While the United States is completely in bed with companies that manufacture genetically modified organisms (GMOs), countries in other parts of the world are resisting their relentless push to populate the planet with their patented seeds. Turkey is the latest country to ban 26 GMOs following an incident involving the unauthorized entry of genetically modified […]
In Israel and well all over the western east, avocado season has arrived. Plump, green avocados are grown from the north of Israel down to Jaffa in the center, all the way to agricultural communities in the southern Negev, such as Neot Semadar. It is both a local favorite and a major national export. In 2010 […]
Farming is risky business in Morocco, where a 30 percent drop in precipitation since 1970 makes steady, predictable annual crop yields virtually impossible. So the World Bank was called in to help implement Plan Maroc Vert – an ambitious initiative designed to boost the country’s cereal production and create a more sustainable agricultural sector by 2020. […]
Locusts that bred in southern Egypt first swarmed Cairo, causing panic in Israel and Jordan, and now Lebanese farmers are battling the pests as well. Farmers in the north and south of Lebanon reported locust clouds over the weekend and expressed concern over the impact the insects would have on their crops. But the Agriculture Ministry […]
A new report published by a non-for-profit organization that promotes crop biotechnology has cast doubt on the status of a 40 ton shipment of genetically modified Monsanto maize that entered Egypt last year, local paper Egypt Independent recently reported. Hot on the trail of GMOs in the food-scarce country, journalist Louise Sarant talked with activists and […]
Israel has set up a special task force to prepare for the possibility that a locust swarm may migrate from Egypt and destroy precious crops. Already some sources are saying that a small swarm of locusts has been spotted in the southern Gaza strip after millions of locusts descended upon various Cairo neighborhoods over the […]
Israel NewTech has launched a interactive map of green Israeli innovations as part of a new Industry, Trade & Labor Ministry campaign that aims to showcase the country’s international influence in the clean tech and energy sectors. We have been frustrated with the slow pace at which Israel has incorporated some of its own homegrown […]
If there’s something that the Israelis do as well as or even better than clean tech, it is agriculture. When the state was established in the mid 20th century, the first pioneers faced large swaths of dry and barren land. It is part of the country’s legacy that they then proceeded to transform this wasteland […]
Farmers and consumers face a new kind of chemical terror: pesticides. Since it is very difficult to detect the presence of toxic chemicals in various crops, an Israeli organization has deployed a failsafe method to root out the threat using the same kind of equipment used by America’s Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Federal Bureau […]
Image of flooding in Fares by Abu El Fadl, Egypt Independent Port Said and Cairo have been dominating Egyptian headlines of late, while Fares, a small agricultural community 75 km north of Aswan, has gone completely unnoticed despite enduring a humanitarian tragedy of epic proportions. Since 2009, after DanaGas began to drill pilot hydraulic fracturing wells […]
Just about everyone learned in their early geography classes that the Nile Valley was once a fertile haven. Crops proliferated on the green banks due to natural flooding that deposited rich nutrients, although occasionally these floods inundated and destroyed crops as well, and the land of the Pharaohs was a mecca for agriculture. But when […]
It’s strange that a farmer’s market should make news, but when it’s in Qatar, one of the driest and least food secure nations on earth, a farmer’s market is a big deal. So much so that local professional photographer Mohammed Ismail stopped by for a shoot. Located 30 kilometers outside of the capital Doha, where […]
Every year when farmers start harvesting their sugar cane, maize and other crops, Cairenes brace themselves for what is ominously known as “The Black Cloud.” Caused when seasonal meteorological conditions meet the smoke released by burning agricultural waste, the heavy black pollution settles over an already smoggy Cairo, and respiratory diseases flourish. Now a new […]
A new seed treatment could stop the use and need for GMOs. Even though organic agriculture and sustainable farming practices are on the rise, feeding a hungry world demands that commercial farmers rely on genetically engineered (GMO) seeds to boost production and fend off diseases. But environmentalists fear that GMO crops are a sort of […]
Israel’s high court has ordered the state to come up with an alternative to a separation fence that would have threatened valuable agricultural land in the West Bank. The fence was planned for an area near Battir that Palestinians have been farming for hundreds of years using traditional techniques, but in a historic provisional ruling, […]
A back-to-the-land movement is blossoming in the Palestinian Authority, the United Nation’s newest nonmember observer state. “The Palestinian future is in the land.” Farmer Khader Khader said, standing in his organic olive grove in the northern West Bank village of Nus Jubail. Many Palestinian farmers are switching to organic farming methods, and selling their oil to […]
Despite the many wounds that cripple cooperation between the Israeli and Palestinian governments, Arab and Jewish teenagers work side by side to further algae research in Israel. Established in 2008, the Micro Algae Educational Project packs two important imperatives into one succinct program for high school students: ecology and social healing. Conducted in the Eco […]
Investing in African Agriculture This past April, MASHAV, Israel’s agency for international development cooperation, signed a memorandum of understanding with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The memorandum is aimed at addressing food security through partnerships with farmers in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Israel will contribute expertise in irrigation, water technologies, agricultural […]
Israel now has relations with 44 African nations, more than at any time in the country’s history. “This is the dawning of a new era in relations between Israel and African states,” according to Lynn Schler, director of the Africa Centre at Ben-Gurion University. During summer 2012, a vast array of high-profile African leaders visited Israel, […]
German project developer juwi has installed their first combined wind and solar plant in Egypt to be used for desalinating and pumping irrigation water for farms and it is monitored and controlled remotely from Germany. Located halfway between the bustling cities of Cairo and Alexandria in Wadi El-Natrun, the new plant is comprised of four 12 […]
The Israeli government may not be taking them very seriously, but a small bucket of social activists who colonized Rothschild Avenue last summer with tents, pop-up massage parlors and peace-preaching posters have yet to give in to the country’s growing income disparity. Refusing to pay exorbitant prices for shoebox apartments amid the city’s concrete lanes […]
Israel’s Vertigo Dance Company made its Australian debut at the Brisbane Festival in September. They performed a piece titled Mana, which means “vessel of light” and comes from the Zohar, the Jewish mystical text. Mana featured eight dancers exploring the contrasts between dark and light, male and female. Both the moon and sun were powerful […]
This extract-based pesticide from a hardy Holy Land species of bush forms the basis of a new natural insect repellent. An Israeli company EdenShield has developed a natural, non-toxic bug repellent that masks the smell of plants and flowers –– and possibly even people. It’s like putting a nose plug on bugs so they can’t […]
World food prices soared over 6 percent in July according to the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization. Prices are continuing to rise, and food security is already a constant threat in the West Bank and Gaza. The Applied Research Institute in Jerusalem estimates that over half the households in Gaza are food insecure, and […]
Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister, Danny Ayalon, landed on Monday in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. He continued on to Uganda and Kenya, where he will inaugurate two Israeli-cooperation projects in agriculture and health. According to Gil Haskel, Israel’s ambassador to Uganda, the Jewish state is interested in strengthening agricultural cooperation and collaboration with Uganda. Agriculture and water are […]