Rural poverty in Jordan
Lack of rain, lack of food
Jordan is classified as a chronically water-scarce country. Less than 5 per cent of the land is arable. For farmers, little or no rainfall means severely reduced cultivation and production. Not only do poor farmers have fewer products to sell, they also have less to eat. Hunger and food insecurity are constant threats.
Who are
Jordan’s rural poor people?
About 20 per cent of Jordanians live in rural areas where poverty is more prevalent than in urban areas. Approximately 19 per cent of the rural population is classified as poor. Because of the arid nature of the land, many rural poor people
cannot grow enough crops to feed themselves and their families. People
who find other ways to supplement their incomes generally earn very
little. Regular drought exacerbates the situation. For example, during
the drought of 1999/2000, wheat production dropped from 70,000 tonnes
to 9,000 tonnes, an amount that fell disastrously short of the country’s
demand for about 650,000 tonnes of wheat annually.
Many of Jordan’s rural poor people live in extremely difficult conditions:
- They have limited access to alternative sources of income
- They have limited opportunities to diversify their farming enterprises because of low rainfall, poor soil quality and the topography of the land that they cultivate
- They lack collateral and cannot obtain loans needed for investment in farm activities that could lead to higher incomes
- They do not own land and they are unwilling to make long-term
investments on the land they cultivate as tenant farmers
The most vulnerable groups include large rural households (with eight family members) headed by illiterate or poorly educated people, households headed by women, households with sick or elderly people, and households that do not own land or have very little land.
Families headed by women
tend to be among the poorest of the poor. They have fewer economic
assets than households headed by men. For example, only 44 per cent
of households headed by women own agricultural land and 30 per cent
own livestock. Instead, 68 per cent of households headed by men own
land and 36 per cent of them own livestock. Similarly, only 21 per
cent of women who are heads of households receive loans for agricultural
development and 9 per cent for income-generating activities, compared
to 43 and 14 per cent of men who are heads of households.
Where are
Jordan’s rural poor people?
Poverty is not concentrated in a particular region or regions in the country. It is found in urban centres, refugee camps and rural areas. The poorest of the poor tend to be in low rainfall zones where agriculture is severely limited and where the environment is significantly degraded, leading to widespread erosion and desertification.
Why are
Jordan’s rural people poor?
The most significant causes of poverty in rural Jordan are high unemployment and low wage rates in rural areas, drought seasons (a decrease in average annual rainfall decreased of about 18 per cent between 1994 and 2004), large family size, desertification and uneven economic growth.
Rural poverty in Jordan has its roots in the following basic conditions:
- landlessness The landless usually depend on
wage labour and informal employment in rural areas as sharecroppers.
They may have limited access to government services and may rely
on their employer for additional assistance in the form of small
loans to pay medical expenses if they are not beneficiaries of the
social safety net
- small-scale farms Unless the family owns livestock
or has access to additional off‑farm income, small-scale farmers
are forced to enter into less profitable farming arrangements, such
as renting land and sharecropping. They may be indebted to middlemen
who help them market their products
- large families The average Jordanian family
has six children, and many families have nine or more members. The
composition of the family varies and may include small children,
elderly parents and unemployed young adults. Lack of resources to
pay for health care and school fees can reduce the living standards
of these families to a level of extreme poverty
- access to resources Various development programmes
provide access to improved services for rural and agricultural development.
Rural women and isolated and illiterate poor farmers have inadequate
access to credit and other services
In addition, 90 per cent of the population
lives on only 10 per cent of the country’s surface area. As
a result of the prolonged conflict in the Middle East, Jordan has
hosted several waves of refugees, displaced persons and returnees.
This has had a significant impact on the population growth rate. Since
1961, the population has increased fivefold, leading to increased
pressure on natural resources, income disparities and growing poverty.
Since 2000 the rapid growth rate has slowed.
Source : IFAD
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