Jordanians need look no further than their own backyard to
draw up a roadmap for sustainable food security and agricultural
self-sufficiency. By tracing our steps back to the Kingdom’s golden era of
agriculture, we can take inspiration from a time when local farmers had the
financial and moral support they needed to continue cultivating their lands,
while keeping their rural communities intact in the face of urbanization.
اضافة اعلان
Before the mass migration of rural populations resulted in
the abandonment of arable lands (especially across the northern half of the
Kingdom), Jordanian rural communities were inspired to persevere with the help
of positive messaging from one man: the late Palestinian-Jordanian radio and
television personality Mazin Al-Qubbaj, aka “El-Hajj Mazin”.
A household name from the late 1950s to the mid-90s, this
charismatic man was the godfather of “agricultural communication” through his
farming program “Al Ard Al Tayiba” (The Good Land), a successful radio show
that became a television series on Jordan TV.
Qubbaj captured the imagination of Jordan’s then-bustling
community of farmers by offering useful tips and insights into agricultural
best practices, the latest in water conservation techniques, and interviews
with local farmers who shared their knowledge on hybrid farming and cross
breeding.
Born and educated in Tulkarm, in the West Bank, his
communication style was distinctly romantic, down-to-earth, and captivating. He
often waxed lyrical about the “beauty of the land”, the importance of preserving
our connectedness to the “red, fertile soil”, and the need to find ways to
protect the “natural vegetation cover”.
To celebrate his ability to reach the hearts and minds of
Jordanian farmers, Qubbaj was awarded the “IPDC-UNESCO Prize for Rural Communication”
in 1991. Established in 1985, the award aimed to draw attention to innovative
content creators in developing countries who advanced agricultural messaging
through various communication channels.
During Qubajj’s time, the Jordanian government was also
known to offer farmers much-needed agricultural subsidies to weather the winds
of urbanization and the unforeseen disruptions in demand, and to continue
living off their land.
Later on, in the 1990s and 2000s, such positive policies
were discouraged by the powers of globalization, like the World Water Forum and
the World Bank, which preferred global supply-chains to local food chains –
that were not celebrated enough for leaving a low carbon footprint.
In other words, globalization helped aggravate climate
change because of the economic models it pushed countries like Jordan to adopt.
Those policies converted what used to be a bustling agricultural sector powered
by farmers who lived in rural communities into agricultural businesses owned by
landlords who lived in urban centers and employed foreign workers to man their
lands.
This also resulted in eroding generations of family-owned
farms and intuitive farming techniques in the name of “economic reform”, along
with the loss of large swathes of arable land in favor of closely stacked
residential and commercial cement buildings.
Ironically, the pandemic, which has shaken the global
supply-chain system to its core, has also ended up turning
globalization-inspired economic attitudes on their head, opening the world’s
eyes to the devastating effects of the lack of self-reliance for basic
essentials like food and water.
Months of lockdown that resulted in global supply chain
disruptions alerted developing countries to the fault in capitalist and
globalization-centric agri-food policies. It became apparent that buying local
and empowering farming communities was the smart strategic choice to make,
especially if the aim was to guarantee the resilience of countries in the face
of global shakeups.
To find our way back to an economic system that values
farmers and local agri-food communities, we can always find inspiration in an
iconic book of international repute, titled “Small is Beautiful: A Study of
Economics as if People Mattered”, by German-British economist E. F. Schumacher.
Published in 1973, this collection of articles paved the way
for movements such as “Buy Locally” and “Fair Trade”, which support local
economies that value personal connections with local farmers and favor
community-based food systems.
Italy is one country that believes “small is beautiful” in
the fields of farming and agricultural planning. One of the world’s top
food-security success stories, the Italian agricultural model is built on a
foundation of small and medium-size farms and food establishments that are
mostly family-owned.
Italian family farms are supported by multiple networks of
specialized agri-food “cooperatives” and “consortia” which help distribute,
market, and export their produce locally and to external markets.
“Coop”, a nation-wide supermarket system powered by a vast
network of cooperatives from all over Italy, is a remarkable case study into
achieving food security through intelligent planning. With its impressive 160
years of experience, Italy’s largest supermarket chain offers reasonably
priced, high-quality Italian agri-products to local consumers interested in
clean, non-GMO foods and traditional “made-in-Italy” delicacies from the
country’s 20 regions.
Most importantly, the Italian agricultural model is proof
that farming is more than just cultivating the land and growing the crops.
Farmers need complex support systems and logistics networks to sustain
livestock farming and food production. This includes creating a solid
infrastructure for agri-food cooperatives, food packaging industries, foodstuff
manufacturing, traditional and machine-powered food preservation methods (like
pickling and jam-making, which could solve Jordan’s problem of surplus
produce), and distribution and marketing services.
This will lead to the creation of a well-developed
agricultural matrix that could help alleviate unemployment by offering young
Jordanians job opportunities that require manual and vocational skills, as well
as academic credentials in agri-food marketing, advertising and PR.
To sow the seeds of food security and resilience in Jordan,
we need to rethink our economic systems to prioritize sustainable
community-based agriculture over industrial agri-business, small-scale farming
over mass food production processes, and short food supply chains that are
minimally impacted by climate change over globalized supply chains.
Jordanian farmers and agri-food producers are at the heart
of the country’s food resilience and self-reliance vision. We need to talk to
them as if they mattered – just like Qubbaj did – with a language that boosts
their morale and inspires their perseverance and determination to give Jordan
its second golden age of agriculture.
The Writer has reported on the environment, worked in the
public sector as a communications officer, and served as managing editor of a
business magazine, spokesperson for a humanitarian INGO, and as head of a PR
agency.
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