Jordan: Cereal production meets a fraction of local needs - DoS
Jordan Times
24 September 2010


AMMAN - Jordan needs to increase twelvefold the area of land it plants with wheat and barley in order to achieve self-sufficiency in these staple crops, a report released Thursday by the Department of Statistics said (DoS).

The report, which covered the year 2009, showed that the Kingdom produced 12,500 tonnes of wheat last year, only 2 per cent of the country's average annual need of 606,100 tonnes. Meanwhile, Jordan's livestock in 2009 consumed 519,800 tonnes of barley fodder last year, whereas production of this crop was only 17,100 tonnes.

Minister of Agriculture Mazen Khasawneh told The Jordan Times yesterday that due to limited resources, only between 400,000-500,000 dunums are planted with cereals each year depending on rainfall, adding that Jordan has recently suffered a series of dry years that have affected the agricultural sector as a whole.

Khasawneh said the ministry's policy is based on supporting farmers, adding that it recently changed its support mechanism to farmers growing cereals from encouraging the planting of more land to promoting higher yields.

"The new support is based on buying wheat and barley products from farmers at the international price plus 50 per cent of the price, plus the cost of transportation," the minister said, adding that this year the ministry bought each tonne of wheat at JD350, while each tonne of barley was bought at JD250, or JD350 for the kind used as seed.

By Hani Hazaimeh

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