Page 26 - Social Science.docx

Agriculture and Irrigation in Modern Israel
Salomon Bibas
In its quest for survival, Israel has developed agriculture and irrigation techniques that have revolutionized these industries worldwide. This young country has had to overcome and break many barriers in order to accomplish this goal. Among them, its location and climate as well as the ecological and geographical characteristics of its land. These include scarcity of water and dry lands that predominate in 93% of the country. Israelis have had to transform this dry land into a habitable and fertile one, capable of sustaining its population.
Contrary to what many would think, the new waves of settlers of this century, did not exactly find their biblical promised land, flowing with milk and honey. This is shocking due to Israel’s current great agricultural production. Desert, malarial swamps, and limestone hills were predominant in Israel’s landscape, despite efforts done by the first Zionists settlers coming as refugees from the pogroms of Eastern Europe of the late 1800’s. These early settlers were able to drain the marshes, and farm in those same areas. Their work was continued by Israel's first modern settlers in this land: the Halutzim, most of whom came in the period from 1919-1923, in a mass migration into the country, formerly known as Palestine.
Forty thousand new settlers arrived, to a land with little food, water, and lots of desert.
These daring conditions obliged the early pioneers to improve their situation, which they did by
starting to think and problem solve in the areas of irrigation and agriculture. They launched Israel's
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Salomon Bibas ‘23, plans to study business in university.
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