement; that in the three years following the signing, the growers will be compensated "for the cancellation of quotas" according to the amount of actual imports from the autonomy; "And the rest (up to the full amount of the quotas), with the complete abolition of the quotas." In other words, in the fourth year, the state will complete the compensation of the growers, retroactively, for the first three years in which they were paid only partial compensation. And the compensation will be the same as the compensation for the growers of "other vegetables": 1,700 NIS per dunam of potatoes.
- Indeed, unlike their peers – the growers of "other vegetables" – who are supposed to be compensated immediately – the potato growers are not supposed to be compensated except in a gradual manner, but this difference does not entail the payment of the balance: "and the rest (up to the full amount of the quotas)," which is supposed to be paid to the growers "upon the complete cancellation of the quotas." Moreover, the final compensation did not involve the damage that will be caused – or will not be caused – to the growers as a result of the import, just as the compensation to the growers of "other vegetables" does not involve the damage caused or not caused to them. The interim arrangement for potato growers does not override the main points of the arrangement, namely, that the state has said to compensate all growers – both potato growers and "other vegetables" growers – due to the cancellation of the quotas.
- I agree - how can I do otherwise? - that the contract between the state and the growers was not written by an artist - there will be those who will say: not even by an artist - but even if the first reading of it confuses the reader, here is a second reading of it, in my opinion, clearly the intention of the contractors. The intention is to compensate potato growers for the cancellation of quotas in amounts identical to those received by the growers of "other vegetables". The partial compensation for the first three years stemmed – as stated in clause 5.f.1 – from the autonomy agreements, but the compensation was mainly given due to the cancellation of the quotas. Indeed, the free imports from the autonomy were the reason for the change in the quota system, but the compensation was given to the growers due to the cancellation of the quotas. Production quotas, we all knew, were of value in the hands of their owners; And even though a quota in the hands of its owners was not a real asset – neither a property right nor a quasi-property right – and the right to a quota was neither a right to property nor a right to a quasi-property; In everyday life, farmers saw quotas as property on which they built their lives (for the legal classification of production quotas, see and compare: Civil Appeal 3553/00 Issachar Aloni v. Sand Tal Mixed Institutes Ltd., IsrSC 57(3) 577, and additional civil hearing 3368/03 Sand Tal Mixed Institutes in Tax Appeal (in receivership) v. Issachar Aloni [published in Nevo]). A quota had a market value – we learned this from petitions tothe High Court of Justice that dealt with quotas – and anyone who had even the slightest touch on the issue of quotas knows this. Indeed, without any connection to imports from the Palestinian Authority, the abolition of the quotas led to competition that had previously been nothing but on the margins, and for this reason, it was decided, as it turns out, to compensate the farmers. The language of the contract is clear and clear to anyone who reads it imbued with a desire to get to the bottom of the subjective intention of the contractors, and it is no wonder, then, that my colleague Justice Rivlin ruled in his opinion in the appeal (in paragraph 10) that:
A thorough reading of the contract is somewhat attractive in the direction of the interpretation of the appellants [the growers].