About a week ago I watched as our neighbor Musa, the
Eggplant Master of the Middle JV, ran
across his field. This was odd as
I have never seen a farmer run.
Farmers don’t run, we work at the speed of plants and we change with
seasons. Sound planning,
repetition and consistency are our major allies and rarely, if ever, does being
in a rush get you anywhere that you want to be. I shouted to Musa from across our irrigation pond, “What are
you doing!?” In a mixture of disbelief
and joy he shouted back, “Eggplant is 2JD ($2.80) a box at the Market in
Sueilah!” In a flurry of activity
he and his workers picked half of an agricultural unit (the sum total of the
amount that AC4D has planted this year) entirely clean yielding Musa about 200
large boxes of eggplant which he took immediately to market.
This story is an excellent window into market conditions
this season as we wind down.
Farmers will tell you in the deepest confidence that they break even at
about 1.5JD per box. The wholesale
market has offered less than that to farmers for significant portions of this
winter and spring making even harvesting produce from the field a gamble. Hiring workers, buying boxes, ferrying
produce to market en masse, and paying commissions mean incurring additional
costs but with at least the hope of returning some of the farmers initial
investment. How much of that
investment and what, if any, profit can be expected under current market
conditions is the big question.
Musa had some inside information that he could likely make .5 JD (70
cents) per box in net profit and was so enthused that he picked his biggest
field clean in a heated rush in the hopes of making 100JD ($180). In a follow up conversation Musa
concluded that he would likely not make any net profit this season after a 30%
commission to the land owner that he works with.
How can I encapsulate conditions for Jordanian farmers this
season? In a word, abysmal. The major reasons behind the vegetable market
price collapse of the last 3 years in the Jordan Valley have to do with
regional conditions. Before the
latest iterations of the wars in Syria and Iraq farmers took top dollar for
high quality produce that was exported and received lesser returns on class b
produce for the Jordanian market.
Since the border closures to Syria and Iraq Jordanians are now unable to
export to both of those major markets as well loosing land route access to
Turkey and Europe. The closure of
international markets has created a glut of high quality produce within Jordan
driving down prices on even the best quality vegetables and fruit and leaving
class b produce with no market at all.
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