Speaker
Description
Scientific research shows that the Negev Highlands, despite their aridity, historically supported thriving agricultural communities through runoff-based irrigation systems and the cultivation of resilient local species since premodern times (Langgut et al., 2021; Bar-Oz et al., 2022). These ancient traditional infrastructures and practices —including terraces, water-harvesting systems, and traditional species and land-use practices—are of global cultural and archaeological significance, offering models of sustainable human settlement in drylands. In addition to their historical and cultural value, these systems enhance the ecological carrying capacity of desert environments, help delay soil erosion and desertification, and support sustainable food systems.
But while these historical practices and conditions have long endured, in recent decades, these systems are acutely threatened given the combined pressures of climate change and political and ethnic state-driven stresses (Tesdell, 2018; Stamatopoulou-Robbins, 2018; Avriel-Avni et al., 2019; Saif, 2022; Avni & Lavi-Neeman, 2025). While some in the local Bedouin communities still practice rainfed agriculture, much of the knowledge on water harvesting has been lost. Additionally, there is a lack of crop varieties adapted to the local conditions, with traditional landraces replaced by modern varieties, leading to poor yields and high sensitivity to climate variability. Similar processes albeit for different historical reasons, occur in Palestine’s Jordan Valley and Jordans Wadi Araba;
Our study proposes to explore the possibility of revitalized Bedouin Social-agroecologies and the longevity of traditional agricultural systems and practices as both an empirical and theoretical response to ecological and political precarity.
Empirically, we work in partnership with several Bedouin communities in the Negev Highlands to: 1)recover and document via ethnographic research the histories and practices of traditional cultivation; and methods of dealing with environmental stresses such as drought periods, or floods. 2) Analyze political and institutional barriers and the knowledge gap that impede agroecological revitalization. 3) Establish community-run and scientifically supported medicinal plant nurseries. 4) Develop a living seed bank for ancient landrace wheat and barley species. The nurseries and landrace study aspire to explore ways to alleviate biodiversity loss, soil degradation, rural unemployment, and food insecurity by promoting a climate-resilient, community-recognized agricultural hub. rooted in local knowledge
Theoretically, we propose the framework of “pastoralist political agroecologies” to challenge the dominance of laboratory-based agricultural research and techno-scientific "climate solutions." This framework integrates indigenous, field-based knowledge with scientific insights to support socially just and ecologically grounded agricultural practices. We draw from three bodies of literatures: first scholarship on Indigenous food sovereignty and decolonial land relations (Pope et al., 2025; Pebgue, 2022), second, experimental ecological approaches to climate adaptation in real-world settings (Lorimer & Driessen, 2013) and third, recent plant science research on the resilience of wild and heirloom varieties under contemporary climate stress (Distelfeld et al., 2014, 2023). Taken together, these theories suggest from different angles the potential of adopting sustainable practices of land improvement like grazing, intercropping aromatic and medicinal plants, and using local varieties of wheat and barley.
This approach foregrounds political agro-ecology not simply as a critique but as a basis for constructing applied, community-engaged models of adaptation. It emphasizes the importance of restoring ecological practices—such as intercropping, dryland grazing, and cultivation of medicinal species—not only for environmental sustainability but also for addressing historical dispossession and questions of recognition, power, and sovereignty.
Although rainfed agriculture in the Negev Highlands has been studied for over 70 years, there has been negligible collaboration with nearby Bedouin communities. Research efforts have largely focused on modern agricultural technologies, sidelining the rich knowledge embedded in traditional systems. Similarly, while heirloom and wild variety research is gaining momentum globally, it rarely translates into field-based partnerships with Indigenous or marginalized communities.
Our research addresses these gaps by establishing replicable, community-based experimental frameworks that integrate traditional ecological knowledge with climate-resilient agricultural science. This approach not only improves scientific understanding of dryland agriculture but also creates meaningful pathways for the co-production of knowledge and policy impact.
Ultimately, we argue that climate adaptation, resilience, and food security in the region must be understood as deeply political issues, inseparable from land rights, historical justice, and community recognition. Revitalizing Bedouin agroecologies is not only an environmental imperative—it is a political act of reclamation of knowledge, and a pathway to more just and sustainable futures in the region.
Keywords: Agroecology, Food security, drylands communities, Landraces.
