Yitzhak Abt

So moved was Abt by the book and Lowdermilk's enthusiasm that he majored at university in agronomy and livestock, "not a profession that Jewish boys pursued in South Africa but I chose it with the sole intention of preparing myself to come to Israel, to throw in my lot with the new State established just seven years before I received my degree in 1955."

Lowdermilk, relates Abt, had come to Israel in the 1930s on a world tour and "had become enamoured by the serious efforts made by the agricultural pioneers to win back and make productive the badly degraded lands that had been eroded and neglected for almost 2,000 years. This reinforced Lowdermilk's belief in the need and importance of preserving and conserving the land and its resources, a position," states Abt, "which became the guideline for all of the activities in which I've been involved. Lowdermilk," he adds "was the first person to alert the world to the dangers of not preserving the land, citing the tragedy of the Dust Bowl in the United States as an example of what happens when there is total disregard for soil conservation. In that case, there was a break in the soil structure, all due to indiscriminate use of heavy machinery. The result: The soil eroded and millions of acres lost their productive capacity."

Lowdermilk had such a major influence on Abt that when Abt came to Israel the first thing he did was to look up his mentor. "We had a long talk about the future of Israel and of agriculture in the world." That talk was the beginning of a long and fruitful relationship. Lowdermilk, himself, was so respected and admired in Israel that the Haifa Technion named its Faculty of Agricultural Engineering in his honour.

Lowdermilk's legacy did not die with him. "Today at CINADCO," stresses Abt, "we insist that every project proposal include a strong component of agro- ecological sustainability: We teach every course from an ecological point of view, as well as from an economic one."

In 1956, however, when Abt came to Israel, CINADCO had not been established and he was yet to become an important player in Israel's international programs of agricultural development. "My first job," he recalls, "was as an agricultural instructor assigned to a small moshav in the southern part of the country (a moshav is a collective village where farmers have their own private holdings but share services and resources). My employer was the Settlement Department of the Jewish Agency, then headed by Raanan Weitz" (see Shalom 1998-1). After six months Weitz offered Abt a position as a regional rural planner within the framework of the recently created Lakhish Region Development Program. This project was built around a revolutionary concept that linked 32 moshavim and 15 kibbutzim with 5 rural service centres, each centre serving a cluster of villages and with a new town, Kiryat Gat.

"Quite frankly," says Abt, "working on the Lakhish project was the most dramatic and challenging period of my life. This was a population group with many difficulties, new immigrants to the new State of Israel, remnants from the concentration camps of World War II or persecuted Jews from elsewhere who came from no less than 44 different countries. Some came as clans, from an archaic patriarchal society that was totally alien to us. We didn't understand the clan culture: The difficulties facing us were not just the professional, economic and physical ones related to planning, but also included unique social and cultural problems. This was a two-way exposure to people with different cultural norms and behavioural patterns.

"Even more invigorating and exciting was the fact that the top administrators in the Settlement Department were - in one word - giants of developers. For them, this was not a job but a mission. They were such dedicated and committed individuals that, very simply, it was a privilege to be working with them."

Abt's international career began in 1962 when, in addition to his regular job on the Lakhish project, he was also deeply involved in the literally thousands of visitors "who were pouring into the region to see what we were doing. Some came in groups, others individually. I was constantly busy explaining to each and everyone our overlying policy. Remember, this was the first attempt to develop a comprehensive subregion. One of our visitors was Senator William Fulbright, then head of the Foreign Relations Committee of the US Senate. Although he had planned to stay for only 15 minutes, we ended up talking for over two hours."

Fulbright invited Abt to come to the US for a two-month visit as guest of the American government. There he visited the Tennessee Valley Authority (which, among other things, includes a massive hydro-electric power plant), the development program in the Columbia River Basin in the northwestern part of the United States and the Planning Authority in Puerto Rico which had also been designed in a comprehensive manner. Abt also studied county planning in California. "Although Israel does not have counties as such," he explains, "they are similar to our regional councils."

Following this US visit, Abt went on to Venezuela where he observed a program in the Turen region to resettle European migrants and met with Venezuela's Minister of Planning who was also an economic advisor to Abdel Nasser, then President of Egypt. "Although Venezuela was a major player with OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries - a cartel of Arabian oil-producing countries), the Minister and I hit it off very well," notes Abt, "and he asked MASHAV (Centre for International Cooperation of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs) to send me back on a two-month mission to help Venezuela plan its first comprehensive program for agrarian reform."

The mission was approved and Abt returned to Venezuela where he helped a group of Venezuelan experts plan a resettlement program for 2,000 families, all landless workers, in a region of 30,000 hectares. After the plan was completed, the Venezuelan government asked that a team of Israeli experts be sent to Venezuela for two years. Abt, appointed Agricultural Counselor at the Israeli Embassy in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, headed the team. His mandate: to expand Israel's agricultural development cooperation programs throughout all of South America, as well as to encourage South Americans to participate in training courses in Israel. Abt's mission was successful. When he had come to Venezuela, there were only two Israeli experts on the entire continent - one in Brazil, the other in Peru. When he left in 1967, there were 55 experts working in South America, 35 of them on long-term missions.

Before returning to Israel, the US government and the OAS (Organization of American States) asked Abt to come to Washington to design a program of technical cooperation, based on a family farm orientation, for Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Northeast Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Colombia, Haiti, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama and Costa Rica. These programs were eventually approved by the State Department, implemented under the OAS and cofinanced by OAS, Israel and in some cases by the Inter-American Development Bank.

"This was the time," explains Abt, "when the Cuban influence in Latin America was very strong and the Cubans were plugging for total collectivism. We were proposing something else, a middle-of-the-road approach concentrating on strong government intervention, but intervention only to help the peasantry get on its own feet by moving it away from subsistence farming and into market-oriented agriculture. To achieve this, we were suggesting ways to organize peasant households into conglomerates of small private family farms, modelled after our moshavim or collective villages. It is no secret," adds Abt, "that this philosophy of developing family farms instead of collectives was extremely important to Venezuela which was then a struggling democracy and, of course, of interest to the United States which also preferred our approach to rural development to that of Communist Cuba."

Abt returned to Israel the summer of 1967. A few months later the Israeli Ministries of Agriculture and Foreign Affairs decided to establish a Centre for International Agricultural Cooperation in order to provide professional backing for the expert missions and projects set up in other countries by Israel. Abt was appointed Deputy-Director of the Centre, becoming its Director in 1973, and thereafter Director of CINADCO (Centre for International Agricultural Development Cooperation) in 1983 when the Centre was combined with the Foreign Training Department of the Ministry of Agriculture's Extension Service, which oversaw the courses in agriculture given in Israel, a post he held until his retirement in 1997.

As Abt looks back on his years with CINADCO, he recalls some of the highlights of his career with the agency. "In 1967, we were already in the throes of development programs all over the world, but first and most notably then in Africa. We'd already been involved in training unemployed youth in Pioneer Corps in West Africa. Our initial thrust: to help these young people obtain higher yields for their basic food crops of maize, sorghum and root plants. We were also helping these unemployed youth acquire their own homesteads and learn the rudiments of operating farm machinery. In addition, we offered courses in techniques of irrigation, management of fruit plantations and development of community gardens (the latter geared mainly for women).

"A year later, in 1968, we made a major inroad in rural development in Zambia when we designed a comprehensive rural development program, based on poultry, vegetable and maize production, for 700 family farms in the upper belt of Zambia."

The end of the sixties and the early seventies saw CINADCO's forerunner and MASHAV moving into Asia. As an example of one of their successful projects, Abt refers to the establishment of a village community, Hupkapaong, in the southwest region of Thailand comprised of 300 families, all practicing intensive agriculture. Other programs included irrigated settlement projects on the plains of Vientiane in Laos, as well as research and development programs with the University of Khaonkaen in northeast Thailand, plus two rural development projects in the Terai region of Nepal, again settling people on their own family farms where their crops included legumes, vegetables and mustard. Similar programs were established in the Philippines within its program of agrarian reform.

Even after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, when many African countries broke off formal diplomatic relations with Israel, their governments continued to request training and settlement programs. In Kenya, for example, Israel was asked to help train that country's rural youth within the framework of Kenya's National Youth Service; in Swaziland, Malawi and Somalia, Israeli experts were active in helping farmers improve their poultry and vegetable production and in introducing them to modern techniques of irrigation and aquaculture.

Mild mannered and softspoken, Abt, however, cannot contain his enthusiasm when he notes the other initiatives in which he has been privileged to play a dominant role. In 1990, for example, following the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, he was asked to design a program of cooperation for former Soviet Union bloc countries of Central Asia. "This was an honour," he notes, "made possible by a special allocation from USAID (United States Agency for International Development), one which involved linking people from Kazakhstan, Kirghzia, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan to courses held in Israel and with on-site development projects and professional consultancies."

Abt has also been involved with some MASHAV-sponsored initiatives in Eastern Europe. "We're now," he points out, "at the onset of developing agricultural development programs via courses in Israel and in the countries themselves, including dairy production for Poland, protected irrigation (greenhouses) for Hungary and projects related to the privatization of State farms in Russia proper and in the Ukraine."

Shortly before his retirement, Abt initiated a program with the government of India to establish a demonstration farm in New Delhi on the lands of the Indian Agricultural Research Institute. "Since the strengthening of diplomatic relations with India in 1994, many training courses - here and abroad," he reports, "have been given in India and, more recently, in China."

A large demonstration farm near Beijing that produces high value crops, including flowers, for the Beijing market, may be what Abt calls the "cherry on the cake." When the late Yitzhak Rabin, then Prime Minister of Israel, visited China in 1994, he came to an agreement with top Chinese government officials regarding this farm. "I, myself," notes Abt, "was deeply involved in its original formulation. Today, the project has become a virtual-mecca or centre for new technology. Thousands of people are coming from the different provinces of China to observe the innovative technologies practiced there."

There is no denying that Israel today is one of the leaders in international agricultural development cooperation and that Yitzhak Abt's contribution is one which shows that he has been a man "on-the-spot" at this important time. The statistics for 1996 speak for themselves: 1,200 CINADCO trainees attended courses in Israel; 69 on-the-spot courses were given on all the continents; 35 research programs are now underway, as well as 30 major projects, including newer ones in India and China. "But it's not the statistics that are important," stresses Abt, "but the quality of the work which can be measured by how much our policies are later adopted by top government administrators. In other words, I gauge our success by how well our achievements are later mirrored in the national policies of the participating countries."

Abt, who estimates that half of his time was spent on developing programs, 15% on joint research activities and 35% supporting and promoting training programs, frequently travelled abroad to personally supervise and direct activities in the field.

Constantly exploring new avenues for expanding Israel's international training endeavours, Abt is proud of the role he and MASHAV have played in developing trilateral agreements for agricultural development cooperation - with the Netherlands in 1976, Germany in 1985, USAID in 1986, Denmark in 1993 and with various UN agencies. "These agreements have an importance that transcends their financial components," states Abt. "More than just money is involved. When we discuss the programs, we try - and in most cases succeed - in reaching agreement on compatible development strategies."

As the axiom goes, if you want something done you ask a busy person to do it. Thus, it should come as no surprise that, in addition to his heavy schedule as Director of CINADCO, Abt also served in a volunteer capacity from 1982 until this year as chairman of AGRIDEV (Agricultural Development Company), an Israeli government company. Established to develop programs on a commercial basis in both developed and developing countries, AGRIDEV has been involved in cotton production in California, rainmaking in Italy, agricultural diversification in the Caribbean region, in dryland cotton production in Swaziland and, most recently, in a cotton production program in Acola, India. Adds Abt: "In some of the more comprehensive programs involving the transfer of major agricultural inputs and technology from Israel, AGRIDEV serves as the executor agency for MASHAV."

No matter the area of involvement or the country concerned, Abt knows that agricultural development is not a static process; planners must be ready to change direction and goals at all times. "In the 1960s, for example," he notes, "our agricultural development programs were more supply-oriented, geared to improving and increasing production of the crops with which the farmers were already familiar. Today we are more demand-oriented with the market calling the tune. Before promoting a product line, we look first at what the market can absorb, and this frequently involves introducing new crops." Abt refers to the Lakhish project "which taught us a great deal. Initially, every farmer there was given 40 dunams (4 hectares or 10 acres) for producing summer field crops such as sugar beets, cotton, potatoes and groundnuts. When we discovered that the farmers couldn't make a profitable living from such a small holding, we introduced highly sophisticated crops such as flowers, notably gladioli and carnations, and winter vegetable crops - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, radishes, etc. - growing them intensively in greenhouses. We changed the entire product pattern in order to export to European markets during the winter months when there is limited access to other suppliers."

Another change occurred in the vineyards. "Originally we had planned to raise grapes for raisins. We didn't foresee that by applying new technology these same grapes could be grown for use as table grapes. Today, the Village of Lakhish (not to be confused with the name given the entire region) is the largest exporter of table grapes in the country, annually sending out eight to ten thousand tons."

Equally impressive has been the change in dairy production in the Lakhish region. "Initially each farmer was allocated three cows," notes Abt, "with his herd ultimately expected to reach ten milkers. But changes in fodder production and new conservation techniques have enabled the farmers to work on a much larger scale than what we had anticipated. Today, we're seeing dairy herds of between 30 to 50 milk cows.

"The lesson we learned at Lakhish is clear," stresses Abt. "All plans cannot and should not necessarily be implemented exactly as designed. We must take into consideration the human factor, the creativity of the farmer who, given proper knowledge, adequate support and access to profitable markets, can often give you results far above those previously expected."

As Abt leaves CINADCO, he has valuable messages for those who will come after him. "First we must - as I'm sure we will - pay more attention to peri-urban agriculture, to introducing more sophisticated methods of agricultural technology in order to produce more on less land. Second, Israel's agricultural cooperative development must continue to develop sustainable agriculture in desert regions." Abt foresees more involvement in more programs in Egypt, Morocco, Jordan and other countries in the Middle East. "In the 1960s," he says, "when I was asked why Israel is so involved in helping nations so far away, I often answered, 'Who knows, maybe this experience will be relevant to this area someday, to the Middle East.' Quite prophetic actually," he adds, "for there are indications that this opinion, expressed 30 years ago, is at last coming true. And there is every possibility that in the near future we will be working with Jordan to promote the intensification of irrigated agriculture and the production of high value crops to develop the Jordan Valley. [Note: Jordan Rift Valley Development is indeed Article 20 of the Peace Treaty between the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the State of Israel.]

"If I had some success in this major challenge of international agricultural development cooperation," emphasizes Abt, "it is undoubtedly based on the team work of the very able and dedicated staff I had the honour of leading and motivating. We also had the good fortune of enjoying interministerial understanding between MASHAV of Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and our Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, which throughout the four decades of my activities was very supportive." Today Abt is special advisor to MASHAV on agricultural matters.

Visionary as Abt is, he is also a realist who is aware, for example, that there is an "Achilles heel" or weakness in agricultural development in Israel, in the Middle East in general and in other countries, too, such as China and India. This he defines as "our current inability to make more efficient and effective use of water. We must develop our water resources more properly - and this includes using recycled water."

Abt is convinced that one cannot underestimate the importance of water which he feels is the key to true peace in the Middle East. In this respect Abt highlights the great strides that have been taken in cooperation programs with Egypt in varied training programs, demonstration farms for water use efficiency and joint research. Recalling the words of his mentor, the late Dr. Lowdermilk, he quotes from what Lowdermilk called his 11th Commandment. The entire commandment, written and read aloud by Lowdermilk in a radio broadcast from Jerusalem in June 1939, was dedicated to the Jewish pioneers who so inspired him. We reprint it in its entirety. May it serve us all well!

"Thou shalt inherit the holy earth as a faithful steward, conserving its resources and productivity from generation to generation. Thou shalt safeguard thy fields from soil erosion, thy living waters from drying up, thy forests from desolation and protect thy hills from overgrazing by the herds, that thy descendants may have abundance forever. If any shall fail in this stewardship of the land, thy fruitful fields shall become sterile stony ground or wasting gullies, and thy descendants shall decrease and live in poverty or perish from off the face of the earth."