Conference on Sustainable Agriculture

On June 19, 2019, a conference on promoting sustainable agriculture was held at the Newe Ya‘ar Research Center. The conference was sponsored by the Model Farm for Sustainable Agriculture at Newe Ya’ar, the Agricultural Research Organization Volcani Center, and the Al-Hawakir Social Development, Agriculture and Environment Association. Among the participants were over forty farmers, some from the Palestinian Authority.
Various aspects of sustainable agriculture were discussed at the conference, as well as a description of the purposes, principles, and activities of the Model Farm for Sustainable Agriculture Project at Newe Ya‘ar.
Kamal Khatib, who manages the orchards at Newe Ya‘ar, presented advances in the almond breeding program headed by Dr. Doron Holland. ‘Mattan’, which is a new, self-fertilizing almond selection, offers a significant potentail advancement for farmers. Mr. Khatib’s presentation included a guided tour of the orchard-breeding and experimental plots.
During the day, lectures of a practical nature exposed the attendees to approaches and methods of sustaining eco-friendly agriculture. These presentations included: optimizing honeybee maintenance throughout the year, by Dr. Tali Goldberg, who is the Academic Coordinator for the Beekeeping Course, Foreign Studies at Tel Hai College. Another lecture, on the appropriate use of integrated pesticides in vegetables, was delivered by Mr. Omar Zidan, former Director of the Vegetable Division and Deputy Director of the Ministry of Agriculture. The conference concluded with presentation of a support system was introduced to deal with the problem of broomrape infestation of various crops in Israel.