AMMAN — Secretary
of the
Jordan Valley Farmers Union Jamal Masalha called for eliminating taxes
and fees imposed on production inputs to reduce costs for farmers and,
consequently, for consumers.
اضافة اعلان
He said that the
prices of production inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides are 10-fold
higher than previous prices, which contributed to the increase in vegetables
prices in Jordan.
Masalha told
Jordan
News that the frost and the drop in temperatures also contributed to
raising prices “due to 70 percent decrease in production”.
The drop in
supplies and the increase in demand, in addition to the shrinkage of the
agricultural area and the losses incurred by farmers during the previous years,
worsened the farmers’ situation and will reflect, down the line, on end users.
According to
Masalha, thousands of farmers “will be chased by court enforcement officers if
the defense order is canceled”.
Farmers have now
stopped working and producing because of the accumulation of debts and their
inability to pay, he added.
Head of the Farmers
Union Mahmoud Al-Oran told
Jordan News that the challenges and problems
facing the agricultural sector are getting worse “despite the fact that the
sector’s demands were presented to the government several times”.
He added that while
the government took many decisions on different sectors and lowered customs
duties, “those decisions did not include the agricultural sector”.
If the high sales
tax imposed on agricultural production input stays as it is, “merchants will
raise their prices for farmers, which will lead to a direct increase in prices
for the consumer, too,” Oran reiterated, stressing that “farmers have been
facing too many problems since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the
current situation does not indicate that upcoming days would be better; quite
the reverse”.
Farmer Bassel
Ramadneh told
Jordan News that “we are dealing with a difficult
situation that few farmers will be able to handle”.
“The costs of
agricultural inputs have been always high, but this is more so nowadays due to
the fact that we have no income, and due to the COVID-19 pandemic that put us
in a very difficult situation,” he said.
He urged government
entities to support farmers and “take necessary actions to help them stand on
their feet again”, because “if the situation remains as it is, I can say that
the production will drop significantly and this will be reflected on
consumers”.
Head of
Traders and Producers of Agricultural Materials Syndicate Mohammad Loay Bibars told
Jordan
News that there are no customs duties on most agricultural inputs, and that
most of them pay no sales tax, adding, however, that there are “some
distortions on some agricultural inputs”.
He stressed that
the syndicate and the Sales Tax Department are concerned with correcting these
distortions, and that a meeting will be held next week to work out how to
address them.
Bibars said that
the prices of agricultural inputs increased due to the “global rise in prices,
and not as a result of fees and taxes”.
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