Israel and Morocco are among the leading global giants in agriculture. The economic tie between both countries is burgeoning. The Moroccan business sector has been holding a series of meetings with Israeli companies to reinforce the economic partnerships between them. As Nigeria shares historical relationships with the two countries, DANIEL ESSIET looks at the prospect of collaboration helping the growth of Nigeria’s agriculture sector.
Nigeria, like other developing countries, faces an increasing demand for food. The population is expected to hit 250 million by 2050. At its current food consumption pattern, the government and the private sector would need to increase food production and supply in order to address the challenges of availability and nutrition quality.
In a bid to strengthen its food security policy, the Federal Government has begun to implement a state-of-emergency programme. This, it is believed, will help accelerate the transformation of the food industry.
Several initiatives beyond palliatives are being undertaken to inspire a more innovative approach to strengthening food security through agronomic management of crop quality, yields, and disease resilience. This would require much science and technology development to close the knowledge gap for elevating yield, quality, and sustainability.
For analysts, many lessons can be learnt if the government draws from the expertise provided by Israel and Morocco, two leading countries with active agricultural industries, delivering on food security and nutrition without compromising economic, social and environmental bases.
Both countries have well-equipped agricultural tech hubs that offer resources for research and development work as well as improved food production efficiency and supply of farming talent.
Israel is home to a myriad of farms, producing food in a climate-resilient, energy-efficient way.
According to reports, so many achievements have been recorded in boosting their nutritional value, even as there are immense research projects carried out to tackle some of the complex challenges associated with multiplication agriculture.
Israel is in the lead in creating scientific solutions that will simultaneously benefit the environment and the population, while Morocco, a leader in African seafood production and the largest exporter of sardines in the world, is developing a world-class marine agriculture sector.
Since normalising their diplomatic ties in 2020, Israel and Morocco have repeatedly expressed their determination to boost bilateral cooperation in a wide range of sectors.
The partnership revolves around numerous fields of cooperation that impact the future of food security, climate-smart agriculture, water, climate change, remote sensing, renewable energies, entrepreneurship, venture capital and hospitality sectors. Specifically, the partnership enables scientific and technical experts from Morocco and Israel to consult and collaborate on sustainability initiatives.
Last year, the Moroccan National Institute of Agronomy and Israel’s Volcanic Centre of Agricultural Research agreed to enhance cooperation, and exchange experiences and know-how in farming and agricultural research.
The agreement was sealed on the sidelines of the 1st International Conference on Food Production Technologies from the Sea and the Desert which was held from October 18 to 20 2022 in Eilat Israel.
The Director of the Moroccan Agronomy Institute, Faouzi Bekkaoui, who signed the cooperation deal with Volcani Centre, said the two sides have started working on building a partnership.
“We have also proposed several projects under the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)-sponsored Middle-East Regional Cooperation Programme (MERC) supporting projects among Arab countries and Israel,” he said, citing, in this regard, water scarcity management in agriculture and genetic improvement of tomatoes.
Why the partnership matters for Nigeria’s agriculture
Like Nigeria, Morocco faces food security challenges; particularly in the area of protein-rich foods. However, it has set itself an ambitious goal of significantly increasing the volume of production of edible fish farming. Marrakesh-based Mohammed VI Polytechnic University (UM6P) Ventures is looking to expand investments in Israeli technologies to help scale up biotech solutions in Africa via investment in the early-stage startups in such areas as biotechnology and alternative protein-related to agriculture and the alternative food market sector.
The four Israeli food tech startups led by Halman-Aldubi Technologies, are taking part in the project together with UM6P to develop sustainable food solutions without the need for water, land or energy.
As part of the project, the university, in cooperation with Israeli startups, will produce high-protein fish food from municipal organic waste, insects and algae. Israeli startup, FreezeM has developed technology for extracting protein from insects and focuses on the creation of a stockpile of ready-to-use suspended black soldier fly neonates providing a solution for agricultural seed production.
Seakura has developed a patented technology for growing algae and seaweed outside the sea containing high amounts of protein, minerals, nutritional fibre, antioxidants, chlorophyll and vitamins.
Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Africa Union (AU) have been convening meetings with Morocco and Israel to orchestrate activities that will result in access to sufficient nutritious food to meet dietary needs, and for the people on the Continent to live healthy and active lives.
In 2020, FAO and the Government of Israel signed an agreement to support the Food Coalition, which was aimed at mobilising financial resources, innovation and technical expertise, promoting advocacy initiatives and establishing a neutral space for dialogue among diverse and key stakeholders in support of countries most in need. Since the historic formation of the Food Coalition, Israel has been actively participating and committed to voluntary financial contributions.
Indeed, numerous challenges restrain Nigeria and the rest of Africa from fully achieving food security.
Going by the progress achieved by both countries, the Chief Executive of Agricultural and Rural Management Training Institute (ARMTI), Dr Olufemi Oladunni noted that strengthening diplomatic relations between Jerusalem and Rabat will help Nigeria to respond to meet demographic, economic and environmental challenges of the agricultural sector.
“Israel is a desert place where everywhere is green. Their experience in transforming the desert into green land is legendary. When you get there, everywhere is green. You wouldn’t know it was a desert.
But here where we have rainforest, you wouldn’t find enough arable green land to grow crops. The experience Israel has gotten over centuries about how they can provide food for themselves throughout the year despite being in the desert is worth knowing about so that we can transfer this knowledge to help us tackle desert encroachments. “Every year, we lose our lands to desert encroachment. That is why we need Israel for irrigation experience. We need their partnership, experiences and capacities in addressing these environmental threats to agriculture,” he said, stressing the belief that “Nigeria can explore Israeli agricultural technologies to address droughts and other extreme weather conditions.”
As the United Nations and other agencies project Nigeria’s population to reach 250 million by 2050, Oladunni contended that agricultural output must surge.
Globally, Israel has been praised for achieving a significant production increase with a minimal increase in agricultural area. According to him, Nigeria has a lot to learn from the Israeli expertise in the agriculture sector as Israeli farmers have had to contend with a difficult environment and limited water resources. He added that their experience is especially relevant to Nigeria in terms of deploying innovations in irrigation.
A number of Israeli startups are using drones to assess how trees are performing, which helps farmers get more out of their land. Across Africa, farmers are utilising this technology to grow a wide variety of foods more efficiently, including macadamia nuts, almonds, oranges, lemons and apple trees.
Oladunni supports the spread of technologies that allow the food system to overcome traditional limitations such as climate, land and water. This, he believes, Israel and Morocco can offer Nigeria by introducing useful technologies in urban farming that help grow vegetables in climate-controlled indoor spaces that provide optimal conditions for plant growth quality, light, temperature and humidity.
Fertiliser supply sufficiency
According to the World Bank report in 2022, fertiliser consumption in Israel was 240 kilograms (KG) per hectare; fertiliser consumption (kilograms per hectare of arable land) in Nigeria was reported at 18.61 KG in 2021.
Though Nigeria and Israel have shared an extensive economic, defence and strategic relationship based on mutual trust and cooperation, analysts believe the agriculture sector has huge potential and provides ample opportunities for collaboration and innovation. Israel Chemicals Limited has been promoting improved technologies, logistics and applications in the fertiliser industry across Africa.
For him, Nigeria has a lot to learn from Israeli expertise in the agriculture sector. Oladunni also wants Nigeria and Morocco to work together in the field of research in the area of fertiliser production so that it benefits the farming community.
Morocco has increased the agricultural production and income of farmers with judicious use of fertilisers. In Africa, Morocco’s phosphorus fertiliser industry has been reckoned with for its huge production capacity.
In Nigeria and the rest of Africa, there are numerous joint venture partnerships to boost local fertiliser production.
He hailed Morocco’s efforts to develop improved technologies, logistics and application in the area of fertiliser, adding that it is one of the promising areas for fruitful cooperation between Nigeria and Morocco.
The North African country has developed technology that is adopted in various countries. The use of drip irrigation has risen greatly in Morocco.
ARMTI boss said: “When you talk about irrigation, you talk about food and soil nutrients. Morocco has been exporting food to Europe as well as sending out fertiliser products.
“Morocco is within the Mediterranean region. The country is close to Spain and other European countries. It has been exporting food to Europe. It has acquired capacity in fertiliser production. We need their experience to develop fertiliser production capacities.
Dangote Fertiliser plant is coming on stream to produce fertiliser locally. We need their experience so that we don’t produce low-quality fertiliser. We need capacities for speciality fertiliser, to meet the requirement of the different soils that we have here. We can’t apply fertiliser anyhow. We need a lot of soil tests. That is why we need their experience.”
Elsewhere, Morocco is helping to advance agriculture by supplying training and enrichment in crops.
Morocco’s fertiliser giant OCP Group has launched OCP School Lab; a body that seeks to allow 30,000 farmers in Rwanda to be trained on “good agricultural practices” over a period of one year.
The lab campaign, targeting dozens of villages across 14 districts aims to provide fertiliser recommendations on the use and benefits of fertiliser to farmers.
On Morocco’s agriculture, Chief Executive of Agricorp Holdings Limited United Kingdom (UK) Kenneth Obiajulu noted that advanced research and technology have also allowed the country to grow quality produce.
His words: “Morocco is more advanced in how to develop their agricultural space. For instance, OCP, their flagship nationalised company has done so much to modernise agriculture. OCP has the same status as that of Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPCL); but it is focused on phosphate production.
“Over time, we have seen how this company has grown to be able to support the whole of Morocco in terms of different technologies.”
He indicated that Nigeria has a lot to learn from Morocco in terms of the fruit and vegetable farming segment in structuring production, enhancing linkages among stakeholders in the value chain and investing in modern processing plants.
Last year, the Federal Government, through the National Land Development Authority (NALDA) sent 200 young farmers to Israel and Morocco for six-day training on greenhouse farming and modern livestock techniques. This is in line with recent efforts by the government to ensure that youths get involved in agriculture. The training was part of the National Young Farmers Scheme (NYFS).
For analysts, Israeli and Morocco agriculture has moved to the forefront of the global export scene. Compared to the two countries, Nigeria faces many challenges in the years ahead, including struggling with inadequate infrastructure projects.
This has impacted agribusiness investment opportunities. Both countries have highlighted the importance of research excellence and the need for sound evidence in support of policy.
Indeed, the Israeli agritech sector has produced innovations that are addressing global agricultural issues. Israeli agritech firms have developed technologies that are used by farmers to improve crop yields and better monitor produce, according to Start-Up Nation Central, a non-profit organisation that connects companies and organisations to Israeli technology firms.
According to the organisation’s report, the strength of Israel’s agrifood tech sector results from a variety of reasons, including government support and the lessons learned from the local shortage of natural resources, which fostered innovative methods and technologies for “growing more with less” long before it became one of the world’s pressing challenges.
Over the past few years, the report noted, there has been a global move towards data-enabled technology and the Internet of things, technologies where Israel is acknowledged as a global leader.
The range of Israel’s agrifood tech innovation capabilities, the report indicated is broad and varied, including soil and plant sensors, cutting-edge swarming drones, autonomous robots, plant genetics platforms, cultured meat, alternative proteins, smart irrigation, and big data analytics software.
Start-Up Nation Central is the prime connector and facilitator of Israeli innovations that boost business growth and generate impact. It has collaborated with Microsoft to promote Israeli Agrifood Tech startups in the international marketplace.
The collaboration focuses on connecting AI, data, cloud and machine learning technologies from agricultural information to Microsoft’s AI tools.
Together, Start-Up Nation Central and Microsoft have worked to identify global Agrifood Tech challenges, with an emphasis on connecting AI technologies that can help develop durable models for optimal and sustainable agriculture across the entire value chain.
Start-Up Nation Central Chief Executive, Avi Hasson said: “The Israeli Agrifood Tech industry is well advanced in data, software and connectivity, and offers incredible potential for Microsoft in the growing field of data-driven agriculture.”
Continuing, Hasson said: “Israel boasts over 250 leading cloud agriculture startups that offer fertile ground for innovation in this rapidly developing sector.
Team Lead for Eupepsia Place Limited (Soilless Farm), Ogun State, Samson Ogbole is a purveyor of a food system that vegetables can be grown all year round, with less water. He is a mentor for i-FAIR, an initiative of the Embassy of the State of Israel in Nigeria.
The initiative undertaken in collaboration with the Office of the Vice-President focuses on solutions that increase productivity as well as address challenges around food processing and supply chain.
Ogbole a fan of how Israel manages its food-water-energy nexus is on the campaign to empower young Nigerians to get the best prices in the competitive fresh produce market.
Israel on the other hand, has developed varieties of plants that will give the best yields in the off-season, ensuring that their farmers get the best prices and value for investment.
