The Indian delegation will participate in the largest international agricultural exhibition in Israel.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

A large delegation of 25 senior officials from the Indian Ministry of Agriculture, which is trying to strengthen cooperation with companies from Israel, will arrive in Israel in September for the AgroMashov 2022 Agri-business exhibition in Jerusalem.

Israeli agriculture is considered a strong, leading brand and one that causes interest for delegations from around the world. The senior officials from India will arrive for a two-week visit and will participate in the largest international agricultural exhibition in Israel.

The delegation includes department managers and R&D officers who are already working with Israeli technologies and intend to strengthen cooperation with Israeli companies and farmers.

The arrival of the delegation was supported as part of the extensive activities of MASHAV, Israel’s Agency for International Development Cooperation in the Foreign Ministry. The delegation will be hosted at MASHAV’s International Agricultural Training Center in Shefayim and will learn about Israeli agriculture at its various levels.

In addition, the members of the delegation will undergo training at selected nurseries approved for the export of fruit trees and will learn and select the varieties suitable for growing in India.

India is the largest agricultural country in the world and MASHAV has been a partner in operating 42 “centers of excellence” and research and development for 15 consecutive years.

Yair Eshel, Israel’s agricultural attaché in India who initiated the visit, stated Tuesday that “Israeli and Indian agriculture have been working hand in hand in recent years. They [India] introduce technologies from Israel in the country on a daily basis.”

“The purpose of the Indian delegation’s arrival in Israel is to strengthen cooperation with Israel, exposure to new knowledge and, of course, on the assumption that one day they will reach private companies – they will know how to promote exports from the country,” he explained.

Hundreds of exhibitors

Israel has a long history of providing aid to Indian farmers. For instance, in November 2020 Ben-Gurion University of the Negev and ABAN celebrated the launch of a new initiative to build an agricultural research institute in Chennai, India.

In October 2017, thanks to Israeli drip irrigation, 15,000 farmers in Karnataka, southwestern India, harvested their first monsoon season crop in years. Israeli biotech company, BioFeed, developed a “no-spray” solution to kill the fruit flies that have devastated mango plantations in India.

In 2016, the Indian state of Haryana initiated micro-irrigation projects based on Israeli expertise at 14 sites. In December 2015, The Indo-Israel vegetable center of excellence in Haryana boosted the annual number of seedlings grown by state farmers from half a million in 2011 to six million in 2015.

This is the second international delegation that has secured its place at the exhibition, after the one from Poland.

The giant Polish company, PRONAR, known for the production of heavy agricultural machinery, will present for the first time its new tractors and equipment, which includes trailers, bale loaders, fodder combinations and related accessories.

As part of the Agromshov 2022 international exhibition, which this year marks 31 years of activity, features a variety of advanced and innovative technologies for the world of agriculture and for the farmer.

Professional conferences with hundreds of exhibitors and thousands of farmers and entrepreneurs in the field of agriculture will be part of the event.

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A better cocoa bean? Israel launches accelerator to give Ghana’s farming startups a high-tech boost.

By The Algemeiner

Before he became the poultry king of Ghana, Kwabena Darko was a young student in central Israel.

Hailing from a small village in Ghana’s southern Ashanti region, Darko won a scholarship in the late 1950s to study poultry science and agriculture at the Ruppin Institute, near the Israeli city of Netanya. By 1967, he had returned to his home country and left his family pasture to start Darko Farms, which has since grown to become a chicken-producing empire and one of the largest agricultural businesses in Ghana.

Fledgling Ghanaian entrepreneurs inspired by Darko’s journey will now have their own chance to learn from Israel’s world-renowned agriculture expertise, and use it to improve the local production of cocoa, yams or other key crops. At least five local agri-tech startups will be chosen to participate in the Israel-Ghana AgriTechAccel — a six-week week virtual program starting on October 11.

“A lot of Ghanaians were sent to Israel, came back and became preachers for Israeli agriculture. One of them is now a millionaire. They know that Israel is very big on agriculture and technology,” Shani Cooper, Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Ghana, told The Algemeiner after having recently ended her 5-year tenure. “They adore Israel also because of the religious, biblical-oriented education. I can drive on the road in Ghana and I can see people selling Israeli flags together with US flags.”

The pilot accelerator program — managed by the Israeli Embassy in Ghana, the Pears Program for Global Innovation in Israel and Innohub Limited — seeks to help promising Ghanaian startups bring their ideas to the next level with the help of Israeli tech experts, and to support Ghana’s desire to expand productivity in the agricultural sector.

“These will be agricultural startups that already have a prototype, a solution at hand; they tried it out and now it is time to upgrade it. The idea is that startups and farmers will gain,” said Cooper. “The Israeli experts will mentor the startups on technology rather than how to do business in their own country.”

Nelson Amo, CEO of Innohub, said that the accelerator seeks to help participating agri-tech startups refine their products by improving their software or hardware solutions.

“Only once the startups are selected we can build up profiles to understand their needs. Our Israeli partners will then look for the Israeli experts who are able to provide the guidance and coaching for their needs,” Amo told The Algemeiner. “This is the first accelerator focused on product innovation targeted to refine software or hardware solutions rather than helping startups with their business model.”

Addressing Ghanaian challenges

According to Cooper, agricultural startups in Ghana face two main challenges: one, the difficulty in product commercialization, especially to international markets; and second, the gap facing tech businesses whose products are not yet as technologically advanced as they need to be.

The latter need, Cooper said, is not being answered by anyone today, and it’s where the Israel program hopes to make a difference.

A typical example might be Ghanaian startup with a solution on irrigation that is currently too basic to be used for the whole of West Africa. An Israeli water engineer with an understanding of the innovation ecosystem could then help such a company further develop its project.

“We are opening this accelerator in order to take already matured agri-tech startups with a product and elevate or upgrade its technological level for it to be really able to compete in the international arena, or even in West Africa,” Cooper said.

The mission feels natural to the 43-year-old diplomat, who was born to a farmer’s family in Israel which still today grows eggplants and dates.

“My father is the first generation of farmers and I think probably will be the only one in our family — while Ghana has decades or centuries of agricultural tradition,” said Cooper. “Ghana is very rich with water. Their soil is very fertile, you just throw a seed, and it blooms with anything.”

In recent years, however, the population in Ghana is rising while the food is not, as desertification and climate change have added more challenges.

“You see that at the end of the day, Ghana finds itself importing food and agricultural products, like tomatoes, rice, potatoes, and so on,” said Cooper.

Israel, on the other hand, is not a seemingly natural place for agriculture, with a great deal of arid or semi-arid land and poor soil. But the Jewish state has famously undergone an agricultural transformation to achieve national food security and build a thriving export industry.

“In Israel we started way, way earlier than Ghana because we had the need. When we speak in Israel of agriculture or traditional Israeli agriculture, this is already high-tech agriculture in Ghana. The gaps are so big that things we have long forgotten, they are trying to apply right now,” Cooper said.

One of the challenges faced by farmers in Ghana is to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables, Cooper added.

“In Ghana, you can buy a cucumber or avocado and within a day you will not be able to use it. You buy tomatoes, which are almost rotten because in these two or three days that they were waiting to get to the market they didn’t survive. There is a need for economically viable storage solutions that farmers can pay for,” Cooper said.

Another issue is poor road quality in some areas of the country, which makes it difficult to transport fruits from western agricultural areas to major cities elsewhere. Better capabilities are also needed to learn how to boost productivity, and how to use seeds more efficiently.

“Ghana is the number one cocoa producer in Africa, and cocoa has a lot of uses. Not only for chocolate. The cocoa plantations in Ghana suffer from a pretty bad virus from the trees,” said Cooper. “How do you solve this? The most basic thing is irrigation that will fit into the economical capability of the farmer and will not use a lot of electricity, because there is no electricity in these places and will give a good substitute for rain in the dry season.”

Israeli mentoring

The second ambition of the Israeli Ghanaian accelerator is for Israeli startups or companies to visit Ghana next year to be mentored by their counterparts.

“They will learn from Ghanaian companies and mentors. This will not be on technology; this will be on the market, marketing in Ghana, and will involve meetings with agricultural companies and big farming companies,” Cooper explained.

She noted that Nestle West Africa, which is based in Ghana, has already expressed interest — offering the prospect of a boost for Israeli companies seeking to sell to the multinational conglomerate, alongside local growers.

“The project will give them a foot in the door to the market in West Africa, beginning from Ghana, and will allow them really to develop solutions to West African challenges,” Cooper said.

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Prime minister says diplomatic relations with UAE will give Israel access to $1 trillion in investment.

By Paul Shindman, World Nsrael News

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the pending peace deal with the United Arab Emirates would bring massive investment to Israel’s southern desert region.

“We have good news that is very important to the state and to the Negev. The peace agreement with the UAE is a great opportunity for the injection of new investments in the Negev,” Netanyahu told a meeting of the Negev Lobby at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

“In the Negev, you are developing the whole gamut of desert agriculture, water and solar energy. These things are very interesting to our friends in the UAE,” Netanyahu said.

Israel and the UAE are expected to sign an agreement at the White House in the next few weeks that will establish full diplomatic relations. It is the first peace treaty with an Arab country since Jordan and Israel ended their state of war in 1994.

Netanyahu emphasized the economic importance of the development, given the economic crisis the Jewish State is in due to the coronavirus pandemic with unemployment hovering around 20 percent.

“I am aware of their desire to invest here in their sovereign wealth fund, which, by the way, is almost $1 trillion. They are very interested in investing in Israel,” Netanyahu said. “I also intend to bring them to the Negev and I am certain that you will show them the great possibilities that exist here. Therefore, I think that there truly is a unique opportunity here. This is a historic agreement that contains great news for the State of Israel”

The agriculture sector has great potential due to Israeli prowess in agri-tech and due due to the dry climate in both Israel and the UAE, Calcalist reported.

“We have been talking to different actors in the UAE about promoting desert agriculture projects,” said Or Haviv, a partner in the Israeli investment firm Arieli Capital.

“There is no done deal, but we were already discussing it prior to last week’s announcement,” Haviv told Calcalist. “The UAE wants to learn how to do agriculture in the desert and gain produce which is at the level of that grown in Israel. There is a plan to send a delegation from the UAE to Israel so that they can undergo training at Ramat Negev.”

Israeli investor Alan Feld of of Vintage Investment Partners, traveled to the UAE earlier this year and said he believes the Arab business sector  is open to both investing in Israeli tech and purchasing equipment and products.

“I believe that we will very soon see investments in VCs and Israeli companies. They have a VC industry and they also want us to invest in their companies,” Feld said.

“The entire region is a desert and in the middle of it they built an amazing airport and one of the best tourism systems I’ve seen,” said Feld. “They want to diversify their sources of income and not be so dependent on the price of oil. They see themselves as a regional technology center and Israel is a good source of technology for them.”

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Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa will leverage Israeli innovation to help improve food security for the continent.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

A delegation from the Alliance for a Green Revolution  in Africa (AGRA) just completed a two-day visit to Israel to learn about local companies that specialize in agriculture technology (agri-tech) that can be brought back to African farmers to upgrade their food production.

AGRA is backed by some of the biggest names in the non-profit world, including The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the World Food Program, as well as the Canadian, German and UK governments.

Its goal is to increase the incomes and food security of 30 million smallholder farm households across 11 African countries.

The group came as guests of Start-Up Nation Central (SNC), a non-profit organization whose purpose is to connect organizations and companies having problems with innovative Israeli companies that can solve them, so that profitable partnerships can be created.

SNC claim to have “the largest and most up-to-date discovery platform of Israeli innovators and entrepreneurs, (Start-Up Nation Finder), which provides critical information on more than 5,500 companies across dozens of industries” including agri-tech, water-tech, cybersecurity, fintech and digital health technology.

During their stay, the delegation visited the Volcani Center, Israel’s national R&D facility for agricultural innovation. They also had discussions with the founders of various local companies who showcased their cutting-edge technologies in fields such as crop protection, field monitoring and micro-irrigation.

“Africa is the new frontier and we are working all over Africa but there is one challenge: to work with smallholder farmers,” said Naty Barak, the CEO of sustainability of the Netafim (water-tech) startup, to The Jerusalem Post.

“We cannot ignore 500 million smallholder farmers who produce 80 percent of the food in the developed world and we are a private company, so we need partners….The meeting was great because AGRA can be a very important link for our work in Africa.”

The four members of AGRA, including its president, also met with providers of sustainable infrastructure development projects. These included the heads of Mashav (the Center for International Development Cooperation) at the Foreign Ministry, and TOV, a new international development program directed by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee that specifically focuses on opening Israel’s agri-tech sector to small farmers in developing countries.

AGRA has identified infertile soil, unreliable water supply, and low-quality seed among the most prevalent problems facing African farmers.

As reported in the Post, SNC’s Strategic Partnerships Manager, Shira Goldblum, said, “We believe we put AGRA in front of some outstanding startups,”  providing an opportunity for Israeli technology to “change the lives of independent African farmers.”

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