Kibbutz Ein Harod Ihud recently announced the closing of the garlic branch and liquidation sale of the last season’s agricultural produce. The kibbutz, which split up in 1952 as a kind of united Harud, and for which Shum was one of its significant sources of income from the 1980s, closed the barns and lowered the curtain on another branch of Israeli agriculture.
In recent years, the Israeli public has been sold that the rampant cost of living begins in the lower strata of farmers, a message that was obviously not true, but was catchy and convenient, especially for interested parties who pointed the finger of blame at those without whom there would be no Israeli agriculture. The politicians were quick to catch a ride on the public atmosphere despairing of frequent price increases and proposed a reform, which was frozen in the drawers of the treasury’s budget department.
But as is the nature of reforms, the secret was in the fine print that many skip over. Following the import reform, the garlic industry was immediately opened for import. The sharp drop in customs actually caused a situation where more than 80% of the growing areas in Israel were eliminated at once, that is, out of every five garlic fields in Israel – only one survives.
Garlic is not alone: another example can also be seen in the butter market, which has also been opened for import with full duty exemption to Israel. After years in which Israeli butter was sold in Israel at a controlled price of NIS 7.88 per 200 grams, the decision-makers decided to open the market to free imports and at the same time removed the price control.
Here, too, within a year the price of butter (mainly the imported butter) rose by more than 30% and today it is sold on average for around NIS 10.5 per 200 grams. At the same time, the Israeli producers who did not want to raise the price of butter, and who were hurt by the flooding of the market by the importers, decided to reduce production. And here is another blue-and-white product that has become an extinct species.
The story of garlic and butter is exactly the story of reforms that do not take into account the broad implications of making changes in the food market. Israel, which does not import food from the countries that border it and at the same time faces the reality of boycotts, is turning with the swing of reform into a country that throws all food concerns on imports.
This is unfathomable given the fact that it takes years to bring back crops in an agricultural industry; It takes seven years to grow a new bulb of garlic. It’s not like if tomorrow we find out that we were wrong during this irresponsible course – then in a few moments we can renew the garlic fields in Israel. It just doesn’t work that way.
Again we are being worked on with the eyes. Not treatment of the cost of living, but pure populism. Meanwhile, Israel’s food security has been unreasonably compromised. Can this injustice still be righted? In the case of garlic, the situation seems lost and will require a policy change and direct support to the Israeli growers. In the case of Israeli agriculture, the directive should be changed, otherwise nothing will grow here.
The writer is the Secretary General of the Israel Farmers Association