Jews are known for their love of food, but less so for their love of farms. Most Jews in Britain live in big cities where, like many urban-dwellers, they are detached from the people and places producing their nosh. But the sterile fruit and veg in supermarkets and the economic pressure of the recession are inspiring more Brits to grow their own.

In Israel, allotments are few and far between (probably owing to the fact that land is scare, water is scarcer and quality local produce is abundant).

But in Britain, there are around 330,000 allotments – with some cities having a waiting list of several years.

The Big Green Jewish website has an allotment blog following the sowing, composting and pruning habits of north Londoner, Alexei Charkham, and his green-fingered family.

Last week, the Jewish Chronicle reported on the “grow-your-own revolution” which is inspiring everyone from suburban families to rabbis to work the land. With the help of local volunteers, Rabbi Natan Levy recently converted the backyard of the London School of Jewish Studies into a mini-farm as part of a “living Judaism” course:

“I have found it very therapeutic. First of all I like that gardening requires emunah – you have to have a lot of faith. You put these seeds in the ground, water them and pray like crazy,” says Rabbi Levy. “We live in a world that is very disconnected from what we eat and how it is produced. It helps me on many different levels to see where a carrot comes from. It just takes a little bit of that initiative, which gives a lot of empowerment.

In the west of the city, the post-denominational Jewish community, Moishe House, has launched a box scheme, delivering fresh produce from local green grocers, as well as piloting raised bed horticulture in its back yard.

This spring, I decided to try growing my own veg for the first time. With a few pots filled with compost, my small patio has been transformed into a thriving horticultural plot. I’m not giving up my day job yet, but the satisfaction of seeing a seed I planted with my own hands spiral into 10-foot runner bean is priceless.

::Allotment blog

More farming articles:
Farmigo Software to Manage the Organic Farm
Keep Food Safe from Farm to Fork
A Halal’s Day Work for Organic Muslims

Above image viawww.biggreenjewish.org

Grassroots campaigners claim final victory in fight to preserve open space for the Israeli public.

It was over two years ago that Green Prophet first reported on the grassroots campaign to stop developers from paving over one of the last remaining ‘wild’ spaces on central Israel’s coastline: ‘fisherman’s beach’ at Palmachim. It’s been a long struggle, but this week the protesters finally got the word that they won their battle – and the picturesque bay will remain in public hands.

The controversy began in 2007 when, almost overnight, bulldozers moved into a small area south of Kibbutz Palmachim, razing sand dunes and fencing off open space just metres from the shore. Several years earlier, a development company gained permission to build a 350-room holiday village on the picturesque spot. Even though the 2004 Law for the Protection of the Coastal Environment bans construction 100 metres from Israeli shores, the resort was authorised before the law was passed. In addition to the legal case, opponents argued that preserving the beach from destruction was in the public interest.

Despite a grassroots campaign by local residents, it seemed like the beach’s fate was sealed. Business interests outweighed a few campaigners camped out in tents on the sand. But on Sunday, the two-year struggle which gained the support of NGOs, the media, politicians and public figures finally came to an end. Israeli government ministers decided to forbid the project once and for all, prompting Adi Lustig, the teenage activist who spearheaded the campaign, to write on her Facebook page: “We’ve won!” - “Justice won and not money.”

Update: The follow statement was made by Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the start of a cabinet meeting on 11 July 2010:

Today, the Government will decide on instructing the Central District [Planning and Building] Committee to change the plan to build hundreds of vacation units on the Palmachim Beach and thus restore the coastal strip to the public.  This decision will implement the State Comptroller’s 2009 report, which called for reconsideration of the plan to build a holiday village by the seashore.  The country’s beaches are a unique resource.  It must be assured that they will continue to be open to the public at large.

Israeli firm, Makhteshim-Agan Industries, believes that there is a bright future for chemical pesticides. It has just bet $1 billion dollars on this hope, buying out the Albough chemical manufacturer in a move which, according to Ha’aretz, will transform the Israeli company into the “biggest generic player” in North America’s pesticides industry.

There’s big money to be made from agrochemicals, although whether Makhteshim-Agan’s investment was wise financially remains a moot point since since Albough’s businesses focuses on a single product – the broad-spectrum herbicide, glyphosate:

“Glyphosate prices fluctuate tremendously, and there are clear signs of surplus production capacity around the world. Also, experts suspect that North American weeds are developing resistance to the chemical.”

But whichever way you add up the figures, investing in pesticides makes no ecological sense.  Glyphosate shot to (in)fame when Mosanto genetically modified crops to become resistant to the herbicide, sold under the brand name “Roundup.”

The biotech firm’s GM “Roundup Ready” crops can be sprayed with glyphosate to their heart’s content, killing all weeds and other plants, but leaving the corn or soya unscathed.

We don’t need chemicals to produce good quality food. Organic farming forsakes dependence on artificial pesticides and fertilisers (which, by the way, are increasingly expensive as oil prices rise) – and it can produce good yields, especially in developing countries, whilst conserving soil fertility and biodiversity.

Modern organic methods, first developed after World War Two, are now used by millions of farmers around the world. But investment in organic farming research and production methods is woefully underfunded. Imagine the difference $1 billion could make it if was spent more wisely.

Postscript: As glyphosate’s efficacy falls due to increased weed resistance, its price is expected to drop and Monsanto estimates that the contribution that Roundup makes to its gross profits will be slashed from $300 to £250. Perhaps it’s time to rethink their strategy.

::Betting a billion dollars on one weed killer, Ha’aretz

Photo via ken mccown

The concept of “green building” has taken off in Israel over the last few years. The need for ecologically efficient housing and offices is becoming more urgent as the cost of heating and cooling skyrockets and water becomes ever more scarce.

But environmentally-conscious buildings have been around much longer than the modern environmental crisis. Outdating gas-guzzling air con units by generations, bagdirs – or windcatchers – have been cooling down the people of Yadz, Iran, since the 19th Century. These towers spike the skyline of the Iranian desert city like antiquated skyscrapers.

In the current edition of Green Building Magazine, Sue Roaf explains how the stone structures channel wind down into a shaft which in turn cools or heats the rooms below, allowing them to remain comfortable all year with zero carbon impact.

As well as using smart technology, the windcatchers of Yadz’s success depends on effort from the building’s inhabitants too. People can reduce their energy use by what Roaf calls “occupant behaviour strategies,” for instance, moving to warmer or cooler rooms.

This contrasts to the approach of modern Western design where “the individual chooses the climate for a room”:

“While nomads in Iran migrate from summer climates, for those who remain in Yadz replace the long migration by a short intra mural migration, within the walls of a single house.”

In the summer, when temperatures soar to over 40 degrees C, this means using the ground floor in morning and evening, whilst escaping to the roof at night – a popular pastime in Tel Aviv. Other strategies include watering floors, wearing lighter or warmer clothes, or – my favourite – taking an afternoon nap in the heat of the day.

Heirloom wind catchers.
How wind catchers work.

But the bagdirs of Yadz do have their dark side. Though partly funded by the silk trade, most of the windcatchers owe their existence to local merchants who made their fortunes from the British opium trade to China during the Opium Wars.

Top photo by soyignatius. Lower photo via ibchamber. Lower two photos via make blog.

:: “Lessons on natural ventilations from the windcatchers of Yadz,” Sue Roaf, Green Building Magazine, Spring 2010.

More on green Iran:
Iran Creates Biofuel from Algae
Iran and Qatar Align to Help the Environment

Following years of planning and design by REAL Housing, the 190 m2 house was inaugurated by Mayor of Yeruham and former Labour Party leader, Amram Mitzna.

The three-room, NIS 785,000 house (about $200,000 USD) is partly constructed from recycled materials and includes solar electricity panels and energy-efficient insulation as standard features.

The company, set up by World Trade Centre engineer, Prof Chaim Brown, also aims to be economically sustainable by providing employment in the sparsely-populated Negev desert. REAL Housing predicts that their new assembly plant and structural insulated panel (SIP) factory in Yeruham will create 120 new jobs in the next year.

Last year, Green Prophet visited REAL Housing’s pilot house in the nearby village of Ashalim.

The Yeruham plant can construct individual homes in 12 weeks and the company aims to build them for people in Israel’s peripheral regions: the Negev, Galilee and Golan Heights. The first house off the production line is on its way to its new owners, Hillel and Chana Grossman, 150 km away in the Golan Heights.

The company says that the housing design meets green building standards, however, Green Prophet could not confirm whether this refers to the official Israeli green building standard (Israeli Standard 5281 for buildings with reduced environmental impact).

:: A REAL viable solution, Jerusalem Post
:: REAL Housing

Recent laboratory tests have discovered that consumers in Israel are eating Genetically Modified Organisms – whether they like it or not.

Tests by Milouda Quality Control Laboratories, which analyses food destined for sale in the European Union, discovered GM soya in popular foods sold in stores across Israel, reports Haaretz. Food contaminated with GM included baked goods, packaged schnitzel and meat substitutes. Israeli favourites like falafel could also potentially contain GM if they are fried in soya oil.

Biotechnology research may be big business in Israel but, as far as I am aware, no GM crops are grown commercially in the country. However, it is clearly being imported and is entering the human food chain via processed foods or animal feed. In addition to denying consumer choice – and putting public health at risk – GM contamination could precipitate an economic disaster for the Israeli food industry.

EU law requires all food containing GM to be labelled and many retailers refuse to stock any GM whatsoever. If the Israeli food industry doesn’t take action promptly, it risks exports to the EU and elsewhere being wiped out overnight – a fate which already befallen non-GM farmers in north America.

Far from being a precise ‘science’, GM is a relatively new and unpredictable technology based on inserting a gene from one organism to another in the hope of transferring specific genetic traits. Despite attempts by GM proponents to persuade the public that their crops are safe to eat, the lack of reliable scientific studies, such as animal feeding trials, have led to a backlash by consumers and farmers in many countries. The small number of available scientific studies [PDF report] have found alarming health effects including:

• High mortality rates in the offspring of rats fed Monstanto’s GM Roundup Ready soya in a Russian laboratory
• Toxic effects on the liver and kidneys of rats fed Monstanto GM maize in Germany
• Allergic reactions in mice after eating peas modified with a gene from the kidney bean found by Australian scientists.

Sources in Judaism and other Abrahamic Faiths stress that GM is an unkosher technology and runs counter to their religions.

So why is GM being sold in Israel without being labelled or adequately tested?

Take action: If you are concerned and want the choice to eat GM-free food in Israel, then email the Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labour <click for webform>, Ministry of Environmental Protection <pniot@sviva.gov.il> and Ministry of Agriculture <pniot@moag.gov.il> to demand the following:

• An immediate moratorium on all GM imports into Israel
• The introduction of mandatory labelling of all food containing GM
• A full and open public debate over the Genetic Modification of food in Israel.

:: Genetically enhanced food sold unmarked, Haaretz.
:: GM crops – the health effects, Soil Association [PDF report].
:: Treif Tomatoes,Teva Learning Centre.

Photo credit: The Rocketeer.

The Egyptian government has apparently performed an astonishing U-turn on banning controversial Genetically Modified crops from the country. According to reports in the press earlier this month (hat tip: Treehugger and Reuters), authorities declared that Egypt had officially become the Middle East’s first GM-free nation. On 12 August, Egyptian Agriculture Minister, Amin Abaza, told the government news agency MENA:

“…it was necessary that all crops imported from abroad and exported from Egypt be accompanied by a certificate from the country of origin stating they are free of genetically modified materials.”

“No agricultural products especially wheat, corn and soya bean would enter except after examining samples from the cargo.”

But it was too good to be true apparently. The following day Reuters reported that the Ministry retracted these statements which had stirred a storm of controversy over the country’s agricultural policy.

An Egyptian ban on GM imports would represent an important precedent in the region – and a victory for ecology and consumers. Although they are not grown commercially in the Middle East, GM crops such as corn/maize and soya are imported in large quantities, entering the food chain as processed products and animal feed. Some countries, including Israel, have multi-million dollar industries dedicated to developing new GM varieties.

Since GM crops flopped in the western marketplace, notably Europe where retailers refuse to stock them due to consumer pressure, GM companies have been hunting for new pastures to grow their largely-untested technology. Lax regulation and consumer protection in the developing world makes it an ideal GM guinea pig and companies have already moved into India, China and Africa to grow GM. Even in the EU, where food containing GM must be labelled, millions of tonnes still sneak in ‘through the back door’ as imported animal feed. The resulting meat, milk and cheese, however, are not labelled GM. Scientific studies have shown that found animal fed on GMO have experienced “lesions in the gut, damage to body organs, unexplained deaths, and stunted growth in the young of animals reared on GMOs.”

GM imports – whether in Egypt or England – represent the thin end of the wedge. Contamination of organic and other non-GM crops is notoriously hard to control, thus creating a fait accompli, opening the door to more GM, whether people like it or not.

Whilst no consumer market exists GM products, demand for GM-free food is strong. By taking the bold decision to ban GM from its borders, the Egyptian government could give its food industry a competitive advantage by being able to label their products ‘GM-free’. It’s still not too late for Egypt to lead the way – and safeguard the health of its people, farm animals and environment.

:: Treehugger. 
:: Reuters, Egypt says no GM food exports or imports.
::Reuters, Egypt denies banning GMO crop imports.
:: Soil Association, Silent invasion: the hidden use of GM crops in animal feed and GM crops: the health effects.

It’s a debate that has been raging for decades, but the lack of scientific research has made claims by either side difficult to back up.

Until now, that is.

A review of scientific papers published last week by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine which concluded: “…there are no important differences in the nutrition content, or any additional health benefits, of organic food when compared with conventionally produced food.”

But that’s not the end of the story. The study, commissioned by the UK’s Food Standards Agency (an independent government department) came under fire from the organic movement for excluding 109 of the 164 published studies from their analysis. The review also ignored findings from a recent European Union-funded study involving 31 research and university institutes and the publication, so far, of more than 100 scientific papers, at a cost of 18million Euros.

The Soil Association’s policy director, Peter Melchett (you can find a street in Tel Aviv named after his great-grandfather), said:

“We are disappointed in the conclusions the researchers have reached. The review rejected almost all of the existing studies of comparisons between organic and non-organic nutritional differences. Although the researchers say that the differences between organic and non-organic food are not ‘important’, due to the relatively few studies, they report in their analysis that there are higher levels of beneficial nutrients in organic compared to non-organic foods.”

Some say that the FSA-backed came as no surprise, given the Agency’s pro-GM stance and history of hostility towards organic food. While the nutrition debate is set to rage on, organic agriculture remains the greenest way of feeding the planet – and not least the Middle East!

Photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt.

A new scheme has just got underway for Palestinians to treat their sewage waste and purifying it for agricultural use by using wetlands.

Forsaking electricity, the system instead relies on a system of man-made pools which utilise plants to assist in the organic breakdown of the sewage.

The West Bank village of Um a-Rihan, not far from Umm el-Fahm in Israel, is home to 50 families and until now has not been connected to a proper sewage system. The wetlands will not only prevent pollution to the aquifer but will also provide the village residents with purified water for their crops, reports the Jerusalem Post.

A pilot project, administered by the Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI), has operating in a handful of homes for around a year and has just recently been expanded to the entire village. IPCRI hope that their Ecological Wastewater Treatment for Rural Communities project will be rolled out to more Palestinian communities in the future.

As well as offering a green alternative to conventional sewage treatment, the scheme represents practical Israeli-Palestinian cooperation, including expertise from Israeli engineer Arnon Goren and former Tel Aviv city council member Hadas Shachnai. It also has the blessing of the Israeli Civil Administration in the West Bank and the Israeli Army is even considering using it in some of its military bases.

We’ve written earlier on the life-threatening sewage problem for the Palestinians in Gaza. And reports from the field – Green Prophet’s Rami – say the situation is grim. We’ve also written on Ayala to remediate pollution wastelands in Israel with plants. Also on wetlands and how they work to clean sewage. Maybe the new West Bank solution can be transferred to Gaza as well. 

:: IPCRI, Ecological Wastewater Treatment for Rural Communities in the West Bank.

:: Jerusalem Post, Artificial swamps in the West Bank

[Photo via klynslis]

Not long ago Green Prophet reported the Egyptian government’s plan to cull the country’s 300,000 pigs as panic of the swine influenza spread across the world.

Now the effects of the massive cull, which was criticised by international agencies and within Egypt itself, are being felt – by both Egyptians who rely on pigs for their livelihoods, and the environment which has been burdened with thousand of extra tons of rotting organic waste that was previously fed to the pigs.

According to a report in the International Herald Tribune, the government said that the cull was not just to prevent swine flu (which had not been detected in Egypt), but also to clean up the zabaleen, Christian Egyptians who make a living from the unenviable task of sorting and collecting Cairo’s garbage, including feeding food waste to their pigs.

The authorities say it’s an attempt to allow the zabaleen (a word that shares the same root as the Hebrew for garbage, zevel) to live in more sanitary conditions, a claim rejected by the zabaleen and their supporters.

“They [the government] don’t have a good understanding of what this means to the livelihood of the rubbish collectors,” says Syada Greiss, a member of Parliament and chairwoman of the Association for the Protection of the Environment.

But killing the swine also means killing off a system for recycling organic waste which dates back to the 1940s. Associations representing the zabaleen estimate that they collect 6,000 of trash a day, 60% of which is food waste.

So where will all the rotting fruit and veg go? “They expect me to pay to have a carter take this away,” says Faris Samir, 22, whose extended family of 33 lost their income when the police took away their pigs.

“Forget it. I will throw it anywhere.”

Egypt’s short-sightedness and paucity of recycling infrastructure reminds me of Israel’s long-forgotten national composting system (see Alon Tal’s seminal Pollution in a promised land). The scheme once transformed food waste into agricultural fertiliser until it was scrapped decades ago when polluting synthetic nitrogen fertiliser was considered “cheaper” than the organic option.

The only option for dedicated Israeli composters is to seek out one of the handful of community-run compost sites – an irony when the skyrocketing price of artificial fertiliser (linked to fossil fuels) is putting to rest the myth of “cheap” industrial farming.

 :: Cleaning Cairo, But Taking a Livelihood, IHT.