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Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/08/world/middleeast/08shmita.html
As Farmers and Fields Rest, a Land Grows Restless
[New York Times] Steven Erlanger - This year, 5768 by the Jewish calendar, is a shmita, or sabbatical, year. Jewish-owned land is to be left fallow. Exodus 23:10 - "Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat." That presumably worked fine in a primitive economy before decent fertilizer, but shmita presents problems for a modern Jewish state.