During International Agri-Conference & Expo held at Nasik, Our Executive Editor S.S. Dogra personally has a conversation with Mr. Ilan Divon-Consultant, Economic Affair, Israel. Mr. Divon shared lot of ideas & experience particularly focused to Indo-Israel Agricultural perspectives.
Q.1: What are you looking from India?
Ans: We are trying to make mutual cooperation with India in the field of Agriculture especially farmer's educational training and technical know-how to Indian farmers.
Q.2: What is geographical feature of your country and to what extent is it suitable for agriculture purpose?
Ans: Geographically Israel is very small country and half of the country is desert. With adoption of innovative technologies we are still doing agriculture in desert land with salty water.
Q.3:What is the main agricultural produce in terms of production in your country?
Ans: We have achieved production efficiency in olive oil in our country.
Q.4: What is the your country adopting new technology in agricultural production?
Ans: In our country, greenhouse technology are extensively adopted by our farmers. This technology produce four times more production against the normal production.
Q.5: How is climatic condition of your country?
Ans: In Israel, weather is too hot in desert areas. September to February weather is rainy & cold in our country. Remaining months have normal temperature like India.
Q.6: How is water management done for desert areas?
Ans: We don’t have more water resources therefore we distill sea water and make them for drinking. For irrigation, we recycle waste water and use it for agricultural purpose.
Q.7: Any suggestion for becoming a successful farmer?
Ans: In all over the world a farmer is not enough smart yet. But it is very important for every farmer to do farming with the adoption of new technologies in their field. It is applicable in India also because agriculture is the main occupation here.
Q.8: What is your opinion or suggestion about India in context of agriculture?
Ans: Lots of work is to be done going forward .India needs many changes in policy terms. If Indian farmer is poor then country will be suffer economically. The Govt. should support the farmers for developing agro based small Industries because it is the future of the country. Most of the developed countries like UK, USA, Germany, China, Israel have set up Agro based industries but India is lagging behind in this field. After 2nd world war, India and China were in same position but now just evaluate the progress of both the countries, and the difference is due to the development of Industries, especially Agriculture.
Q.9: How do you see the future of agriculture in Indian?
Ans: We are expecting new changes from India’s new Government because as Mr. Modi did remarkably in Gujarat, the whole India needs that stuff in the entire country now. Moreover, Agriculture is the main pillar of any economy because it plays very important role in the progress of a country. India has great future and potential to go ahead.