Extended irrigation facilities are stimulating Jewish agricultural development in Palestine especially wheat growing, according to figures released today by the Jewish National Fund. Today eighteen percent of all land cultivated by the JNF, is devoted to wheat growing, whereas only half that amount was cultivated five years ego. The success obtained in the cultivation of irrigated wheat fields is considered to have a significant bearing on the future Palestine food supply.
Experiments are being conducted with new varieties of wheat especially from Australia and Morocco. During the first year of the war it was disclosed, irrigated land cultivated by the JNF rose from 40,000 to 50,000 dunams, a 25 percent increase. Also new land purchased in the Galilee and Beisan areas has made available water resources which in recent years have been exploited by the Irrigation Works.
Also, acquisition by the JNF of lands suitable for pasture has stimulated growth of sheep breeding, which is beginning to assume increasing importance in the agricultural economy of Palestine. It has been a great factor, also, in the increase in textile production, particularly in the villages. Where in 1939 there were 70 settlements maintaining 12,500 head of sheep, there are now 25,000 sheep. Ninety percent of all the Jewish flocks are on JNF land, the figures show.
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