Note: This story, originally published in our April 1960 issue of Scientific American, is being made available as a supplement to the April 2010 issue 50, 100, 150 Years Ago feature.

The State of Israel has undertaken to create a new agriculture in an old and damaged land. The 20th century Israelites did not find their promised land "Rowing with milk and honey," as their forebears did 3,300 years ago. They came to a land of encroaching sand dunes along a once-verdant coast, of malarial swamps and naked limestone hills from which an estimated three feet of topsoil had been scoured, sorted and spread as sterile overwash upon the plains or swept out to sea in Rood waters that time after time turned the beautiful blue of the Mediterranean to a dirty brown as far as the horizon. The land of Israel had shared the fate of land throughout the Middle East. A decline in productivity, in population and in culture had set in with the fading of the Byzantine Empire some 1,300 years ago. The markers of former forest boundaries on treeless slopes and the ruins of dams, aqueducts and terraced irrigation works, of cities, bridges and paved highways-all bore witness that the land had once supported a great civilization with a much larger population in a higher state of well-being.

Last year, as a finale to the celebration of the 10th anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, an international convention brought 485 farmers from 37 countries to see what had been accomplished. They found a nation of two million people, whose numbers had doubled in the decade, principally by immigration. Yet Israel was already an exporter of agricultural produce and had nearly achieved the goal of agricultural self-sufficiency, with an export/import balance in foodstuffs. It had more than doubled its cultivated land, to a million acres. It had drained 44,000 acres of marshland and extended irrigation to 325,000 acres; it had increased many-fold the supply of underground water from wells and was far along on the work of diverting and utilizing the scant surface waters. On vast stretches of uncultivable land it had established new range-cover to support a growing livestock industry and planted 37 million trees in new forests and shelter belts. All this had been accomplished under a national plan that enlisted the devotion of the citizens and the best understanding and technique provided by modern agricultural science. Israel is not simply restoring the past but seeking full utilization of the land, including realization of potentialities that were unknown to the ancients.

For the visiting farmers, many of whom came from the newer and less developed nations of the world, the example of Israel was a proof and a promise. Civilization is in a race with famine. The doubt as to the outcome is due not so much to the limitations of the earth's resources, plundered as they are, but to a lag in the uptake of progressive agricultural practices and failure in the distribution of the present output of food. More than two thirds of the people of the world are undernourished. Most of them live in the lands where mankind has lived longest in organized societies. There, with few exceptions, the soil is in the worst condition. The example of Israel shows that the land can be reclaimed and that increase in the food supply can overtake the population increase that will double the 2,800-million world population before the end of this century. Israel is a pilot area for the arid lands of the world, especially those of her Arab neighbors, who persist in their destitution in the same landscape that Israel has brought into blossom.

12 Comments

1. 1. Restodoc 11:08 AM 2/23/10

   One wonders what has been the impact of the draining of wetlands in the early days of the State of Israel on percolation of surface water down to undergound aquifers?
   (This, especially with consideration of all the pumping of ground water, and is not even to mention, the impact on wetland biota).
   
   Also, I cringed at the several mentions of the introduction of non-native plants, from eucalypts to southern California species. This practice contributes nothing to the restoration of the ancient biological richness of the region, and indeed threatens it, should any of the non-natives turn into the aggressive, invasive sort (as no doubt some have by now).

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2. 2. Restodoc 11:14 AM 2/23/10

   One wonders what has been the impact of the draining of wetlands in the State of Israel on the regeneration of aquifers (This, especially with consideration of all the pumping of ground water)?
   
   Further, one wonders how much effort and expenditure now needs to be done to conserve wetland biota, with its vastly shrunken habitat?
   
   Also, I cringed at the several mentions of the introduction of non-native plants, from eucalypts to southern California species. This practice contributes nothing to the restoration of the ancient biological richness of the region, and indeed threatens it, should any of the non-natives turn into the aggressive, invasive sort (as no doubt some have by now).
   
   It would be interesting to read (a less patently biased) account of the present state of affairs of the ecology and agricultural sustainability of in modern Israel and surrounding coutnries.

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3. 3. Restodoc 11:22 AM 2/23/10

   For some reason, the latest edit of my comment did not get submitted...
   
   I wanted to add that I wonder how much effort, now, is being directed to restoration of wetlands destroyed in the name of progress, back then?
   
   It would be of great interest to read a report on the current state of affairs in Israel and surrounding countries, with regard to the ecology and agricultural sustainability of the region. One that is less biased than this piece of patently propagandistic journalism would be especially welcome.
   
   

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4. 4. dskan 12:08 PM 2/23/10

   It likely depends on your definition of ecology. The Middle East has been host to civilisation longer than anywhere else in the world. Like Europe (Greece being an excellent example), there was almost certainly very wide forestation across Israel, which was then denuded by millennia of cultivation. The fact that the marshlands existed in the 1950s doesn't mean they had been standing for thousands of years. If anything, reforestation and croplands have replenished the ecosystem.

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5. 5. dskan 12:15 PM 2/23/10

   Also, Israel has very efficient agricultural systems, relying especially on drip systems. These are much less wasteful than the spray irrigation used by most of the world.

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6. 6. motie 03:08 PM 2/23/10

   As long as we treat population growth as an inevitable act of God, we are setting ourselves up for future disaster. There are too many resources with doubtful future prospects: water, land, fertilizer, pesticides, transportation, fuel. We pander to local customs and organized religion by allowing population growth to continue, but we make the system ever more sensitive to glitches and failures. In the future, even the smallest failure in agricultural production will probably kill millions of people. We are building a system with no excess capacity.

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7. 7. Pinewold 05:30 PM 2/23/10

   This article is a great opportunity for pictures.
   
   Web space is free, push to get more pictures with each article.
   
   It would be great to have pictures of soil conditions, irrigation techniques, erosion prevention techniques...

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8. 8. Philip Crown 04:32 AM 3/1/10

   In the 1800's a British traveller in "Palestine" as it was then called by the British,commented that there was not a tree to be found from Safed to Akko and all the birds had been shot and killed by the local Arabs and all of the crocodiles killed and eaten by them.The custom of goat herding had converted the whole area into a desert as goats eat the plants.Modern Israel has worked miracles in restoring the environment.
   

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9. 9. willow 04:10 PM 3/29/10

   I cannot believe that in the 21st century Scientific American will re-issue such a biased, history-distorting article. Claiming that 'Palestine' was uninhabited since the Byzantine era, rules out a millenia of Arab and Islamic civilization. And the comments that the local Arabs converted the area into desert land is naive, as everyone knows that the Bedouins are the indigenous population of the desert, and did not contribute to desertification, which is purely an ecological process, for which we have the climate to blame and not the arabs. However, I do thank the magazine for providing me with an insight on the views of the past 50 years or more which will encourage me to do some serious research on the subject .

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10. 10. willow 04:11 PM 3/29/10

    I cannot believe that in the 21st century Scientific American will re-issue such a biased, history-distorting article. Claiming that 'Palestine' was uninhabited since the Byzantine era, rules out a millenia of Arab and Islamic civilization. And the comments that the local Arabs converted the area into desert land is naive, as everyone knows that the Bedouins are the indigenous population of the desert, and did not contribute to desertification, which is purely an ecological process, for which we have the climate to blame and not the arabs. However, I do thank the magazine for providing me with an insight on the views of the past 50 years or more which will encourage me to do some serious research on the subject .

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11. 11. apmega 03:31 AM 6/23/10

    
    I live in Israel, and like many is very concerned with the status of environmental issues here and worldwide. Reforestation here is something like a national value  there is a holiday dedicated to tree planting and cutting down trees is forbidden by law.
    Unlike the main narrative though, the land was not completely barren till the 20th century. Most of the northern part of the country, which was not densely settled, remained covered by diverse vegetation, dominated by oak trees. However, apparently the bush-like height (4-5m) of these trees didnt look much like a forest to European visitors. These trees continue to thrive to this day and form a natural habitat to many animal species.
    Some other parts of the country were and remain completely barren, despite adequate precipitation, specifically due to human intervention. There is a huge difference between land management of the Jewish and Arab population (by the way, most of the Arabs are not Bedouins). You can see this directly if you visit Israel, or by looking at aerial maps like Google earth.
    Like any other developed nation, Israel has many environmental problems, these include water management air, water and soil pollution, and expansion of cities. Probably, due to the problematic political status, environmental issues do not receive adequate attention from the government and the voters. It is hard to tell what the future holds for already immensely stressed natural wild life.

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12. 12. konsyltacii 08:38 AM 1/2/12

    Climate & economy of Southwestern Asia,Central Asia (Near & Middle East) & Northern (North) Africa. Water supply.
    
    Only by making the climate is more saturated with moisture can make the Near and Middle Asia and North Africa is even more suitable for a good life.
    
    There are good and real water projects in deserts. The purpose of one of the projects - to give the water in a deserts and to spend the finance and water for the right thing, that to change the climate.
    
    Megaprojects,technologies,innovations,management decisions,investment objects,climate change.
    
    http://www.usw.com.ua/profiles/blogs/technologies-from-past-and-future-that-could-change-the-world?xg_source=activity
    
    http://easypay-shop.com/index.php?ukey=news
    
    http://blogs.pravda.ru/users/3039108/post198925789
    
    http://konsyltacii.livejournal.com/21903.html
    

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