Loved by King Solomon, the fruit is valued for its beauty and health benefits. But farmers of this ruby-red member of the Seven Species complain that growing it is overly expensive
By SUE SURKES
Rani Bar Nes, 80, a farmer from Moshav Bitzaron in southern Israel, has been growing fruit for 40 years.
Ten years ago, he planted pomegranate trees on his land near Kibbutz Negba, believing that the fruit, increasingly in demand for its health benefits worldwide, would do well as an export crop.
He was wrong.
Today, Bar Nes is the chairman of the fruit division at the Plants Council. He told The Times of Israel that while there were no exact figures, his estimate of the number of dunams farmed for pomegranates — a fruit of deep cultural and religious significance in Israel, particularly popular around the upcoming Jewish New Year — had fallen from around 20,000 (5,000 acres) in 2018 to just 6,000 (1,500 acres) last year.
He added that 6,000 tons of the fruit were produced in 2024, or half as much as in 2018.
Israeli farmers, he explained, were unable to compete with Egyptian and Turkish growers in the international market.
“Their costs are a quarter of ours, and they sell for half of what we sell,” said Bar Nes.
Complaining that water prices are astronomical in Israel while pests increase as the state prohibits more and more chemical pesticides, Bar Nes pointed out that Israeli farmers were burdened with excessive surcharges — such as pension contributions paid to foreign laborers.
“A foreign worker costs me NIS 400 [$120] per day, including benefits, accommodation, food, and more,” he calculated.
“My son, Shay, will continue the business. Otherwise, I would have closed down,” he said.
While farmers will be paid NIS 1.20 ($.36) per kilogram (2.2 lbs), according to Bar Nes, there is a huge variety in retail prices.
Pomegranate prices in Jerusalem, according to the chp produce comparison site, range from NIS 3.90 at Rami Levy in Ramot and Givat Shaul, to NIS 17.90 at Shufersal Express on Keren Hayesod Street and at Hadassah Hospital.
In Tel Aviv, the differences are even starker. Shufersal Sheli (My Shufersal) is selling for NIS 3.90 per kilogram, while Shufersal Express in Ahimeir Street is trying its luck for NIS 29.90.
A symbol of bounty
According to the Agriculture Ministry, Israelis consume around four kilograms (just under 9 lbs) of pomegranates per year, including byproducts such as pomegranate juice. Around a fifth of this, or 18%, is bought in the run-up to the High Holidays, which this year started with Rosh Hashanah on Monday evening.
During the Jewish New Year, it is customary to have pomegranate seeds on the table and to pray “that our merits increase as [the seeds of] a pomegranate.”
As any learned Jewish child knows, the fruit is traditionally said to contain 613 seeds, symbolic of the Torah’s 613 commandments — although if you open a few specimens and count, you discover that the number varies.
The pomegranate, native to Asia Minor, Transcaucasia, Iran, and Turkmenistan, and one of the first fruit trees to be domesticated in the eastern Mediterranean, was one of the fruits found by the biblical spies sent to scout out the Land of Israel, and is one of the Seven Species with which the land is blessed.
Remains of the fruit from the Neolithic period, and possibly the Early Bronze Age, have been found in the country at sites including Arad, Gezer, and Tel es-Sultan (Jericho).
Representing abundance, fertility, love, and God’s blessings, pomegranates inspired the decoration on the capitals of two pillars on either side of the entrance to King Solomon’s Temple, and were embroidered in gold into the hem of the garment worn by the High Priest.
The calyx is said to have inspired the shape of King Solomon’s crown, and probably many royal crowns that followed.
With its red peel enclosing hundreds of juicy, jewel-like, ruby-colored seeds, it features in the Song of Songs. The male lover describes his beloved woman’s temples behind her veil as “like a pomegranate split open.” He says her thighs “shelter a paradise of pomegranates with rare spices...” and wishes he could give her a drink of “spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate...”
That the pomegranate endures as a Jewish symbol is evidenced by its incorporation into Jewish art and design, from challah covers to the finials that decorate the rollers within a Torah scroll. In the latter case, they are known as rimonim, the Hebrew word for pomegranate. (Rimon is also the Hebrew word for a grenade, which resembles the fruit.)
The pomegranate tree, beautiful throughout the seasons, flowers between Passover in the spring and Shavuot in the early summer. Its fruits ripen in the early fall, just in time for the Jewish New Year.
But although pomegranates are central to Jewish tradition and iconography, farmers such as Bar Nes worry that their cultivation will soon be unsustainable in the Jewish state.
“A farmer plants a fruit tree for 40 years, but every year, the people in government change their minds about things like customs duties. You don’t know what to plant,” said Bar Nes. “The state doesn’t understand that agriculture isn’t for one year, or that agriculture gives us food security.”
“I could do other things, and so could my son,” he added. “Maybe we should all close down, move to Tel Aviv, and have an easier life.”
