A Regional Delegation With Practical Questions
Portal Agro Chile’s November 4 report listed Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Guatemala, Panama and Peru. It attributed the invitation to Israel’s ambassador to Chile, Peleg Lewi. CNN Chile also reported the delegation’s composition, citing information from Chile’s agriculture ministry about the program.
Venezian described the visit as a chance to assess experience and technologies relevant to Chilean farming, especially irrigation, measurement, treatment and reuse. Building relationships with institutions and companies was another objective. Those statements describe what Chile hoped to learn, rather than commitments to buy equipment or adopt a particular system.
Following Wastewater Back to Agriculture
Reported stops included the national water company Mekorot and Shafdan, the wastewater treatment facility serving metropolitan Tel Aviv. The Chilean account put Shafdan’s daily treatment at approximately 420,000 cubic meters, with recovered water used mainly for agricultural irrigation. That figure comes from the visit report, rather than a new measurement conducted for the delegation.
The itinerary connects two tasks often discussed separately: treating sewage and supplying farms. Recovering water after treatment adds a further use for an existing resource. The tour also addressed how water is managed between major infrastructure and its eventual users.
Sorek and Granot Treat Different Sources
Chilean reports said the delegation toured Sorek, where reverse osmosis produces fresh water from seawater. Venezian also discussed the relationship between state decisions on infrastructure locations and operation through concessions, placing the technology within a broader system of water planning.
Portal Agro Chile named Granot as another stop. Its description requires care: EMS Mekorot Projects identifies Granot as a plant that desalinates brackish groundwater drawn from nearby boreholes. The company says this also helps prevent salinity from spreading through the coastal aquifer. Granot should therefore not be described as another seawater plant on the Chilean account alone.
Leaks, Filters and Water Meters
The reported program included Asterra, which uses satellite imagery and artificial intelligence to identify possible leaks. It also listed Amiad Water Systems for filtration, Arad Group for metering and monitoring, and Palgey Maim for engineering and water infrastructure.
Another stop was Meniv Rishon, the municipal water and wastewater utility in Rishon LeZion. That brought local service management into a program that also featured national infrastructure. The accounts provide no comparative product testing results; the company descriptions explain the subjects discussed during the visit.
Contacts Before Contracts
A business session at the Israel Export Institute brought participants together with water companies, according to the reports. Chile’s agriculture authorities, quoted by CNN Chile, described opportunities to identify solutions and establish contacts for future technical evaluations and possible cooperation.
A meeting with Israel’s Water Authority was still listed as forthcoming in the November 4 account. That does not establish that it subsequently took place. The reports also supplied no contracts or investment totals.
There is an earlier regional connection: Mekorot says it signed consulting agreements with Argentine provinces in 2023. Those agreements are separate from this tour. The documented outcome here is an exchange with Israeli facilities, operators and businesses; turning those contacts into projects would require decisions not announced in the visit reports.
