ISRAEL must have a reason for banning rice farming in their country.
From what I gather, the Israeli government has figured out that rice farming consumes too much water and because of that, their food security objectives conflicted with their water security objectives.
Even if it could be said that both security objectives are equally important, they decided to ban rice farming in order to conserve water.
As an alternative, they decided to plant oranges instead, having figured out that oranges consume less water. But that is not really their main point. Their main point as I gather is that oranges are high value crops that would enable them to earn more money than rice.
To them, the bottom line is that with the money that they could earn from planting oranges, they could import as much rice as much as they want to.
Even if it could not be denied that oranges are high value crops, it could also be said that the Israelis could not make much money from orange farming not unless they would use high technology. From one standpoint, it could be said that food security is the key to winning the war against hunger.
In the case of Israel, however, it is perennially in a state of war, and since food is extremely vital to their national survival, it would not be surprising if it would deploy as many resources as it could to its agriculture as it would to its military. Add to that the fact that it needs water security as much as it needs food security, and that is why their appreciation of water conservation and water production is very high.
Here in the Philippines, the appreciation for water conservation and water production is not very high, because our government and our people could still not imagine the prospects of water shortages or even drought.
As it is now however, it is apparent that so much of our fresh water resources are already polluted, and much of our aquifers are also polluted, if these have not dried up yet. Also as it is now, it is also apparent that rains do not come as often as they should, and as a matter of fact, the water levels in our dams have gone down to critical levels many times in the past.
If you still could not imagine the prospects of a water shortage, just imagine that as it is now, we are experiencing rice shortages and that is why we have to import rice. If we do not put our water security in good order, we might just end up importing water too.
If you could imagine how Israel has computerized its military, just imagine how much it has also computerized its agriculture. For a start, we could say that most if not all Israeli farms are networked, and that is why it could be said that their farm systems are programmable and addressable.
By programmable, what I mean to say is that water could be programmed for delivery to any crop within the network. What makes it addressable is that all points within the farm grids are equipped with chips and sensors, that why it is possible to send water to any part of the grids, depending on manual commands, or based on automated instructions. It might sound redundant to say so, but yes, the Israeli farms are automated. (To be continued/PN)
