About 800 rural settlements have been established in Israel
during the last 80 years - a continuous movement which
has not abated in the face of increasing industrialization.
The development of about 200 new agricultural settlements
is envisaged in the next 15 years, and the lesson gleaned
from this process experience has been recognized as an
important contribution to rural development planning.
The main settlement patterns evolved to date are the
collective Kibbutz and the cooperative Moshav. A third
intermediate pattern, the collective Moshav - which combines
joint production with individual domestic livinghas
exerted considerable influence over other settlement
forms in spite of its limited numbers I ).
The Moshav is a cooperative of farm families, in which
each family works a separate plot of land, lives on its own
homestead, and draws its main income from the produce of
the farm. These are features common to family farms in
most other countries. The governing principles that are
unique to the Moshav can be described as (a) national
ownership of land held in lease by the settler; (b) the land
allotment is not larger than the settler, and his family can
This article is based on the findings of a recent study on the
physical planning of the Moshav, undertaken by the Settlement
Study Centre, Rehovot, Israel.
work alone; (c) holdings cannot be divided among several
heirs or enlarged by purchasing additional land; (d) hired
labour may be employed only with the consent of the
Moshav's general essembly; (e) all members are obliged to
mutual aid and responsibility, joint marketing of produce
and purchasing of inputs.
The recent modernization of agriculture and the
resulting expansion of production have been making
growing demands on the family farm in respect of
economic efficiency and higher investments. A corollary
development is the increased use of motorized transportation
which has drastically altered the significance of
distances. Last but not least is a greater awareness of the
dwelling quality in the village. All these changes warrant
a prudent approach to the physical planning of agricultural
villages, especially when dealing with the residential area,
farmbuilding and services, including such utilities as water
supply, electricity and sewage disposal. It should be remembered
that the physical infrastructure represents a major
element in terms of cost and maintenance, and one of the
most rigid factors that are difficult to change once future
modifications become necessary.
The evolutionary stages in the physical layout of the
Moshav are characteristic of the modernization process
which the family farm is undergoing at present. Until lately the Moshav was planned according to a pattern known as
Model A, in which a farmyard and homeplot were attached
to the farmer's house. A typical Moshav would consist of
a loosely-gathered cluster of 80 to 100 family farms, spaced
about 40 m apart, with attached farmyards and contiguous
homeplots of 0.4 to 1.6 ha. Within the boundaries of these
farmyards various farmbuildings were erected, and during
the years progressively enlarged, following the specialization
in each particular farming branch.
Recently, however, there has been a growing
tendency to locate farmbuildings outside the built-up
village area. The reasons for this trend are manifold: lack
of space for expansion; excessive crowding of farmbuildings;
more stringent veterinary or phytosanitary standards,
and the effects of environmental problems on the
farming families who live in close proximity to the stabled
livestock and greenhouses.
Numerous examples exist of farmbuildings which were
removed from the farmyard and located - individually,
or in groups - in specially designated areas on the outskirts
of the village (generally within distances of up to 1 km
from the farmer's dwelling). In this manner diverse lines of
poultry are being operated in Moshav villages of the central
coastal region of Israel, and concentrated groups of greenhouses
can be found in many other parts of the country.
MostMoshav villages in mountainous regions, such as the
Galilee and Jerusalem hills, have established concentrations
of modern poultry runs outside the built-up village area,
mainly because of topographical constraints which made
the rational location of such structures near the farmer's
house exceedingly difficult.
The removal of farmbuildings from the residential area
was not always carried out in an organized fashion. With
the congestion of farmyards, lack of space for new farm
installations and ensuing environmental problems some
farmers choose to erect farmbuildings on their own agricultural
plots. These individual enterprises created new
problems and needs for additional infrastructure (roads,
power, irrigation, drainage, etc.) and conflicts with land-use
regulations and building codes. The sporadic siting of farmbuildings
brought back the problems of safety distances
between similar production lines (required for preventing
animal and plant diseases), and has ultimately compelled
many veteran Moshav communities to undertake a complete
replanning of their cuilt-up area.
In response to this trend, Israeli settlement entities
decided to test a new physical pattern for the Moshav,
based on the almost full separation of farmbuildings from
the dwelling area 2). The layout for this pattern was tagged
Model B, as distinct from the conventional Model A. A layout
similar to Model B already exists in several collective
Moshav settlements, which have converted to the ordinary
Moshav type 3). Since the physical plan of a collective
Moshav is practically identical to Model B, the settlers had
to adjust to the existing system of separated dwelling and
production areas, providing thereby interesting insights into
some of the problems which the new model has been trying
to solve.
What are the relative merits of separated dwelling and
production functions from the economic and social points
of view? The purpose of the described study was to
compare the two models in regard to the following
economic aspects: cost of physical infrastructure; effectiveness
in the operation of farmyard activities; economies of
scale derived from concentration and copperation; animal,
plant and environmental sanitation requirements; mobility
in switching from one kind of production to another;
utilization of family manpower; contracting or employment
of hired labour; leasing of farmbuildings or installations;
and such social aspects, as: quality of life in the Moshav;
family involvement in farmwork; the transfer of the farm
to the succeeding heir; housing for the farmer and
succeeding family; communal and economic organization;
conservation of the village's rural character.
A preliminary enquiry revealed no clear-cut advantage
of one model over the other in most of these areas. However,
in regard to poultry health, phytosanitation and
environmental aspects, Model B was found to be the
solution to a series of problems which had been troubling
the Moshav farmers.
On the basis of these findings the study was divided
into two stages. In the first stage, all quantitative aspects
which could be appraised economically were to be
anab/sed. In the second stage, the qualitative, social, and
organizational aspects were to be examined by means of
a series of attitude tests.