ISRAEL 2

Israel is one of the most hostile farming environments I've ever encountered in the many countries I've visited over my lifetime.  The Mediterranean climate has a dry season and rainy season.  The rains start around Nov. 1 and last until May 1, but they are seldom steady during that time.

                  Often they stutter, meaning they start and the grass begins growing, but then the second rains don't come quick enough to keep the grass green.  It withers and turns brown until the second rain comes.  This gives new impetus to the "early and latter rains." 

                  Politically, the country has adopted the techno-fix to everything.  That includes a full endorsement of pharmaceutical and industrial solutions.  I'm continuing to sleuth whether pastured poultry is legal.  Yesterday during my day-long seminar when farmers pushed back on pastured poultry, they said it was because if any fresh chicken manure goes on the soil the government thinks that will contaminate streams in runoff. 

                  I asked them what they did with the manure from industrial chicken factory farms.  Most of it, they said, is fed to cattle.  Cattle who eat the chicken manure and poop on the ground apparently do something to purify it; cattle manure, according to government-think, does not pollute streams.  So dear friends, in America, we are not the only country where bureaucracy runs amok.

                  This morning I spent time on the only farm in the country that sells grass-finished beef.  Most of their beef goes wholesale to the feedlot, but they do finish some.  This was up near the Syrian border at Golan--as in Golan Heights.   It's an 800-mama-cow operation on about 6,000 acres.  When the dry season comes, fire is always a huge hazard because everything turns brown.

                  During the recent war, Hezbolla drones managed by Iran came across the farm and when the Israeli defenses shot them down, everything would tumble into the fields and start fires.  During the heaviest fighting, several would come down each night.  How would you like to farm with burning missiles raining on your tinder-dry fields?  This is not an easy place to farm. 

                  So we have extremely tedious government regulations, the constant threat of missile attack, and two more:  stealing and killing livestock in Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) from adjacent zone A ( designated Palestinian areas) to zone C (designated Israeli areas) farms.  Cattle farmers bring their animals into a corral near the house each night to protect them from human predation.  How would you like to farm knowing your neighbors wanted to kill you and your animals?

                  Finally, the rocks.  You can't imagine the rocks.  For millenia, civilizations have been fighting over this little strip of land.  The Ottoman empire taxed trees, which resulted in complete deforestation.  The land has been plundered for a long time.  My hosts, Hayovel, help farmers build fences and one-third of the T-posts need a hole bored through solid bedrock due to the lack of soil.  A drill bit costs about $200 and lasts for several hundred holes before it wears out or breaks off, but it's tedious work. 

                  These rocks are everywhere, dominating everything.  Rocks.  Rocks.  Rocks.  Lack of soil and rocks make this the most seemingly uninhabitable land on the planet.  But that's exactly where restoration can appear the most dramatic.  Who could love it but God?  Who could want it but God?  It's a perfect example of unconditional love and divine redemption. 

                  I'm sure a handful of you reading these posts will go ballistic reading this.  The Abrahamic covenant is still in place:  "I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you."  If you despise these posts, I only have one thing to say:  "I'll see you at the judgment seat." 

                  The fact that these farmers are trying to make a go of it in these circumstances is testament to faith and tenacity.  We can all learn from that.