Former Israeli Minister of Agriculture and current Member of the Knesset, Oded Forer, said that Benjamin Netanyahu's government is destroying Israel and its future for generations because the budget does not include items that support research and development.
Oded Forer said, "The state budget expected to be passed in the coming weeks is a bad budget. Bad for the citizens, bad for the economy and bad for the future of the State of Israel... In all budget items there is serious damage to Israeli research and development" in the field of agriculture.
"Reducing the budget for innovation, research and development is the essence of the government's failure to establish a policy that is inconsistent with that required for the economy. This is an additional step to stop the reform to open the fruit and vegetable market to competition, which will lead to a sharp increase in fruit and vegetable prices," he noted.
He confirms, “This reduction is in addition to a 50% reduction in the budgets of the Chief Scientist in the Ministry of Agriculture from the 2023 budget, which aims to invest in agricultural innovation, and if this is not severe enough, an additional 50% reduction is planned in the 2025 budget.” ".
He added, "This is how the government completes the abolition of agricultural reform and returns Israeli agriculture to stagnation and deterioration."
Oded Forer stressed, “The Israeli public will pay a heavy price for closing the market and eliminating research, development and innovation in Israeli agriculture. This is a policy that is slowly cutting away the living flesh of the Israeli economy, and instead of pulling the citizens of Israel out of the hole, it is deepening it and taking us deeper. And all that What remains for us is to read to the government ministers the immortal sentence - Upside down, upside down!
Israeli Ministry data revealed that companies from Turkey and Jordan exported the most products from October 8, 2023 until February 11, 2024.
In a press investigation, conducted by “Arabi Post,” the number of countries whose companies have supplied Israel with vegetables and fruits since the start of the war on Gaza reached 24 countries. These companies also contributed to solving the agricultural food security crisis, after the agricultural sector was damaged in the Gaza envelope settlements that were evacuated after the “Al-Aqsa Flood” battle, and thousands of workers were left out of work, in addition to their contribution to alleviating the impact of the high prices resulting from the shortage of products.