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The Hebrew University's
Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment
The
Robert H. Smith Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Environment
is
the only institute of higher education in Israel offering university
degrees in agriculture and is also home to the only Schools of
Nutritional Sciences and of Veterinary Medicine. Established in 1942 as
the Institute for Agricultural Sciences with 21 masters students, the
Faculty today has a student body of 2,300 students.
The Faculty offers academic programs leading to B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D.
degrees in Agriculture, B.Sc. and M.Sc. degrees in Nutrition, and a
Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree. The Faculty also offers through
its Division for External Studies
international
short-term postgraduate courses on various agricultural subjects,
and a
Masters of
Science in Agriculture degree program and a
Post-Graduate Diploma in Plant Sciences,
all of which are conducted in English for foreign students.
The Faculty's teaching and research activities continue to play a central
role in advancing agriculture to strengthen the Israeli economy, while
training tomorrow's scientists and agriculturists; protecting and
rehabilitating the environment, while increasing food production and
reducing world hunger; mobilizing agriculture to meet human health needs
and improving the quality and purity of agricultural products; and
sharing the benefits of Israeli research and innovation with other nations.
Faculty graduates are active in farming communities - kibbutzim, moshavim
or private farms - using their know-how to compete in world markets; they
also comprise a large part of the staff at the Agricultural Research
Organization and the Extension Service of the Ministry of Agriculture;
occupy most of the leading positions within the Ministry of Environmental
Quality; constitute a significant professional section in many Israeli
companies involved in production of relevance to local and international
agriculture (drip irrigation, seeds, fertilizers, etc.); become teachers
of biology, nutrition and agriculture at universities, high schools and
junior high schools all over the country; and serve abroad on Israeli
projects of technical aid, cooperation and R&D.
Some of the Faculty research achievements and innovations include methods
of drip irrigation and fertigation; tomatoes and other fruits and
vegetables bred with long shelf life, improved taste and disease
resistance; returning the fragrance to flowers; intensive arid-zone
agriculture; soil solarization - a nonchemical method of controlling
soilborne plant diseases; green-farming techniques - use of natural
biofertilizers and biocontrol by biofungicides and parasitic insects - to
reduce the use of chemical fertilizers, fungicides and pesticides;
recycling technologies for waste-water reclamation and composting of
solid municipal and agricultural wastes; using plants to purify water
polluted by heavy metals.
Research at the Faculty has improved and increased yields of fruits,
vegetables, grain crops, flowers and cotton; helped overcome problems of
pest damage and soil contamination; led to the most efficient use of
water for agriculture; produced ground-breaking innovations in irrigation
techniques; helped develop Israel's annual flower export from almost nil
in the 1960's, to its current status as one of the largest exporters of
flowers in the world, and much more.
Scopus Magazine article about the Faculty
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