"Precision agriculture in the 21st century will bring about a revolution similar to drip farming in the 20th century" Part One

Says Dr. Eli Potivsky, head of the Agricultural Research Administration in an interview with "Mashov" * Israel, in cooperation with the French Space Agency, is working on the development of a satellite with remote sensing capabilities, which will enable "precision agriculture" in real time for field crops and plantations

 By: Amos de Winter, editor of "Feedback to Agriculture". The article was published in the "Mashov" periodical in August 2005 and with the permission of the author it was also published on the Hedaan website for the first time on 20/8/2005
 
 
 
These days, the Volcanic Institute is establishing the Israeli Garden Bank, with an investment of about 3 million dollars * It turns out that Israel is very rich in wild species

Some people do not see any sign of concern on their faces. Mountains of problems will be excited about them, and in their face - you see nothing. Something like "penny poker". Dr. Eli Potivsky, the head of the administration, does not have this quality. From the moment you enter his office, you realize that many things are bothering the man, that he is preoccupied with a million and one things and that is before he utters a single word. His forehead is furrowed with wrinkles, his eyes are constantly running from the secretary, to the faxes and to you the interviewer, and you realize that you are only entering as a completely temporary guest, inside the train of activity and in the middle of this whole volcano.
These days, Potivsky is nurturing his "baby", the "Garden Bank", a project he has been talking about for over ten years, which is growing in strength on the way to reality.
"In Israel, despite its small size but due to its geographical location," Potivsky explains to me, "about 2,600 species of wild plants grow, which is a huge amount. A real treasure. If we compare this to China, then in all of Great China there are only 5700 species of wild plants. I mean, Israel is very rich in mini bars. There is no need to explain to the Israelis about the problem of urbanization, urban growth and the spread of the population and currently we are in a situation where we may lose a large part of these species. About 10 years ago, with the assistance of the Ministry of Science, the management of the Israeli Garden Bank was established, which worked vigorously to establish the Israeli Garden Bank."

What exactly is a gene bank?
Potivsky: "The gene bank is a place where a collection of seeds is kept, representing each and every species from the variety of Israeli wild species. This is a long-term storage of decades, the collection is kept at a temperature of minus 20 degrees, with humidity control, which must be very low, in order to ensure the vitality of the seeds, that they will not lose their vitality.
"The management I mentioned submitted a request for assistance from the 'Yad Handiv' fund, (Baron Rothschild's fund that operates in secret, without publication). The foundation sent an international committee of experts to examine the matter, who determined that it is essential that Israel establish an Israeli gene bank and as quickly as possible. The Yad-Handiv Foundation, for its part, has committed to providing a generous donation of around one million dollars.
"After a comprehensive examination, it became clear to us that the cost of establishing the bank is approximately three times the value of the donation, and when we felt that there was no other entity in Israel willing to contribute to the establishment of the bank, the Agricultural Research Administration took upon itself the cost of establishing and operating the Garden Bank. We are very proud of this and we hope that in 2006, the bank - which is already under construction - will be ready for operation".

Why is it so important for Israel to have its own gene bank?
Potivsky: "First, you preserve the wild population's gardens, which have agricultural and public importance. For example, today when you want to create a cultivated plant that is resistant to various diseases and pests (nematodes, mites, etc.), you usually recruit the resistance from the wild plant population, and you can perform this hybridization both by genetic engineering and by conventional means.
"Secondly, as we know, there is a tradition of thousands of years of using plants for medicinal purposes and it goes without saying that there is much more to explore and find in this field. It is still possible that there are plants, the use of which can lead to a medical recovery of this or that disease.
"Besides, every enlightened country - even Syria, knows that it is important to preserve its natural treasures, and the population of wild plants in Israel is definitely a natural treasure of the State of Israel, as mentioned, a diverse population that does not have many competitors. I hope that within a few years, additional sources of funding will be found to collect and preserve the population of wild species, and seeds will be collected from it in the right way in order to ensure the long-term existence of these plants."

At the beginning of the conversation you talked about precision agriculture and the great opportunity the country has to enter this field and get ahead of other countries. what's the matter?
Potivsky: "Today, when the farmer takes care of an orchard or a field - let's say a simple issue like whether to water now or not and how much - he actually performs the irrigation with an average estimate, that is, if you water the orchard today you know that there are trees that need more water and there are trees that don't need any at all For irrigation and the same with regard to pest control and fertilization decisions. What is hidden behind precision agriculture is that it combines various sensors and satellite images, with a computer system that can make decisions and act accordingly."

But today there are modern systems, for example systems like "Pitec" or "Auto-Agronom", which provide some of the information you are talking about. Is this precision agriculture?
Potivsky: "What we have today is a tractor connected to a GPS system (Global Positioning System), which directs it how and where to harvest, or today there is a combine harvester that harvests wheat, with a system that weighs during the harvest and quantifies the crop that season per unit area.
"But today there is no integral system that knows how to read what is happening in the field and react in real time. I want to make it clear that the development of this system by Israel, which we all know has the capabilities to develop such a system - results in a 'win-win' situation (certain victory and profitability), that is, the farmer knew exactly when and exactly how much he needed to water and where he needed to water, in order to get a maximum yield. A second advantage of the system will be in terms of the quality of the environment, there will be no more excesses of pesticides, which lead to ground water pollution when the rains fall, there will be savings in water and manpower.
"In Israel there are unusual forces and minds and abilities in the field of engineering and computer science, people who can develop sensors to decipher satellite images at the required level. The entire agricultural system is available for the construction of the system, for the establishment of a database and for an appropriate response. The abilities that Israel has are not such that can be found in any country in the world, both from the scientific aspect and in terms of our ability to work together."
"One thing is clear, whoever gets into this issue and succeeds in developing a practical, reliable and working system first will rake in a huge financial jackpot. This could be a first-rate national project, but unfortunately there is no body or institution in the system that exists today that is capable of lifting it. Everyone touches on a small part, but no one deals with this topic in a big way. In my estimation, an amount of NIS 50 million per year, for the next five years, can advance Israel and become a leader in this field.
"In my estimation, precision agriculture in the 21st century will bring about a revolution similar to the drippers of the 20th century. On this issue, Israel is in the midst of a French-Israeli initiative to launch a satellite into space in 2008. This is a satellite named 'Venus' which still has enough space for sensing and photography systems, which can be used for the same purposes.
"From this point of view, we are lucky that we don't have to build a new satellite, which is known to be a huge expense, but when you think about the huge payoff that the country will have as a result of this research afterwards, the investment is worth sixty. A country that will have such a working system will be able to sell such systems or sell 'precision agriculture' services to other countries that do not have these capabilities."

It is known that the European Union is making great strides in this matter. How is this project progressing with us?
Potivsky: "Once again, we approached many different parties and received a repeated answer from many: 'Interesting - but we don't have budgets for it.' It's a great shame, because there is tremendous economic potential here of enormous proportions."

Recently there was talk of a reorganization at the Volcanic Institute. Is this a drastic cut in Israeli agricultural research?
Potivsky: "The Volcanic Institute is going through a process of reorganization, which started already in 1996. These reductions are divided into two periods, each five-year period when we are in the process of reduction number two, in the second five-year period. We are returning standards to the Treasury, giving up standards and carrying out a process of reorganization and to this day we are fully complying with the plan, including in the matter of reorganization.
"Within this framework, we committed and carried out a dramatic reduction of the number of departments in the research institutes by uniting them from 36 departments to 16 departments. In addition, we undertook to carry out administrative consolidations (commercialization) of research institutes, this plan was also carried out but not in full as a result of difficulties due to the physical distance between the various institutes, some of them are located on streets, some on the other side of the main road. But two institutes: the Institute for Orchards and the Institute for Field Crops, we were able to bring together a complete union (also professional) thanks to their physical location that was in close proximity. At the head of the new institute, called the Institute of Plant Sciences, Prof. Yoram Kapolnik, a well-known researcher in the field of the tripartite relationship - plant-root-soil, was chosen to stand.
"The reorganization will not harm agricultural research. In fact, it has only come out of it strengthened as a result of the union, and this is due to the concentration of forces, the concentration of research means and the possibility of conducting research in fields that touch the two former institutes. For example, take the subject of fertilization, a subject that is fundamentally not very different between fruits and vegetables, between a fruit from a tree and a tomato, for example."
The race to the agricultural space
As mentioned, around the world different teams are working on the same topic: remote sensing of agricultural crops, irrigation control and water flow sensing from space, while the most advanced in the world on this topic are the European, Japanese, American and, as mentioned, Israeli teams. The Russians are also making progress on this issue, but Russia is currently suffering from a serious problem of lack of budgets.
Just this week, the Europeans published a joint study that they carried out in the La Manche region, in Spain (the well-known region of our informant, Don Quixote), on the development of a new sensing device, which is capable, based on the color of the leaf of the agricultural crop, to check the state of the photosynthesis process, (the degree of fluorescence in the leaf) , information that is able to quantify the ability of that growth to absorb carbon dioxide. The scientists make use of satellites: ASTER, MODIS, LANDSAT, and different spectrometers are used, for example: a medium resolution simulator (MERIS) of Envisat (ENVISAT, a French satellite), a radio sensor for long waves, a high resolution sensor, ranging from visible light to near infrared , synthetic radar and many other sensors.
The European team consists of 16 scientists from across Europe, using light aircraft as satellite launchers. The University of La Manche donated its facilities and laboratories for the analysis of the daily findings. The Spanish Aviation Agency donated flight hours, 3 planes and pilots, the La Manche Agricultural Research Institute donated its fields and research for the project, the European Space Agency, which finances the project, donated satellite photos, sensing devices and development budgets and in short: it is a cooperation of parties many, without whom the project would not have been realized.
It should be understood that Israel has exactly the same capabilities and in some even better ones, especially among the defense industries. When it comes to preparing for war, suitable budgets will always be found. The problem is to locate development budgets for peace projects, which promote a vision such as advanced agriculture, in a project that, as mentioned, has enormous economic potential. This is a project in which the Israeli Space Agency should be a partner; Israel Aerospace Industries; Raphael; Al-Op or another company dealing with sensing means; Ministry of Science; Ministry of Agriculture; The universities in Israel (Remote Sensing Department in the Geography Department of Ben-Gurion University), the farmers in the field, the Volcanic Institute, the Air Force, etc. Without cooperation between many different parties in Israel, the project will not succeed and this has already been realized in other countries.
The satellite that Israel is developing with the French, the first of its kind in the world, is able to focus from space on an area of ​​land measuring only five square meters, on 12 different channels that will test different parameters in crops. It is supposed to pass over the slide once every two days, which will enable close monitoring of changes in the ground and an immediate response. The satellite will be specially adapted to branches such as harvest, GDS crops (cotton, grain, fodder) and will be used as a tool for directing tractors in the open field, tracking and identifying cattle, individual breeding in the dairy farm, including robotic milking and orchards. Dr. Victor Elhanati and Dr. Yipit Cohen are in charge of the project on behalf of the Agricultural Research Administration.
 To the second part of the article - about the role of the Israeli satellite Venus in the development of agriculture
 
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