Ground-breaking ceremonies for the Sadie C. Annenberg Negev Research Laboratory for Soil and Irrigation, which will survey possibilities of irrigation with saline water, were held yesterday at Gilat settlement near here. Construction of the research facility, to be completed within a year, is being made possible through a $250,000 donation by the Annenberg family of Philadelphia.
Mrs. Annenberg, for whom the laboratory will be named, and her son Walter Annenberg, a prominent Philadelphia publisher, came to Israel to attend the ceremonies. The laboratory will engage in various types of arid zone research and attempt to promote agricultural knowledge of the Negev. The research unit will also include a library and lecture hall.
Dr. Raanan Weitz, director of the National and University Agricultural Institute, said that the new facility, to be supplied with the latest equipment, will result in considerable progress in agriculture in Israel’s southern desert. B. Kaplan, director of the Negev Region for the Jewish Agency, told the gathering that the Gilat experimental station will become the center of agricultural science to serve the entire Negev region.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
