Greening the Arizona desert

Hopis, Israelis collaborate to make it bloom

VICKI CABOT
Contributing Editor

Agronomist Yoel DeMalach proudly shows off the blooming Israeli desert.

But a unique pairing of Israeli technology and Hopi agricultural aspirations may yield an uncharacteristic sweetness. Produce grown in Israel's barren Negev desert, incomparably sweet tomatoes, strawberries and melons carrying the Desert Sweet name, will put down fertile roots in the Hopis' barren northeast Arizona soil.

Seeds for the unique project were planted more than three years ago. But its fruition has been disappointingly slow.

"I had thought by now we would have hothouses and plants growing - but we don't," comments Star Sacks, who has played a key role in promoting the technological and cultural exchange. "But things look promising."

Sacks led a group of Hopi tribal leaders to Israel in 1993 to visit the Ramat Negev AgroResearch Center and nearby kibbutzim, cooperative farms, where crops grown with the new techniques were flourishing. Sacks, then chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council here, was accompanied by Sam Hoenig, director of the Arid Lands Development Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to facilitating the exchange of arid land agricultural techniques, and Cleveland philanthropist Dick Bogolmony, the foundation's founder, chief benefactor and board chair.

Mark Talisman, former head of the Council of Jewish Federations' Washington office, fostered the initial contact between the Hopi leaders and the Israelis.

"It was back in the 1980s," recalls Talisman, who now works in Washington, D.C., as director of Project Judaica, a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving the memory of Jewish life in Poland. "The Phoenix Jewish Federation came to me and said some Hopi leadership wanted to talk."

Talisman's organizational expertise gave the project the requisite form and focus. He helped put together a grant application to the U.S. Department of Agriculture for funding.

The $433,000 grant gained congressional approval, but ultimately was rescinded - a casualty of the 1994 congressional budget-cutting campaign.

Estimated cost of the entire project, from initial studies to experimental hothouses to implementation of the technology for marketable crops, is about $5 million.

"I felt terrible for the Hopis," says Talisman of the loss of funding. He is working currently on a new proposal for mixed funding, some private, some governmental. Talisman functions as a consultant to Hoenig's group.

In the meantime, the Hopis have taken the initiative to accelerate the project, moving it from the purview of tribal leadership to that of the individual villages. Three villages, Upper Moencopi, Hotevilla and Kykotsmoyi, have elected to apply a portion of their tribal funding to underwrite the project, explains tribal leader Vernon Masayesva. They've allocated $150,000 in seed money to fund the first stage, an extensive feasibility study analyzing water and soil quality, grading, depths, environmental protection concerns and marketing applications.

The Hopi villages are located in isolated areas; major markets are not readily accessible, notes Hoenig, a former Jewish National Fund executive who has headed the Arid Lands foundation since its founding three years ago.

"The Hopis can't compete with other large-scale farming operations, so they may look at boutique items such as Israeli tomatoes or raising goats for goat cheese," he explains.

Israel provides model
Masayesva, whose interest in the project stems from both economic as well as spiritual concerns (see accompanying story) was one of the first Hopis to learn about Israel's success in greening the desert.

He recalls a fortuitous meeting with an Israeli agronomist who was in the area installing drip irrigation for the Navajos. Cooperative University of Arizona and Ben Gurion University projects have been ongoing in the area. The Navajo reservation is adjacent to Hopi lands.

Partnership grows from shared vision

"I took him to see my dad's farm," recalls Masayesva, "and he asked millions of practical questions. It was the first time I had heard of the Israeli drip system."

Previously, says the former Hopi tribal chairman, federal studies had discouraged the Hopis from trying to resuscitate their ancient agricultural lifestyle because of the lack of available water.

The Israeli agronomist "was telling us almost the exact opposite of what we were hearing from the U.S. government," he says incredulously. Israeli drip techniques use very little water.

It was from that chance meeting that Masayesva's imagination was fired, and he began to pursue contacts with Israeli researchers through the Phoenix Jewish community.

The Hopis are farming people, explains Masayesva. They attach deep spiritual significance to the land and its crops. But farming in northeast Arizona's arid, desert soil, is very difficult, and younger people are leaving the Hopi villages and seeking employment elsewhere.

"Many of the young people want to dream the American dream," he says. But they are doing it "at the expense of their values, tradition and culture."

He analogizes the Hopi dilemma with the American Jewish preoccupation with continuity.

Masayesva says he hopes the new irrigation techniques can revitalize agriculture as a viable economic alternative while renewing the traditional reverence for the land.

Years in the making
The Israeli technology mines brackish, or salty, water that resides 3,000 feet below the earth's surface. A team of Israeli scientists and dry land agronomists worked with water expert Yoel DeMalach for 14 years to develop the processes for utilizing the water for agricultural purposes. In 1985, DeMalach received the prestigious Israel Prize for his work.

DeMalach and others were motivated to develop alternative water sources to increase Israel's agricultural output.

The benefits for Israel are manifold: preservation of precious fresh water sources for other uses; enhanced self-sufficiency from increased production of agricultural products for Israel's consumption; increased economic benefits from the production of superior marketable produce.

"National security starts with feeding ourselves," says Hoenig, noting that Israel currently grows about 90 percent of the food it consumes. Hoenig predicts that Israel's expanding population will need to find new water sources and develop new land for agricultural production in the years to come.

The salty water used by DeMalach's techniques is not potable, but has been shown to produce superior crops.

Supporters emphasize the humanitarian focus of the Israeli research.

"The Hopi project is just a microcosm," notes Sacks, "but the applications are worldwide." The arid lands foundation has been approached by countries in Africa and Asia for help in enhancing agricultural production using Israeli technology. The successful completion of the Hopi project may lead to others with Native Americans throughout the Southwest, predicts Sacks.

She describes her own involvement in the Hopi project as "a communal responsibility."

Adds Hoenig, "This shows Israel in a different light. Israel doesn't just sell the best Uzis in the world - it is sharing peaceful technology."

Economic advantages
Economic benefits may also accrue.

While Israel will recoup only direct costs from the Hopi initiative, future projects would include a proviso for royalties to be paid to Israel for use of the technology every time a product is sold.

This would further the arid lands foundation's commitment to diminishing Israel's dependence on governmental agencies or philanthropic largesse to underwrite its research and development projects.

The Ramat Negev institute, initially a Jewish National Fund project, receives Jewish Agency and other philanthropic funds.

As Israel moves toward a privatized economy, "there is a need to slowly wean the dependence on philanthropy," says Hoenig.

The foundation assists in securing funding for expansion of the technology. To date more than $1 million has been raised.

Bogolmony, the Cleveland philanthropist, remains excited about the Hopi project and hopeful that it will come to fruition in the near future.

"The Israelis are committed," he says. "But there is no question that one of the big risks in a deal like this is that you get everyone excited and then can't fund it," he says. "We'll give the Hopis the tools, the training and the taste of the opportunities," says Hoenig. "Then (like the Israelis) they will have to make it happen themselves."