Water

Israel has never been known as a rainforest, but this summer the country is heading into one of the most severe water shortages its had in decades.

Well, at least we're not alone. This New York Times piece on the water shortage in the Middle East was fascinating because it looks at how countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia are exploring outsourcing farming. Saudi Arabia wants to contract land in Pakistan and grow food for import, and Egypt wants to lease land in Sudan. But reporter Andrew Martin made a very stereotypical report on Israeli agriculture: meet Doron Ovits, an Israeli farmer who irrigates his peppers in the Negev desert by pushing buttons on his central computer. He waters the peppers with treated sewage effluents, monitoring every drop that trickles out of his drip irrigation tubes inside his hothouses.

Ovits, who has a deep tan and wears sunglasses over his head, is lauded as an example of Israel's abundant technology that helps make the desert bloom. However, Martin doesn't question the logic of applying all this knowledge - and water - to grow vegetables that Ovits exports to Europe.

I wrote about the water shortage in Israel for the Jerusalem Report in June. Israel is facing its fourth year of drought, coupled with very little reserve water supplies. The water level in Lake Kinneret, which Israel uses as a natural reservoir, is set to dip below the "black line," beyond which the pumps don't reach the water and the lake faces possible irreversible damage.

To deal with the issue, the Water Authority has launched an ad campaign with an intimidating Hebrew font, "Israel is Going from Red to Black," plastering the ads across the country in the hopes that someone will go home and voluntarily cut back water use enough to keep the lake from destruction. There are price increases potentially on the books, but they would only go into effect in January. Financing was also just sealed for a new desalinization plant.

Strangely, Israelis use more water per capita than Germans - a fact the Water Authority spokesman chalks up to our penchant for two or three showers a day. Israeli farmers export cut flowers to Europe and irrigate fields of potatoes in the Negev desert. Probably like many high-economy, low-water regions, Israel seems like it's putting a great deal more effort on increasing the supply of water without any thought for reducing demand.