Thanks to the drip irrigation method pioneered by Israel in the 1960s, wine grapes, nuts and avocados are among the more efficient crops grown today.

Contrary to flood irrigation, drip irrigation uniformly transports water droplets and fertilizer to the root zone of each plant through a hose (drip line) dotted with dripper units.

Changing flood irrigation to drip irrigation can save a lot of water and fertilizer, increase yield, and protect topsoil.

However, out of the 700 million acres of irrigated farmland in the world, there are still 580 million acres of irrigated farmland still using old and wasteful flood irrigation.

Like most things, it comes down to money. Many farmers cannot afford the high capital and operating costs of drip irrigation. Infrastructure is expensive, as is the electricity required to filter and push water through the system.

This issue bothers Professor Uri Shani, an international water resource expert, who has promoted desalination and water recycling during his five years as Israel Water Commissioner.

His solution is a unique gravity-driven micro-irrigation system, now called N-Drip.

"N-Drip provides all the benefits of drip irrigation, but for field crops such as alfalfa, sorghum, corn, and potatoes-all commercial crops with very low profit margins-use a new type of dripper that is only driven by gravity," Seth Siegel said that an early investor in N-Drip is now its chief sustainability officer.

"This is amazing magic. This is a breakthrough that can significantly change the global water shortage."

Siegel met Shani while studying his 2015 book "Let there be water: Israel's solution to a water-scarce world".

"Because water resources are overburdened almost everywhere, and agricultural water consumes more than 70% of the world's fresh water, we need to slow down the rate of water used for plant growth," he said.

Siegel pointed out that flood irrigation has not changed much in 5,000 years.

"There were not many people in ancient times and the water source was sufficient. Now we know that in flood irrigation, 50-60% of water is wasted through evaporation, sometimes as high as 70%. It puts pressure on crops, leads to low yields, and leads to topsoil destruction. It’s a big problem in agriculture."

N-Drip not only cuts water consumption by half or more while increasing production by 40%, but it is also a zero-carbon solution that can be installed using the oilfield’s existing infrastructure. The non-clogging dripper made in Israel does not require water filtration or maintenance.

"This is the first and only gravity-driven micro-irrigation system that is equally effective in farms of all sizes. It provides precise irrigation at low cost without external energy or filtration," Siegel told ISRAEL21c.

N-Drip started commercialization three years ago. The first crop it used for irrigation was sugarcane from Eswatini.

Today, farmers in about 20 countries in North America, Africa and Asia are using N-Drip to grow 20 types of crops, including rice-any crop that grows on flat ground.

"In the United States, N-Drip is mainly used in California, New Mexico, Arizona and Nebraska," Siegel said. California has 4 million acres of land still undergoing flood irrigation.

Despite the severe water shortage in Arizona, about 900,000 acres of farmland in Arizona—mainly growing cotton, alfalfa, and sorghum—are irrigated by floodwater. Two years ago, the state water company cooperated with N-Drip to start transforming these farms.

Siegel said farmers who use N-Drip instead of flood irrigation can save 325,000 to 550,000 gallons of water per acre during each growing season and increase yields by 15% to 40%.

Howard Rother, a farmer in Nangwee, Australia, reported that he tried the N-Drip system on 11 hectares (27.5 acres) of the 70 hectares of plantation. Compared with the flood irrigation area, he found that water was saved by 26% and the output was increased by 47%.

"Compared with the flood of 7.5 hectares, the drip irrigation field has increased by 11 bales per hectare; this is an amazing result," he said. "The difference between the 7.5 package and the 11 package means that the cost recovered by the system in one year exceeds the cost."

Siegel told ISRAEL21c that he began to worry about water shortages 10 years ago.

"I think this is not only a serious threat to the national security of the United States, but also a serious threat to global stability. I see that this will lead to higher food prices and refugee flows. In Africa, there are about 60 million people, and in Asia, Hundreds of millions of people are affected," he said.

As a lawyer, business executive, and writer, Siegel just finished the manuscript of his book "Troublesome Water: What's the Problem with What We Drink" published in 2019, when he and Shani both published it at a water conference in Milwaukee. Speak.

"He told me that he was perfecting this invention. I said that if it is true, I want to participate in it," he recalled.

Earlier this year, N-Drip CEO Eran Pollak invited Siegel to become the company's chief sustainability officer. His role is to help companies, large NGOs, agricultural cooperatives and governments understand how N-Drip can help them improve the sustainability of their irrigation systems.

Siegel said that the two most water-consuming crops are cotton and alfalfa.

He pointed out that alfalfa and sorghum are mainly used for raising livestock. "Since 2010, nearly 1 billion people have been lifted out of extreme poverty. The biggest change in their daily lives is that they eat more animal protein. Millions of people are eager to eat meat, so we have to know how to grow alfalfa and Sorghum and other feeds have some understanding."

Currently, the N-Drip production line and drippers are produced in Migdal HaEmek in northern Israel.

"In the next few years, we will have three or four factories or joint ventures producing production lines in India and Arizona and other places closer to the market," Siegel said. "But the dripper will always be made in Israel."

He said that N-Drip may become as big as Waze. "This is a solution to a problem that will not go away."

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Abigail Klein Leichman is the writer and associate editor of ISRAEL21c. Before moving to Israel in 2007, she was a professional writer and copy editor for a major daily newspaper in New Jersey, and has been a freelance writer for various newspapers and periodicals since 1984.