Hands holding a seedling in the ground/ShutterStock
Almost four months into the war and the alarming issue of Israel's food security comes up again.
Whether it's a boycott, whether it's the Houthis, who are causing goods to be delayed on their way to Israel, whether it's companies that have stopped and maybe will stop transporting goods here in the future.
And that's even before we talked about the Israeli farmers, who are still not expected to return to the plantations near the border in the north and south.
Add to this the fact that there is still no prospect of the end of the war and it is possible that there will be no escape from opening another front in the north, and we will see that next year's crops are also in danger.
When I mention to Uri Federman, the CEO and owner of the F&S Group, which owns companies in the food and agriculture fields in Israel and around the world, and also the chairman of the Landover coffee chain, about the Corona period, he says that although it is history, it is coming back again.
And what do we do with it?
Not much for now and it's a shame.
"Israel's food security is in real danger, and what can save it is the agrotech industry," says Federman, "the war made it clear to us that we must not depend on external imports, and one of the most important tasks of the state these days is investment from the state as well as long as this does not happen there may be A situation where there will be no food for the citizens."
Is this a growing trend only in Israel?
"What happened even before the corona virus was a process of globalization and efficiency that took place simultaneously in all kinds of places in the world. Factories and companies realized that it is much more economically advantageous for them to produce in one place, transport to another place and lower costs as much as possible. It was a time when all that kept everyone busy was lowering costs The economics, and maximum utilization of profit. So this business worked really wonderfully until the epidemic broke out and things started to change."
Countries began to close, borders were closed, and I remember that even in Israel they started talking about the day after, and that we must create a strong local industry here.
"This happened in many countries. In the United Arab Emirates, for example, they suddenly found themselves importing 95% of the total food in the country and set themselves the goal in the coming years to reach at least 20% of self-production by establishing food and agricultural factories. This also happened in Israel. Do you remember the ship that got stuck in Suez and created a crazy traffic jam? It was only a matter of a few days, and it raised all the prices drastically, and that was before this whole story with the Houthis right now.
"Of course, during the pandemic, other countries also wanted to make sure that there would be enough supplies to their residents, therefore they stopped transporting and exporting.
It was a combination of the fear of the transmission of the corona virus and the fear that there would be no food for the residents themselves.
Everyone kept what was theirs and the world changed."
Fast forward three and a half years and here we are in almost the same situation. The problem may be only ours at this stage, but we do see an awakening and an understanding that local agriculture is necessary.
"Only now do many of us see that following what happened in October And in particular the fact that our agriculture is on the borders, we need to further strengthen the local industry.
Indeed, there was a very great and happy awakening on the subject, mainly among people who had never visited an agricultural plantation and suddenly found themselves working and picking and helping farmers.
In that respect it did a good service to the local industry because it connected the people to it, made them realize that in the end it was the right choice they had to make.
"But the awakening among the 'ordinary' people, let's call it that, as important and relevant as it is, it is not enough. If there is no support from the state and if they do not transfer more resources to the ag-tech industry, to all the developments that also perfect the work of the farmer and the harvest, it is not will work".
Uri Federman, CEO and owner of the F&S/PR group
Worldwide shipping
As mentioned, Federman feels great disappointment when it comes to the state's investment in one of its strongest fields, agrotech (or agtech, if you will - a combination of agriculture with tech) and explains that Israel is not aware of the impact it is making in the world in this field.
"The reason we need to strengthen the investment in tech as an agenda much more than what is happening in the field today, is that this is an area in which we are leading and the eyes of the world are on us."
and do it.
Not enough in your eyes?
"We need to brand Israel as a power not only in cyber, and in the weapons industries and in all the fields in which we currently see extra investment, even if rightfully so. Israelis are in the biggest developments in agriculture. From tenth place where we were in recent years, we have reached fourth place in the world in this field. Here is a starting point that should not be missed."
How did it happen that our small country was ranked so high?
"We are not going to compete with countries like Peru or Spain or Morocco in terms of the quantity of avocados or oranges. We have no chance of competing with them in terms of quantity, we are a small country and what we grow here in the whole country is only the area of an orchard there. But we can compete in quality , and with the very efficient and advanced technologies that deal more with sustainability, or fertilizer, sprinkler irrigation, etc.
" They look at me from a very high place, me as an Israeli.
Israeli branding and developments, the more investment they have, the stronger impact they will create that will affect both what happens inside the country and outside it."
When you talk about investment, are you talking about direct budgets?
"Not necessarily direct budgets, there are many ways to encourage the development of Agriculture starting from the farmer himself to start-ups and other developments.
We are not investing enough.
If you talk to decision makers in senior positions, you find that this is not their highest priority.
They are currently talking about the arms industries, about Rafale and Elbit, which is a very powerful engine, and food-tech and hag-tech are two subjects that complement each other, are pushed aside."
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"Israel has a very large comparative advantage also in the field of agriculture compared to leading countries in the world"/photo adaptation, spokeswoman Moez Jordan Valley
Turkish coffee
So what is the solution?
Federman offers, for example, tax benefits that may sound trivial, but are critical when it comes to plot development in Israel.
And if not with direct money, then through subsidies given to farmers to invest more in the entire technological array of agriculture.
Another area that is rarely addressed.
"Agriculture today is not just a farmer who plows with a tractor and spreads the fertilizer himself in the soil. Developments are advanced and one of our fertilizer factories, for example, offers advanced solutions to farmers that also promote them both in terms of sustainability and in terms of improving crop quality and consistency. In modern agriculture there is much more precise and calculated work, there are Developments that can tell the farmer exactly which part of the plantation lacks fertilizer or what exactly is missing."
Are you actually saying that the more the farmers work with more advanced methods, the more it will be possible in a small area for that matter to create a larger amount of crops?
"First of all, definitely. If there is enough investment, farmers can invest much more in advanced systems, drip systems or better quality fertilizer so that they have more crops, and more yielding dunams that they produce. When you work in agriculture that is correct and the state is involved in it as well, everyone benefits from it. Take for example A farmer in Spain or any other country, there are farmers who do not pay for water. In Israel, for example, not only do farmers pay for water within their territory, but they pay for water that has been recycled. Water that in any case has nothing to do with it. The cost of living also begins with the cost of production." .
The company has a factory in Kiryat Gat in the south and in Alon Hatbor in the north, and it supplies liquid fertilizer to farmers, among others, in the conflict zones.
Their coffee factories are located in Ashdod and Holon, but the challenges of the war did not escape them either.
"We have nothing to complain about because we don't sit right on the border, but certainly many of our customers, whether in agriculture or in coffee, were affected by this. All the kibbutzim in Otef are our customers, we also have a lot of customers on the border in the north, and in the first month it was even very dangerous in terms of Transporting goods in an open area, but of course we did it."
As an international company that has large exports, factories in both Spain and Peru, how was the interaction during the war?
"We don't have too much interaction at this level, we work a lot with the eastern markets, with Thailand, Vietnam and China, South America and Africa, but there is a change of mind when it comes to investments and purchases. Turkey, for example, is a huge market for agriculture, but I wouldn't invest there or build There is a factory and it doesn't matter what the costs are. We also had all kinds of opportunities in Jordan recently and we decided not to do anything, likewise in Egypt.
There is a point where I don't feel comfortable doing these things as an Israeli, so there is a change in our thinking as well."
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