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India is an agrarian economy with the rural mass involved in agriculture as their primary source of sustenance for the entire country and income for those employed in the field. Israel and India have been partners, working together, towards the development and improvement of agriculture for over thirty years. This partnership evolved into the INDO-ISRAEL Agricultural Project (IIAP), based on an MOU signed in 2006, and I was fortunate enough to be the main coordinator for this from the Israeli side.

The main aims of this joint venture are to introduce crop diversity, increase productivity & optimize water use and efficiency. The IIAP is implemented via the establishment of Centers of Excellence (CoE), in which Israeli agri-tech and knowledge dissemination are tailored to local Indian conditions. The methods and technologies are adapted according to the Indian farmers’ requirements with the intent of significantly increasing their income.

The CoEs aim to benefit farmers with a focus on selected key crops. Each CoE comprises of nursery management, protected cultivation, irrigation, fertilization and best-practice cultivation techniques.

The CoE acts as a meeting point for academics, government, businesses, and, most importantly, farmers to cooperate towards fruitful achievements. Currently, there are 30 CoEs that are operational in 12 states of India and 14 more are in the pipeline in 8 additional states. Around 30 million vegetable seedlings and about 2 million graft plants of fruit crops of premium quality for planting are produced in these CoE’s and around 100 thousand farmers are trained each year, mostly by Israeli experts brought in by Israel’s International Development Corporation MASHAV.

The five CoEs of South India are prime examples of good cooperation between our two countries:

• They have generated a revenue of approx. Rs. 10 Crore by selling the seedlings and graft plants.
• The Mango CoE located in Kolar, Karnataka has demonstrated canopy management in the fields of 426 farmers at an area of 920.6 hectares. This has resulted in increased yield, less incidence of pests and disease, the reduction of the height of trees which makes them easier to handle, and in improved quality and shelf life of the produce.
• The CoE for Cut Flowers located in Thally, Tamil Nadu held a special INDO-ISRAEL Conference on Women Empowerment in November 2022 for a hundred women horticulture officers from 21 different states.

The concept ‘Villages of Excellence’ was introduced in 2019 by Government of India jointly with Government of Israel to transfer the technology (from CoE) to the village level through the INDO-ISRAEL Villages of Excellence (IIVOE). At present, 21 CoEs have selected 150 villages for the same in 12 IIAP partnering states.

Indian farmers, through various delegations from India to Israel, acquire modern Israeli agriculture technology. Just last month, February 2023, Dr. B. Ashok, Principal Secretary and Agricultural Production Commissioner, Ministry of Agriculture, Kerala led a delegation of 27 farmers to Israel to study modern agricultural technologies. The farmers learned about different technologies such as protected cultivation, post-harvest management, and practically implemented research-based technologies by visiting Netafim, Volcani Research Institute, Supplant and Salicrop etc.

Holistic Water Management and community irrigation

One of the main pillars of India and Israel’s partnership is water. Following the visit of the Honorable Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Israel in 2017, the post of Water Attache was appointed in the Israel Embassy in New Delhi and the cooperation around this issue, fundamental to both our countries and the world, became even deeper. Israel, due to necessity, harsh climate conditions, and lack of natural resources, had to be an innovator in the field of water management and water use. We reuse 90% of our water and we have treatment plants that can bring the purity of the water back to household use level.

Israel has been able to meet 50% of its irrigation requirements by using treated wastewater. India is also now gradually moving towards more efficient water resource management, with over 20% of total irrigation shifting to precise irrigation. The southern part of India has widely accepted community-based irrigation methods, but these projects rely on freshwater sources for irrigation.

As part of the India-Israel partnership in water, two projects have been finalized. In these projects, treated wastewater from cities will be transported to nearby areas where sustainable agriculture is limited due to the availability of water. These areas primarily depend on rainfall for agriculture.

The first project involves the transportation of 200 million litres per day (MLD) of treated wastewater from Behrampur (Gurugram) to Nuh district in Haryana. Nuh District mainly relies on rain-fed agriculture, with 70% of villages having no irrigation facilities. The project proposes the development of year-round agriculture based on micro-irrigation and advanced agriculture techniques through the Community Micro Irrigation (CMI) model. This project is the first of its kind in the country and has the potential to double farmers’ income in the area. The high-quality tertiary treated wastewater will be utilized for precise irrigation in the Nuh area, and more than 16,000 acres will be irrigated using this treated wastewater. The implementation of this project by the Micro Irrigation & Command Area Development Authority (MICADA) division of Haryana Irrigation Department under the technical supervision of Israel is expected to significantly boost the GDP of the area and improve the overall lifestyle of approximately 10,000 families.

The second project aims to utilize the 200 MLD wastewater from the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation (AMC) STP for drip irrigation in the rural areas surrounding Daduka and Vekariya villages. This project will also irrigate over 16,000 acres of land.

The best part of utilizing treated wastewater is that the cities would consume water and always generate wastewater. The source sustainability can be ensured using reclaimed water. In addition to uplifting the farmers’ livelihood and lifestyle, each of these projects would save 200 MLD fresh water. This means total freshwater saving from these two projects would be 146,000,000,000 liters of water annually.

I have been lucky to be one of the people who has taken part of the blooming cooperation between India and Israel in the fields of water agriculture for almost the past twenty years. The developments that we are making together are benefitting the farmers and families in the rural areas, but they are also benefitting all of us who are consuming the crops and food, are enjoying more available water, and especially as they are important blocks in helping to ensure a more sustainable environmentfriendly future for us, for our children, and the next generations.

We will keep working, at the Consulate General of Israel to South India, to help increase and widen this cooperation. Best of luck with the upcoming conference and with the important work that you are doing.

Views expressed by Tammy Ben- Haim, Consul General of Israel to South India.

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