Israeli farmers are planning country-wide anti-government demonstrations in protest at what they see as the government's lack of ambition to sustain the country's agricultural sector as a national priority.
Farmers from all parties met last week to decide on the actions to be taken, in view of the deterioration of the sector, in their opinion.
According to the Israel Federation of Farmers (IFF), in the past decade 11,000 farmers closed their farms, and in 2005 just 19,000 farmers were engaged in actual agricultural production.
The decline in the number of active farmers is a result of financial losses in the sector and the fact that many have reached retirement age with no younger generation to replace them.
The farmers demand the government cancel the special tax imposed on them for employing foreign workers, lower the price of water for agriculture, and increase the budgets for R&D and for crop insurance, similar to the support the EU grants its farmers.
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