"OK, you've raised the cow. You've farmed the fish. You've grown the crops - the cereals, the fruits and the vegetables. Now, what do you do with them?! You have to take your raw food commodities, transport them, store them, process them and turn them into products. That's the second phase of agriculture which is no less important than tending one's crops, caring for orchards or animal husbandry," says Miri Ben-Haim, the warm and animated powerhouse who directs the Division for External Studies at the Hebrew University's Faculty of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Quality Sciences.
Increasing food production is of importance to countries who send their citizens to Israel to learn about Israeli agriculture. So is food technology (the application of food engineering, geared to producing processed food with an extended shelf life). This was the subject at hand at the Hebrew University's third biannual 7-week Food Technology Course.
Organized together with MASHAV and held at the Faculty of Agriculture in Rehovot, the course gathered 28 participants from Eastern Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Almost all the participants in the course, held between December 25 - March 15, have Masters degrees and PhDs in nutrition, microbiology or biochemistry. Many are university lecturers, researchers, government policy-makers and officials in charge of health inspection standards, while others are key personnel in private industry. The participants in the course are in an excellent position to pass on what they have learned and to introduce new standards in the food industry.
Food processing adds value to farm products and enhances supply and distribution. "This is where food technology kicks in," says Ben-Haim. But, why come to Israel? There are two reasons: the unique approach adopted in the course and Israel's heterogeneous population, which has a wide range of tastes.
The Course Approach
"It's not so much techniques as a concept that we are teaching," remarks Ben-Haim.
Most countries offer courses that are more focused, designed to teach a particular food technology for a particular industry (such as milk-processing or wine-making). The Israeli course is geared to understanding the operating principles and methods that must be applied in all industries as part of an integrated approach. "This broader approach to food technology management," explains Ben-Haim, stitches everything together, from basics of food technology through production, packaging, management & marketing set-up to the supermarket shelf and the end consumer. This integrated 'package' of skills will allow participants to seek additional information from relevant experts."
In addition to this integrated approach, the course seeks to broaden the agenda of the participants. "The scope of food technology begins with the quality of raw ingredients in the farmers' fields, through process control right up to the consumer's own pantry. This includes a host of factors that for many are entirely new areas of consideration," clarifies Dr. Eli Cohen, academic coordinator for the course. He explains that environmental factors, packaging, motivation and incentive management are some of these elements. This broadened view of overall quality control replaces the strategy of merely concentrating on quality control of the end product, and recalling or replacing of defective products, which is still common in many developing countries.
Israeli Tastes
Soft white cheeses and processed poultry, meat and fish products, are mainstream items in Israel, but not popular in other Western countries where the emphasis is on hard yellow cheeses and frozen products. Israel can provide course participants with state-of-the-art input on the latest Western trends, such as high-end soya-based gourmet products and upscale bio-enriched milk products. "American and European technologies aren't more developed than ours. Nor is it a matter of product sophistication. We are on the same standard," says Ben-Haim. "It's a different diet."
Additional Details
The Faculty goes out of its way to provide access to a host of resources that may not be available to participants in their home country. They contact Israeli researchers and industries, and encourage use of the Faculty's well-stocked library and computer links, allowing participants to glean literature from around the globe. There is a generous allowance to make copies of material they find to take home - while studying at the course.
In addition, Dr. Eli Cohen has initiated the preparation of a booklet by each lecturer. This contains a detailed outline of course material for participants to reference upon their return home. One week of the course was dedicated to professional field trips to citrus processing plants, a bakery, a winery, a dairy and other relevant sites. When the course was first inaugurated, Israeli firms were reluctant to expose their operation to outsiders, revealed Ben-Haim. "But, they quickly learned the course is very much a networking mechanism that goes both ways. The course can and has served as a stimulus for establishing commercial ties for exporting Israeli goods and technologies." She explained that in some cases the payback has been immediate: direct negotiation with the participant. This was the case with a Nigerian participant in the first course, who negotiated an export deal for Israeli dry packaged soup powder for her own company, a British multinational. In other cases, the reward has been the outcome of graduates sharing awareness of interesting technologies with colleagues or acquaintances in relevant sectors at home. For instance, a Vietnamese participant was instrumental in marketing Israeli-designed collapsible plastic crates to an industry in need of just such a commodity.
Israeli universities that host courses and participate in their maintenance benefit not only from sharing knowledge. The courses provide fertile ground for finding suitable future research partners as well. Soon after their arrival, participants in the Food Technology Course meet with the head of the Faculty's research authority. He strives to pair up participants with Hebrew University faculty members doing work on similar subjects, matches designed to forge ongoing ties for possible future collaboration. In many cases, grant money today is earmarked for global efforts. To build multinational teams one needs connections. "Collaboration emerges out of encounters on the personal level, not names on papers in professional journals," says Ben-Haim emphatically. "This course and others serve as an excellent platform for personal encounters."
The new skills and certification from the Hebrew University have clearly impacted on the personal professional advancement of Food Technology course alumni. The know-how they bring home with them has enhanced both local food processing and Israel's stature among the nations.
Graduates Absorb Much 'Food for Thought'
What have the participants gained from the course? Judging from conversations with four graduates - from Asia, Eastern Europe, South America and the Middle East - not just "techniques" but a lot of "food for thought."
Alexis Edgar Lysionek from Argentina, a lecturer in pharmacology at Buenos Aires University, was motivated to seek a course on food technology by the desire to introduce iron supplements in processed foods as a way of fighting anemia. While this was the subject of his final project, he got a lot more than he bargained for. Beyond specific knowledge and opportunities for interacting with people from other countries, he was also impressed by the Israeli teaching system, which, he said, "is more focused on specific knowledge needed, not an encyclopedic approach to one's discipline." Perhaps the most important thing he is taking home is the importance of the human ingredient in quality control: "The course doesn't just focus on technology per se, but also emphasizes management and leadership styles as important elements in the application of technologies. The whole tie between food technology and marketing quality management and motivational leadership was totally new for me. This new style of management makes workers partners in the process. One should not just think in terms of technical approaches but should also include ways of motivating employees to want to produce better products."
Ziad Ershade, from Amman, Jordan, is a health and safety officer with an industrial chemistry degree who works in a brewery. He was keen to network, exploring markets in Israel and among other participants for his company's alcoholic and non-alcoholic beers. He was particularly impressed with the stress placed on hygiene in Israeli plants. "These were things I knew about, but the course served as a stimulus for examining and applying this in a scientific way in Jordan." This is particularly true in regard to food microbiology - knowing types of microbes that affect specific industries - particularly dealing with microorganisms and health hazards, preventing contamination and monitoring their presence in the brewing industry. He added, "What was learned about microbiology is germane for all industries, not a specific industry. For instance, the importance of how one stores raw materials or personal hygiene among employees. Moreover, one of the most important things I have gained is not specific knowledge about this process or that, but how to take what we have learned and go to the library or the Internet and gather more material. Lastly, another important message I have learned from Israeli industry is its emphasis on providing the best products for the consumer. The best strategy for competing in the market is to base your competition on quality, not only on pricing."
Nirmala Yenagi, from India, a researcher and lecturer in food science at the University of Agriculture in Dharwad, came in order to broaden her knowledge in quality management. The library has been of particular value, she says. "When I go back, we will undoubtedly be changing the syllabus to include more focus on microbiology and quality management. My own final project concentrates on the possibility of turning sorghum into popped cereals, but I think that the most important thing I have observed is how research in Israel is integrated among the farmers, the researchers and industry. We don't have this type of reciprocal relationship in India." As the research side of the triangle, she plans to suggest this strategy to policy-makers in her own academic institution when she returns home.
Svitlana Kokhan, a university lecturer from the National Agricultural University of the Ukraine in Kiev engaged in teaching and research, is also involved in enhancing her university's international relations. Thus, she saw the course as providing many networking opportunities with Israeli academicians in agricultural chemistry and soil sciences. She was particularly struck by the mode of teaching, the dynamic and more democratic give-and-take in the classroom, rather than the lecturer striving to deliver masses of information to the students and then asking if there were any questions. "There is communication between teachers and students." Her final project, taking advantage of the campus' library facilities and access to the Internet, focuses on improving winter wheat quality as related to fertilization. However the most valuable aspect of the course was a different framework: "I was particularly impressed by the comprehensive approach to quality management. In my own country, we have concentrated on the quality of raw materials - in cultivation and post-harvest treatment, but we have not addressed quality management as an integrated approach that extends all the way to the consumer," she says. An across-the-board approach was a genuine surprise, providing much food for thought.
A Courageous Gesture
Description of events during the third Food Technology Course would not be complete without mentioning the following "unplanned event." During the first week of the course, in the parking lot adjacent to the External Studies complex a Faculty employee had just gotten out of her car with her infant son when the vehicle burst into flames. The Egyptian, two Jordanians and Argentinian participants who were standing outside, ignoring the danger to themselves, immediately ran to bring buckets of water and other fire-fighting equipment. They managed to put out the flames even before university security personnel arrived on the scene. This courageous gesture on the part of some of the participants left a lasting impression on the Israeli organizers.