Dubai Caught between Syria’s civil war and the burgeoning instability in Iraq, Jordanian farmers are increasingly finding it difficult to transport their produce to the international market. All roads leading out of the country pass through the war affected regions. It has become impossible for them to transport vegetables to Turkey as they have to pass through Syria and in the past few months have not been able to get through. Tons of vegetable grown are rotting for want of distributors and suppliers and Jordanian farmers are compelled to sell their produce at paltry sums that barely cover their cost.
CNN’s Market Place Middle East (aired from July 3-6) depicts the plight of the farmers of Al Aqaba region. In the village of Mafraq where the documentary has been filmed, a distraught Muslih Ajal Massaeed, wool distributor, raises his hands in prayer: “It is difficult to go on with the business. At the moment we can’t do anything. We gather wool and wait until Allah can send us a buyer. No one turns up for the wool which continues to pile and rot.”
The worst impact has been on vegetables which have a short shelf-life and have to be sold within a limited period despite poor returns dictated by the situation. Abdullah Abu Saleh,a Jordanian vegetable grower is distressed that he had to sell his tomatoes at half a dinar to a kilo which was one fifth of the price he fetched last year. “I don’t know what it will cover-- the labour, or insurance or spending on the farm or planting soil. It is expensive and it is having a major impact on all farmers,” he says.
The situation is further complicated because of the huge influx of Syrian refugees, who took over the jobs in the commercial sector pushing native Jordanians to farming as the prospects of starting manufacturing units in the rural areas have become so dim. Many young Jordanians took to farming and are now having to double up as distributors along with being growers.
