Agricultural research in Israel

Agricultural research in Israel is based on close cooperation and interaction between scientists, consultants, farmers and agriculture-related industries.

Shortage of irrigation water and inadequate precipitation in some parts of the country are major constraints facing Israeli agriculture.

Through extensive greenhouses production, vegetables, fruits and flowers are grown for export to the European markets during the winter off-season.

[2] In the late 19th century Jewish and Palestinian Arab farmers expanded the acreage devoted to commercial and export crops.

[4] Arriving in the country with little or no previous agricultural experience, this kind of experimentation was vital for the development of such crops as grapes, citrus and almonds.

Arab agriculture revolved primarily around dry farming, with wheat, barley, chickpeas, sesame and olives predominating.

[5] In 1906, Jewish agronomist Aaron Aaronsohn discovered wild emmer (Triticum dicoccoides), believed to be "the mother of the wheat.

[citation needed] The research station, headed by Yitzhak Elazari Volcani and located in Rehovot, was the first scientific institute in Palestine.

It had departments for crop sciences, fruit and citrus, soil and irrigation, entomology and plant pathology, post-harvest, food technology and farm economics.

[citation needed] Research in storage of citrus fruit reduced spoilage during shipping to Europe due to fungal rots from 30% to 2-3%.

BARD is a competitive funding program for mutually beneficial, mission-oriented, strategic and applied research of agricultural problems, jointly conducted by American and Israeli scientists.

Among the research areas funded were: Alleviating Heat Stress in Dairy Cattle, Breeding for Heat Tolerant Wheat Varieties, Improving Wheat-Seed Proteins by Molecular Approaches, Algal Culture and Improving Cut Flower Quality to name only a few where significant results were obtained (BARD, 20 year external review).

The ARO and its forerunner, the Agricultural Research Station, have helped to turn Israel's “mixed farming” system into a highly industrialized enterprise focused on export to Europe.

Major achievements included an increase in productivity of fruit, vegetable and field crops with a reduced input of chemical fertilizers and pesticides.

The prize committee chose Gressel, who is internationally known for his work in plant biotechnology, for breakthrough research in molecular structures that has major implications for the development of weed killers.