Strategic Planning in Response to Global Environment Changes : The Case of Israeli Agriculture

Agriculture around the world is going though many changes, including globalization, new emerging technologies, environmental concerns, tendency to produce highly specialized goods, and global merging of food producers and retailers. These changes follow political, institutional, technological and financial trends. Israel is also going through accelerated densification and urban sprawl processes.In this study we discuss several strategies for responding to these changes: product differentiation (such as developing unique products for large retailers), focus strategy (producing fresh, bulky produce for the local market), environmentally friendly agriculture, and specilization according to Israel's comparative advantage in factor inputs. Agricultural research can help in utilizing new technologies to produce high-value, innovative products