Thoughts from my recent trip to Israel

One of the things that struck me the most during my recent trip to Israel (1^st – 9^th March 2014) is how much of the land the people used for farming and the whole time I was there, I enjoyed drinking their grapefruit juice and sampling a wide range of fruits on a daily basis!

In my ignorance about Israel, I did not realise how advanced their Agricultural Industry is – I honestly just thought of the “Holy land” as a dry place! I can compare my surprise to how, when I first arrived in Johannesburg in 2006, I pleasantly discovered that the “City of Gold” was not the concrete jungle that I had envisioned – its many trees being the city’s saving grace in this regard.

A quick Google search revealed the following interesting facts:

“Agriculture in Israel is a highly developed industry: Israel is a major exporter of fresh produce and a world-leader in agricultural technologies despite the fact that the geography of Israel is not naturally conducive to agriculture. More than half of the land area is desert, and the climate and lack of water resources do not favor farming. Only 20% of the land area is naturally arable. Today agriculture represents 2.5% of total GDP and 3.6% of exports. While agricultural workers make up only 3.7% of the work force, Israel produces 95% of its own food requirements, supplementing this with imports of grain, oilseeds, meat, coffee, cocoa and sugar.”

As we went about our pilgrimage, I could not help but compare their mostly dry and relatively small land to my home country, South Africa. I’m no land expert but when I look around, South Africa has far more optimum farming conditions and plenty of unused land yet the utilisation cannot be compared to Israel’s use of their land resource. During my 8 days in Israel, I kept on thinking of the many “idle” fields in my own village and surrounding villages and couldn’t help feel some sadness.

My mom is fond of reminiscing and sharing stories of her childhood with me. Whenever we drive around the Eastern Cape, where we both were born, she always points out how many trees there were and how once upon a time the people used the land to reap a plentiful harvest – year after year!

As I write this, I have many questions regarding what could have gone “wrong” over the last couple of decades to shift the priority from the agriculture. What little I know about farming is that it is not for the lazy! Could it be that we have become lazier… maybe we’ve gone “softer”? Whatever the answer, I now realise more than I ever did how precious an asset the land that we have is.

 

Often the tilled land that I saw in Israel was surrounded by rubble or by stony terrain and some of the greenhouses were not what one would call “state-of-the-art” but it was clear to me that those less than ideal factors did not deter those farmers from using their land.

 

Banana trees with rubble and "dirt" right where they are growing

I’m challenged… I do pray that I will not just be challenged without any corresponding action… It is not enough to lament the status quo and do nothing about it!
                                                       

 

A 2000 year old tree in the Garden of Gethsemane


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*All pictures in the article were taken by the author (yes, yours truly :-D ).

 

 

Some interesting resources:

· http://africacheck.org/reports/is-johannesburg-the-worlds-largest-man-made-forest-the-claim-is-false/
· http://www.moag.gov.il/agri/files/Israel's_Agriculture_Booklet.pdf
· http://israelmybeloved.com/farming-agriculture/