| CAN RURAL COMMUNITIES BE TOO SUCCESSFUL? My Kibbutz was founded right after Israel's independence war in 1948. It was already well established when I was born 17 years later (1965). In 1988, my classmates and I thought the Kibbutz was so established and successful that we could find any personal or collective challenge to overcome if we chose to stay. As young people at the prime of their lives, we were looking for challenges, as our parents did, but we couldn't find them in the Kibbutz. In 1983, after high school, I volunteered for one year to help establish a new Kibbutz, which also became prosperous. You see, with the blueprint of the Kibbutz model, even establishing new Kibbutz communities was not so risky and challenging, but it had highly predictable results: success. Without an updated vision and significant challenges, the Kibbutz lost its lure for the young generation. The backlash came from many young people leaving the thriving Kibbutz and Moshav communities searching for a vision and new challenges elsewhere. The Kibbutz model was so successful that it threatened its mere existence. MEANWHILE IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Can you imagine the young people of Africa, India, etc., leaving their rural communities because they are "too prosperous"? In developing countries, young people seek economic security and a better life. Millions abandoned their villages because they couldn't imagine those offering their elementary needs and demands anytime soon. BACK TO ISRAEL A young Israeli born in an agricultural community, i.e., Kibbutz or Moshav, after 1910, was born into a reality of abundance and economic security. Such young people couldn't imagine agriculture or farming as synonymous with poverty. My friends and I took it for granted that farming meant prosperity. After all, the farmers we knew were all prosperous and part of the Israeli elite. Young Kibbutz people, like I was, grew up confused: We knew from our parents the hardships and struggles of the past, but we experienced only the comfort of the present. We knew our parents worked hard to be farmers based on Collaboration and Equality values. But now that they have already achieved this, we couldn’t find where we fit in the Kibbutz other than maintaining and improving a bit our parents’ mega-achievements. That was frustrating. We didn't look for comfort; we looked for risks, difficulties, challenges, and a chance to improve the world, and we couldn't find those in the thriving Kibbutz communities. Therefore, our decision was whether to stay on the Kibbutz and enjoy its comfort and security or leave it and search to prove ourselves and do good elsewhere. This misalignment between the Kibbutz's excellent economic condition and its youth's wish to follow in their parent's footsteps and do (more) good resulted in a massive migration outside the Kibbutzim. The Kibbutz youth badly needed and missed an updated vision, goals, and challenges they could pursue if they chose to remain on the Kibbutz, so they left their Kibbutz home. ZERO ARROGANCE I was one of the few who stayed in the Kibbutz, and not for a short time. Twelve years later, I was married, had my first child, worked in the Kibbutz orchards, graduated with a master's in agriculture, and was ready to continue my Ph.D. research. Oh, and I still had this bug in me that I had to contribute my share to make the world a better place. To advance my dream, after a long working day, I would invest more hours in developing a technology that could help me (and hopefully other farmers) spray fewer pesticides (at that time, I still didn't dare to say - zero sprays). In 2000, I left the Kibbutz to pursue my dream of changing the world through agriculture, as my parents did before me. Since then, I completed (a) my Ph.D. (fruit flies spatial ecology), (b) founded Biofeed, which developed zero-spray effective solutions for the leading economic global fruit fly threats, (c) founded Dream Valley company, which is a complete vertical value chain dedicated to fresh produce exports from developing countries to premium markets based on the Israeli model, (d) somehow found myself co-founding and chairing the IBMA conference, and (e) I remained married and raised five children. ONE MODEL FOR POVERTY, ANOTHER FOR PROSPERITY How is my life history related to poverty, suffering, and even hunger of millions of smallholders if my life on the Kibbutz and after that is the complete opposite of that? I mean, I live a life of relative comfort, as the Israeli middle class does. That is the point I am making here. My life and those of other children who were raised in rural communities based on collaboration and equality are the complete opposite of poverty, suffering, and hunger; in fact, they represent what we wish for millions of smallholders in developing countries. If I had been born before the invention of the Kibbutz, I would have been as poor as the Israeli farmers back then and most farmers in the Middle East and other developing economies today. I won my "luck" to be born into a thriving rural community, NOT thanks to technologies, knowledge, subsidies, and training farms, all provided generously to the early Israeli farmers (1850-1910). No, no, no! My "luck" to be born into a thriving rural society and live a comfortable life enabled me to do what I did. It came to me thanks to a groundbreaking, innovative community model called Kibbutz that my parents decided to use when establishing my Kibbutz community. WHAT WOULD YOU DO? If you were me, would you encourage other less fortunate farmers to follow the path of the early Israeli rural communities based on a village model? All received plenty of support with technology, knowledge, finance, and training but suffered poverty. Or would you encourage them to follow the path of the Kibbutz and Moshav models, founded on innovative community models that emphasize collaboration and equality while not neglecting the importance of other things, i.e., technology, knowledge, finance, and training? LETTING GO IS STRENGTH We must abandon the village model because, for centuries, it has proven to either maintain the existing state or enhance poverty. We must overhaul smallholders' community models because alternative rural community models have demonstrated resilience in extreme challenges. For instance, the Kibbutz and Moshav models have thrived despite adversities such as the harsh conditions under the Ottoman and British Empires, desert landscapes, malaria outbreaks in Israel, and the challenging field conditions in developing countries from 1800 to 1950. Moreover, these alternative models have consistently delivered significantly improved economic outcomes, further underscoring the need for change. We must change because the alternative community models are not better by the hair's width but by miles of advantages that set the tow on entirely separate categories. We must change the smallholder community model in developing economies because we are not cruel to let them continue living this way. We must change our rural community models because smallholders and developing countries deserve a far better future starting today, not tomorrow. REACHING THE STARS AND PREMIUM MARKETS Our goal is a vibrant, agile community that adapts to change and can earn a living with dignity. A community that can export and make a decent living indicates a healthy community. Paraphrasing J.F. Kennedy's speech, "We Choose To Go To The Moon…" I say - "We choose to Reach Premium Global Markets. We choose to Go Global... We choose to Reach Premium Global Markets in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win, and the others, too." | 
