The 116,800,000 pounds budget for next year which the Jewish Agency will present for approval to the forthcoming meeting of the Zionist Actions Committee, will be devoted chiefly to agriculture, Dr. George Josephthal, Agency treasurer, announced here today at a press conference.
Dr. Josephthal, who stressed that the budget was the most constructive ever drafted by the Agency, said that the 60,000,000 pounds devoted to agriculture would be used chiefly for “stabilizing” agriculture. This would include such projects as the irrigation of another 85,000 dunams of land, adding new families to existing settlements, building new roads to a number of settlements, expanding the fruit growing acreage, adding homes and livestock for existing settlements and extending capital loans in a number of instances.
He laid special stress on well drilling plans, reporting that of 25 wells dug last year 21 provided water. In addition, he said that the agency would import $11,250,000 worth of agricultural machinery, most of it from Germany and Belgium. The Agency will concentrate too on building homes for immigrants still in temporary centers and will lend other immigrants funds to buy into various government housing schemes. Another major concentration of Agency funds will go to Youth Aliyah, which will receive eight percent of the total budget.
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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.
