On the fringe of the Civil Right were two unique groups – the farmers and the Sephardi notables. Most of them had deep roots in Palestine and a sense of having been long established in the country. Both groups had economic interests in town and country, were dependent on the policy of the British authorities and were familiar with the Arab population on a day-to-day basis. They were hostile to the new hegemony of the Labour Movement, perceiving it as a threat to their life-style and the interests that were essential for their independent existence.

Private property always divided town and country. On the Left, the Histadrut bound the agricultural collectives which were the spearhead of Jewish pioneering to the political activists in the towns, and the latter made sure that national capital was diverted to the settlements. The interests of the farmers did not coincide with those of the merchants and industrialists of the towns, however, and their economic power was not used to form the basis of a significant political alliance. The farmers, whose arrival predated that of the Second Aliya, fell far behind it in ideological and organisational unity. At an early stage they lost a natural leader and one of the Yishuv's most colourful and brilliant characters, Aaron Aaronsohn (1876–1919), a native of Zikhron Ya'akov and a pioneer of agronomy and botany in Palestine. His discovery of wild wheat in the north of the country and on the slopes of Mount Hermon brought him world wide recognition.