This year’s winter-season open days, which are winding up now, were accompanied by the eVALUEit promotional campaign—when quality and harvest meet. Our main promotional message was that if farmers evaluate the products individually and subjectively, they will choose the variety that is best for you so that at the end of the season their yield will be maximized.

How did we carry this out? At every open day, in the greenhouse or nethouse, every visitor received a sheet with a list of varieties and their characteristics. During their tour visitors could mark on them which varieties are best suited to them, their qualities, and their relative advantages for their needs and preferred growing method. Before leaving, visitors gave us a copy of this checklist so that we could make the most of the information and learn their impressions of the varieties and continue to involve them in our future developments and market innovations. Impressions from the open day in Kikar Sedom, which was effectively the fourth event in a long series of open days all over the country, are below.

Here is a list of all the open days this season:

·         Saban farm, Moshav Zofar: Dec. 22, 2009

·         Ovitz farm, Moshav Amioz: Dec. 24, 2009

·         Kitron farm, Moshav Idan, Dec. 31, 2009

·         Becker farm, Kikar Sedom, Jan. 10, 2010

·         Asoulin farm, Moshav Mivtahim, Jan. 10, 2010

What Happens when a City Girl Visits an Agricultural Open Day?

When I arrived for the agricultural open day—the first I have ever been at—I was greeted by the directional sign, on which someone had scribbled, “to the fashion show.” Some wag among the local farmers had added a comment that seemed to be quite out of place for the event.

I’m new to the world of agriculture, so my perspective is still quite different from that of the average farmer. During the open day—the first I had ever attended—I found that if the joke was off-base, it wasn’t by much.

Here are some of this city girl’s personal impressions about the open days and about you, dear farmers.

Pepper Days

The first visitors began arriving around 10 AM. After they took a quick look and registered they were given a guided tour by the Zeraim Gedera marketing team. New to my job and eager to learn and understand all the secrets of the trade, I attached myself to the team for these tours. I did indeed learn an incredible amount about the pepper varieties available from Zeraim Gedera, but I also learned what you, dear farmers, consider to be most important:

·         Yes, size counts! One of the first characteristics you ask about is how big the peppers are. Even after you have honed in on the varieties of the right dimensions, the peppers’ size and appearance continue to be an important factor in determining your preferred variety.

·         Shapely models! Every variety of pepper was represented by a model. No, I’m not talking about bathing-suit beauties clutching a juicy pepper, but about the juicy pepper itself, a particularly healthy specimen grown on the demonstration farm. I couldn’t fail to observe that most of you were turned on by our models, even before they were retouched in PhotoShop.

·         Looks are deceiving! Maybe I’m a city girl, but in town, too, we have long known that beauty is only skin-deep. To put it another way, don’t be dazzled by a beautiful pepper without considering its other qualities. Is the plant robust? Tall or short? What is it resistant to? What sort of shelf life does the fruit have and how big is the yield? Every farm and every farmer has individual preferences here. At the open days I noted that many of you were favorably impressed by the diverse qualities of the Zeraim Gedera varieties.

·         When quality and harvest meet—eValueit! - I was glad to learn that many of the farmers who came to the open day in Zofar also attended the three other open days held later, in the Arava. At the latter, too, visitors were given a sheet listing the varieties and their characteristics and noted their impressions of the varieties. This allows Zeraim Gedera to implement its promotional slogan and learn from you about how environmental conditions influence the way a variety grows (different methods of cultivation, irrigation, and fertilizing, different growing regions, etc.).

Tomato Day in the Besor Region

When I arrived at the open day in Moshav Mivtahim I was armed with the confidence of at least a third-generation farmer. I self-assuredly entered the greenhouse, only to discover that “once a city girl, always a city girl”!

If in my ignorance I had thought that agriculture is not for a yuppie like me who is afraid to get her hands dirty, I discovered to my astonishment that farming is far from what it used to be: today you have to maintain very high standards of cleanliness.

Before entering the greenhouse every farmer received a white coat and had to disinfect his hands and feet. It was more like the emergency room of a hospital, full of surgeons. Or, in brief, another eye-catching fashion show, but this time yours: the leading farmers in Israel dressed up in a way that would not shame farmers all over the world. What can I say? It was a pleasant surprise.

“Is it always like this?” I asked Lior Kushnir, the tomato brand manager for Zeraim Gedera. “Certainly not,” he answered. “It’s relatively new and still not widespread in Israel. The idea came from Morocco, and there are a number of reasons for it. The main reason is to keep diseases out of this farm. Another and no less important reason is to avoid the transmission of existing diseases from this farm to other farms. There’s no way to keep the plants from soiling your clothes and transmitting germs. Given the way diseases spread throughout the world we have added a new level of hygiene on our farms.”

The Asoulin family greenhouse on Moshav Mivtahim in the Besor Region is home to many varieties of tomato, marketed in Israel and abroad. The open day focused on seven main strains.

This time, too, I attached myself to the guided tours for farmers. Once again I learned an incredible amount about you farmers and about the varieties that interest you. I hope you won’t turn red as a tomato if I reveal some of what I found out:

·         Firmness. It is very important how firm a tomato is, and not only for the first few days after picking.

·         Shelf life. If we’re talking about long-term firmness, we can’t forget the protracted shelf life of Zeraim Gedera tomatoes. Take the elongated Kilates variety, for instance. In a survey conducted by the Rotem Institute, more than 70% of the respondents said that the tomatoes handed out stayed firm longer than other tomatoes.

·         Resistance. At Zeraim Gedera they understand farmers’ great sensitivity to the question of resistance to pests and disease. All of the varieties exhibited possess the full basic spectrum of resistance required by the market, as well as special strains such as the Fuzzy variety, which is also TYLCV resistant, and the Glabra, resistant to TSWV.

So how would I sum up my first impressions of you, dear farmers, and the open days? An open day is a marketing tactic whose objective is to make as many people as possible aware of the varieties available. At Zeraim Gedera we see an open day not only as an opportunity to show you our varieties in their natural habitat, but also and mainly as a chance to get to know you and your needs.

This is the place to think all of you for your large turnout and especially for your serious and professional attitude to the feedback sheets, from which we learned a great deal about you. An open day cannot be successful with cooperation between the organizer and the farmers who attend. We could never achieve such impressive results without you. Here let me add a personal note, as a city girl, and admit that I had a lot of fun at these open days, mainly thanks to you, dear farmers!