Farming in the - WordPress.com

Analysis of the agricultural situation in Azraq Basin
German-Jordanian Programme “Management of Water Resources”
31
Use of water
Irrigation system:
Some farms are still with surface irrigation (1/2 of the farms have at least
part of the land irrigated with surface irrigation): they know the advantages
of localised irrigation but cannot invest in the irrigation material for the
whole farm. Others adopted localised irrigation: they switched 5 years ago,
when they received the first water bill, and when the price of energy
increased (in some farms, trees are still suffering from the change).
Water consumption and irrigation practices:
Water consumption is on average 1160 m 3 /du/y, with a distinction between
localised irrigation (mostly open tube) using around 900 m 3 /du/y with, and
surface irrigation using around 1300 m 3 /du/y. There is a high demand for
technical extension, mostly concerning irrigation techniques, but also for
some other techniques like pruning.
Most of the farmers are connected to electricity; but 1/3 of the visited farms
is still using diesel pumps and cannot sustain nor invest in a generator.
Energy costs represent an average of 19% of the production costs for farms
connected to electricity, and 52% for farms using diesel.
Labour
Equipments
and inputs
Repartition of
production costs
Profitability 47
Labour cost is often the highest production cost on the farm. The production
is either picked by seasonal workers, or sold on the trees (dhaman 46 ).
Family and one permanent Egyptian
worker.
Farms have minimal equipment, sometime an old tractor dating from the
time the farm was first established, but some were relying on the tractor
rented from MoA and are requesting today that MOA keeps providing this
service. Managers try to limit expenses by using the minimum quantities of
agri-inputs.
Average costs
Average costs
= 170 JD/du
Average for all farms
working on diesel
working with electricity
%
water cost
Trusted Egyptian manager working
for a long time on the farm.
%
energy cost
%
labour cost
%
input cost
8% 28% 39% 23%
3% 52% 28% 18%
10% 19% 46% 25%
Farmers have a low investment capacity and ability to modernise. The first
investment has been covered at the beginning, as farms have been
profitable until the 2000s, but now farmers are losing money or can just
break even.
Profit hardly reaches 100 JD/du, but most of the farmers are just sustaining
or even losing money (on average profit is 9 JD/du). Some look forward
to selling the land, whereas others are attached to their farms and do not
consider it.
46 Dhaman: traders come to visit an olive tree farm just before harvesting time, estimate the production of olives still on the trees, and propose a
global price to the farm’s owner to buy the production. If the owner accepts,the trader brings some worker, paid by him, who will harvest the fruits.
47 Some other references about annual return quoted from Economics Study for Water reuse for agriculture and/or forestry in the Amman Zarqa Highland. Final
draft. Willis W. Shaner. MWI. USAid, ARD. November 2000 are given for comparison purposes. Net annual returns to fruit production = 225JD/du (once full
production is reached), to combined summer and winter vegetables = 325JD/ du. Rq: according to Eng. Yassan Nazzal, 358 JD/du for grapes, 49 JD/du for olives.