Who are we?
The Nekudat Hen program was established by Yad Hanadiv in 1999, and has been operating in conjunction with the Israel Society of Ecology and Environmental Sciences since 2017. The program is a framework for the advancement of diverse projects at the junction where agriculture, ecology, and a broad environmental approach meet. The program aims to build a professional and interdisciplinary knowledge infrastructure for multi-functional landscape agriculture in Israel, based on the premise that agriculture that is managed in an intelligent way can provide necessary food products, can be an important source of livelihood, protect the environment, and preserve human culture and heritage.
The Nekudat Hen program provides the opportunity for researchers in the fields of agriculture, biology, and environmental studies; agronomists; activists at environmental protection organizations; and policy makers in the fields of agriculture, environment and planning, to meet, study and exchange ideas. The projects advanced by means of the Nekudat Hen framework – including its activities to disseminate the knowledge accumulated at seminars and via publications – seek to create a theoretical and a practical infrastructure that will contribute to the creation of a common language among the various disciplines and stimulate knowledge-based dialogue among stakeholders in the agricultural sectors.
What do we do?
The main function of the program is to support practical and short-term initiatives that are concerned with the environmental aspects of multifunctional agriculture. Each year Nekudat Hen supports a maximum of eight projects that contribute to the expansion of knowledge about the various applications of landscape agriculture and its implications for the environment, the landscape, natural resources, and quality of life.
Every year Nekudat Hen holds a day-long seminar to showcase the initiatives it supports, during which the keynote lecture is delivered by an international expert. The upcoming symposium will be held on November 2018.
The Nekudat Hen website is a unique resource in Hebrew in the field of agro-ecology, which includes the outcomes of more than seventy projects that were concluded in the framework of the program. It also presents summaries of the seminars, and information about special projects to advance the sector that are conducted in the framework of the program.
The site is currently in Hebrew and in the near future will also be available in English and Arabic.