Dr. Eugene Sosskin, noted Israel agronomist and pioneer exponent of intensive farming in the Jewish State, harvested his first crop at his hydroponics experimental station in the center of Jerusalem.
The 82-year-old agriculturalist told newsmen that the crop he harvested from a score of small tanks was sufficient to feed five families with vegetables for a year. He insisted that growing vegetables in water was vital to Israel not only in the event a war cut the Jewish State off from food supplies from abroad, but also because Israel can only cultivate some 6,000,000 dunams ( 1,500,000 acres) of a total of 20,000,000 dunams.
The decisive factor in the growth of vegetables by this method, which can increase Israel’s output eight times, is the strength of the sun over this land, Dr. Sosskin said.
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