Focus on Jordan

Friday, May 9, 2008

When you think about the development countries, Agriterra supports organisations, you probably won’t think about the Middle East. While in fact organisations in those countries could use our help very well. For example Jordan, surrounded by Iraq, Israel and Syria, has got a difficult starting point to built a strong and healthy husbandry. That’s why it’s very important Jordan farmers unite in an organisation. So that is exactly what they did: they raised the Jordan Farmers Union (JFU). Odeh Al Srour and Samir Abu Helaleh are members of this union and brought a visit to Agriterra in the Netherlands.

Samir is a journalist, works in an environmental institute and has got a farm. ‘In the first place I’m a farmer’, he says. That’s why he decided to do something to strengthen the position of farmers in Jordan and together with Odeh he joined the JFU. The most important thing for the organisation is to strengthen the position of the farmers and to develop the agriculture.

When Kees Blokland (director of Agriterra) was in Jordan’ capital Amman just a few years ago, he came in contact with the JFU. The Jordan organisation would like to extend this contact. By exchanges with Dutch and Jordan Farmers they hope to learn a lot about the way of working. During their visit in Europe it became clear how much differ there is between farming life here and in their home country. In Jordan the most common soil type is dessert which is hard to maintain and the farmers have less excess to machinery.

“The support of Agriterra could contribute to improve the life of Jordan farmers” Samir says. He hopes Agriterra can give them advice and help them get in contact with Dutch farmers. To the question if he has visited a Dutch farm he answers laughing: “Not yet, I hope to do that the next time!”