The Surprising Source of Israel's Edible Exports

Copied from Israel21c

The Surprising Source of Israel's Edible Imports

By Abigail Klein Leichman

Once a barren strip of desert, the Arava today has some 600 farms supplying more than 60 percent of Israel’s exports of fresh vegetables and 10% of ornamentals.

Peppers growing in the Arava. Photo by Eyal Izhar

How many peppers can Peter Piper pick? Well, if the protagonist in the old tongue twister were picking them in Israel’s Arava Desert, the surprising answer is about 150,000 tons.

Once a deserted 112-mile strip of land stretching from the Dead Sea to the Red Sea, the Arava now has some 600 farms supplying more than 60 percent of total Israeli exports of fresh vegetables and about 10% of ornamentals.

In addition to dozens of varieties of peppers, Arava farmers produce tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, eggplants, melons, watermelons, table grapes, herbs and dates – many raised organically and all with minimal pesticides. Other Arava agriculturists specialize in flowers or aquarium fish such as the “Nemo” clownfish.
Arava greenhouses. Photo by Eyal Izhar

Israeli technology – most notably, drip irrigation – is a major factor in this desert-to-farmland story. But just as important is the constant sharing of ideas, methodology, research and experiences facilitated by Central and Northern Arava Research and Development.

Cooperation key to success

Arava R&D, founded in 1986 by the Jewish Agency, originally served the agriculture development needs in periphery areas. Idealistic would-be farmers, eager to make the proverbial desert bloom, already had established three kibbutzim in the Arava back in 1959.
Baby peppers at Yair Experimental Station. Photo by Eyal Izhar

“They were considered meshugenners, crazy people,” relates Aylon Gadiel, director of Arava R&D. “You couldn’t live in the Arava, let alone grow vegetables there. But it was proven that it is possible, and one reason is the development of drip irrigation in the beginning of the 1960s.”

Zohar Experimental Station, one of Arava R&D’s two research facilities, is named for Yuval Zohar, an Israeli pioneer of modern drip irrigation.

Yet this advance alone was not enough to turn Arava agriculture into a thriving venture. Neither were the innovative greenhouses, shade houses and walk-in plastic tunnels that the desert farmers put into use.
Hothouse strawberry plants at Yair Experimental Station. Photo by Eyal Izhar

By 1997, when the Jewish National Fund took over Arava R&D in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and other government agencies, regional councils and private sponsors, it was already clear that cooperation is the main ingredient of success.

The researchers, scientists and farmers involved in Arava R&D’s eight agricultural villages – comprising about 8,650 acres – interact through regularly scheduled site tours, seminars and online forums in order to learn about one another’s problems and solutions, Gadiel tells ISRAEL21c.
Tomatoes at Yair Experimental Station. Photo by Eyal Izhar

“You can see what the growers are doing, and they can see what you think could help. Some farmer may be trying something new and we will go test it on an academic level,” he explains. “The interaction is ongoing and constant between all the parties. We try to get the knowledge flowing back and forth.”

New farmers in 2012

This year, many new farmers are being trained in basic agriculture, says Gadiel. Instructors from the agricultural extension service, Arava R&D, business and academia teach topics including the most updated methods of irrigation and plant protection.

“We sponsor meetings with R&D people so that they will get to know the farmers and discuss new options in growing,” adds Gadiel. “We’re testing all kinds of things: Our farmers are growing more and more dates, mangos, table grapes and ornamental fish.”
The new solar-warmed hothouse at the Yair Experimental Station. Photo by Eyal Izhar

The next promising crop is strawberries. “They cannot grow in saline water, so we’re trying to grow them with desalinated water from a small plant we have in our Yair Experimental Station. We are developing a protocol for that, and we hope we will have good quality water in a couple of years.” Arava R&D has also developed a hardy variety of fig tree and a less odiferous guava fruit. “We’re trying apricots now, and we developed a protocol for organic table grapes,” Gadiel says.

World model

The United Nations chose the Arava region as a global model for agricultural education on saving water. Israel’s agricultural researchers are constantly improving and refining “fertigation,” in which water and fertilizer are dripped uniformly onto the root system of crops from a specially constructed pipe.

Over the last 15 years, says Gadiel, the Arava has become an international school for agricultural trainees.
“We have a lot of students coming here for year-long projects to study and work with families of Arava farmers — mainly from Thailand, Myanmar and other Far East countries, in cooperation with the Foreign Ministry. When they go back home, each student becomes an ambassador for Israel.” Experts from Arava R&D travel to countries such as Ethiopia to give practical courses through MASHAV, Israel’s international development agency.

Back on home soil, Arava R&D is working with local companies to develop hardier seed varieties and a new type of plastic covering for greenhouses that would reduce the need for expensive heating in cold months. “I think Israeli agriculture in general is an example for the whole world of how you can develop an area and live in it, too,” says Gadiel. “We learned how to use our advantages, especially in winter, to produce good-quality vegetables for export to Europe and the United States.”

Last February, Arava R&D hosted its 21st annual Arava Open Day Exhibition, the largest agriculture expo in Israel, attracting 30,000 visitors and 200 companies. The next expo is scheduled for January 23-24, 2013.

J’lem teens excel in Intel, Swedish competitions

J’lem teens excel in Intel, Swedish competitions

By JUDY SIEGEL-ITZKOVICH

Two students win third place in Intel science, engineering fair; another pair takes first in Stockholm Junior Water Prize. Within a week, two students from the Torah U’Mada yeshiva high school of the Jerusalem College of Technology (JCT) won third place – among 1,500 candidates – in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Pittsburgh, and another pair finished in first place in the Israeli competition for the Stockholm Junior Water Prize in the field of energy and water.

The Intel contest winners, Nerya Stroh and Gal Oren, received $2,000 each for their work on a user-friendly computerized device called AquaStop that detects water leaks in apartments, buildings, factories and neighborhoods in real time and can even halt the water flow.

They now serve in the IDF in the field of computers. In December 2010, Stroh and Oren – now 21-years-old – won first place in the Stockholm Junior Water Prize held among Israeli pupils. The 2012 winners of the water prize are Torah U’Mada students David Agassi and Bashan Yehezkel. Academics in the JCT’s “13th Grade” program (which provides pupils with a bachelor’s degree in engineering before they enter military service), they will travel to Stockholm in the fall to compete in the International Junior Water Prize competition, run by the Swedish royal family and sponsored by the country’s government. It was the first time that the same school took first prize in the prestigious competition. As in 2010, Swedish Ambassador Elinor Hammarskjöld is due to visit the JCT campus in the capital’s Givat Mordechai neighborhood to present the award to the 19-year-olds.

Both winning teams were mentored from start to finish by David Gelman, a veteran electrical engineer at JCT at the college level who also teaches high school pupils at Torah U’Mada. He accompanied Stroh (whose father, Uri, is also an electrical engineer and encryption expert at JCT) and Oren to the Pittsburgh competition. The Alcoa corporation contributed another $1,000 to the Intel prize for total winnings of $2,000 for each young man, Gelman said. In Pittsburgh, 100 teams of judges divided up the work, Gelman told The Jerusalem Post, but 50 teams individually decided to visit the Israeli stand because of the interest generated by the invention. He said he teaches the same subjects in the high school and the college. “But a course that I give at the college in just one semester, I teach more slowly – in a whole year – at the high school level,” said the Russian-born engineer.

JCT president Prof. Noah Dana-Picard told the Post this week that he was very proud of both teams – the older ones who excelled at the Intel competition and the younger ones who received their award at a Tel Aviv University ceremony. The Swedish competition brings together the world’s brightest young scientists to encourage their continued interest in water and the environment.

Each year, thousands of participants from over 30 countries join national competitions for the chance to represent their nation at the international final held during World Water Week in Stockholm. During their time there, winners of the national competitions receive an opportunity to meet and learn from the present leaders of the global water community, and forge lifelong friendships with international compatriots who share a passion for water and science.

Agassi and Yehezkel developed “a smart sun heater” that makes it possible to save not only water but also energy in any home. Their project is also thought to solve the halachic problem involved in using water warmed up by solar heaters on Shabbat, which are otherwise forbidden because they cause cold water to be heated up.

In another five weeks, the two will receive their bachelor’s degree in computer science from JCT as part of the joint high school-college program. Torah U’Mada co-head Natan Klein told the Post that the school excels because of the students and the staff, many of whom also teach at the academic level at JCT in a multidisciplinary way. “A few months ago, we were told by the Education Ministry’s technology department that four of 10 high school projects chosen for excellence came from Torah U’Mada,” he said.

The school’s principal, Rabbi Amos Kleiger, added: “Four of our graduates have won the Israel Defense Prize as adults.”