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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?
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