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Irrigation - taking Israeli know-how to China

Making The Desert Bloom

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Israel is a small country that has a wide range of soil types, climate and topography. The rainfall is not evenly distributed in the country and the rainy season is short - normally from November to February. The most northern parts of Israel may see (in a good year) about 1,000 mm of rain per year, whilst in the southernmost parts only about 30 mm per year. However, from the lush and fertile rich greenery of Dan (in the Galil) to the desert conditions of Eilat Israeli farmers continuously produce quality crops. Israeli farmers have created a minor miracle and have turned Israel from a country that had to endure stringent rationing during the 1950’s to a country that is world known for the quality of the flowers, fruit, vegetables and herbs that it exports. One of the explanations for this minor miracle is the Israeli development and large-scale utilization of drip (trickle) irrigation technology.

The quality of Israeli farmers (many of them have relevant universities degrees) and Israeli agro-technology is such that there is a high demand for their expertise abroad. Additionally, the high level of the Israeli agriculture (in all sectors) has led to a reduction of the number of people involved in agriculture, has drastically increased the marketable yield per Dunam (Israel base unit of land equals1,000 sq. m.). The productivity per Dunam has more than doubled and more than tripled per cubic metre of water since the 1950’s, but even today agriculture, industry and domestic requirements compete for the limited water sources. Traditionally the Israeli farmers (especially kibutznikim, and moshavnikim to a lesser extent) were amongst the elite of the society, with a far higher quality of life than the nearby development towns.

The success in the development of Israel’s high-tech agriculture has resulted in the fact that today the competition for manufacturers of agro-technology and agriculture equipment in Israeli is fierce. This problem is compounded by the political situation that almost (but not completely) makes it impossible to export to the neighbouring countries. Israeli companies therefore needed to look for alternative markets for their skills and products.

With the birth of China’s “Opening Up Policy” Israeli companies and entrepreneurs joined the trickle (now flood) of international companies and entrepreneurs that decided that China, with its 1.5 billion population, had enormous market potential. Israeli companies, Israeli experts, consultants and entrepreneurs can be found in China today in most of the sectors, including the agriculture sector. China’s agriculture and farmers, in general, are the anti-thesis to Israel’s agriculture and farmers. The majority of the Chinese farmers are peasant farmers (nongmin) with only a very basic education. Many of them during the whole of their lives will only travel as far as the nearest market town, and almost definitely not to the provincial capital, and certainly not to Beijing. The nongmin will manage to eek out a livelihood by backbreaking manual labour on their small plots of land. Each of these nongmin families will typically have between 2 – 5 mu (1mu = 667 sq.m.) of land, and the plots will not necessarily be adjacent to one and other. According to an article by Fu Jing in the China Daily, page 2, (China’s National English Language Newspaper), 14 April 2005, the average per capita annual income for farmers “reached 2,936Yuan (353.7 USD) in 2004 whilst that of urban residents was 3.21 times more at 9,422Yuan (1,135 USD)”. Farmers with an annual per capita income of only a few hundred dollars cannot afford to invest in expensive high-tech agriculture technology, even if it conserves water and increases yields. The probability for a private citizen to obtain a bank loan in China is remote (with the exceptions of mortgages in urban areas for people with steady jobs) and consequently this option does not realistically exist for the nongmin.

China though is a big country consisting of 56 nationalities (ethnic groups). The vast majority of the Chinese people belong to the Han nationality, but there are areas of China where other ethnic groups either form the majority of the local populace, or a very significant minority in their specific region. For example, in China’s largest Province Xinjiang (The Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, located in the North-West of China) the Uygur nationality, in many areas, constitute the majority of the population. They speak a separate language (a close relation of Turkish), look different to the Han and have different customs than the Han (the Uygur are Muslims). An unknown percentage of the Uygur would happily establish an independent East Turkistan, and have been known to engage in terrorist activities in order to try to obtain this goal. In order to help tame this Chinese “wild west” the central government has since the 1950’s been relocating Han nationals to Xinjiang. One of the methods has been similar to Israel’s Nachal army units. The Israeli Nachal groups are intended to bolster existing (periphery) settlements and/or to establish new settlements. The intention is that once the soldiers (male and female) in the Nachal core unit (garin) finish their National Service and are de-mobbed they will decide to permanently establish their homes in these settlements.

The Chinese equivalent to the Nachal is the Corp (Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp). The Corp may not have heard of Ber Borochov and definitely are not the socialist paradise of the original kibbutz ideology, nor are they even close to today’s kibbutz lifestyle. However, they politically perform a similar role. In October 1954, the Central People’s Government of China ordered that most of the PLA units in Xinjiang be redeployed to civilian duties in the area. They were separated out from the mainstream of the national defence forces to form a production and construction Corp. They intention was, and still is, that they would cultivate and develop the area while keeping the borders secure. The Corp as a whole has eighteen divisions each looking after a designated area, and including its stockbreeding facilities; it operates no fewer than 174 regimental farms.

These farms are no longer patchwork quilts of one-mu plots belonging to different nongmin. Field sizes can be measured in tens to hundreds of Hectares (10,000 sq.m.). These plots are of sizes that permit the use of modern agro-technology and the Corp can, and does provide the necessary budgets for continual development. A typical irrigation project for anyone regiment at any one time can be in the region of one to four hundred Hectare. Xinjiang is huge, the biggest province in China. It encompasses over 1,600,000 square kilometres (617,763 square miles); it is one-sixth of China's total territory and has a population of over 19 million. Despite this size it possible to categorise Xinjiang as having a desert climate with a low annual rainfall of only 150mm. The summers high temperatures are comparable to those of Israel but the winter low temperatures (depending upon location) can drop to – 20 or even – 30oC. The soils are reminiscent of those of the Arava, and the Negev. It is therefore no wonder that most of the Israeli drip irrigation companies have at least one irrigation project in Xinjiang, and that two Israeli irrigation companies have established factories to produce drip irrigation laterals in Xinjiang.

In addition to the Corp’s regimental farms in Xinjiang Israeli drip irrigation technology can be found in large government funded projects to fight desertification and to encourage forestation. Beijing, for example, for a few days each year suffers from a problem of wind-borne sand being blown in from Inner Mongolia. The “Desert Highway”(522 Km through the Taklimakan Desert, Xinjiang) and large sections of the railway from Inner Mongolia to Mongolia suffer problems of sand encroachment. Israeli irrigation designers and Israeli technology are heavily involved in these projects. Municipal governments such as Kurle (Xinjiang) and Wuhai (Inner Mongolia) have invested in Israeli drip irrigation to beautify the surrounding mountains and at the same time to stop the topsoil from blowing into their cities.

Many people will have heard of China’s “Three Gorges Hydro-Electric Project”. This massive project involves damming the Yangtze River near Yichang City (Hubei Province) in order to produce 18,200MW of hydroelectric power (about the same as 15 nuclear power plants). This dam, when completed in 2009, will be the biggest in the world. The Normal Water Level (NWL) at the final stage will be at a topographical height of +175m, that is to say 75m higher than the initial water level. There have been many debates regarding both the short-term and the long-term environmental impacts of this dam. It is though definite that as a result of the raising of the water level a mind-boggling number of people will have had to have been relocated. The actual number is open to discussion, but the number quoted officially is 1.2million people. The Chinese government has been busy building new towns and cities for the people that are being relocated. A large number of the people that have to be relocated are nongmin whose traditional plots of land are being flooded along with their homes. The central government has therefore allocated resources in order to establish new plots for them. In general, they are now planting citrus groves on the previously barren high ground. These citrus groves require irrigation and fertigation. Israeli irrigation designers, technology and products (in addition to American and Chinese) are busy solving the complicated problems of irrigating these areas. The problem of designing thousands of irrigation systems for small plots of land has been overcome, since basically the citrus groves belong to large conglomerates! They decide when and how much to irrigate. The nongmin is responsible for the pest control and the fruit picked from the trees on his plot.

The Israeli irrigation and agriculture projects can be found all over China. They are not just limited to the north and the Three Gorges Project. Despite, the funding problems and the small size of the plots, small-scale Israeli systems can be found in many surprising and off the beaten track locations.

As an irrigation engineer and chartered environmentalist I have seen many exotic places. I have seen more of China than most Chinese. From the Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang in the north, down to China’s Hawaii (Hainan Island) and Kunming (“The City of Eternal Spring”) in the south my colleagues and I have been busy trying to make the desert bloom, tackle water conservation (efficiency) issues and to alleviate poverty and hunger by introducing Israeli water-saving technology.