The reform of agriculture, announced this week by the Ministers of Finance and Agriculture, is an event with far-reaching implications.
Unfortunately, they are the opposite of what Avigdor Lieberman and Oded Forer intended: instead of cheapening fruits and vegetables, they will kill Israeli agriculture, harm the nutritional independence of the State of Israel, harm security and Zionism in their deepest sense, and not lower the cost of living in any way.
At the end of the cottage protest, more than a decade ago, a similar, smaller protest took place around the price of canned tuna.
The pressure led to the caps being lifted, and the market opened up for imports.
The three factories that had until then produced canned tuna in the country were closed, and became importers themselves, because they had difficulty dealing with prices abroad. And the price in the country? Has only risen sharply since then, in the absence of local competition.
Twelve years ago, there were 60,000 farmers in Israel.
Today, according to CBS data, there are about 14,000 farmers in the country. The average age of an Israeli farmer is the highest in the world, well over 60. Young people and boys-continuators do not rush to join the field: hard work, high risk, medium livelihood (at best ), And the main enemy is the state - which imposes on its farmers every difficulty and bureaucracy possible.
Decline for an increase
Get two examples.
The first concerns output.
Despite the decline in the number of agricultural farms in the last decade, the output of Israeli agriculture has not decreased, leaving about NIS 31 billion a year.
But this output also does not increase, because the government does not allocate additional amounts of water that will allow agriculture to develop.
This is a unique Israeli patent, which does not exist in any other country;
All over the world there are no water restrictions for farmers, and in Israel there are.
And all over the world, water prices for agriculture are also low (about 20 cents on average per cubic meter of water), and in Israel they are sky-high (average dollars per cubic meter).
The second example concerns foreign workers.
All over the world, farms rely on foreign workers.
Governments encourage this, in order to increase productivity.
In Israel, according to data from the Ministry of Agriculture, there are about 25,000 foreign workers missing (farmers claim that the real number is much higher).
Those who want to encourage productivity and encourage competitiveness do not suffocate the industry in this way.
The claim about the high price of fruits and vegetables in the country is of course justified.
But it seems that the ministers of finance and agriculture have gone for the weak link in the chain - the farmers.
From every shekel we pay for fruits and vegetables, the farmer earns 35 percent on average.
The rest, which is the main part of the price, is cut by retail chains, which often use practices that harm farmers.
Since 70 percent of agricultural produce is sold in five retail chains - some of which are also major importers - it is doubtful whether prices have fallen.
It is more likely that as with canned tuna, in the first few months we see a drop in prices, followed by an increase - without a real ability to curb it.
Various professionals claim that the reform will cut about NIS 1.6 billion from farmers' incomes.
Revenue from agriculture in the Golan Heights will fall by 60 percent, in the Upper Galilee by 50 percent, and in the Gaza Strip by 40 percent.
And worst of all: if today imports account for about 10 percent of total fruit and vegetable sales in the country, after the reform the share of imports will rise to 50 percent.
The long-term result will be devastating.
Israeli agriculture will die.
One can understand the government's desire to fight the cost of living, it is impossible to understand what it derives from it for its farmers and citizens.
The last two years have given a lesson to the world, and also to Israel, about the need for dietary independence.
Under the corona, and trade and movement restrictions between countries, countries that did not enjoy independence found themselves facing crisis and scarcity.
In the UAE, for example, a pound of onion rose before the corona less than a dollar, followed by $ 6.
The war in Ukraine also teaches the same lesson.
The steep rise in wheat and barley prices is already causing a rise in bread prices - the most basic consumer product - and in the prices of other commodities, as a result of the steep rise in oil prices, leading to a steep rise in transportation prices.
Since importers are not altruistic, these price increases will all drain into the pocket of the consumer.
Israel is an island nation.
It hardly imports through its land borders, and exports very little.
In the event of war, air traffic will cease almost completely, and naval traffic will be severely restricted.
What Israel will not produce itself, it is doubtful whether it will be able to import;
Whoever chooses to rely on the current burst of love from Turkey is playing with fire: this is not the partner that can be relied on on a rainy day.
Even so, one can only be appalled by the fact that IDF soldiers in the Gaza Strip often eat tomatoes from Turkey - the Hamas fan they are fighting against - and not tomatoes grown by farmers in the Gaza Strip. Economic, but also health: The agricultural produce in the country is under close supervision at all stages. Imports, on the other hand, are completely free of it. It is not known in which sewer the agricultural goods purchased in the future were launched, and what diseases and damages it will bring with it.
But above all, agriculture is Zionism.
In the simplest and most basic sense of the word.
From the beginning of Zionism, and certainly after the establishment of the state, farmers spread across the borders.
In the Upper Galilee opposite Lebanon, in the Golan Heights opposite Syria, in the Jordan Valley and in the Arava opposite Jordan, and along the Gaza border.
They held in one hand a rifle and in the other a plow, fighting and sowing, guarding the country and making a living from its land.
The new reform will fatally harm this ethos, and the people who uphold it in their bodies.
Lieberman, who served as defense minister, is supposed to know this;
Forer - who sets a precedent by being the first agriculture minister not to support farmers but fight them - has apparently not delved into the far-reaching implications of the move he is leading.
It is not too late to stop this move.
The Ministries of Finance and Agriculture have clarified that he has already set out, but the farmers' lobby in the Knesset is trying to stop him, and has begun collecting signatures.
The chairman of the economics committee, MK Michael Bitton, will enter a discussion on the issue next week;
It would do well to invite not only the parties, but also to deal with the broad implications of the planned reform.
If the move in the Knesset does not succeed, the farmers intend to take to the streets.
Block intersections, disperse goods, do whatever it takes to change the evil of the decree.
They have nothing to lose, but in order to make a profit they will have to mobilize the public alongside them.
This will be no easy task, because citizens want to save, and will be required to explain to them that the current reform will not only not lower prices, it will raise them in the long run.
But the public can also help agriculture in an independent way: to prioritize locally produced fruits and vegetables over imported goods.
The law that requires marking the country of origin of products (as is customary all over the world) has already been passed by the government, and will be approved by the Knesset.
This will put Israel in a place similar to that of the reformed countries in the world, where on every tomato, pepper or watermelon is written where it is grown.
That way we too can know what we are buying, and from where, to vote in the pocket - and save Israeli agriculture from a move that will be a cry for generations.
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