AMMAN — Crops in
Jordan Valley farms are subjected to continuous theft, and farmers
say they find themselves forced to pay protection money to ensure that their
produce and farming equipment remain safe.
اضافة اعلان
According to farmers, the protection money of
various amounts, depending on the size of the produce, is paid to rival
thieving gangs to protect the farmers, their farmland, crops and equipment.
The robbers, well known faces in the Jordan Valley
area, are called the “citrus thieves”. However, their robberies vary and are
not limited to citrus, but depend mostly on the produce in that specific
season, which is now citrus.
One of the farmers, who spoke on condition of
anonymity, told
Jordan News that “this phenomenon is not new”.
“It is known to farmers in the northern Jordan
Valley since a long time and we have lived with it for a while,” he sighed.
“Many farmers like myself are forced to sleep in their farms to protect them
from the citrus thieves.”
He said the
robberies take place mostly in the Northern Jordan Valley’s Al-Zuriah area,
Al-Mashari’ and
Wadi Al-Rayan. “In fact, all farmland situated in remote area
are vulnerable and susceptible to theft,” he said.
He said to avoid paying for the rival gangs, he
“hired four employees to guard my citrus farm to protect the crop”.
“This is costing me JD1,200 per month, which means
that 70 percent of my profit goes to paying the guards,” he said. Others who
also opted for private security guards explained that their farmland were in
remote areas, which are difficult for police patrols to reach instantly in case
of emergency.
Citrus farmer Tamer
Al-Terawi, who owns a citrus farm of 1,850 dunums, told
Jordan News that theft
of crops “increase the burden on us”.
“The salaries of the guards could come up to JD6,000
per month”, he said. “The thief has the methods and ways to succeed in
committing a robbery, and he gets the farmers into complicated problems.”
“So, we are forced to keep silent,” he added. He
declined to elaborate on the problems.
“There were several
people who invested in citrus farms, but were forced to sell their land because
of the thefts,” he said. “The thieves steel high-priced items, such as tropical
fruit, and sell them in the market.”
Farmer Abdul Rahman Abdullah said: “I and other
farmers take all possible means to protect our fruits, but this is futile.” He
explained that most of the citrus-producing farms are “located in the Al-Zuriah
area, which is difficult for police patrols to reach”.
According to Abdullah, farmers call for radical
solutions to rid farmland of the theft problem, and to help protect the crops.
He said that he incurs “great financial losses”
because the thieves “go after the most expensive items, at the beginning of
each season”.
“Thieves usually
commit their robberies at night, and sometimes in the middle of the day, taking
advantage of the absence of their owners,” he said. He noted that they map out
“tight plans to steal farms by monitoring their owners, especially those who
live outside the district, and then threaten the expatriate workers, who work
in the farm”.
Director-general of the Jordanian Farmers Union,
Mahmoud Al-Oran said that “using thieves to protect farms is an old phenomenon
that farmers are forced to comply with, especially at night and in remote
farms, given that poverty and unemployment are two main factors for the
existence of this behavior.”
Oran told
Jordan News that the thieves steal citrus
in particular because of its high price in the market, especially at the
beginning of the season.
“We fear that the high-value tropical fruit farms
will be infringed upon as well”, noting that “the central market should not buy
any product without verifying its source.”
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