The scientific research in the field of agriculture in Israel is considered among the most developed world wide. The Israeli citizen is enjoying the fruits of this advanced research through several agricultural cultivars yielding high quality fruits all over the year. The Israeli Agro-Industry is also considered among the most advanced industries in the world, especially in the fields of seeds and Agro-Technologies (Green Houses, irrigation systems, storage and quality control).

The climatic conditions, the national water situation and the high diversity of agricultural crops demand a huge effort in scientific-research in the various fields of agriculture, whose frontiers migrated within the last decade towards biotechnological and molecular-biological research. The main efforts are concentrated in discovering new genes that could endow the plant with special traits: resistance to biotic and abiotic stressors, high yield, higher quality fruits, prolonged shelf life. To achieve these goals it is a must to get informed about the most recent discoveries in the field and to implement the most advanced technologies. The ministry of science and technology through it's various programs has covered most of these needs, mainly through establishing national knowledge centers, infrastructural research programs and International cooperation.

On the national level

Within the frame work of the Infrastructural Research Program (IRP), MOST has established and financed the national center for transgenic plants focusing on producing plants resisting pathogens, drought and salinity, development of methods for genetic mapping in plants, identification of genes and promoters that endow the plant with unique traits. Later on, the transition towards more cutting edge technologies that enable simultaneous identification of several candidate genes through comparison of gene expression under various culturing conditions (Micro-Array) has been made. These technologies have been incorporated into the genomic centers established several years later.

MOST, together with the Ministry of Agriculture, is co-financing the Israeli National Gene-Bank for agricultural crops. The bank is a unique research infrastructure because of the special location of Israel between Asia and Africa, the transition between climatic zones, enriching it with a high species diversity, especially the original species and cultivars of wheat and barely. In the bank one finds a big number of collections of wild species, advanced technologies for collection, identification and conservation of seeds.

In 2004, MOST launched a new direction in agricultural research concerning Metabolomics. It deals with cutting edge technologies that serve to identify the metabolic products of genes, groups of genes and the balanced interactions among them.

MOST is also financing agricultural research relevant to the various peripheral regions of the country within the regional R&D centers.

Future Directions

Two main directions are suggested to the consideration of the national committee for IRP: Marine Biotechnology and Precise Agriculture.

1.       Marine Biotechnology since Israel has advantages in regard to biodiversity of marine species, highly qualified man power in the fields of life sciences and the long lasting experience in mari-culture. Emphasizing this field within the forthcoming program for 2006 could lead to scientific break-throughs in a field of major economical potential.

2.       Precise Agriculture based on the advanced progress in the fields of agriculture, space technologies, remote sensing and nano-technology. The combination of these various disciplines altogether could endow Israel with a special relative advantage in a unique emerging field of scientific research.

International Cooperation

India: Genomics, Proteomics and metabolomics for crop improvement.

France: It is planned to issue a new call for proposals under the topic: Agronomy and Sustainable Development.

Environmental and Water Research

Starting in the 1980s we are witnessing a turn about concerning environmental awareness and to the importance of environmental research. One major part of the environmental research in Israel is the water issue due to the semi-arid climate and the geo-political importance. The environmental research in Israel has reached very impressive achievements especially in water research: sewage treatment and purification technologies, desalination and irrigation technologies that are among the most advanced in the world.

During the last decade, the main research efforts financed by MOST focused on pooling resources of knowledge, man power and instruments in order to bring the environmental research in Israel to the front of global knowledge. MOST activities, especially within IRP gained special validity in the light of the complexity of environmental issues that demand multidisciplinary research including: ecology, hydrology, geology, biotechnology, nanotechnology, communication, remote sensing and space technologies as well as theoretical modeling in climate and economy.

MOST has financed infrastructural projects aiming at minimizing environmental hazards and contaminants, developing advanced methods for environmental monitoring, remediation, advanced technologies for sewage treatment up to unlimited reuse, saline and sea water desalination technologies as well as hydrological and dro-geological research.

The NationalKnowledgeCenter on Hydrology

MOST initiated and financed the establishment of this center located at TelAvivUniversity. The center is multidisciplinary and multi institutional. It includes the various scientific as well as practical disciplines in the field of geo-hydrology. The available models at the center, the long lasting information stored in accessible manner to the researchers, the advanced computational technologies enable achieving thorough and up-dated data on water reservoirs all over the country.

International Cooperation

The main cooperation in these fields is currently included within the German-Israeli Cooperation programs. This includes:

·         Water technologies - focusing on Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM)

·         GLOWA - the impact of global changes on the hydrological cycle of the JordanRiver Basin.

·         The Multilateral Project – focusing on the hydrology and the geo-hydrology of the Jordan Rift Valley.