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To Make a Desert Bloom: the Israeli Agricultural Adventure and the Quest for Sustainability Author(S): Alon Tal Source: Agricultural History, Vol

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To Make a Desert Bloom: the Israeli Agricultural Adventure and the Quest for Sustainability Author(S): Alon Tal Source: Agricultural History, Vol To Make a Desert Bloom: The Israeli Agricultural Adventure and the Quest for Sustainability Author(s): Alon Tal Source: Agricultural History, Vol. 81, No. 2 (Spring, 2007), pp. 228-257 Published by: Agricultural History Society Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4617826 . Accessed: 14/02/2014 12:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Agricultural History Society is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Agricultural History. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 171.67.216.23 on Fri, 14 Feb 2014 12:56:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions To Make a Desert Bloom: The Israeli AgriculturalAdventure and the Quest forSustainability ALON TAL Thisarticle offers an overviewof thevicissitudes faced byIsraeli agriculture duringthe past century.The Zionistpioneers who came from Europe to Palestinesought to "reclaim"the statusof Jewishfarmers in theirhome- land. Thisethic translated into an extraordinarysocietal support for Israel's agrarianeconomy and steadygrowth in agriculturalproduction. Seven key factorsare identifiedas beingcritical to thisrecord of success,including a commitmentto food security,water development, and technologicalinno- vation. Yet, duringthe past twentyyears numerouschanges in local and internationaldynamics have posed substantialchallenges to Israel's agri- culturalsector. In addition,while Israeli agriculturehas largelyhalted ero- sion and restoreddesertified lands of the Negev Desert,it also produced myriadenvironmental side effectsincluding water contamination and ex- cessivepesticide usage. The articleconsiders responses to thesechallenges thatoffer promising prospects for a sustainableagricultural future in Israel. ISRAEL'S EMERGENCE AS AN AGRICULTURALcountry was a matter of choice. Perhaps more than any other nation,it chose to pursue a ro- mantic,ideological agrarianvision. This dream of a rural,fertile home- land drove economic policies, launched a sociological makeover,and produced astonishingchanges in an ancient landscape and a people's ALON TAL is an associate professorof EnvironmentalPolicy in the MitraniDepartment of Desert Ecology, Blaustein Institutesfor Desert Research, Ben Gurion University, Israel. This articlewas originallypresented as part of the 2005 Yale UniversityAgrarian Studies Colloquium. The author thanksthe thoughtfulparticipants for theircomments, whichhave meaningfullyimproved the text.Also, the authorgratefully acknowledges the excellentsuggestions of Moshe Schwartzand NehemiahHasid of Ben Gurion University. ? theAgricultural History Society, 2007 228 This content downloaded from 171.67.216.23 on Fri, 14 Feb 2014 12:56:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2007 To Makea DesertBloom self-image.This agriculturaltransformation has been manifestedin breathtakingtechnological innovation, surprising triumphs in combating desertification,as well as devastating environmentalconsequences. Groundwaterbecame contaminated;mounting dependence on herbi- cides and pesticidestranslated into a significantpublic health insultto residentsof the ruralsector; and waterresources were depleted. It was not long beforepeople raised questionsabout the veryeconomic viabil- ityof Israeli agriculture. To answerthem and understandthe presentchoices thatIsrael faces as it exploreswhat a sustainablefuture for agriculture means, it is critical to understandthe country'sidiosyncratic heritage and the historicevo- lution of its remarkableagricultural achievement. It would seem that Israeli agricultureis in a processthat will take it fullcircle. One hundred years ago, somethingakin to an "ecological impulse" galvanized an intellectualcadre of youngEuropean immigrantsto redefinethemselves as farmersin their"promised land." Withinfifty years, a public policy thatprioritized food securityand exportsproduced an industrialmodel of agriculturethat came to dominatethe local perspective. Ultimately,this transition in the Israeli farmingsector left the agrar- ian sectorat odds withthe fundamentalhydrological reality, ecosystem servicesof the land, and healthconcerns of modernfarming. During the course of the twentiethcentury, a steady progressionof institutional, physical,economic, and sociologicalfactors converged to ultimatelyem- brace an environmentalperspective. Rather than any ecological ideol- ogy,it was fundamentalpragmatism that eventually came to informthe sustainabilityof agriculturalpolicy and practicesin Israel. Not only the physical environment,but the political/economicdrivers that initially launched the outstandinggrowth in Israeli agriculturalproduction have changed. Because it is such a small, young country,whose developmenthas been so explosive,Israeli agriculturalhistory offers an extremescenario fordryland nations that seek a sustainableroute for their farming sector. To reviewa centuryof eco-agriculturalhistory in Israel mightbe akin to watchinga fast-forwardingdocumentary. The storyoffers insights into the perils of insensitivelyaggressive rural developmentalong with the possibilityof ecological harmonyand compatibilitybetween food pro- ductionand the environmentin conditionsof water scarcity. 229 This content downloaded from 171.67.216.23 on Fri, 14 Feb 2014 12:56:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions AgriculturalHistory Spring The Jewishpeople, of course,were originallyfarmers. As embodied in the Bible's querulous ancestorsCain and Abel, pastoralismand ag- ricultureprovided the economicfoundations for an Israelitesociety that could also supportartisans, priests, kings, and scholars.These agricul- turalorigins are woveninto the very rituals of theJewish calendar-with religiousholidays to thisday celebratingfirst fruits, final harvests, and the birthdaysof trees. The numbingand prodigiousminutiae of the Talmudic regulationsand insightsregarding agriculture in the Land of Israel,written over two thousandyears ago, can competefor sheer detail with any of the encyclopedicmanuals printedby the US Soil Conser- vation Service or ExtensionService. But this rural statuschanged as the Jewishpeople were forcedinto exile withthe destructionof the Temple in 70 CE. As Jewishcommu- nities adapted to minoritystatus in theirvarious diasporas, different professional inclinationsemerged: peddlers, traders,money-lenders, physicians,and of courserabbis. Sometimes these changes of occupation were the result of intentionalrestriction by externalauthorities. For example,by the Middle Ages, governmentsthroughout Europe prohib- ited Jewsfrom owning land. By the nineteenthcentury both the world and the communityitself had long since ceased to perceive Jews and farmersas synonymous-indeedthe Jewishassociation with food pro- ductionwas as distantas any ethnicor national group in the world.1 All this changed at the end of the nineteenthcentury, when Jews began to thinkabout a national renaissancein Palestine througha Zi- onistmovement. The simpleimpulse was to reclaimthe Jewishnational birthrightas an indigenouspeople in theirpromised land. Farmingwas a criticalpart of this vision. The socialist and dominantstrain in the Zionistpolitical movement used the metaphorof an "upside-downpyra- mid." It perceivedlabor patternsand professionalaffiliation as indica- torsfor the warped state of Jewishaffairs. Presumably, stable pyramids need a wide base of proletariattapering to a pointof a professionalclass. In nineteenth-centuryEurope, however,the occupational breakdown was such that a small minorityof workerswas supportingfar broader, less productivesections of the pyramid.This createdan invertedJewish sociologicalpyramid, dominated by disproportionatenumbers of white- collars,traders, and scholars.The Zionist transformationaimed to flip thisdynamic on its head and returnJewish society to a normalhealthy 230 This content downloaded from 171.67.216.23 on Fri, 14 Feb 2014 12:56:11 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 2007 To Makea DesertBloom pyramid,with a majorityof farmers at itsbase. This socialistimpulse was strengthenedby the enormouspower of Tolstoy's ruralistaffection for "Mother Russia" and the greatauthor's idealization of peasant culture. These ideas resonatedamong Jewsof his time,who soughtto apply his vision of agrarianharmony in theirancestral homeland. Aaron David Gordon was not just an influentialZionist philosopher whose writingarticulated this impulse, he also personifiedit. After workingas a bookkeeperin Russia, he moved to Palestinein 1902 at age forty-sevenand redefinedhimself as a farmerat the firstZionist kibbutz, Degania, on the banks of the Sea of Galilee. He perceivedagricultural labor as not only restoringan abandoned land, but also a damaged Jewishspirit. In his 1918 essay, Our Tasks Ahead, he wrote: We Jewshave developed an attitudeof lookingdown on physical labor.... But laboris theonly force which binds man to thesoil ... it is thebasic energyfor the creation of national culture. This is whatwe do not have, but we are not aware of missingit.... In my dreamI come to the land. And it is barrenand desolate and givenover to strangers;destruction darkens
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