The brainchild of one man, Israel’s Volcani Center Agricultural Research Organization has helped turn Israel into one of the world’s champions for agricultural innovation.
If the Israeli cow is the world champion milk producer, if Israel has superior wheat for pasta and bread, if tomatoes grow year-round - we can thank Yitzhak Elazari Wilkanski.
This agricultural scientist, who immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1908 from Lithuania and changed his last name to Volcani, established the Agricultural Experiment Station at Ben Shemen in 1921, which became the Volcani Center Agricultural Research Organization, the research arm of Israel’s Ministry of Agriculture since 1952.
Volcani saw that the pioneer Jewish farmers needed more than grit and determination to be successful – they needed cutting-edge scientific research.