How did the Arava, a punishingly hot and arid desert, become one of Israel’s breadbaskets? It’s a story of determination and thinking outside the box.

This is a place of long, punishing summers — hardly hospitable conditions for agriculture.

“The average summer day is 40-plus degrees [Celsius, or 104F], and at night the temperature drops only 10 degrees,” says Kitron, who also has a family farm in the central Arava.

Nevertheless, the R&D center’s greenhouses grow Gulliver’s spinach (a spinach-like leafy green that thrives in hot climates and keeps in the fridge for a month), Momordica (a bitter melon containing potential nutraceutical substances including a “natural insulin”), cherry tomatoes, eggplants, melons, cucumbers and exotic crops like kiwano (horned African melon).