Doubts crop up as bid to lower price of produce targets farms for reform

Plan, which would up imports and pay farmers directly rather than via tariffs, ‘risks destroying entire sector,’ warns academic as data suggests retail markups may be to blame.

Hebrew University Prof. Ayal Kimhi, vice president of the Shoresh Institution for Socioeconomic Research, said that while direct payments work, the suggested figure is “so inadequate that you risk destroying the entire farming sector.”

The number, he told The Times of Israel, was taken from the European Union, where there are large tracts of pasture land, and in no way reflects the tens of thousands of shekels poured into intensive vegetable and fruit farming. “If prices go down as a result of lowering the tariffs, people will simply abandon their farms,” he warned.

Kimhi noted that fruit and vegetable prices in Israel are still cheaper on average than in other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development — 5% cheaper in the OECD’s most recent analysis, carried out in 2017.

In Europe, the process of moving to direct payments to farmers took two decades. “Lowering import tariffs is right but you need to do it slowly, carefully, and to stop each time and review the result. Five years is too fast,” said Kimhi.