Within the International Agritech Exhibition held in Tel Aviv in May 2006, the Peres Center, together with the Fred J. Hansen Institute for World Peace of the San Diego State University Research Foundation, hosted a two-day workshop on Date Palm Integrated Crop Management (ICM).
The first day, attended by some 80 guests, consisted of various lectures delivered by foremost experts in date palms from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the UN, France and the United States. Issues discussed included propagation through tissue culture, nursery management, irrigation application and overall crop management. The second day featured a field trip to the Jordan Valley (Israeli side), allowing the participants to view date palms and the related issues discussed the previous day.
Participants included delegations and guests from Israel, Jordan, Egypt, Cyprus, Nigeria, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, and Switzerland, with the active participation of the Israel Date Palm Farmers Organization. Responses from participants were very positive, with the guests grateful for the opportunity to learn and pose questions to the lecturers, as well as to exchange personal perspectives in a more informal atmosphere during the field trip.Importantly, this workshop gave the participants a chance to create professional and personal ties, which would have been otherwise impossible, considering the current geo-political situation.
In November 2007, the Peres Center facilitated the visit to Israel of a group of Jordanian date palm producers and a technology transfer specialist. These Jordanians sell their produce (dates) in local Jordanian markets, and contacted the Peres Center in order to learn more about the successful Israeli experience with marketing and exporting dates, particularly in regard to the Medjool and Barhi varieties.
Accordingly, a 2-day program was organized which included a visit to an Israeli packing house and research station, a tour of orchards in the Beit Shean valley, and a visit to an Israeli date marketing outlet. Considering that the Jordanian and Israeli agricultural industries face common challenges and have very similar soil and climatic conditions, the visit provided an excellent opportunity to encourage Jordanian-Israeli cooperation in this field.
These workshops are part of the Peres Center's ongoing
"Integrated Crop Management" program, which seeks to promote a holistic approach to crop management and pest control for the benefit of the Middle East, Mediterranean and North African regions.
In May 2008, two Israeli date experts delivered a training and discussion session to 30 Jordanian farmers at a major date farm in the Jordan Valley, Jordan. Topics discussed included plant protection and pollination in regard to increasing the yield of Jordanian farmers through Israeli techniques and methodologies, and decreasing the threat of agricultural pests in the region.
The training program was endorsed by both the Jordanian and Israeli Ministries of Agriculture, and an encouraging letter of appreciation was received from the Jordanian Agriculture Ministry.
Following the success of this meeting, it was agreed to hold similar training sessions on post-harvest drying and disinfection.
In August 2009, the Agriculture, Water and Environment Department organized a professional research visit to Jericho and Auja for representatives of the Israeli and Palestinian Ministries of Agriculture. The tour was initiated in response to several reported outbreaks of the Red Palm Weevil, one of the most damaging pests to the date palm in the Middle East. It was concluded that joint Israeli-Palestinian cooperation is essential in implementing an immediate plan of action for eliminating this regional pest. The tour was generously funded by the Allan and Nesta Ferguson Charitable Trust.
.JPG)
