Why Agritech Is Israel’s Next Big Import
The small country’s agriculture solutions are spreading its tech-sector influence
ISRAEL — The train ride from Jaffa to Jerusalem passes through fields of grapes, lettuce, tomatoes, olives, and bananas. In many ways, these fields are a miracle.
As the Dead Sea evaporates and the Jordan River dwindles, Israel — a desert country of 8.7 million and smaller than the state of New Hampshire — has been forced to get creative around water efficiency. More than half of Israel’s usable water is man-made from desalinated seawater, and 86% of its wastewater is treated and reused.
Israel has survived as a modern nation — and as a startup hub — in part because the country created a revolutionary irrigation system in the 1960s that would become the world standard for efficient and high-tech agriculture. Necessity is the mother of invention, and the concept of “drip” irrigation exemplifies that maxim. Drip irrigation is an efficient way to slowly distribute water directly to a plant’s root system through a network of pipes or valves either from above or buried below the soil.
This minimizes evaporation, and in resource poor environments, like Israel, it can conserve water and increase efficiency. “The situation in Israel is 60% arid desert, the rest is…
