Inauguration of the Katif Center for Research and Development of the Negev Fields of the Ministry of Science and Technology

The center, which previously operated from the Gaza Strip and established its laboratories in the Sdot Negev Regional Council, will specialize in environmentally friendly agriculture

A new regional research and development center, Katif Center for Research and Development of the Negev Fields, with the support of the Ministry of Science and Technology, will be inaugurated today at the Negev Regional Council in the capacity of the Minister of Science and Technology Prof. Daniel Hershkowitz and the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Negev and Galilee Development Silvan Shalom. The center is now being re-established after, during the disengagement from the Gaza Strip in 2005, it was forced to close and operate from a temporary location.

The center was established in 1983 by the Ministry of Science and Technology, and until the separation, it was involved in optimizing the use of water for irrigating greenhouses and orchards, in the development of capital-intensive crops such as plants for marketing and medicinal plants, in ecological problems and disturbances to the natural landscape of the sand dunes, and in the development of the insect-free leaf vegetable industry. The center suffered a severe financial blow when it had to stop its activities, close the laboratory company it founded to test pesticide residues and work to reconfirm the certification which was automatically revoked when the center's location was moved.
For the past five years, the center, led by Prof. Yiftach Ben-Asher, has worked from a temporary laboratory and worked to restore the damage caused by the transition. The center restored its customer base, renewed the recognition of the national certification authorities for laboratories, re-equipped and even founded the "Agri-Ecological" company - the company deals with national projects such as planning water supply to the Middle Arab and the southern Dead Sea and the expansion of agricultural lands to the settlements of the southern Dead Sea.

The center gained international recognition when in 2008 and 2010 the laboratory for testing pesticide residues reached the first place in the tests of the European community, among 150 laboratories in the world.

In the center's new building, which will be established in the Sdot Negev educational park, the researchers will engage in environmentally friendly agriculture, including the development of capital-intensive crops such as the truffle mushroom in the sands of the Negev Plateau and the development of the Chinese jujube in Pithah Nitsana, in the development of advanced training programs to train a reserve of farmers. The new building will contain laboratories for testing pesticides, an organic laboratory for testing organic crops, a teaching room and a laboratory for studying courses by groups from Israel and abroad in the field of Israeli agriculture, a mobile field laboratory with equipment for short-term field tests that can evaluate the production capacity of agricultural crops in the field and the efficiency of use in the water. About 10 researchers with doctorate degrees, 10 technicians and 4 graduate students will work at the center and additional researchers are currently in the process of being recruited.

According to the center's academic director Prof. Yiftach Ben-Asher, "We intend to turn the R&D center into the research unit of the agricultural industry in the Sdot Negev Regional Council, which has a jurisdiction of 220 dunams and 8500 residents." Alongside the development of the agricultural industry, we will invest efforts in scientific education and encouraging professional entrepreneurship."