Nice interview in the new edition of Undercover Farming magazine. Here is the full text of the article: “TOMATOES, DRIP IRRIGATION AND PERSIMMONS WILL BRING ISRAEL AND SOUTH AFRICA CLOSER TOGETHER” “I’m really a city boy but in my heart I’m a farmer.” Arthur Lenk, Israel’s Ambassador to South Africa, talks like a person who lives off the land. He opened up to Undercover Farming about his background and his ideas about how Israel can help smallholder farmers in South Africa(SA). “Although my background is law and I’ve been an Israeli diplomat for over 20 years, I believe that agriculture is the key to impacting lives of people across Africa. Israel made the desert bloom, taking a barren, dry land and has become a world leader in growing vegetables, flowers and fruit. We have shared this experience with friends across Africa for years and soon after arriving in SA last year, I started learning about what we are doing here to help farmers,” Ambassador Lenk said. Israel’s embassy in Pretoria has long focused on working with small farmers and helping them move from traditional farming and to learn advanced modern techniques of water management, pest control and post-harvest. The Embassy has had an agricultural advisor for nearly a decade. Isaac Isaac, who has been in SA since 1996, currently works with farmers in a variety of rural locations such as Bethany in North West, Modjaji, Limpopo and Hazyview, Mpumalonga. Soon after Ambassador Lenk arrived in August 2013, Isaac took him to some of the sights so he could see for himself some of the projects where he has been working in recent years. Lenk says that it made a big impact on him because what he saw what increasing such joint Israel-South Africa projects could mean for SA’s economy in terms of training, technology and food security. He met experienced small scale farmers across South Africa who moved in a few short months from historic techniques such as flooding fields to drip irrigation for farming. Similarly, farmers were able to dramatically increase yields and consistency opening opportunities for contracts with supermarket chains. Lenk was confident that these Israeli skills and experiences that Israel can be successfully applied here and if upscaled on a provincial or nation level could be a key factor in SA’s National Development Plan for rural development. Lenk got excited has he described how some of the farmers in Hazyview have moved to “the next level”. They have contracts with Shop Rite, already know what veggies they are going to grow in 2015 and even how much income they can expect for the financial year. It is such an emotional and moving change to see them see themselves as businessmen and not just subsistence farmers. Once, they worked just to make ends meet and to provide for their families. Today, they know how to plan ahead, how to buy fertilizer, how to water correctly, how to harvest and market. Even in 2014, there is still a great need for farmers to gain information and experience in new techniques, products and strategies. In Israel, the Ministry of Agriculture works with farmers, large and small, with extension information and training programs, helping them maximize yields and use best practices. Israeli experts have been copying this model in countries in Africa, in India and in China, showing that a triangle of cooperation between government, academia and the farming community can make huge strides with real macro-economic impact. Chapter 6 of South Africa’s National Development Plan is called “An integrated and inclusive rural economy”. It states clearly the goal for agriculture for the country. The NDP focuses on the nexus between government and the smallholder farmers in the country’s national development and in providing key responses in areas such as job creation and food security. It states: “As the primary economic activity in rural areas, agriculture has the potential to create close to 1 million new jobs by 2030, a significant contribution to the overall employment target. To achieve this, South Africa needs to: Expand irrigated agriculture. Evidence shows that the 1.5 million hectares under irrigation (which produce virtually all South Africas horticultural harvest and some field crops) can be expanded by at least 500,000 hectares through the better use of existing water resources and developing new water schemes…” Ambassador Lenk is quite optimistic on the opportunities for bilateral cooperation in promoting these goals. “We would like to work with the SA Government to up-scale our existing program of Israeli experts working with smallholder farmers in various regions here. Imagine if we could replicate what Isaac Isaac is doing here. There are ten projects in Hazyview and three in Modjadji and we would love to extend to other areas. I think there is wonderful opportunities to access corporate social support for such a project that could bring blessings to farmers across southern Africa.” Another successful area of cooperation between Israel and SA is agribusiness. A large number of Israeli companies are active here including a number who are manufacturing and employing hundreds of employees and even exporting to third countries products made here. Some great examples include Netafim which has a factory in Kraaifontein and sells irrigation drippers and partners with Vegtech 2000 to build greenhouses and tunnels across SA using a variety of Israeli technologies. Similarly, Israel’s Hishtil has a strategic partnership with ZZ2 for growing advanced seedlings. They have a modern nursery in Limpopo and are opening a second one in the Western Cape in October 2014. Another wonderful synergy between Israel and South Africa is taking advantage of the different seasons between the northern and southern hemispheres. Israel’s leading grower of persimmons (known here as Sharon Fruit) exports much of its fruit to the European market in the autumn season (October and November) in Israel. By growing in SA’s autumn (April and May), it increases its market window significantly. A similar project has been started by another partnership growing dates in Namibia to double the growth window for the profit of both sides of the Israeli-South African partnership. Ambassador Lenk gets excited about the potential of agriculture to bring the two countries closer together. He concludes by noting that many diplomats talk about politics, cocktail parties and UN votes. He believes that for Israel and South Africa it will be tomatoes, persimmons and drip irrigation that will serve as a bridge of success.
Posted on: Tue, 14 Oct 2014 06:32:42 +0000
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