In the early 1900s, a local midwife,
Olga Hankin, reported information about the economic state of the families in the region to her husband,
Yehoshua Hankin, who was in charge of land purchase for the
Jewish National Fund (JNF). In 1927, Yehoshua Hankin resolved the complex legal issues involved in purchasing the land, and signed an agreement for the purchase of the Hefer Valley. The only difficulty was that the JNF did not have sufficient funds to pay the sum needed for buying the land. The chairman of the JNF,
Menachem Ussishkin, set out on a fundraising trip to
Canada, returning with $300,000 and undertakings to bring it up to a million, the sum required to purchase the Hefer Valley over a period of seven years. At the 16th
Zionist Congress held in
Zurich in 1929, Ussishkin announced that Emek Hefer was now in Jewish hands. A group of 20 young members of the "Vitkin" and "Haemek" ('the valley') movements settled in the newly purchased valley. They moved into an abandoned building and began draining the swamps and preparing the land for agriculture. In April 1933, they built their first houses at
Kfar Vitkin, in the heart of the valley. In 1931, a group from the
Hashomer Hatzair movement in
Hadera established the settlement of
Ein HaHoresh, planting the first citrus grove. A company called "Yachin" prepared plantations for settlers from abroad. Another group from the
Kibbutz HaMeuhad movement, founded
Givat Haim in 1932, while the organization of demobilized soldiers from the
Jewish Brigade set up the settlement of
Avihayil.
Ruppin Academic Center was established in the region in 1949. ==List of communities==