“ONE NEEDED SHARP IMAGINATION, OR TO BE A VISIONARY, TO CHANGE THE COURSE OF THINGS BY FARMING IN THE DESERT… YET THIS WAS PRECISELY HIS PROJECT: TO GROW SUGAR ON A SALTY LAND”
“One day something happened that would irremediably change the very face of the village, an ordinary event related due to chance: a determined man walked through Richard Toll and visited the plain. Mr. Jacques Mimran was his name. He arrived at the heart of this land located in the middle of nowhere in the 1970s, and perhaps he already knew that he would never leave again. One needed sharp imagination, or to be a visionary, to change the course of things by farming in the desert… yet this was precisely his project: to grow sugar on a salty land.
“Sometime later, he settled in the village. He took measurements and surveys, made complex calculations which no-one could understand. Machines came one day, in large clouds of dust and engine roars, to disrupt the silence of the forgotten bush. There was a full convoy there: trucks, tractors, bulldozers, cranes and all kinds of other contraptions operated by a small army of drivers and mechanics.
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“Workers came from everywhere, but there were not then many and every morning trucks set out for the bush and nearby hamlets to recruit villagers desirous to earn some money. The factory had finally started operating and the warehouses started filling up with sugar entirely produced in the village. It was a favourable period for the inhabitants of the locality who saw their generations multiply. The workers were pampered before giving in to the machetes of an army of cane cutters who swarmed the fields every morning during the harvesting period. Today, Richard Toll has grown into a very well-known city countrywide.
“The establishment of such an agro-industrial plant under these conditions could not happen without a few difficulties. These difficulties were primarily logistical but mostly infrastructural related. Everything had to be invented, everything had to be installed; from housing quarters to land layout and development.”
N etafim helps the world grow more with less. Its journey started in 1965 in Kibbutz Hatzerim, a community in Israel’s Negev desert. Struggling to farm in the dry, sandy soil inspired its founders to find a more efficient way to grow crops. In doing so, they discovered and pioneered drip irrigation. This precision solution offers a rate of 90–95 percent water efficiency by delivering water and fertiliser to the roots of the plant instead of the soil around it. Drip-irrigation technology enables farmers to grow higher yields more sustainably by saving water, reducing use of fertilisers and conserving energy and labour. Such is the effectiveness of its solution that Netafim has become the largest irrigation company in the world.
With 17 manufacturing plants, 5,000 employees and 29 subsidiaries, Netafim has a 30 percent market share and earns over a billion dollars in sales per year. It currently operates in over 110 countries, including Egypt, Algeria, Tanzania, Ghana, Nigeria, Senegal and many more. Netafim Africa has been established to help facilitate agricultural transformation in Africa, changing the economics of the country by enabling farmers to improve crop quality and quantity per hectare and cubic metre of water. It wants to fight the scarcity of food, water and agricultural land in Africa, helping the country become less reliant on food imports. This mission is vital considering that the UN estimates the African population will grow from 1.1 to 2.4 billion by 2050.
Netafim Africa works alongside governments, the private sector, international institutions and NGOs to revolutionise agriculture in Africa. It can provide end-to-end agricultural solutions to everyone from family-run farms to large agricultural enterprises. Its family systems are off grid, benefitting from the same precision technology as other products but in a more cost-effective framework. Meanwhile, its digital farming solutions feature smart technologies that enable farmers to manage and control irrigation and soil nutrition remotely, from phone, tablet or computer. Netafim Africa is also able to provide a range of project-related services, including agronomical and technical support, feasibility studies and designs. It believes in transferring this knowledge to local communities to facilitate self-sufficiency.
One of Netafim Africa’s landmark projects is with Compagnie Sucriere Senegalaise (CSS). This was a turnkey project set across 3,500 acres of sugarcane plantation growing in desert conditions. Netafim Africa installed a drip irrigation system and designed a knowledge transfer programme to build a local team that could operate and control the system efficiently. The system is projected to deliver an annual harvest of between 150 to 180 tonnes per hectare.