Fair features low-fat cow, bovine behavior meter and neo-castor oil

Agritech 2009 brought together 250 exhibitors, 42 delegations from all over the world, 4,000 businessmen and farmers from overseas, 100 Chinese farmers and a delegation that would have come from Iraq, but it's stuck in Istanbul due to some visa problems of its members. The participants will present, learn, visit, conduct business and hold meetings at the International Agritech 2009 convention taking place at the Israel Trade Fairs and Convention Center in Tel Aviv, which opened yesterday and will continue through May 7.

Here's a small sampling of the thousands of innovations, instruments, concoctions, technologies, and exotic strains of fruits and vegetables being exhibited.

The system developed by startup enterprise Carta-Sense measures physiological data of pigs, calves, sheep and goats. An electronic tag attached to the animal measures its pulse, blood pressure, body temperature and movements. The data is relayed to a computer. Anomalies can be used to diagnose disease. The instrument could be useful for pinpointing pigs with flu.

Israeli cows produce nearly 11,000 liters of milk annually, a feat that requires a great deal of energy. Problems associated with this exhausting work are often discovered too late, after the cow has already fallen ill.

S.A.E. from Kibbutz Afikim has developed a 'behavior meter' that is attached to the cow. The meter 'learns' its resting habits: how many hours per day the beast is at rest, whether its rest is undisturbed, whether the amount of time it spends lolling in the yard is in the increase or decrease, and whether it is restless.

The information is transferred to the dairy farm's computer and the farmer is able to identify his upset bovines immediately, and provide appropriate care. The meter also signals when a cow is about to give birth.

A new strain of bulls hailing from Belgium whose offspring yield low fat beef will be shown at the exhibition. Calves sired by these bulls produce beef with just 7% fat, compared to as much as 40% in normal beef. The first herd of these cattle is already being raised at Kibbutz Naveh Eitan.

Kaiima Bio-Agritech, an Israeli-based high-tech company, has developed new strains of the ancient lubricant castor-oil, which the firm claims will revolutionize the bio-diesel production industry, which produces substitutes for petrochemical fuels out of biomass. Bio-diesel can be produced from these strains of castor-oil plants at a cost that is competitive with fossil fuels.

A sensor for locating ground moisture that was developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration - yes, NASA - and installed on the arm of the Phoenix satellite that landed on Mars, has been adapted for commercial purposes by the Israeli company Agrolan. The sensor measures the ground moisture over a large surface in order to assess irrigation needs, saving the farmer a bundle on irrigation water.

NaanDan Jain Irrigation, an Indian-Israeli firm, is presenting an artificial intelligence-based irrigation system which, the company boasts, can 'speak' with plants. The system measures the plants' water and fertilizer needs in real time. The system enables farmers to use up to 50% less water and 70% less fertilizer, and provide huge savings in production resources, increase crops and reduce ground pollution.