I love to acquaint Ukrainians with the achievements and all sorts of wonderful wonders of Israel.

Photos from the press service of the Council of research and development of Arava desert

One of these wonders is Arava desert.

With the word "desert" you probably imagine dunes, endless sand, infernal heat and flora, consisting of cacti and thorns. Such was the Arava just a few decades ago. Today, it gives several harvests of fruit and vegetables per year, and allows growing of organic products, without the use of pesticides and antibiotics.

According to The Marker, Arava gives almost 160 thousand tons of vegetables and fruits per year, with nearly 120 thousand tons exported, and the rest used for domestic market.

In recent years, revenues from export of agricultural products produced in Arava reached 1 billion shekels a year, another 190 million shekels brought through domestic market. And this is not the fertile Ukrainian black soil, but the hot sands of the desert.

The most common culture in Arava - is a sweet pepper, it is grown up to 113 thousand tons per year. Arava has become a source of dates fruits and zucchini, and onions, cucumbers, eggplant, cabbage, pumpkin are successfully grown too.

There are also some amazing features of Arava, such as Thai beans, which are very well settled down in the wilderness. Here they are grown in a special way - hung under the ceiling - so the pods turn perfectly flat, not warped due to contact with the soil and reach up to 30 cm. Spanish onion "sebolito." - hybrid of onion and green onions - white part of the onion is sweet and green feathers are spicy and fragrant. Agronomists of Arava found new type of wild melon -momordika - very useful, but bitter plant. Momordica help from a variety of illnesses, including a virtually natural insulin and is very useful for diabetics. Hanging strawberries of Arava impress with its aroma and sizes, and peaches and nectarines ripen in early April.

The Israelis are very fond of delicious and healthy food, and yet they love their country, so the application was found even for "useless" and lifeless areas of the desert.