Farming in the - WordPress.com

24
Analysis of the agricultural situation in Azraq Basin
German-Jordanian Programme “Management of Water Resources”
Crop repartitions
in Azraq Basin
(on studied sample of farms)
20%
17%
51%
6%
4%
Olive
Grapes
Fruit trees
Alfalfa and fodder
Vegetables
Stone fruits
250
8%
1190
36% 1792
54%
70
2%
210
3%
252
4%
2010
44%
215
3%
25
1%
917
14%
North Badia (du)
935
19%
1600
32%
265
5%
Jiza area (du)
Azraq area (du)
4873
75%
Figure 6: Repartition of irrigated crops in Azraq Basin according to the
data collected during our 59 field surveys.
To test the representativeness
of our sample, we can compare
our data with the crop repartition
according to the data of the Ministry
of Agriculture 36 (MOA) (cf. Figure 7
below) and to the results of previous
studies. It shows that our sample
is quite compliant with the data of
MoA; our random sampling allowed
covering the diversity of farms on
the Basin, and can therefore been
considered as representative of
the reality of cropping patterns
and farms in the different sub
region. However, in North Badia, our
sample slightly overestimates stone
fruits compared to vegetables; in
Jiza, our sample is slightly underrepresenting
olive trees plantation
in favour of Stone fruits (stone fruits
are not listed in MOA database in
the first place); in Azraq, grapes
are combined with fruit trees in
the category Other fruit trees, and
farms that are planted with alfalfa
might be underestimated by MOA,
as plantations are really recent and
expand quickly.
36 This data cover the total area managed by each branch of MoA, which is more than the Azraq Basin in Jiza and North
Badia governorates. Moa Annual Report 2008.