[Business Week] Roben Farzad - At a kibbutz in Israel's Negev Desert, entrepreneur Amit Ziv recycles runoff water from a nearby spa to raise sea bass and barramundi, a white fish in demand at high-end restaurants. He then channels the water from his desert fish farm to grow olives, which he exports to, of all places, Spain. Israel leads the world by recycling 70% of its wastewater, three times the figure for No. 2 Spain. At a time when most other investment prospects are bleak, just about every major VC firm in Silicon Valley is prospecting across Israel for cleantech investments. In the decade before Israel won statehood, Simcha Blass was captivated by an abnormally large tree he spotted in a grove, he shoveled underneath it and discovered a cracked drainpipe feeding steady droplets directly to the tree's roots - just enough water to allow the tree to flourish. In 1965, Blass patented and sold his vision of "drip irrigation" to Kibbutz Hatzerim. Today the company has grown into Netafim, a $500 million high-tech drip-irrigation giant employing 2,600 people in 110 countries.
2009-05-15 06:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive