Although Iran holds the world title for pomegranates, runner-up Turkey is expecting a bumper crop this year that could propel it into the top spot. The Hurriyet Daily News reports that as world demand for pomegranates rises, Turkey has converted field after field of relatively unprofitable cotton over to the crowned red fruit that features […]
Plant pathologist Norman Borlaug, 95, died this Saturday, raising questions about the legacy of industrial food in the Third World. In 1970, Borlaug received a Nobel Peace Prize for averting famine through bringing fertilizers, pesticides and new plant strains to countries like India, Mexico and Pakistan. But environmentalists argue that his plant engineering only delayed […]
As part of its long bid for European Union membership, Turkey has announced that 74 pesticides are off limits because they are poisonous. The Hurriyet Daily News reports that the EU has a list of 135 illegal chemicals, and Turkey is working on the others. This is part of several environmental moves afoot in Turkey, […]
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu gave up an idea to close a 1.8 billion shekel ($450 million) budget gap by taxing fresh fruits and vegetables at 16.5 percent. The tax proposal was shot down by a combination of interests representing the poor, the farming sector and good nutrition. According to Ynet, 62% of […]
For readers who have driven or hiked past unmarked, run-down old stone buildings in Israel, former Jerusalem Deputy Mayor Meron Benvenisti’s Sacred Landscape (University of California, 2000) will reveal a layer of Arab ghosts inside Israeli towns, cities and the countryside. Born in 1934, Benvenisti spent his childhood accompanying his father on geographical tours of […]
Israeli company AfiMilk has developed a new meter that can monitor milk production in real time and online, giving dairy farmers critical information about possible contamination to milk supplies. Normally farmers would take a sample of milk from “each cow, once a month, and send that sample to the lab,” says Noa Yonish, the marcom […]
If the city folk won’t come to the farm, then the farmers will come to the city. Unfortunately, though, many times when the farm comes to the city, it comes in a yuppie, elitist form such as the slow food farmer’s market in the Tel Aviv port. Or even the farmer’s market in Jaffa. While […]
(Working on the organic goat farm at Kishorit, the largest organic goat farm in Israel that sells its “fair trade” milk to Harduf, the largest organic food supplier in Israel.) People born with mental deficiencies, or those afflicted later in life, are usually handed the short end of the stick. Facilities to accommodate needs and […]
Afghan farmers get “burned out” as government tows to US pressure. But for poppy farmers, it’s poppies or starvation. Wheat crops, or biofuel crops cannot compare in value. Molar (not his real name) is an Afghan farmer living in the central Hazzrajat Province of Afghanistan. His 60 hectare farm along the Helmand River has been […]
A new television series, “Sovev Israel” (translated as both Around Israel and Israel Environment), was launched on March 22, 2009 in Israel. The series was produced by Israel Educational Television in cooperation with the Geography Instruction Inspectorate in the Ministry of Education and with the assistance of numerous organizations, including the Ministry of Environmental Protection, […]
Imagine being able to place an entire farm, complete with crops and livestock, in the same space as is required for one of today’s modern urban skyscrapers. A Columbia University professor, Dickson Despommier, has been involved in such a project that could turn a 30 story glass faced building into a vertical agricultural enterprise capable […]
While rockets fly overhead, Bat-Zion Benjaminson tends her garden. The religious mother of four hopes to establish an eco-village in the moshav (cooperative community) of Shokeda, which is located just six kilometers away from the border of Gaza. According to Bat-Zion, the war being fought in the area is not just with rockets. “This is […]
Once upon a time people lived in a different kind of harmony with nature (can you imagine yourself pictured above?). Except for the aristocracy who lived in castles and lords who collected taxes on land, most people all over the world, especially in the Middle East, prayed for rain and sun in the summer in […]
Vandana Shiva isn’t a writer to pull punches. By the twelfth page of 'Stolen Harvest' (2000), she announces a damning verdict on Western food production:
How do you really know that the beef you bought is organic, kosher, halal, or raised with loving kindness? The Israeli company Bactochem has the solution. The idea started in Israel, where animal theft has become a major concern. Hundreds of beef cows worth $2,000 a head are being stolen a year, and in most […]