Some Practical Suggestions Regarding Our Future Colonization in Palestine
IN this paper, the writer does not intend to relate any new facts, but he believes that even many of the well-known facts can help in illuminating some of our agricultural plans for the future in Palestine.
AGRICULTURE A BUSINESS
Anybody actually engaged in agriculture knows that agriculture nowadays does not consist of raising food, but of raisıne money.
The self-sufficing farmer is dead and will never come to life again in any progressive country.
When we speak of a crop, we first discuss its purchasing power. We ask: What can we buy for this crop? And, if after due consideration we find that one crop has a higher purchasing value than another, we then plant only that crop that will bring us the greatest returns.
Great returns from a crop, on the other hand, can be obtained in any of the following ways:
(a) Low Cost of Labor
The cost of labor in raising, handling, transporting, etc., in one locality may be much less than in another locality.
(b) Ideal Soil
The soil in a locality may be exceedingly productive, re- sultine in a greater crop with the same amount of labor.
(c) Ideal Climate
The climate of one locality may be much more favorable for the production of a certain crop than that of any other locality. The crop can be raised only in a locality where the climate corresponds to the climatical requirements of that crop. Nature in this case limits competition.
PALESTINE A SEMI-TROPICAL COUNTRY
Most of our writers, even agriculturists, seem to forget the fact that Palestine is a semi-tropical country and that in semi-tropical countries climate is the most important item to be considered mt on I Een and exploited. The soil is made less important than the climate in semi-tropical countries.
Agricultural science has developed methods whereby the soil can be improved chemically and physically to a great extent, but the climate cannot be changed.
THE THREE STAGES IN AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT
Anybody who is familiar with the progress of agri-
culture in the United States knows that agriculture started in many places with cattle and sheep raising. As soon as the raising of grain was made possible, the cattle ranches were pushed back and had to make place for the grain ranches; and where conditions favored the raising of a special kind of fruit trees, the last pushed back the grain belt.
Let us consider conditions in California, which are so similar to those obtaining in Palestine.
California, in the early days, started with cattle raising, then with grain, and now the semi-tropical fruit trees have pushed back the grain section.
E er Eee = re ee California produces only a small per cent. of some of the foodstuffs she consumes, but is getting them more advantageously than she could produce them in exchange for her semi-tronical frnits.
To put grain in a place where semi-tropical fruit trees, such as oranges, lemons, almonds, olives, apricots, etc., can be raised satisfactorily, means poor management. It means taking one loaf where we can get three.
Let us think of England. England produces in peace time enough foodstuffs to keep her alive for about ten weeks, and nobody would maintain that England is a poor manager. Nobody would advise her to break down her vast factories in order to increase the area for the production of foodstuffs.
Thus we must raise in Palestine those crops which will bring us the greatest returns.
Unless we have a system in which land values do not follow the laws of supply and demand, the price of the land in an orange section alone will be strong enough to prohibit the raising of grain there.
The fact that before the war we had grain ranches in Galilee in no way indicates that we have reached the last stage in the agricultural development there, but rather that we are passing through the first and second elementary stages.
In 1911, Dr. Daniel Passma- nk gave an account of the conditions of the colonies in Gali- le. He stated that the farmers in Galilee were managing their 250 dunams grain farms at a loss of 885 francs per year. (See Palestine, 1911, Heft. 4. pp. 89-99.) A scanty living is all that can be expected from any grain ranch of such a size.