Making deserts livable
‘We could feed the world’
Special to The Jewish Standard
Israel is famously known as a land of milk and honey, but it is hardly one that is flowing with water. For Israeli scientists today, maximizing water use is a key focus for research and innovation.
It may also be key to avoiding the regional war everyone says must happen some day — a war for water.
For the scientists, though, the main goal is finding ways to grow plentiful amounts of food in arid lands.
In the midst of harsh desert conditions in the Negev and the Arava, Israel’s long, eastern valley, Israeli researchers and farmers have created a flourishing network of high-tech agriculture. Tomatoes, peppers, olives, cheeses, and grapes blossom from arid land despite the fact that annual rainfall totals are measured in mere inches and the proximity to the Dead Sea produces groundwater that is highly saline.
