THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FLORICULTURE INDUSTRY IN ISRAEL – CLOSE INTERACTION BETWEEN RESEARCH, EXTENSION, PRODUCTION AND MARKETING

Israel is a small country, with a relatively small domestic market consisting of less than 5 million people.
In developing the floriculture industry, we therefore concentrated on export to the big European market.
We have, in fact, succeeded in developing and establishing a flourishing export industry that, in the last two decades, has been the second largest in Europe (after Holland), third in the world (after Holland and Colombia).

The most important climatic factor in Israel is the relatively high solar radiation in the winter that, unlike heat, is difficult to replace by artificial means.
However, similar climatic conditions exist in other Mediterranean countries.
Our success in utilizing this climatic advantage is due, in my opinion, mainly to the development of high level research, creating unique knowledge, and to the dissemination of this knowledge through academic education and an excellent extension service system.
Other important factors are the active growers association and the efficient central marketing organization (Agrexco), but these are beyond the scope of the present lecture.

International Workshop on Floriculture & Nursery Industries and Environment

A. H. Halevy

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1994.353.4