In December 2020, a few months after the pandemic had exposed major
problems with the world’s “long” food supply chains, the International Fund for
Agricultural Development (IFAD) posted a story on its website, titled “Five
reasons IFAD is putting small-scale farmers at the forefront of food systems
transformation”.
اضافة اعلان
Revealing the
serious shortcomings in previous agri-food policies encouraged by
globalization, IFAD found out that “our current food systems are not
sustainable… our food production practices – particularly the expansion of
large-scale industrial agriculture – come with an unacceptably high
environmental cost, threatening the food security of future generations”.
These messages
were later reiterated by agricultural experts and decision makers from
across the planet at the virtual UN Food Systems Summit 2021, held in
September, which Jordan took part in.
The Kingdom
joined other countries that posted on Twitter their “commitments” toward
achieving sustainable food security that focused on resilience rather than
profit. Those pledges were supposed to be the world’s new “modus operandi”,
especially in light of the pandemic’s rude awakening regarding the ripple
effects of globalization on aggravating climate change and weakening locally
made “short” food supply chains.
Such ill-effects
of globalization came as a result of policies that the World Bank, the World
Trade Organization, the World Water Forum, and others had pushed for to advance
large-scale and corporate agricultural strategies that diminished the role and
livelihoods of small farmers, especially in developing countries.
Since lockdowns
brought to light the fragility of global supply chains, the consensus that
small family-owned farms were indeed the spine of any country’s food security,
self-reliance and long-term resilience was renewed.
Jordan came to
similar conclusions a few months ahead of IFAD’s landmark article. In September
2020, His Majesty King Abdullah underscored the importance of promoting
self-reliance as well as developing local agri-food industries to achieve food
security.
Earlier on, in
August, he had stressed the importance of achieving food security in his
meeting with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El Sisi and Iraqi Prime Minister
Mustafa Al Kadhimi.
Notably, the
message of “self-reliance” had been delivered by the King well before the
pandemic. In an interview in 2017 with Faisal Shboul, who at the time was the
director of the Jordan News Agency, Petra, King Abdullah said: “No one is going
to help us if we do not help ourselves, first. We have to rely on ourselves,
first and foremost.”
But the
Jordanian government had other plans, and self-reliance in agriculture was not
necessarily one of them.
The Ministry of Agriculture unveiled its 2020-2025 strategy in August 2020, with plans to create
thousands of jobs while replacing foreign workers in agriculture with
Jordanians, among other benchmarks. No mention of attracting foreign investment
to the agricultural sector was made in any of the government’s statements.
Things changed
the following year when, in October, the Cabinet of Prime Minister Bisher
Al-Khasawneh decided to abolish the Jordan Investment Commission in favor of
establishing a new Investment Ministry, appointing the ministry’s first-ever
minister (before referring the amended law to Parliament for ratification a few
months later).
The government
said this step was part of its drive to reform the complex investment landscape
teeming with overlapping laws and regulations, which it blamed for the
country’s poor record attracting foreign investment.
In other words,
the government focused its message on its motives for establishing a ministry
to substitute the commission, saying that the new investment law “will not have
any surprises”.
This careful
messaging comes from lessons learnt some 20 years ago when the media, opinion
writers and the Parliament showed strong opposition to government-proposed
plans to “privatize” national sectors, such as water distribution and
management, among others. That privatization scheme was spearheaded by
different civil servants, including then-minister of economy Mohammad Halaika,
who had an academic mind and gave extensive details about his ministry’s plans.
Today the
government’s communication style is about giving blanket statements with no
specifics. The media, which have deteriorated in recent years, especially in
beats relating to governmental activities, seldom ask the right questions to
understand where the government is headed or the true nature of its proposed
schemes. (This does not cancel the fact that in tandem, local coverage of
social justice issues has seen a significant improvement over recent years).
In this spirit,
the government was never clear or transparent in its intentions to open up the
agricultural sector to foreign investment.
Over the past
months, in various news reports across local news websites and newspapers, the
water sector was mentioned in passing once or twice, but no one made a big deal
about it, or bothered to inquire about the specific nature of these
investments.
Blanket statements and press releases that offer long lists of plans and projects without explaining their significance to the average citizen will result in a wider gap of trust between the public sector and citizens.
But a quick
Investment Ministry’s website visit will tell a different story regarding where
Jordan is headed.
Under a page
dubbed “Value Added Sectors”, the ministry lists seven areas for investment,
including “agriculture”. A brochure authored by the former Jordan Investment
Commission and USAID is available for download and specifies several areas
under “Investment Opportunities”, including investment in livestock,
agri-business and agro-processing, and water.
“Foreign
investment” is not mentioned specifically on the page, nor in the brochure. But
the website’s “Overview” page states: “The Ministry of Investment was
established to be concerned with all investment affairs, and to deal with
issues of local, Arab and foreign investors…”.
The conclusion
here is that the Jordanian people are being alienated and uninformed about
government plans to open up the agricultural sector to large-scale foreign
investment. The government has a responsibility toward Jordanians to share
information in a structured and transparent manner.
Blanket
statements and press releases that offer long lists of plans and projects without
explaining their significance to the average citizen will result in a wider gap
of trust between the public sector and citizens.
This also points
to the urgent need to rehabilitate the media scene by pouring funding and
resources to empower local journalists with investigative reporting skills to
counter the absence of information from the government. Journalists need to
start knowing the sectors they cover like the back of their hand.
Next week, on
May 23, Jordan will be hosting the ninth Global Land Forum, in cooperation with
the Agriculture Ministry and IFAD, among other stakeholders.
Let us hope this
conference will reorient Jordan’s priorities to bring back small-scale farming
to the limelight. Small farmers and other micro-, small and medium-sized
enterprises in the agri-food sector are the way forward for Jordan to
achieve environmentally, economically and socially equitable food systems that
are also sustainable.
Small-scale
farms are the backbone of food resilience and security. Jordan should make sure
they are at the heart of its strategies – if we want to pull through the next
pandemic and other political and economic turbulences that befall the world.
Ruba Saqr 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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