Israel is a global leader in many types of sustainable agriculture and applied ecology, thanks to the efforts of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which celebrates the 90th anniversary of its cornerstone laying in 2008.

To assure future growth and Israel’s pre-eminence in the worldwide “Green Revolution,” The Robert H. Smith Family Foundation has pledged a $15 million challenge grant that will help to transform The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Faculty of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences in Rehovot, Israel. This magnanimous gift is the cornerstone of “Feeding the Future through Sustainable Agriculture,” a $ 51 million campaign to broaden HU’s cutting-edge interdisciplinary research in plant and animal sciences.

 American Friends of The Hebrew University (AFHU), a nonprofit organization that raises awareness of, and support for, The Hebrew University will spearhead much of this fund raising effort.  In response to the Smith Foundation’s substantive challenge grant, AFHU is launching a $ 15 million fund raising campaign, seeking support from other American philanthropists and foundations committed to advancing pioneering research and new technologies emerging from Israel.  Stated George Schieren, AFHU president, “Thanks to the incredible friendship, vision, and generosity of Bob Smith and the entire Smith Family, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem will be able to expand its globally important work.”  In recognition of the Smith Family Foundation’s generosity, Hebrew University’s the Faculty will be renamed “The Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences.”

In 2007, Israel’s Ministry of the Environment declared Rehovot a “Green Campus.”  Environmentally conscious faculty and students work to preserve the lush, natural environment and maintain eco-friendly practices. The Feeding the Future campaign entails a number of exciting physical upgrades: new buildings, state-of-the-art laboratories, climate controlled greenhouses and undergraduate teaching laboratories, all designed to support vital teaching activities at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and to foster multi-disciplinary research collaborations among four academic Institutes. The university also has a thriving Division of External Studies that offers graduate programs to international students interested in learning about plant sciences and nutrition. Peter Willner, AFHU’s national executive director, commented, “Students from 155 countries, including developing nations, have studied at Rehovot, going on to make a difference in their home countries. Hebrew University always shares its knowledge with others for the purpose of worldwide progress and to build bridges to peace regionally and internationally.” 

 Projects creatively and pragmatically address issues of hunger and malnutrition, water scarcity, air and soil pollution and the impact of global warming.  HU’s Faculty of Agriculture was established in 1942 to green Israel’s desert and provide sufficient food supplies for Israel even before the nation was founded.  Developing the means to fight infectious diseases, such as malaria, was crucial to Israel in its early years, with Hebrew University spearheading these disease-fighting efforts.  Israel’s agricultural development and economic strength in agribusiness and biotechnology are largely attributable to Hebrew University experts, and their techniques such as drip irrigation and soil solarization have been widely adopted, along with methods of acquaculture and wastewater reclamation.  These innovations are especially important to nations with semi-arid climates similar to Israel.    

“Sustainable agriculture, environmentally responsible agri-business, feeding the future through careful planning and preserving natural resources while maintaining a high level of green consciousness – this describes the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. There is a great similarity between the goals of the Hebrew University’s Faculty of Agriculture and the earnest focus of our Bay area and Pacific Northwest growers, retailers, consumers and scientists. We are ‘sister regions’ connected by the same goal, to ‘Feed the Future’ effectively, while maintaining the utmost respect for our changing world,” says Beth Kyman, AFHU Pacific Northwest’s Executive Director.

The Rehovot transformation has many dimensions. A new Complex of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine is being established, as is a new Institute of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resources in Agriculture. These two vital academic pillars will join the existing Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, an internationally acclaimed research center. Hebrew University’s Institute of Biochemistry, Food Sciences and Nutrition will expand to meet the research needs of tomorrow.  Four newly created interdisciplinary research centers will foster “out of the box” thinking.  Professor Eli Feinerman, dean of the Faculty, praises the “Feeding the Future” vision for its ability to help his top scientists “translate research into innovative and cost-effective solutions applicable to people worldwide.” 

The plant and science work has varied health implications and a major aspect of HU work involves developing functional foods with nutritional “assets.” An estimated 124 million people, mostly in Africa and Southeast Asia, are afflicted by vitamin A deficiency.  Most cases are found in Africa and Southeast Asia, where rice is the staple of many people’s diets. Professor Daniel Zamir of the Robert H. Smith Institute, working with Professor Joseph Hirschberg, head of the Alexander Silberman Institute of Life Sciences at Hebrew University’s Faculty of Science, has created vitamin A-enhanced “Golden Rice.” Pending deregulation by various governments, Golden Rice will be “the first lifesaving genetically modified plant once it is released,” says Hirschberg.

HU researchers are also using plants to fight diseases.  Malaria is the world's most severe infectious disease, killing 1.3 to 3 people annually, mostly children in developing countries under the age of five. Malaria is spread by parasites, many of which have developed resistance to most drugs.  Artemisinins, produced from the traditional Chinese medicinal herb sweet wormwood, have no known resistance. Unfortunately, natural yields of the drug are low, making it too expensive for developing countries. At The Hebrew University’s Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences, Professor Alex Vainstein has developed a method to boost artemisin production by 500%.

Dr. Naomi Ori, a member of the Robert H. Smith Institute of Plant Sciences and Genetics in Agriculture, researches plant development, noting that unlike animals, “Plants develop entirely new organs — leaves, branches, flowers and fruits — dynamically, as they grow.”  Dr. Ori’s research has resulted in plants that stay green for longer time intervals, which contributes to a longer shelf-life for crops which many societies depend on as staples for their local diet.

Professor Orna Halevy, the founding head of the combined M.Sc./Ph.D. Program in Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, has spent years examining the production of poultry meat. Her research demonstrates that incubated eggs and illuminating chicks with a green light produces heavier chickens. This breeding technique is currently employed by poultry farms in Israel and the United States.

Helped by Hebrew University expertise, many Israeli farmers are engaged in aquaculture, cultivating fish in artificial ponds.  However, the ponds’ water must be replaced daily, and the discharged water is polluted.  Professor Jaap van Rijin has developed a new, environmentally-safe form of aquaculture.  With his team, he has created a closed system that uses bacteria to digest pollutants and convert them into harmless gasses.  Rather than flushing the system with clean water, all water is recycled.  The only water loss is due to evaporation.

Dr. Benny Chefetz, a top young scientist in the Department of Soil and Water Sciences, is also concerned by the pollution caused by wastewater.  He states: “Sometimes techniques used to solve one problem cause another.  I study the fate of organic pollutants that treated water leaves in the soil, including pesticides, herbicides, even antibiotics.”  Dr. Chefetz has shown how the plant cuticle — the waxy layer that covers all plant surfaces — can help clean polluted water by absorbing heavy metal ions, which can then be transformed into valuable metal nanoparticles using simple, microwave-based techniques. He says, “It’s a cheap and effective strategy for turning environmental waste into ‘gold.’”

These represent just a few of the many innovations emerging from Israel’s finest researchers, all of whom care deeply about promoting the health of humans and animals and making certain that biodiversity is preserved in Israel and elsewhere.