Environment
It would come as no surprise for farmer Fallah to find himself forced to dispose of his ripe tomato crop yet again this year.
Fallah plants tomatoes on an area of 100 dunums in Al-Hallabat in Zarqa Governorate in Jordan.
Fallah had destroyed the tomato crops he planted in the past years due to low wholesale prices, making it difficult for him to recover the cost of growing it.
He was not the only farmer in this area who preferred to leave his crop to perish rather than selling it. Said Mohammed (a pseudonym) has also had to get rid of his tomato crops extending over 80 donums in Al-Hallabat, over the last three years.
There are no officially published statistics on the number of farmers who have had to get rid of their tomato crops after their sale proved unfeasible.
The reporter had interviewed 20 tomato farmers from Al-Hallabat, and his survey showed that 18 of them have got rid of their tomato crops in the past years.
Low prices, high cost of transportation, and high labor costs were mentioned as the main reasons for their action. According to the survey, about two thirds of the farmers stopped growing tomatoes.
The farm gate price is the figure has revealed that farm gate prices available to farmers have fallen by as much as 42%, according to an analysis of data provided by the Jordanian Public Statistics Department, showing a near doubling of the marketing costs compared to a decade ago.
The farm gate price reflects the net profit for the farmer after all costs are deducted once the crop is sold.
Agricultural economist Mohammed Tabieh points out that farmers are usually at the mercy of middlemen who provide them with all their requirements in return for buying their crop at an agreed limited profit margin.
The farm gate price may not exceed JOD 0.2 per kilogram of tomatoes, while the kilogram is sold to the consumer at about JOD 1 ($1.42), Tabieh said.
The decline in crop prices occurs when picking times in different regions overlap; this leads to surpluses in the market, which leads to a marketing bottleneck, he added.
Tabieh, the acting head of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness, said the agricultural pattern in the 1980s was successful as it took into consideration the needs of markets at home and abroad, while the agricultural factories absorbed the surplus of crops.
Experts believe that the agricultural pattern is one of the most important means that can streamline production, and help control supply and demand patterns through granting farmers licenses that determines their plantation areas and crops through taking a number of measures, including linking them to manufacturers, financial entities, and to help them to control the agricultural production prices, and finding markets abroad for those crops.
According to Tabieh, the agricultural pattern applied in previous decades proved its success in organizing the sector and sparing farmers the loss of their crops.
Tomato is mainly a summer crop but is also grown in winter. Summer produced the largest percentage of tomato crop output in Zarqa Governorate in the last 10 years, and the winter crop was not far off.
Tomatoes account for about a quarter of the vegetable-cultivated areas in Jordan .
Al-Hallabat is located in Zarqa Governorate, northeast of the capital Amman. The eastern desert accounts for a large part of the governorate's area.
Agricultural production expert Azmi Abu Rayan said agriculture in desert areas requires special investment for watering techniques, adding that the sandy soil in them channels water away from the roots.
According to Abu Rayyan, tomato is a water intensive crop, and each one square meter needs per season 500-600 liters; which is equal to an average of 550 cubic meters of water per season per dunum.
This means that one kilogram of tomato consumes about 79 liters of water, which is equal to about one third of Jordan's daily per capita water consumption.
Two thirds of Jordan’s water consumption is pumped out from aquifers in an unsustainable and alarming manner; the agriculture and livestock sector consume one third of the underground water every year.
was noticeable when the survey was conducted among farmers that none of them had received or had access to ‘Agricultural Guidance’ programs such as awareness and update publications and advertisements.
Analysis of the Ministry of Agriculture budget data reveals a decline in the allocations for the ‘Agricultural Guidance’ programs, since 2011, while the increase in the allocations for the National Center for Agricultural Research and ‘Agricultural Guidance’ programs did not exceed 13%.
The National Center for Agricultural Research and Guidance programs target is to promote efficient use of available agricultural resources, help increase the incomes of farmers and agricultural workers, and work to improve their standard of living as a whole.
It is also responsible for disseminating reproduced; adapted or innovative agricultural techniques; introducing them to agricultural guides, following up on the results of their application; developing the skills of agricultural specialists, technicians and workers in the agricultural sector; in addition to holding training courses and specialized conferences.
The price of tomatoes in the central market dropped to JOD 0.07 per kilogram last September .
In the same month, a local news website posted a video of farmers in Jordan disposing of a tomato crop, the source said.
"May God compensate you," the farm worker said, as he uprooted the tomato shrubs in front of who seems to be the landowner, while large amounts of tomatoes appeared thrown on the ground – large amounts of water were used to grow the crop and were wasted to no avail.