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Wasserteil has 35 dunams (almost nine acres) of hot houses containing about one million plants, he said. "I've been here almost 30 years. I built this with my own money."

Row after row of brightly colored geraniums lined one hot house. Cuttings from these plants are rooted in plastic containers on tables fitted with special computerized heating coils and then shipped off to Europe, Wasserteil said.

About 60 percent of the geraniums exported by Israel each year to Europe come from this Gush Katif settlement of Ganei Tal, where some 65 families live.

Various other plants are packed in plastic boxes to be trucked off to the local market.

But when it comes to compensation, the law is complicated, he said. Although his equipment works fine, some of it is deemed too old for compensation, Wasserteil said.

When he asked who would pay for his plants, he was told that he could take them with him. It would take 100 double trailer trucks to haul all of his plants, and where would he even take them, he asked.

An official for SELA, the government office created to handle compensation claims for the disengagement, said SELA is trying to give assistance to the farmers but it's not an easy situation and they can help only if the farmers contact them.

"There are special problems," said the official, who asked not to be named, when asked about where this particular farmer could put his plants. "The solutions are very complicated...We have experts to assist them."

The official said that SELA believes about 150 farmers want to continue in agriculture. Some had contacted the office but he declined to say how many.

But Wasserteil said it won't be just the 400 farmers in Gush Katif who will suffer if their businesses are uprooted from the Gaza Strip. "It's a true tragedy for the people of Israel," he said.

He estimated that some 10,000 people are employed in agriculture and related industries in Gush Katif. That includes the 5,000 Palestinians who work in Gush Katif -- jobs that support tens of thousands of their relatives.

Wassertiel himself employs foreign workers from Thailand as well as Palestinians. "We pay everyone. The problem is, in three months maybe I'll need support," he said.

Beyond the economic concerns are those of security, he said. The army is already worried about the possibility of rocket attacks on Israel and tunnels being dug under the border when the army pulls out of Gaza, he said.

In his office, Wasserteil has a collection of twisted pieces of metal and metal tubes -- remnants of mortar shells that Palestinian terrorists have fired at Gush Katif over the last four and half years.

Twelve mortar shells (out of an estimated 5,300) fell on Wasserteil's property alone, including one that killed a Thai worker in December. Her death prompted the Thai government to order its citizens to go home. Some arrived back in Thailand just before the December 26 tsunami struck the country.

"There are those who say there is no life after Gush Katif," Wassertiel said. "They won't shoot at soldiers [but] it can't be that a person has to go around searching for bread," he said.

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