Impossible is nothing (Photo Album)

The Arava Valley is located across the Israeli-Jordanian borders, between the Gulf of Aqaba and the Dead Sea. All you can see here is sand, rocks, hectic bushes and a few acacia trees here and there, some alive and some dried out by the heat. The average rainfall is something close to 30cc per year, when in Athens it’s around 450cc and in New York reaches up to 1270cc – that means that this place is rarely getting any rain. Temperatures during the summer months exceed 40C(100F) and reach up to even 48C(120F). The water is of bad quality, very saline. For all these, Arava Valley is identified as a hyper-arid desert region. In the first place, farming  and growing vegetables over here sounds like “mission impossible”.

Amnon Greenberg, one of the top characters of Yotvata, gives me a foxy smile under his thick white mustache and he’s inviting me on a car ride around the fields of Yotvata in the Arava, to prove that “impossible is nothing”. Over the last 23 years he’s been working really hard to prove this, both as a kibbutznik and an executive of “Southern Arava Research and Development Center” – and it turns out that he and his fellows have quite made it so far: They made the desert bloom.

Our tour starts from the flower garden, which as Mr. Amnon says is one of the first fields where the revolutionary drip irrigation system started from, back in the days. You can see all different kinds of flowers, in many flashy colors, that seem to ignore the weather conditions. They’ve been experimenting for a long time on them – and they ended up finding a variety of different plants that can take these temperatures and the saline water. The idea is simple – if flowers can bloom under these conditions, then they can bloom everywhere. Having that guaranteed, selling these species won’t be a hard thing, right?

Then comes the garlic. In a carousel type of machine, different pots of garlic are getting different kinds of water in which the salinity varies from really salty to normal. They observe the growing procedure and they come up with data about the size, the quality and the time needed to grow garlic properly. Is it possible? As far as I know, a bunch of volunteers have been working on the garlic factory of Yotvata over the past few weeks, collecting and packing tons of it, to be sent to the market. So, the answer is yes. It is possible.

Then comes the pomegranate. Too early it seems, it’s still May, yet again the innovation is here. Different big pots of pomegranate trees are taking different amounts of water, by using a system that (via computer) identifies the need of the tree in water and feeds is accordingly. In front of me there’s a basket full of red pomegranates. I try one, it’s sweet and juicy. “They’ll be even better in some time, we’re improving the quality” Mr. Amnon says and after all I’ve seen around here, that sounds quite realistic to me. Why not?

Then comes the onion, one of Yotvata’s biggest crops. In this season it’s the green, fresh type of it. Still, I look at the dirt and I see only sand. Yet the plants seem that they don’t care at all. They're growing under the hot sun, painting thin green brush strokes on that absolute yellow of the desert soil. And then, next to them, whole fields of red peppers that look pretty much ready to be collected by the farmers. On the surface of the ground you can see some huge white stains. It’s the salt that stays up from the saline water that feeds them. Still, they’re growing, too.

And then, Arava’s pride and joy: The date fields. One of the best qualities, world wide, Medjool and Deglet Noor. Small, medium size and big trees. A lot of experimenting is going on here as well, some of them look like x-mas trees, only instead of ornaments you can see wires, computer units and other mysterious devices hanging off of their branches. You don’t have to be really familiar with the science of agriculture (I’m obviously not) to understand that they’ve taken it to another level. And they keep going.

What does it really take to start up farming in the middle of the desert – and end up making it bloom and selling tons of products in the global market? Obviously some craziness. Moreover, you have to be insistent and determined to make it. “Other countries have a lot of land to cultivate. What we have is just this – the desert. Half of Israel is desert. So, we had to make it bloom” says Mr. Amnon. And only then I realize that these people took up a huge challenge and proved that “impossible” is not an option. Everything is possible.

Yes, everything. Even a cows’ herd in the middle of the wilderness, that makes millions of tons of excellent milk every year. That is possible too.

Come to Yotvata to see it for yourself.