The Palestine Land Development Company (PLDC), also Palestine Land Development Corporation, was a program of the practicalist movement in early Zionism

Streams of Zionism

The Zionist Movement was produced by various philosophers representing different approaches concerning the objective and path that Zionism should follow. The principal common goal was the aspiration to establish an independent state for the Jewish people. However, the method of action needed was...

, particularly in the decade before the start of World War I

World War I

World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

. The PLDC worked to purchasing land, to train Jews in agricultural pursuits, and to establish Jewish agricultural settlements in Palestine

Palestine

Palestine is a conventional name, among others, used to describe the geographic region between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, and various adjoining lands....

.

The PLDC was founded in 1908, and by the outbreak of World War I it had purchased about 50,000 dunam

Dunam

A dunam or dönüm, dunum, donum, dynym, dulum was a non-SI unit of land area used in the Ottoman Empire and representing the amount of land that can be plowed in a day; its value varied from 900–2500 m²...

 (about 4600 hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

s) of land. It was attempting to purchase nearly 3 times that amount in the Jezreel Valley

Jezreel Valley

-Etymology:The Jezreel Valley takes its name from the ancient city of Jezreel which was located on a low hill overlooking the southern edge of the valley, though some scholars think that the name of the city originates from the name of the clan which founded it, and whose existence is mentioned in...

, however the outbreak of the war prevented it from making such a purchase.

Sources

• Laqueur, Walter
  Walter Laqueur
  Walter Zeev Laqueur is an American historian and political commentator. He was born in Breslau, Germany , to a Jewish family. In 1938, Laqueur left Germany for the British Mandate of Palestine. His parents, who were unable to leave, became victims of the Holocaust...
  
  . A History of Zionism. (Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1972) p. 153