Sustainable Agriculture - Let’s change how the world grows food.

Sustainable Agriculture - Let’s change how the world grows food.

At Netafim, we have the technology, the know-how and the imagination to make agriculture sustainable. Together we can achieve a food-secure future.

Time to rethink our Food System

Agriculture, environment, and nutrition are linked. To achieve ZERO HUNGER, we must rethink how we grow our food and its impact on the planet’s limited resources.  Precision irrigation helps farmers eliminate climate risks and make our food system more sustainable by enabling them to increase yields while using less water, fertilizer, energy, and crop protection.

Learn how precision irrigation can help farmers produce more food per hectare of land
Managing Water Scarcity

With agriculture using 70% of the planet’s fresh water, and droughts becoming more frequent, water-efficient farming is a global priority. Precision irrigation helps farmers get the most out of every drop by growing more crops using limited water supplies. Drip irrigation also allows the usage of recycled and/or saline water. Crops receive the exact amount of water that they need, when and where they need it.  This increases water use efficiency by up to 50% compared to other irrigation methods.

Here’s why drip irrigation is a game-changer
Making the Most of Available Land

Arable land is in short supply due to monoculture, soil erosion, climate change, and over-intensive farming. Deforestation is not the answer. Increasing yield per hectare, while protecting soil fertility, is a more sustainable approach. Precision irrigation enables farmers to grow on any topography, field shape, or size. It turns land unfit for growing  – arable. It gives plants more favorable growing conditions driving higher outputs, and enables multiple crop cycles per year.

See how drip irrigation enables farming in uneven topography
Climate is changing. Farming must change too.

By 2050, we’ll need to grow 70% more food to feed the world’s growing population. We’ll have to cope with changing rainfall patterns and frequent droughts. If you want to win as a farmer you need to reduce your dependency on the weather and take an active countermeasure. Precision irrigation helps farmers become climate resilient and more sustainable. Controlling the amount of water given to the plant is critical for achieving optimal yields.

Watch how this grower went from risk to profit with drip irrigation

Food insecurity is not our destiny

Can we produce enough food in the coming years? Can we nourish the world’s population without harming the planet? Can we do this in the face of climate change? At Netafim, we believe the answer is: Yes, yes, and yes. 
As a company that grew up developing irrigation systems for farms in the desert, where rain is scarce and arable land poor, we’ve known it is possible to produce more food in the toughest conditions for many years. 
This belief is encapsulated in our motto - Grow More with LessTM and delivered in the field through precision irrigation. Our unique approach to agriculture is all about helping farmers achieve higher yields, and better-quality crops, while using less water, fertilizers, and energy. Regardless of the crop, climate, soil, or region, our mission is to empower men and women, smallholders and large farms, to grow more food using fewer resources. In this way, agriculture becomes a way to break the cycle of poverty, to generate sustainable livelihoods that sustains farmers, their communities, and societies.

Using precision irrigation, we can change our food future!

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The world is hungry for sustainable agriculture solutions

Working smarter together, we can secure our food supply.

Innovating for irrigation efficiency

Innovating for irrigation efficiency

Netafim’s precision irrigation systems support sustainable farming in numerous ways. Drip irrigation systems nourish plants with 50% less water, provide viable alternatives to flood irrigation, and enable efficient use of fertilizer and crop protection, with no leaching. Cloud and AI-based technologies help farmers take sustainable farming to a new level of crop models and real-time irrigation recommendations. 

 

Learn how farmers take sustainable farming to the next level. 
Collaborating to create impact

Collaborating to create impact

Netafim helps policymakers join the dots to make change possible. We work closely with governments and aid agencies to make food systems more sustainable. We facilitate micro-financing and capacity building to empower farmers and provide access to resource-efficient farming methods. And, we work closely with farmers around the world, learning about their food growing challenges and how we can better support them.



See how working together can create a brighter food future.
Taking responsibility for a food-secure future

Taking responsibility for a food-secure future

Netafim is committed to advancing global food security by helping farmers worldwide grow more food. Irrigation delivers predictability and stability and is the most immediate way we can increase productivity and mitigate risk. Expanding irrigation by an additional 15-25% of the rainfed agricultural land would enable us to increase global food production by 6-8%. That will feed an additional 620-840 million people. 

 

Learn about our commitment to change.

Sustainability partners

We work with growers, companies, governments and aid organizations all over the world to make agriculture more profitable and sustainable. 

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UN Sustainable Development Goals

Our sustainability action plan is aligned with the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which comprises 17 global goals supported by 169 targets. Right now, we’re making the biggest global impact by focusing on the following goals:

We build the resilience of farmers, specifically those in socio-economic stressed nations by reducing their vulnerability to drought and other climate related events.

We ensure a safe and reliable food supply while increasing the productivity of agricultural land through knowledge transfer, technology adaptation, and support for farms of all sizes.

Along with our parent company Orbia, we are committed to increasing the number of women in management roles globally.

We increase water use efficiency in agricultural production through the precise application of water and nutrients, resulting in increased water conservations and water quality.

We build resiliency through increased green and public spaces while minimizing the overall environmental impact of cities, through efficient irrigation and water management

We provide a full circular solution for our plastic products, beginning with collecting and recycling drip lines at the end of their life. This significantly reduces plastic waste sent to landfills, while increasing the amount of recycled plastic materials used in our manufacturing process, and lowering our carbon footprint.

We strengthen the adaptive capacity of farmers to mitigate the effect of climate-related and natural disasters globally, through innovative solutions that reduce GHG emissions, and reduce the risks associated with droughts.

We bring together public and private entities to provide natural resources and agricultural production management solutions, helping farmers of all sizes around the world.

Minimizing negative environmental impact with drip irrigation

Corn is the third-largest plant-based food source in the world. It is also the subject of a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) which used corn growing data collected over 6 years from 200 corn growers in Turkey. The results of this LCA show that drip irrigation is much more beneficial than flood or sprinkler irrigation in terms of minimizing negative environmental impact.  When compared to flood and sprinklers, corn irrigated by drip demonstrated a higher yield, required significantly less fertilizer, and resulted in reduced carbon emissions.

Sustainability reporting

We’re big fans of transparency. That’s why we share all information, knowledge and experience openly and across multiple channels.

We also value transparency among our partners and associates. Qualities like openness and integrity help us build trust, which enables more productive collaboration. That in turn helps our partners and associates achieve greater success and generate more profit.

And when it comes to our own people, we promote and support them in every way possible. While guaranteeing respect and equality, we work to attract, develop and retain talent wherever we find it. And of course, we ensure health, safety and human rights across the board.

To ensure we’re always making the most of corporate social sustainability, we also follow the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) principles. See our reports to get an overview of our recent performance.

 

Download Netafim 2018-2019 sustainability review

Download Orbia 2019 GRI report

Sustainable business

Our purpose at Netafim, is the way we contribute to global food security. Embedded in our purpose is also a set of core values and ethical practices that guide our day-to-day conduct in five core areas:

 

Read more about our sustainable business