Inside a greenhouse in Bogor, an Indonesian student watched an Israeli engineer explain how to make water disappear into soil, drop by drop. No one in the room thought to ask where the technology, or the expert, had come from, or what it meant to learn irrigation from a company built on land taken from someone else. For years, that quiet blind spot ran through parts of IPB University, Indonesia’s top agricultural school. It was suddenly, deliberately closed in 2025.

In May 2022, students at IPB’s vocational campus in Bogor gathered to learn about greenhouses, the glass or plastic-covered structures farmers use to grow crops in a controlled environment.

Among the speakers was Dr. Orian Shalev, a farming expert flown in from Netafim’s headquarters in Israel, the home base of a company that makes drip irrigation systems, which deliver water straight to a plant’s roots through small tubes instead of spraying an entire field.

Among the speakers was Dr. Orian Shalev, a farming expert flown in from Netafim’s headquarters in Israel, the home base of a company that makes drip irrigation systems, which deliver water straight to a plant’s roots through small tubes instead of spraying an entire field.

Standing next to staff from Netafim’s Indonesian branch, Dr. Shalev showed off what the company called “Generation 4.0 Greenhouse” technology, newer and more automated greenhouse equipment. The university’s vocational school described the event as support for then-Rector Arif Satria’s push toward more advanced farming methods. On its face, it looked like an ordinary campus talk, the kind that barely makes local news.

Look closer, though, and the relationship went well beyond one Saturday lecture. By that point, Netafim Indonesia had already built two greenhouses for IPB’s........

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