"We can proudly say that Israel is a power in the world of vegetable seeds," says Ofer Peleg, CEO of Hazera, in a conversation with Maariv. Hazera is one of the largest and oldest international companies in the seed industry. Its story, first and foremost a story of Zionism, began decades ago in two different countries: Israel and the Netherlands.
The Israeli side of the story began in 1939, when Hazera Israel was founded and breathed life into Israeli agriculture – even before the state was established. Earlier, in the Netherlands, over 100 years ago, a man named Jan Brorssen began selling cabbage seeds to local growers in Twijzelerheide. Today, Hazera is part of the Limagrain Group – an international farmers' cooperative based in France, but the heart of its operations and R&D is in Israel.
"Our need in this country to develop varieties despite and because of the conditions encouraged us to be the best in the world," Peleg emphasizes during a tour of the company's massive facility in southern Israel, where they develop, grow, research, and market countless fruit and vegetable seeds both domestically and globally.
"Many countries look at what our company is doing," he emphasizes. "In a region like the Middle East, which suffers from droughts, there is a huge advantage to varieties that can yield even with minimal water, and this is just one example."
Read more at The Jerusalem Post
