Volunteers Fight Farm Theft In Israel

Video Of The Week - Israeli Owls Control Pests- https://tinyurl.com/yan8n73m

For further information of this group go to - https://www.hashomer.org.il/

The new Hashomer organization is an educational and Zionist social organization established in 2007 by a group of country-loving volunteers to safeguard state land while assisting and empowering farmers and enforcement agencies, alongside connecting citizens and young people to the land, love of the land and Zionist identity.

Since its founding, the new guard has reinforced the sense of love of the tens of thousands of volunteers who help hundreds of farmers and national bodies to protect state land, all while discussing and studying Zionist values.

About 150 volunteers with jeeps and 4-by-4’s, area-loving vehicles, harnessed their hobby for this purpose. Combining affection for field leadership with helpful tours contributes to reducing agricultural crime incidents in the areas of activity and creates high quality and cohesive volunteer groups.

Since the establishment of the Jeeps, about 50,000 hectares are being scanned every night. The unit assisted in reducing crime rates in its locations to 0%. In the past year, she has taken part in the search for 200 alpine goats stolen in the prairie, in pursuit of Lakhish thieves and more.

Volunteer guards create a presence in farms and farm areas but to expand the conserved areas, mounted tours are also required.

The jeep unit allows assistance to some farmers in keeping the open spaces at night.
Volunteers are another pair of eyes in the field. They independently tour, their private vehicles equipped with suitable equipment. Patrollers scan, locate theft or tampering and damage, and report to regional law enforcement officials

Volunteer guards are present in farmland and farm areas and are a major deterrent to all agricultural aid activities. The biker unit was set up to expand the reserved areas through mounted tours.

The motorcycle unit provides assistance to a large number of farmers in maintaining the open spaces at night. Volunteers independently patrol private SUVs, finding attempted theft or injury and damage and reporting to regional law enforcement officials.

Off-road motorcyclists are able to reach a wide area in a short space of time, even in places where 4X4 vehicles have difficulty.  Using a motorcycle, there is an offense capability that is a great advantage in off-road activity and shortened response times. The mobility of motorcyclists in the open areas allows the new guard to respond to crime phenomena more quickly.

The off-road motorcycle unit is made up of a special bunch of off-road lovers who have dedicated their hobby to this end. Combining the affection for driving a motorcycle with helpful tours contributes to reducing agricultural crime in the areas of activity and creates quality volunteer groups.

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Worldwide Water Crisis

       

VIDEO Of The Week - Is the world going into a water crisis? https://tinyurl.com/y2j7rrlu

Israel 21 C, By Abigail Klein Leichman - For the full article go to -  https://tinyurl.com/yyjsuhzk

A visit to the country’s largest desalination and wastewater-treatment plants reveals smart technologies and policies to keep the water running.

Israel has solved its water crisis! That’s a typical headline about Israel’s world-leading smart water management and advanced water technology.

Five years into a severe drought, it’s more accurate to say that Israel is constantly inventing and implementing practical solutions to a problem that is not entirely solvable.

Due to climate change, Israel’s October-to-March rainy season has been reduced to a handful of torrentially rainy days, causing most of the precious liquid to be lost to runoff. The North’s waterways are no longer an abundant trickle-down source for much of the country; the Sea of Galilee is approaching its lowest-ever level.

Since 2005, wastewater reclamation and seawater desalination have become key in assuring an adequate supply — 2.1 billion cubic meters annually — to Israeli households, industry and agriculture.

Some 31 percent of irrigation water originates from wastewater treated at more than 150 plants. Treated brackish water (not as salty as seawater) is supplied from 45 plants for both agricultural and non-agricultural needs.

Sixty to 80% of Israel’s municipal water, adjusted according to season and real-time demand, flows from large coastal desal plants in Sorek, Ashkelon, Ashdod, Palmachim and Hadera.

“In 2014, we thought we had enough [desalinated water] capacity, 600 million cubic meters, that it didn’t matter how much [rain] God will supply in the winter,” says Yaacoby, chief of staff to the CEO of Mekorot, Israel’s national water carrier. “That was a mistake. We are lacking 100 million to 200 million cubic meters of water per year in Israel these days.”. Two more desalination plants are to be completed in the next few years. “Altogether, in 2025 we will be getting 1.1 billion cubic meters of desalinated water,” Yaacoby says.

Sorek, world’s largest desal plant

Operational since 2013, Sorek is the largest seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in the world. It is operated for the government by water-treatment pioneer IDE Technologies, established in 1965 by Technion-trained scientists. IDE is now a multinational company with 400 desal and wastewater treatment installations in more than 40 countries.

Mekorot distributes the desalinated, quality-tested water (after essential minerals have been re-added) to 57 municipal water utilities throughout Israel. From Sorek, it costs about 55 cents per cubic meter; somewhat more from the other four plants.

By comparison, it costs 10 cents to get a cubic meter of freshwater from Israel’s natural sources – whose supply is fast declining. In some other countries, desalinated water costs as much as $3 per cubic meter.

Desalination normally uses chemicals, which present an environmental problem when the brine is discharged back to the sea. IDE uses chemical-free biological and physical processes customized for each installation.

To avoid harming the little fish and fish eggs that pass through the screens on the intake pipes bringing in 40,000 cubic meters of seawater per hour, IDE is developing “nursery” tanks where the creatures are harbored until they choose to swim back to their habitat via rotating doors.

Wastewater reclamation

Covering 250 acres, Shafdan is the biggest wastewater treatment plant in a country that recycles more water (85-90%) than anywhere else. The reclaimed water, which is close to drinking quality, is pumped to Negev farms for irrigation. Shafdan uses biological and mechanical means to treat all sewage effluent from the Dan (Greater Tel Aviv) region, home to approximately 250,000 to 300,000 people, Shafdan, established in 1955, receives 470,000 cubic meters of raw sewage daily. Reclaiming the water from this sewage supplies 140 million cubic meters to Israeli farms annually just from this one facility.

Clouds and leaks

Mekorot’s WaTech runs several R&D centers that collaborate with industry and academia. One of these centers is at Shafdan, where there is an urgent need for more compact treatment methods in order to free up some of the valuable real estate on which the plant sits. A variety of pilot projects will determine the best path forward.

Cloud seeding was once thought a promising procedure for squeezing more rain from the skies. But experiments have been disappointing so far. Right now there is only one small cloud-seeding experiment over the Sea of Galilee.

That sea – actually a lake, called the Kinneret in Hebrew — today supplies a mere 50 million cubic meters of water to area villages in Israel and 50 million to Jordan every year. There is a new plan to take desalinated seawater from the new plants to enrich the Sea of Galilee by 2030,

More helpful in boosting available water supply is Israel’s exceptionally low rate of leakage, he adds. In most countries, an average of 30% of expensive treated water is lost through leakage before reaching customers. “Israel’s leakage rate is lowest in the world, on average 7-8%,” says Yaacoby. This is partly because Israel’s distribution infrastructure is relatively young and isn’t subject to extreme temperature fluctuations that can burst pipes.

The Israeli startup Utilis

 is revolutionizing leak detection, using satellite-mounted radar — developed originally to find water on Mars and Venus — to map out where drinking water is escaping from the system. Since 2016, Utilis technology has been employed in 27 countries including China, US and UK.

Assuring a wet future

While Israeli knowhow and technology have a well-deserved place in the world spotlight, conservation and awareness are critically important in assuring adequate and affordable water, emphasizes Oded Distel, director of Israel NewTech in the Ministry of Economy and Industry.

“Whatever we eat or wear is tightly connected to water consumption,” he says. “Every cup of coffee takes 130 liters to produce from the phase of growing the beans to our cup. A pair of jeans takes 1,320 liters. One kilogram of steak takes 15,400 liters.”

The coming generation will only have enough access to safe water if countries stop wasteful practices like flood irrigation, get leakage under control, and incentivize conservation by charging consumers the actual cost of water.

“People have long expected to get water for free, and that is a big obstacle to building sustainable systems and leads to people not getting any water or low-quality water. When people pay for something it has a value and they are motivated to use it more efficiently.”

Distel believes Israel can serve as a role model for its reliable, sustainable, centralized water system in an arid land where there is no private ownership of water and everyone gets a monthly water bill.

“The outcome is that wherever you are in Israel, when you open the tap you get high-quality drinking water, which is not something that happens everywhere in the world,” Distel says.

Click here to find out about WaterLine, Israel NewTech’s English-language podcast dealing with water issues in the global arena.

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REAL Co-Existence In The Jordan Valley

Video Of The Week - REAL Co-Existence - Arab And Jewish Medics- https://tinyurl.com/y6jvrzbl

ISRAEL21c visits Israeli farm country, where a revived and thriving agriculture industry benefits Jewish and Arab residents.

By Abigail Klein Leichman  19-9-2019

They couldn’t believe we were living on a rocky hill. They said, ‘You cannot eat from this land! You won’t last long.’ But now my grandchildren are here too,” Rozenblum told a group of journalists in the herb-packing house at Moshav Naama, an agricultural community of 50 families.

Premium Medjoul dates are the main crop grown on the 21 Israeli communities of the Jordan Valley, including Moshav Naama. According to the Israel Plants Production and Marketing Board, farms in the Jordan and Arava valleys provide the majority of the Medjoul dates in the world market.

“Thirty-five years ago, you didn’t see one date here. It was all desert,” says Rozenblum.

The pioneers used Israeli agricultural advances, including drip irrigation with purified wastewater, to turn the valley into an oasis of date orchards, reviving a crop that thrived here in biblical times.

Long since moved off the hilltop, Moshav Naama has 5 hectares (about 12.5 acres) of date palms, annually producing between 50 and 70 tons of fruit sold through cooperatives under various brand names.

The families here also grow herbs, organic vegetables and table grapes. Rozenblum’s son raises tropical fish for export.

Not only did the original residents happily prove their friends in Jericho wrong, but they shared their cultivars and ag-tech expertise. As a result, several Jericho families were able to revitalize the city’s prosperous ancient date industry that had lain dormant for many years despite its abundant natural springs, Rozenblum says.

Ruled by Jordan from 1949 to 1967, and by Israel from 1967 to 1994, Jericho now is administered by the Palestinian Authority. Israeli citizens may enter only with a special permit.

But the warm working relationships forged in the 1980s and early 1990s continue to bear fruit. Jericho residents are among the 6,000 to 9,000 Palestinian Arabs – depending on the season — who rely on the Israeli farms of the Jordan Valley for employment.

Harvesting and packing dates, peppers, grapes, herbs and even pineapple in these 21 communities pays double the money they would earn doing agricultural work in Palestinian villages, Rozenblum says.

Jordan Valley Regional Council Mayor David Alhayani puts it this way: “We want them to work with us and they want to work with us.”

On his own farm, Rozenblum grows sweet basil and tarragon all year in greenhouses.

Because temperatures in the Jordan Valley can climb to 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit) on summer days, the packing house is air-conditioned to keep workers comfortable while they sort and box the herbs for export.

“We ship via air to Europe, the United States, Canada, Hong Kong and Japan. By the next day it’s in the supermarket,” says Rozenblum.

In the past few years, a new crop of young Israelis began moving to the area, some of them returning to where they were raised. Although 70% of adults in the Israeli Jordan Valley communities work in agriculture, not all the newcomers are interested in farming.

“It’s a wonderful place to live and to raise children, and we are only 45 minutes from the center of Jerusalem and one and a half hours from Tel Aviv,” says Rozenblum. “Our children are coming back for the quality of life.”

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12 TOP WAYS ISRAEL FEEDS THE WORLD (Part 2)

By Israel 21C

For the full article go to: http://tinyurl.com/p9subll

Food security is a major concern for our rapidly growing planet. As resources dwindle and the population rises, smart solutions for better agriculture and safer food storage are essential.

No other single country – certainly not one as young and as tiny as Israel – has contributed more breakthroughs in this area than Israel.

Since the 1950s, Israelis have not only been finding miraculous ways to green their own desert but have shared their discoveries far and wide through channels including MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

ISRAEL21c has highlighted dozens of food-related advances pioneered by Israelis. Here are 12 major ways Israel helps feed the world.

7. Squeezing every drop of water from the air

Tal-Ya Water Technologies developed reusable plastic trays to collect dew from the air, reducing the water needed by crops or trees by up to 50 percent.

The square serrated trays, made from non-PET recycled and recyclable plastic with UV filters and a limestone additive, surround each plant or tree. With overnight temperature change, dew forms on both surfaces of the Tal-Ya tray, which funnels the dew and condensation straight to the roots. If it rains, the trays heighten the effect of each millimeter of water 27 times over.

Inventor and CEO Avraham Tamir told ISRAEL21c that the trays also block the sun so weeds can’t take root, and protect the plants from extreme temperature shifts. “Farmers need to use much less water, and in turn much less fertilizer on the crop,” which translates to less groundwater contamination.

8. Unparalleled crop protection

Two years ago, Hebrew University’s tech-transfer company teamed with Makhteshim Agan, a world leader in crop protection products, to develop and commercialize slow-release herbicides and a targeted insecticide that doesn’t harm beneficial insects.

The total worldwide herbicide market is valued at more than $15 billion, of which approximately a quarter is dedicated to soil-applied herbicides and other pesticides. The Israeli approach incorporates herbicides into micelles or vesicles, which are absorbed onto negatively charged clay minerals to enable a slow and controlled release, reducing leaching to deeper soil layers. This enhances efficiency and reduces the required doses.

The novel insecticide kills caterpillars of night-flying moths – a common scourge for farmers worldwide – but unlike common commercial preparations, has minimal or no effect on any other creature. High levels of control can be achieved with much less product, greatly minimizing environmental impact.

9. Fishing in the desert

Overfishing is a serious threat to the food supply, a grave situation since fish is the main source of protein for hundreds of millions of people. But what if fish could be raised virtually anywhere, even in the desert? That is just what the Israel’s GFA (Grow Fish Anywhere) Advanced Systems has made possible.

The Israeli “zero-discharge” system eliminates the environmental problems in conventional fish farming, and doesn’t depend on electricity or proximity to a body of water. Specially developed microbes purify fish waste byproducts right in the tank, with no need for spillage and refilling.

The largest facility using GFA technology, in New York, produced about 100 tons of sea bream, bass and tilapia in 2010.

10. Food from greenhouse gas

Israel’s Seambiotic clean-tech company recently launched a commercial algae farm in China and does business in the United States and Italy as well.

People don’t eat algae, but algae ponds nourished by power-plant effluent conserve farmed produce for human consumption because they generate 30 times more feedstock for biofuel than do land-based crop alternatives.

Plus, the tiny plants, which thrive on carbon dioxide and sunlight, produce a valuable nutraceutical food additive that is especially popular in the Far East.

11. Reintroducing carp to Africa

Half a century ago, Lake Victoria carp was a significant part of the diet of the nearby Ugandan villagers. But when Nile perch was introduced to the lake, it decimated most of the smaller fish including the carp. Villagers had neither the equipment nor the expertise necessary to start fishing the huge perch, and symptoms of protein deficiency started becoming apparent in their children.

Prof. Berta Sivan of Hebrew University came to the rescue with a multiyear project near to help these African families. Her team was able to apply techniques developed over many years for Israeli fish farmers.

The Israeli project not only successfully spawned carp on Ugandan fish farms, but also provided training on how to dig and fill ponds and raise the small fish. Now local children have an abundant supply of protein to eat with their fruit and vegetables.

12. Hardier seeds for better crops

Hebrew University agricultural scientists Ilan Sela and Haim D. Rabinowitch developed TraitUP, a trademarked technology that enables the introduction of genetic materials into seeds without modifying their DNA. This method immediately and efficiently improves plants before they’re even sowed.

The university’s Yissum Research Development technology transfer company licensed the seed treatment technology to Morflora Israel for curing fruit-tree diseases in orchards and groves, and for seedling treatment in the nursery.

“The new ability to deliver traits within days instead of years, and to offer a treatment with results similar to breeding to all current species, answers a long and unmet need that will revolutionize modern agriculture and significantly impact the vegetable and commodity crop markets,” said Dotan Peleg, CEO of Morflora.

Video of the week: http://tinyurl.com/pgxj3jv

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