Our guide was Moti, a long-time member of the kibbutz. We learned so many things, but I'll try to tell you only about some of them. We drove around the kibbutz as he told us about its history and mode of government (the most democratic possible!).
Then we parked and visited the cows and the factory where the milk products are packaged for shipment. It's truly an amazing operation that they have! Virtually EVERYTHING is computerized: the composition of the cows' food to maintain proper nutrition while minimizing costs, milking the cows, the processing of the milk, packaging the milk products into the containers you see in the stores, putting the containers in packages, putting the packages onto pallets, etc. Moti said that one of their key objectives is minimizing the amount of human labor required.
For example, in the milking room, the cows walk one at a time onto a HUGE carousel that is very slowly turning. As soon as a cow is in place, there are 2 workers who hook her tits up to the milking machine. The compter takes care of the rest (I suppose there was at least one person on the other side to unhook them): identifying the exact cow based on a device she wears, sensing when she is dry and turning the suction off, and recording exactly how much milk she gave. The cows are milked in this fashion three times every day. The computer knows about every single cow, including who her parents and grandparents were!
A couple other examples were the robots we saw in the milk processing factory. One of them was actually designed by a student at the regional school located at Yotvata as his 12th-grade project! Another of them, which was actually working during our visit, was picking up 6-packs of bottles of chocolate milk (the signature product of Yotvata!) 3 at a time (18 bottles) as they came off of the line from the machine where they had been filled and sealed. It then turned around about 180 degrees and deposited them at the correct position on a palet. When one level of the pallet was full, the robot picked up a separator board and put it precisely on top of them so that another level of 6-packs could be placed. When the pallet was full, it automatically proceeded to the next machine, which picked it up and turned it round and round, wrapping it in plastic shrink wrap to keep it together for shipping. We saw only two workers on the floor making sure everything was going fine.
From the milk factory, we continued our tour on the other side of the highway (Highway 90). This is where Yotvata's fields and palm groves are. This is also the area where they do various plant science experiments. For example, they had several rows of palm trees that were growing in HUGE round containers that were actually on scales. The trees got varying amounts of water of varying levels of salinity (salt content). The water they got and the amount they actually used is all very carefully measured (that's the reason they're on scales), and it was obvious that the trees receiving saltier water weren't growing as fast. Moti said they were also less productive.
Another ongoing experiment of theirs involves growing various flowering plants, both local natives and species from other arid area of the world. The goal here is to find, breed, and develop plants that look nice in landscaping but require very little water (what we called "xeriscaping" in California). Here's a picture of part of that area, where you can truly see the desert blooming!
Yotvata's fields and palm groves go right down to the Jordanian border. On the other sides, you can see the sand dunes, showing us exactly what the entire area looked like originally. Once Jordan and Israel had signed their peace agreement, the Jordanians began to ask why none of this kind of work was happening on their side of the Arava. Gradually, they developed a relationship with Yotvata whereby the kibbutz helped them develop agriculture in Jordan. At first, the kibbutz members had to travel almost all the way to Eilat to cross the border at the crossing located there. The Jordanians had no trouble with the idea of them simply entering Jordan right at Yotvata, but the Israeli government was naturally worried about the possibility of smuggling and infiltration. So, they worked out a system that allows 11 members of the kibbutz to cross, using 2 keys, one that they have and one that a Jordanian official on the other side has. Jordan even built a guard station on their side, NOT to protect Jordan but to protect Yotvata!
It really was a fascinating tour, and it was amazing and inspirational to see what this kibbutz has accomplished and continues to do. I highly recommend it!
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