For the people of Israel, the land is both home and a crucial challenge. Nearly two-thirds of the country is desert; much of the rest is stubbornly pocked with boulders. Nowhere in Israel is cultivation easy. In order to survive here, this magnificent but unyielding terrain must be engaged and made into a living and fertile land. Israel's innovations in the realms of agriculture, viticulture, and other forms of cultivation have been remarkably successful at drawing life and sustenance from the earth. Vegetables are being grown in the Negev, and award-winning wines are produced from grapes grown in forests three thousand feet above sea level. These agronomic innovations help Israelis, of course, but they are also providing solutions for much of the rest of the world.
Grapes ripening at Rota winery vineyard, near Sde Boker. Photo by and © 2016 Vision Studio
The film Solutions from the Land includes: part I “Saving the Soil: Israel Explores Biochar” and part II: “Biochar: A New Path.” Biochar—is a soil-enrichment approach to cultivation that is being explored in many places in the world. While its long-term effects are still under investigation, many people are looking to biochar as a possible response to two of the world’s most dire issues: hunger and climate change. Israel, which has been rising to the challenges of growing crops in stubbornly difficult conditions for many years, is on the forefront in this field.
