Agriculture knowledge

Thai farmers come to Ramat Hanegev for agricultural studies and training

The Minister of Agriculture, Yair Shamir toured

The Minister of Agriculture, Yair Shamir toured the Ramat Hanegev region and surveyed plans for an international agricultural school in the area as well as additional requests for assistance for the region’s farmers.
Shmuel Rifman, the mayor of the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council stated: “About 250 farmers from Asian countries are already undergoing further training with the regional council, and the planned school will allow us to increase that number and turn Israel into a major player in agricultural training”. The mayor also noted that this planned school would build on the existing cooperative projects with countries in the East that include the annual advanced training program.
The new school to be established at the Nitzana Youth Village will enable us to train about 500 farmers mainly from Eastern countries, every year. Shmuel Rifman also pointed out that thanks to this program’s success it has become the Foreign Ministry’s flagship program in assisting developing countries.
During this tour by the Minister and his officials to the site of the proposed international agricultural school, the Regional Council also submitted requests for assistance in absorbing additional farmers in the area by implementing plans to pipe natural gas to the farms in the Nitzana salient, developing the dairy industry as well as granting additional allocations of water and land. This visit also took in a number of agricultural projects in the area and along the route of the border fence with Egypt, as well as a meeting with farmers at the village of Kamhin.
The advanced study program in agriculture is run by the R&D department of the Ramat HaNegev Regional Council in cooperation with the relevant government ministries. Close cooperation with the Ministries of Agriculture and Education in the trainees’ countries of origin (currently Viet Nam, and Myanmar) is also an essential feature.

 These advanced students spend 11 months in Ramat HaNegev Regional Council area where they learn theoretical studies once a week and live at local farms to undergo practical training. Nowadays classrooms and computers for theoretical studies are rented from the Nitzana Youth Village, but the impressive growth in trainee numbers requires a new special-purpose building to be built there. The estimated cost of the building, which will cover an area of about 1,260 m2, is about 2 million dollars.

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