Israel is a land of many innovations and the birthplace of many progressive technologies. Here in this blog, I would like to discuss one of the areas that Israel has excelled: the agricultural sector. We often speak of necessity as the mother of all inventions and this is the absolutely true with regard to Israel. The nation is covered over 50% by desert, most of which is in the Negev desert to the south. The amount of land that is agriculturally productive is extremely limited, and whatever land that is suitable for growing crops faced the perennial problem of irrigation. Massive water projects in diverting the water from the Jordan River has been successful, but nevertheless, water conservation is key.

Many companies in Israel is currently working on developing new technologies that relates to water conservation. The most direct way to conserve water is to shorten the growing period for food crops. Many multinationals – Flextronics, Dupont, and even Google[1] – is interested in how to apply the Israeli technologies to market it to the world. The aim of these partnerships is to link up many Israeli startup firms with other large multinationals (most of which is based here in the US) and to leverage off the larger company’s capital, labor pools, counseling, coaching, etc, to develop the products or services that these Israeli companies need to market its product overseas and to ensure its survival in the face of global competition.

Many Israeli partnerships with firms in California is already very well known. The regions (the interiors of both California and Israel) both faces water shortages that disrupts the growing season, despite the strong amount of available sunshine and other factors that are conducive to productive agriculture. Israeli products found a strong demand in these regions of California. What is perhaps less known is the fact that many Israeli companies and technicians also involve themselves extensively with other countries around the world, such as China and India, which desires help to make its agriculture more productive. As world population increases and the amount of land available for crop growing decreases (due to urban sprawl, pollution, etc), there is now more of a demand for more efficient agriculture. Israel can capitalize on this trend of growing global demand and expand its market positions around the world.

We often speak of Israel as a startup nation that encourages innovation, in large part due to compensate for its lack of natural resources and other means of economic growth. While this is true to some extent, the impact of Israeli companies and their innovations are far more than simply economical. In many ways, it is also beneficial for Israel as a nation on the international stage. By encouraging partnerships between Israel and other nations in the form of business and technological exchanges, Israel can also inspire a feeling of goodwill from other nations around the world, which will benefit it diplomatically. In international diplomacy, we often speak of a “hard” versus “soft” power, and the combination of these two is what makes a nation strong. While Israel certainly already has plenty of “hard” power, defined as absolute military or economic clout, it can also increase its soft power, which is defined as cultural or scientific/technological prestige. Israel, through its networks of businesses that assist other nations around the world with their respective agricultural projects, can increase its global influence in areas that might never have anything else to do with Israel. This increase in Israel’s soft power will no doubt last longer in the long run, since respect for a country for what they are and what they do will outweigh any other form of diplomatic tools on the world stage.

As we can see from this discussion, something as small as having a small start-up focusing on agricultural innovations can go a long way in helping a nation to succeed on the international stage. The current path of encouraging innovation as pursued by the government and society of Israel will benefit the nation and the world in the long run.

[1] Google Shows Interest in Israeli Agritech Companies; http://www.israelagri.com/?CategoryID=482&ArticleID=1039