Premier David Ben Gurion today called on Israel’s individual farmers to take the initiative and settle in Israel’s southern wasteland which, he underlined, composes four-fifths of its area.
Speaking at the opening session of the eighth general convention of the Farmers Federation, an organization of those Israeli farmers who are not members of cooperatives. Mr. Ben Gurion asserted that both individual and cooperative farmers are needed to develop Israel’s agriculture and that the economy could not get along without either one.
Earlier, Zvi Izakson, federation president, reported that Israel has achieved about 75 percent of agricultural self-sufficiency, Mr. Izakson said that in some crops Israel has achieved self-sufficiency and in others it has an exportable surplus. The nominal value of all crops, he estimated, is 497,000,000 pounds. Mr. Izakson, who also heads the all-Israel Citrus Marketing Board, said that Israel exported about $50,000,000 worth of citrus products last year.
The federation’s joint marketing and purchasing companies last year did a total business of 35,000,000 pounds, Mr. Izakson disclosed. He said that individual farmers owned 50 percent of the orange groves in Israel, 80 percent of the vineyards, 40 percent of the area planted in cotton, 30 percent of the poultry industry and 25 percent of the cattle industry.
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