In his book "Collapse", the well-known American biologist Prof. Jared Diamond claims that over-agriculture can cause the collapse of various societies, mainly because agricultural over-processing causes soil erosion and damage to the local ecological balance. Today, no less than38 percent of the land area in the world is covered in agricultural areas And one of the great challenges of today is how to make modern agriculture more sustainable, so that it can be a reliable and safe source of food in the future as well.
New research, funded by a foundation beauty spot of the Israeli Association for Ecology and Environmental Sciences, tried to provide a preliminary answer to the question and found that the first step is less complicated than it seems: listen to the farmers.
17,476 agricultural farms
As of 2017, 17,476 agricultural farms were operating in Israel, spread over an area of 3.52 million dunams and who are responsible for an output of about NIS 30 billion every year. But beyond its financial value, it is understood that local agriculture provides us with a variety of other services: food security, green lungs, landscape aesthetics, heritage values and more.
These days, the future of agriculture in Israel is on the discussion table. As part of the "agricultural reform", which has been changed several times in the last few months and as of now its future Begin In January 2022, tariff reductions and an opening to the import of a variety of products, such as fruits and vegetables, are planned, with the aim of lowering their costs for consumers. Israeli farmers have struggled and are still struggling with the reform, which they claim will harm their livelihood and the future of the industry. In addition, the farmers complain to the state that the moves are made unilaterally without any dialogue with them.
New research published in the scientific journal Journal of Environmental Management examined a similar problem - the perceptions of Israeli farmers towards governmental agricultural reforms - from the angle of environmental agriculture. "In Europe and the UK there are environmental government initiatives. Programs that tell farmers to implement interfaces such as reducing field margins, or reducing spraying and we will compensate you financially in exchange for this, so that the farmers' risk will be Minimal in Israel except Land conservation plan to prevent erosion No other programs are implemented," explains Dr. Yael Taf-Sker, a socio-ecologist from the Department of Sociology at the University of Davis in California and one of the authors of the study. "You have to understand that this is a step that is ecologically beneficial for the country, because otherwise this money will have to be spent on the rehabilitation of environmental problems such as groundwater pollution from spraying, which the government will otherwise have to deal with the consequences of."
The farmers want to implement an environmental interface
As part of the new study, in-depth interviews were held with 41 farmers from various branches in the Harod Valley area. The researchers presented the farmers with five types of environmental interfaces: reducing spraying (a measure that prevents contamination); maintaining the edges of fields (an action that allows the passage of animals between living areas); maintaining breast complexity (ie, more than one type of tumor in one field); Reduction of tillage (a process that reduces soil erosion) and connection to the community.
First, the farmers were asked what they thought of each interface and then they were offered a financial incentive plan to move to each such interface and they were asked again about their willingness to implement these methods, this time with government financial support. In addition to these interviews, supplementary questionnaires were conducted with 296 non-agricultural residents of Emek Harod, in which they were asked about their attitudes regarding the five proposed environmental interfaces.
The research findings showed that most farmers showed a willingness to implement the environmental interfaces given an economic incentive. Thus, for example, 95 percent of the farmers showed a willingness to implement modern agricultural technologies of soil cultivation that prevent soil erosion.
However, the analysis of the interviews indicates that it is not only a financial matter. "Some of the interfaces had commitment even before we offered the farmers an economic plan. This was the case, for example, in the case of reducing spraying," says Taf-Skar. "Farmers do not want to harm the environment for no reason. However, we also saw that the responsiveness to the implementation of the interfaces was lower the more senior the farmer was." In addition, it emerged from the residents' questionnaires that the older the residents were and grew up in their childhood in Emek Harod, the more important it was to them and the more they pushed for the adoption of the environmental interfaces by the farmers.
According to the researchers, these findings indicate that when proposing an economic plan, it is not enough to look only at the economic aspect and offer incentives, but that one must look at the social aspect and what affects each farmer.
"Farmers don't necessarily just want financial support in the form of subsidies," explains Prof. Assaf Schwartz from the Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning at the Technion and head of the research group. "The attitude of many of them is that they do not want favors from anyone. They want more knowledge of how to implement the interfaces and a safety net that will guarantee them that if they try and fail then they will not collapse financially. Along with this, they also expressed a desire to be environmental and they see themselves as conservationists the environment".
"There is no one to talk to in the government"
Another finding that came up in the study and which echoes the events of the last few months surrounding the agricultural reform is the farmers' lack of trust in the state bodies, which according to some of them who took part in the study will prevent them from adopting the proposed environmental interfaces. Thus, for example, one of the farmers who participated in the study said that "... we are doing something very, very important, but the government support we receive and the importance the state attaches to it is zero. They simply do not care about the farmers." Another farmer attached great importance to the political uncertainty and frequent changes in government, saying "...everything changes, so how can a farmer believe in his government?"
"They don't listen to us and they don't say the right things," says Oded Cohen, coordinator of the Regional Growers Committee in the northern region. "It is clear to me that some things need to be reformed, but I expect that first of all they will talk and think and not copy programs from abroad one for one. It won't help, because here the water prices are much higher. First of all, you need to sit down with us to understand what our problems are."
"The agricultural reform only refers to the cost of the products in the supermarket and whether or not we can guarantee food in the future, but a reform that only refers to the cost of food will make the farmer spend all his resources here and now and forget about what will happen in ten years," says Schwartz. "When you only think about the economic aspect, you don't think about the environmental aspect, for example the organic matter in the soil, without which at the end of the day there is no agriculture. We have to think about what will happen to the next generation - this is the essence of sustainability."
"It is not enough to just throw money at agriculture. We need ecologists, farmers and economists to sit down together and formulate an effective and good course of action for everyone," concludes Tef-Skar. "In our research it was possible to see that there is great importance to the social element and the considerations of the farmers themselves, who show an interest in an environmental program from the beginning. It has to be done wisely and thus it will be more profitable for the country in the end."
