Strawberries Bloom Once Again Near the Gaza Border

The AHA! Team — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 05:32:14 +0000

Zachy Hennessey via Israel21c – Owner of Uri Tutim farm says it will take the region’s agriculture a long time to recover, but its very existence is nothing short of a miracle. “Let me take you down ’cause I’m going to strawberry fields.” This line from the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” was ringing in my ears as I made my way to Uri Tutim (Uri’s Strawberries) farm in Moshav Yesha near the Gaza border. The strawberry fields the Beatles sang about were actually a reference to Salvation Army Homes. Meanwhile, I was heading to a farm located in the Western Negev that was among many others that were ravaged by the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023. “Even before October 7, there were rocket hits in our greenhouses; an American woman was killed inside the moshav by a rocket once,” the farm’s owner, Uri Patkin, tells ISRAEL21c. From high-tech to farming Patkin, 55, grew up in Yesha, helping his father run the family farm. Eventually he moved to the center of the country, where he worked in high-tech for nearly a decade. “At the age of 35, I left my job and I told my parents I was coming back to the Negev to become a farmer. My dad told me I was crazy,” he says with a laugh. “But by that time I was already married and had children. I thought it would be better to raise a family in a moshav than in the city, closer to the land and nature.” At first, he worked at his father’s prominent flower farm. Shortly afterwards, however, he decided to start cultivating strawberries and business took off. For years, Uri’s Strawberries exported most of its produce to the biggest supermarket chains in Europe. When it became more financially lucrative for Europeans to import produce from countries like Egypt and Morocco, Patkin didn’t scale back; he just redirected the goods to the local market. Special technique One of the main reasons for Patkin’s success was the introduction of a special growing technique that not many Israeli farms were using at the time: planting in containers or baskets suspended from the top of the greenhouse. “The results of the method are high-quality berries with a shelf life that’s longer than what is customary for strawberries,” notes Patkin. Avoiding direct contact with the soil leads to less fungi and mold, requires fewer pesticides and makes picking easier for farm workers. “We also pluck out the bottom leaves, so that way the strawberry is always ventilated by dry air, free of invaders.” Although this method requires infrastructure and larger investments per unit area, he says, it also yields much more produce per unit. ‘The worst day of my life’ Patkin says that even before the October 7 attacks, there were constant “rounds of violence” launched by Gaza terrorist groups toward Israel. “It used to discourage people from coming to work or live here because every few weeks, sometimes every few days, missiles can start falling from the sky,” notes Patkin. But nothing could have prepared Patkin or other residents of the area for that Black Saturday. “It was the worst day of my life; people were being killed all around me,” he recalls. Five of the six were killed in the fighting Yesha was among the very few communities in the area that managed to fight off the invading terrorists thanks to six members of moshav’s emergency squad. However, five of the six were killed in the fighting: Lior Ben Yaakov, Gil Avital, Itai Nachmias, Tal Maban and Dan Assulin. And as they retreated from the moshav, the surviving terrorists kidnapped or killed foreign workers from Thailand. “The foreign workers are not part of this conflict between Palestinians and Israel, and they found themselves on the battlefield. I feel a lot of personal responsibility over that,” Patkin tells ISRAEL21c. Patkin himself was out helping the few IDF soldiers who finally reach the moshav in the afternoon hours. “I had to accompany the army, while taking care of the dead and the wounded, something I don’t recommend anyone go through in their life,” he says. A long time for full rehabilitation By October 8, nearly all Yesha residents were evacuated, except for the replacement emergency squad. A day later, all foreign workers followed. Patkin was among the few residents who never left the moshav, even when his entire family was evacuated. “We were ready to give up on agriculture. We thought, ‘At least we’re alive and healthy.’ But three days later, waves upon waves of volunteers from all over the country showed up, telling us they’re here to save agriculture,” Patkin recalls. He says that for the first three to four months after the attack, agriculture at the moshav was kept going by volunteers, who ultimately saved it. “Our type of agriculture is intense; it’s not like wheat that you plant and it just grows. Every day you have to do agrotechnical work and supervision.” Eventually, Israel began recruiting new agricultural workers from around the world to help rehabilitate the region. “This is what got the farms back on their feet, but still not to the scale they were before October 7,” he says. “I personally revived only about 50% of my farm; it will take a long time for it to fully rehabilitate.” By now, 90 percent of Yesha residents have come back to the moshav. Uri Tutim welcomes tourists to visit and pick strawberries by hand for a small admission fee. These visits help support not only the farm, but the entire region that is still hurting from what it endured. For more information, click here. To read the original article click here.

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SHOCKING Truth You Should Know About Your Drinking Water

AHA Publisher — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 07:00:43 +0000

Wendy Miller via NaturalHealth365 – Too many people believe that since our drinking water is readily available and clear, it contains few to no contaminants. The fact is, almost 41% of our water supply that comes from wells contains some type of pesticide or other contaminants. Close to one-third contains some type of pesticide degradates. Degradates are produced as pesticides transform into various other compounds. Both pesticides and degradates can have a disastrous effect on a person’s health. There are solutions, however. How Pesticides Make Their Way Into Your Drinking Water Pesticides are applied to agricultural fields to reduce the risk of potential loss due to various types of pests. The problem is that the pesticides are washed off of the plants and into the ground. Rain and melting snow then carry them along the ground’s surface to lakes, streams, rivers, and ponds. Precipitation also carries the pesticides deep into the soil where it reaches our groundwater supply. Once it enters the aquifers and wells, it is then drawn up through pumps into our city water supplies. It is also drawn into the wells that supply rural homes. Pesticides Are More Prevalent Than You Think Even though many think that pesticides are only a problem in rural areas, pesticides are also sometimes found in the aquifers that support larger communities. Both pesticides and degradates can make their way into almost any water supply simply by following the path that water takes. Spraying is not the only way pesticides are applied. Aerial applications can spread pesticides much farther than their designated target area. This means the pesticides can be carried by the wind just as much as the water carries them. As a result, the migration patterns of pesticides are widespread no matter how it is transferred. Let’s Take a Closer Look at Pesticides in Groundwater There are four common herbicides found in groundwater samples. They include prometon, atrazine, tebuthiuron, and hexazinone. In addition to these pesticides, many mixtures of the four show up in various concentrations in aquifers and other surface bodies of water. Even though maximum contaminant levels have been established when it comes to pesticides, there are no real water quality benchmarks to go by. The Environmental Protection Agency has yet to develop definitive limits on when MCL’s actually become harmful to humans. What Can Be Done to Minimize Pesticides in Drinking Water? The introduction of organic practices in land management is a good start when it comes to cleaning up our water supply. Organic and regenerative agricultural practices will help reduce the number of pesticides being used and limit the number of chemicals that end up in our water supplies. As water moves through the soil on its way to the aquifer, a small portion of the chemicals and pesticides are filtered out. With fewer pesticides being used, less will eventually be found in our drinking water. The next time you draw a glass of water from the tap, think about how you can improve the water quality in your area. Find out what organic and regenerative agricultural practices are being used in your area. Learning as much as you can about what impacts our drinking water can be an eye-opening experience. And, of course, make sure – if needed – that you’re using a good water purification system or drinking a clean source of natural spring water. Sources for this article include: NaturalHealth365 EPA ACS.org To read the original article click here. For more articles from NaturalHealth365 click here.

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Strawberries Bloom Once Again Near the Gaza Border

SHOCKING Truth You Should Know About Your Drinking Water