Thailand’s labor ministry announced on June 24 that it would resume sending workers to Israel, potentially offering a boost to the country’s agricultural sector, which was hard hit by the Oct. 7, 2023, attack.
Almost 30,000 foreigners—including 10,000 Thais and about 10,000 to 12,000 Palestinians—worked on Israel’s farms until the Hamas attack. Some were killed, others were taken hostage, and most of the remainder fled.
Thailand said it hoped to have more than 10,000 return by the end of the year.
The attack devastated Israel’s agriculture, hitting as it did Israel’s fertile zone east of the Gaza Strip.
Many farmers fled. Those who didn’t, or who came back to tend their fields, found their hands tied by a lack of laborers to weed, prune, and otherwise tend crops.
Many were called up into the military reserves.
The Thais return is critical, Ayal Kimhi, professor of agricultural economics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, told The Epoch Times in an email.
Israeli farmers generally regard them as their best foreign farm workers.
Palestinians who lived in Gaza or the West Bank and commuted to jobs in Israel are no longer allowed in the country.
The Thai government’s agreement is essential because the two governments have a formal labor agreement to avoid Thai workers being exploited by private manpower companies, Mr. Kimhi said.
The war’s damage to Israel’s farms has been pervasive.
The border areas in the north and south account for a quarter of Israel’s farm production and much of its fruit and vegetable production.
A southern farmer, Asher Tamsut, took The Epoch Times for a tour of one of his tomato greenhouses in Moshav Ami'oz in March.
Across six acres, the plants were bedraggled due to a lack of pruning and bore few tomatoes. The rows were overgrown with weeds. The plants, normally 15 feet tall, had been topped to make them less work to tend for the few workers he had remaining, he said.
The field normally produces 250 tons of tomatoes in a harvest, but its crop planted just before Oct. 7 yielded only three tons, he said.
He had already lost about $1.6 million.
According to the World Bank, agriculture, forestry, and fishing account for 1.3 percent of Israel’s GDP. That percentage has been declining in recent years, as in most advanced countries, Mr. Kimhi said.
Israel’s GDP was about $525 billion in 2022, but lost nearly 20 percent during the 4th quarter of 2023 compared with the previous year.
It was its sharpest decline since its pandemic decline of almost 30 percent during 2020’s 2nd quarter.
Israeli economists saw a recovery in the 1st quarter of 2024, but it had still not caught up with economic performance before the Hamas attack.
In addition, the nation has spent an estimated $80 billion on the war so far, an extra financial strain.
About 33,800 Israelis worked in agriculture, 0.8 percent of its labor force, Mr. Kimhi said, in addition to 15,000 Palestinians and 25,000 other foreigners.
As of 2022, Israel exported about 13 percent of its agricultural production—mostly fruits and vegetables— while importing grains and oils.
Right now, it’s the peak of the peach season in Israel, Mr. Kimhi said.
“The fruits are relatively small because the pruning was not done optimally,” he said. “Also up north the security situation still prevents many farmers [from approaching] their plantations.”
Hezbollah has since Oct. 7, 2023, steadily attacked northern Israel with rockets, anti-tank missiles, and, lately, suicide drones.
That has forced the formal evacuation of 61,000 Israelis from 43 communities within 5 kilometers of the border and the voluntary departure of thousands more, according to the Alma Research and Education Center, a strategic institute specializing in Israel’s northern frontier.
Some farmers return regularly to tend their farms but may expose themselves to attack in areas where people may have only 15 seconds to get to shelter if air-raid sirens sound.
Hezbollah’s rockets have been setting wildfires in the north, damaging farmland, Alma’s president and founder, Sarit Zehavi, told The Epoch Times.
Israel will have to import eggs this summer because most egg production is along the northern border and many henhouses have been damaged, Mr. Kimhi said.
Political turmoil has emerged over plans to reduce agricultural tariffs to lower consumer prices for food, which Israeli farmers say will hurt their ability to compete with cheaper European imports.
Thai workers paid a significant price on Oct. 7, when 39 were killed and another 32 taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. Six are believed to remain in captivity.
“The government asked for the cooperation of the Israeli government to help emphasize to employers to take care of the safety of Thai workers,” the labor ministry said in a statement.
Some Thai workers remained in the country but went to work illegally in other sectors of the economy also affected by labor shortages, Mr. Kimhi said.
Volunteers, both from Israel and abroad, have pitched in to help out on Israel’s farms, but it hasn’t been enough to compensate for the absence of so many full-time, skilled workers.
The best solution, Mr. Kimhi said, “Would be that those 10,000 Thais will be able to return to their former employers.”
The first batch of about 100 workers was set to fly out from Bangkok this week, with another group to follow in early July.
Thai workers—many from the nation’s northeast region—have sought employment in Israel for higher wages and the chance to work their way out of debt, a growing problem in their home country.
Farmers have hesitated to invest in replanting, not knowing if they'd have the labor to bring the crops home, Mr. Kimhi said.
The government has provided some compensation and financial support for farmers damaged by the war, he said.
