"This is a national plague": The unspoken trouble of farmers in Israel

Brachia Rosenberg, head of the 'Connections in Agriculture' organization, warns of a deepening crisis in Israeli agriculture due to labor shortages, high costs, agricultural crime, and the climate crisis, calling for a national plan to secure the industry's future and food security.

Brachia Rosenberg, head of the 'Connections in Agriculture' organization, warns of a deepening crisis in Israeli agriculture stemming from labor shortages, high costs, agricultural crime, and the climate crisis. Alongside concerns about crop damage due to delayed rains, Rosenberg emphasizes an equally severe problem: the younger generation is abandoning family farms, and veteran farmers struggle to find successors. According to him, the complex reality on small and medium-sized farms is the main reason young people do not continue their path. The organization, whose offices are in Kibbutz Nahal Oz, assists farmers through over a thousand volunteers, including teenagers from about 50 high schools and pre-military preparatory programs, as well as a project in the Upper Galilee for young men after their IDF service. The organization also initiated the establishment of a Nahal group in the Jordan Valley. Rosenberg calls for a broad national plan that includes marketing agricultural land at no cost and encouraging young people to work in agriculture, emphasizing that food security is a strategic need of the state.