A man whose ideas hold water
Chris Cobb sat down with Daniel Hillel, a scientist whose life’s work on sustainable water earned him the prestigious World Food Prize, to talk about how his research has changed the lives of millions of people — and the work that’s left to be done.
Daniel Hillel has been called the father of sustainable water management. Since the early 1950s, the 82-year-old Israeli has pioneered and taught farmers across the world ‘drip irrigation,’ a process that allows for targeted irrigation of crops while simultaneously preserving water. His methods have helped millions of people in more than 30 countries to create sustainable community farms from seemingly infertile land.
Born in California at the start of the Great Depression, Hillel moved with his family to Palestine when he was an infant and at age eight he was sent to live on a kibbutz (communal farm). Shortly after graduating from Rutgers University, he became a founding member of kibbutz Sede Boqer (Hebrew for Herding Field) where Israel’s legendary first prime minister David Ben Gurion would become his mentor.
Hillel has authored more than 300 scientific papers and 25 books and last year was awarded the prestigious $250,000 World Food Prize. Hillel was in Ottawa this week for a lecture at the International Development Research Centre.
Tell me about your childhood on the kibbutz.
It’s where I learned to love the land, water and plants. Children worked in the fields and I remember being given a spade and being asked to direct the water from an irrigation ditch into these furrows. I watched tender saplings grow in the midst of what seemed like a barren landscape. I became determined then that I would study the land and water and plants.
What was your first job?
I went to work for the Ministry of Agriculture and my first task was to map the soils of Israel. We began in the north, in Galilee, and worked our way down to the Negev, which was terra incognita.
It was two-thirds the size of Israel and seemed completely empty. But it wasn’t really empty. To begin with, there were Bedouins but more than that there were remnants of an ancient civilization that developed and thrived in the Negev for centuries.
So you knew there was the potential for agriculture and you decided to stay and form your own community.
Exactly. We were a small bunch of guys and I was the only scientist. It was really a no man’s land.
How did you meet Ben Gurion?
After about a year we saw a convoy riding along this unpaved road leading south. Among the army vehicles was a black limousine. They turned towards our encampment and out stepped an elderly gentleman with frizzy white hair who we instantly recognized.
He said: “What are you doing here in the middle of the desert?” We told him we were trying to raise crops, sheep and goats and so on. He was so captivated that he came to join our settlement.
He was a big star wasn’t he?
He was the father of Israel — the George Washington of Israel — but the guys didn’t know what to do with him. So they decided to give him to me and my task was to put him to work. I would go to see him every evening ostensibly to give him an assignment but really to engage in conversation. I was a brash young man confronting a very wise mature elder statesman.
Why is soil science important?
Water can be used inefficiently and destructively. An example is the Ogallala aquifer in the west United States, where water is being overdrawn in excess of its replenishment. Overuse of water not only depletes the resource but also depletes the soil. It builds up a water table. Eventually the water rises to the surface, evaporates and accumulates salts. It’s a very destructive process because soil can no longer support crops. Many irrigated areas of the world put themselves out of business with this process.
In Canada we tend to think that water is an infinite resource and we waste it. What message would you send Canadians?
Canada is one of the luckiest countries in the world. For a time you can get away with (wasting water) but eventually, of course, it will bite. Iraq, which was once the cradle of civilization, is now badly degraded.
I take it you’re not a climate change skeptic.
Climate is changing and human beings are changing it.
There are economic interests who oppose the notion of climate change but scientists are unanimous — bona fide scientists, not crackpot scientists.
Temperatures have been rising — more frequent heat waves, more frequent droughts, greater evaporative demands imposed by the atmosphere on ecosystems.
We are mismanaging the atmosphere as well as the earth. Climate fluctuates but the global trend is clear.
Should water continue to be a salable commodity or should it be given some legal designation — a human right for example?
It is a human right. It is a precious resource.
It should not be left to the whims or aggression of a few who can wrest control over it. It’s not only a human resource but a biological resource. Individual laissez-faire businesses don’t have to worry about the common good. They worry about the bottom line — this year, their profit. We can’t afford this irresponsible exploitation and degradation.
What are some of the worst affected countries you have visited?
The Sahel region of Africa, East and Central Asia, parts of South America parts of the Southwestern U.S. — Australia, the driest continent. Now the melting of icebergs and the rising sea levels and inundation of coastal areas. The climate, water, the biosphere is everything — it is an inescapable panoply of problems.
Where do you live?
In a village on a spur of Mount Carmel, near Haifa. We are perched on a cliff overlooking the Mediterranean. It’s beautiful.
Are you a good gardener?
Yes.
What do you like to grow?
I like to grow ornamentals but we also have sub-tropical trees — olive and pomegranates.
What does winning the World Food Prize mean to you?
It is obligating. I must live up to it and be truly deserving of it. At age 82 I have to work harder in the time remaining to be worthy of the prize. A small voice within me says ‘You haven’t done enough. You have to do more.’
What does ‘more’ mean?
More writing, more research and more in-depth study of problems and potential solutions. It isn’t enough to be a Cassandra and to decry that the world is coming to an end and we’re all doomed. I am not a doom and gloomer. I am a positivist. There is much that has to be done.
To what extent is Israel a laboratory for your work?
Israel is on the cusp in many ways. It is on the edge of the desert, it straddles the boundary between life and barrenness and the advantage of Israel arises out of its disadvantage. Israelis were not traditional farmers or husbandry men or managers of the land or the environment. They came from the cities of Europe and North Africa and to some extent America to recreate a nation that had been detached from its origins for 2,000 years. Many mistakes have been made but there is a common yearning to create an exemplary society — not just with religions and communities but also in relationships with the land.
There is still lots of work being done in the Negev Desert, isn’t there?
Yes, there is desalinization of water and solar energy. There is a tremendous amount of solar energy, which in prior times was a problem — so much sunshine with evaporative power. Now it can be collected and utilized.
So to a great degree you can stay at home and do your work.
Yes but there’s a streak in me of adventurism which as an old man is less than it was. But when the airplane arrives in Khartoum in Sudan or the Western Sahara or Timbuktu there is a lot to do.