Agriculture in Jordan

As the Jordanian government drove up interest rates to attract remittance income, farm credit tightened, which made it difficult for farmers to buy seed and fertilizer.

Moreover, since the early 1960s, the government has continuously created irrigated farmland from what was previously arid desert, further reducing competition for arable land.

[1] Even with increased production, the failure of agriculture to keep pace with the growth of the rest of the economy, however, resulted in an insufficient domestic food supply.

Wheat imports averaged about 350,000 tons (12.9 million bushels) per year, ten to twenty times the amount produced domestically.

The agriculture sector has been growing and has doubled its share of GDP from 2-4% in the past 5 years the main driven by domestic demand.

[1] Only about 20 percent of Jordan's geographic area received more than 200 millimeters of rainfall per year, the minimum required for rain-fed agriculture.

[1] Because arable, rain-fed land was exploited extensively, future growth of agricultural production depended on increased irrigation.

[1] Because of periodic drought and limited area, the rain-fed uplands did not support sufficient output of cereal crops to meet domestic demand.

[1] In the more fertile Jordan River valley, fruits and vegetables including cucumbers, tomatoes, eggplants, melons, bananas, and citrus crops often were produced in surplus amounts.

[1] The Jordan River Valley received little rain, and the main source of irrigation water was the East Ghor Canal, which was built in 1963 with United States aid.

Growth in agricultural output was only about 4 percent during the 1980-85 Five-Year Plan, despite investment of approximately JD80 million during the period, indicating the slow pace of progress.

In the short term, the government was attempting to maximize the efficiency of agricultural production in the Jordan River valley through rationalization or use of resources to produce those items in which the country had a relative advantage.

Rationalization started with a controversial 1985 government decision to regulate cropping and production, primarily in the Jordan River valley.

Because even a bumper crop did not meet domestic demand, expansion of dry-land cereal farming in the southeast of the country was a major agricultural development goal of the 1990s.

One plan called for the irrigation of a 7,500-hectare area east of Khawr Ramm (known as Wadi Rum) using 100 million cubic meters per year (80,000 ac·ft/yr) of water pumped from a large underground aquifer.

Another plan envisioned a 7,500-hectare (19,000-acre) cultivated area in the Wadi al Arabah region south of the Jordan River valley using desalinated water from the Red Sea for irrigation.

In response, Sheikh Mithqal Al-Fayez of the Bani Sakher, imported the first mechanical tractor, which helped significantly alleviate the country's food shortages.

consists of a main headquarter in Amman and seven regional centers located in Dair Alla, Ramtha, Mafraq, Mshaggar, Rabba, Tafilleh, and Shobbak.