2023-08-24 03:00:00
The blue of the sky, the silvery green of the foliage and the beige of the sand color, like a Neapolitan slice, the landscape as far as the eye can see. About ten kilometers from Beer-Sheva, under a blazing sun, Yechiam Getz, agronomist at Netafim, carries out a coring at the foot of a jojoba tree. In this field located in the middle of the Negev, a desert that covers half of Israel, these trees are lined up by the hundreds. Up to 15 cm deep, the blond and sandy soil slips through his fingers. Beyond 20 cm, it darkens to form a small compact mound.
Yechiam’s face lights up: “Look, it’s wonderful! The soil is moist near the roots.” If these shrubs are loaded with small green fruits at the end of June – “from two years of maturity, specifies the agronomist, compared to five years in their natural environment, in Mexico” – it’s thanks to the kilometers of buried pipes that deliver drop following drop a ration of water and nutrients to each foot. Within a month, these jojoba nuts will be transformed into oil for the cosmetics industry, a few kilometers away, in Kibbutz Hatzerim.
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