| Can we fly without wings, have a face-to-face conversation without being next to each other, or travel faster than a horse ride? Some things were unimaginable during most of human history, but they became apparent and the norm after a mind shift combined with innovations. Can farmers live with dignity and happiness without personal income or a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual paycheck? FARMERS WITHOUT INCOME My parents lived for 73 years on the Kibbutz, which they established, but never received a paycheck during their entire lifetime, and yet, not once suffered poverty or hunger. Not one paycheck, not even once in a lifetime, and yet not impoverished, not homeless or hungry. They had all they wished for. My mother said, "I had more than I dreamed of. We never dreamed it would be so wonderful”. My parents were never rich nor poor; they belonged to the Israeli middle class, although their bank account (when they had one) was as dry as the Sahara on a hot summer day. Above all, they never missed anything and were among the happiest people I knew. I was born in the Kibbutz my parents established, and I lived there for 35 years, during which I never received a salary or paycheck. Like my parents, I never missed a thing, never suffered hunger or poverty, and always had more than I needed and bargained for. So, what do you think? Is there more than one way to fight farmers' poverty (SDG #1) and hunger (SDG #2)? Who do you think is having a life filled with more happiness, a farmer with above 1.9 $/day, say 2 $/day, or my parents, who had received no paycheck their entire lives? Let us ask ourselves again: should our goal for impoverished smallholders to earn a surplus income above 1.9 $/day be our primary goal (SDG #1)? Or should we aim for something else, as my parents and other Kibbutz members do? If it is the second, do we walk on the path that will take us there? How can we reach a better world if we are unsure of our goal, or even worse if we aim for the wrong goal? What should be our goal for impoverished farmers? NO MORE HUNGER!? Out of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that the UN has announced, the number one goal, SDG #1, is - No More Poverty. Extreme Poverty is defined as a daily income below $1.9. “No Poverty” is a clear-cut, sharp, and simple goal and should be easy to achieve. After all, the UN does not aim for all farmers to become millionaires or part of the middle class. Hence, the current approach to the challenge is straightforward: exceed the 1.9 $/day income target by one cent or more. Please assume that we reached the 1.9 $/day income and passed it by one cent or even one dollar. Are farmers earning 1.91 or 2.9 $/day are fine? Is the world truly a better place under such livelihood conditions? Has such an income increase resolved the problem of smallholders' poverty? You don't need much time to answer decisively - "Of course not!" But how is it possible that even if all the smallholder farmers on the planet earn more than $1.9 a day tomorrow, it is still clear that the situation is not good? If an income of $1.91, $2.0, or even $3.0 per day fails to substantially improve access to essentials like food, water, housing, education, healthcare, and overall happiness, why would we prioritize it as the #1 SDG? How should we define a more worthy goal, and what should it be? Are there examples of more worthy "SDG #1" like goals that are defined differently? FAILURE IN SETTING GOALS What will you think about if I say, "Do not think of Elephants"? Our minds work in a way that we can't "not think" of something, so instead of not thinking about Elephants, you find yourself thinking about it. When we say to a child, “Do not touch this chocolate," we get the opposite reaction, as from this moment, the child's only focus is on touching and reaching the chocolate. Similarly, when we define a goal of "No more poverty", we, unfortunately, define what we will get after dropping the word "no", which is "Poverty". When setting a "Daily income no less than $1.9 per day" goal, we will get "Daily income less than $1.9 per day". Do you get it? These goals related to SDG #1 cause us to focus on the problem in a narrow and limiting way rather than on the solution for those farmers' lives from a broader perspective. This approach perpetuates poverty. UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL For sixty years (1850-1910), the pioneer farmers in the Promised Land and their patrons concentrated on the problems, trying to eradicate poverty, disease, hunger, mortality at a young age, low yields, etc., and all they got was more of the same. Then, in 1910, a small group of farmers (8 farmers and a second group of 10) crossed from the north side to the south side of the Jordan River and established a farm, which a year later would be named "My lord's grain group", and in Hebrew, "Kibbutz Dgania". The new group, which suffered from the same problems as the rest of the farmers in the Promised Land, redefined and reframed the challenges and other critical issues they faced. As a result, the new group devised and implemented new solutions for old problems. Thanks to the redefining and reframing process they went through, the new group could advance in leapfrog. They could see their way through thanks to reframing their problems and challenges and accepting their situation and limitations (e.g., being poor with few resources and living in a hostile environment). Inspired by the socialist movement, they intuitively understood that to succeed, they must combine their forces as effectively as possible. | 
