TEL AVIV -Some of the world’s most important innovations have risen from necessity.
Nowhere is this more apparent than in Israel, a practically waterless country comprised of ariddeserts and a rapidly growing population. Yet despite a severe lack of natural resources, StartupNation, as the country has become known, managed to make their deserts flourish.
Today, Israel continues to be a giant in the field of agriculture technology, spearheading globalefforts to grow more food with less water. Israeli tech ventures continue to emerge year after year, eager to showcase new products.
Lucky for those overseas, more of these startups are looking to tap into the international market, with eyes set on the U.S. as a primary target.
“Some of the biggest challenges the world will have in the next 10 or maybe 20 years willbe with water and food,” said Sharren Haskel, a lawmaker within the Knesset. “Wehave been able to make contact with other countries in order to start bringing this technologyto them.”
Breeding seedsthat require less water to creating fertilizers that increase crop yields Fog nets thatharvest air moisture. These are just some of the innovations since Israel brought precision to agriculture with drip irrigation systems.
Now Israel is ready to bring these developments to the U.S., where outdated farming methods are commonly used.
“We believe that ag should be very different from how it is now. Since the Neolithic age, therehas not been much of a change in agriculture” said Mor Yegerman, CEO of I-Dripper, based in Kfar Ruth.
Yegerman believes that, although there have been great advancements in agriculturetechnology, there hasn't been the "Uber for farming" yet or, in other words, new technology that completely "revolutionized the industry."
Mor Yegerman programs the brain of an I-Dripper device (Photo by Kianna Gardner)
I-Dripper, a company founded less than eight months ago, has been hard at work developingtheir smart dripper, with intentions to launch their creation at the start of 2018-- and change agriculture around the world. Their product is a version of drip irrigation, which has been used in Israel agriculture for decades, but is improved upon year after year largely thanks to startup technology.
The I-Dripper is a moisture sensor device that measures ground tension near the roots of crops. If dehydration is detected, the dripper will then activate, sending the exact amount of water needed to the individual plant. The I-Dripper sensor can determine specifics of every crop, including the plant’s age, the soil it’s in and the temperature, adapting itself accordingly.
“It’s precision agriculture,” Yegerman said. “It decides where to irrigate and how much to irrigate as well. It’s irrigation on demand.”
Based on the team’s research thus far, they have found that the I-Dripper can save up to 50 percent of water while also improving a farmer’s yield by up to 20 percent - two important characteristics have been crucial for developing technology in Israeli deserts where increasing population projections and limited water resources are cause for concern.
"I don't see any other outcome but for people to start doing things right."
While these issues are especially applicable to Israel, a country roughly the size of New Hampshire (population 1.3 million) estimated to grow to nearly 10 million residents by 2025, the theme of water scarcity and growing populations is a recurring one throughout much of the world.
The small company has worked hard to create a product that is simple to install and maintain. According to Tal Moar, the vice president of sales and business development for I-Dripper, this simplicity is essential to the international market.
I-Dripper technology is tested on a vineyard just outside Tel Aviv (Photo by Kianna Gardner)
An I-Dripper device being tested on multiple plants (Photo by Kianna Gardner)
According to the USDA Census of Agriculture, the average U.S. “Principal Operator” farmer as of 2012 was nearly 60 years old.
Therefore, high-tech equipment such as I-Dripper can often be intimidating to an older generation of farmers who, up until the last few decades, had little cause for concern over water supply and therefore have made few changes to their farming techniques. “The farmers should trust it and know it’s going to be there. It should be a tractor to them andthat’s one of our great challenges, to make our customers feel comfortable with the sensor and the data of the system,” Moar said.
The I-Dripper team isn’t the only company to understand the importance of simplicity in terms of an international market.
Another Israel-based agri-tech startup, CropX, is now in its fourth operating year and has successfully launched into the international market.
“We brought to the ag world a very innovative approach to very sophisticated, high-tech equipment and made it easy for the farmer to use,” said Tomer Tzach, CEO of CropX, based in Tel Aviv.
CropX is a sensor device that also measures soil moisture, but is much different from I-Dripper. The company utilizes USDA soil maps to first indicate how many sensors per-field a farmer will need by analyzing the soil type and exactly where the spiral sensors should be placed.
“Not everyone can afford Mercedes, and CropX basically brought the Toyota to the market”
After the farmer installs the device, information of the field’s soil moisture levels is then computed and sent to an app on the farmers smartphone or other device where the farmer can then water his or her field accordingly.
“It’s easy to use and understand for both the non-technologically savvy farmer on one hand and the second generation, smartphone user on the other,” Tzach said.
Since CropX was founded, one of the team’s main goals was to create a product that’s not only easy to use, but is affordable. One CropX unit costs $600.
One of CropX's labs where technology is tested on various soils holding different levels of moisture amongst other things (Photography by Kianna Gardner)
“Not everyone can afford Mercedes, and CropX basically brought the Toyota to the market,”Tzach said.
In four short years, the CropX team has managed to bring their technology to hundreds of farms all over the U.S., where they also expanded business operation to San Francisco, CA.
For both CropX and I-Dripper, bringing technology to the international market is one of the first major steps toward a grander vision to make soil sensing technology the standard, not the exception.
Today, the ancient practice of farming no longer relies primarily on physical grit. A tightening water budget calls for not only laborers, but innovators.
“Water resources are shrinking and this planet is warming up, you feel it all around you,” Yegerman said. “So I don’t see any other outcome, but for people starting to do things right.”