Women of Sabha Nursery: From trainees to expert native-seedling growers

SABHA, Mafraq — Reem, a 27-year-old woman from Jordan’s Northern Badia, says it is a point of pride for her to have extensive knowledge on the propagation of native seedlings and the restoration of Badia land, especially in front of her community. اضافة اعلان

This knowledge is one she has attained over seven years of working in WADI’s nursery for high-quality native seedlings in Sabha, Mafraq Governorate, in the northeast of Jordan.

“It feels good to pass on this knowledge to other people,” she said. “Especially because work here is completely new to the community… they are used to planting in farms and pots, but this is different from what they’re used to,” Reem notes.

Reem was one of six women recruited in 2016 to work in Sabha Nursery, a project managed by WADI for Sustainable Ecosystems Development, in partnership with the Hashemite Fund for the Development of Jordan Badia. At the time, Reem was only 19, and looking for an opportunity to learn a trade or find a job that does not require a high school diploma.

“The community comes first and foremost in this kind of work.”

Together with the Hashemite Fund and local women, WADI grows seedlings at Sabha Nursery from native seeds, using efficient unified irrigation systems that measure exact quantities used for each seedling produced in the nursery; resulting in the use of only one-third of the water used in conventional nurseries. These rangeland plants are then planted in degraded lands to restore the ecosystem and sustain community livelihoods.

“The community comes first and foremost in this kind of work,” she said.

“We have a lot of livestock in the Badia and a lot of grazing and desertification, and if the shrubs are grazed before they properly develop, everything goes to waste,” Reem explained the dilemma while examining jars of Artemisia seeds collected from local areas that will be used to grow seedlings for the next season.


Reem Al-Zubeid, a Sabha Nursery employee, examines Artemisia seeds collected from local areas, at Sabha Nursery offices, in Mafrag Governorate, northeastern Jordan, on March 1, 2023.

Reem is optimistic however and says that the community are becoming more aware of the benefits of such efforts for the sustainability of rangelands, which are vital for sustaining the incomes of the numerous livestock breeders in the area.

This is hardly the only obstacle Reem and her colleagues face on a daily basis as working women in an economically and socially harsh region.

“It was difficult for people to understand at first how women would take public transportation to go to work, as a woman is not allowed to take transportation on her own in the Badia,” Reem said.

However, the community has seen a lot of development, and while they once disapproved of Reem’s choice to work, today they understand the importance of such projects and aspire to attain such opportunities like those offered at Sabha Nursery, according to Reem.

And even though the mother of five-year-old Wesam still struggles every day with lack of transportation and childcare services, she says she enjoys her work immensely.

“At the end of the day, it’s a women’s community here, with all that comes with it… there is time for work, but also for laughter, fights, and gossip!”

“The atmosphere of the workplace is unique here… it keeps you busy, and your day ends without you noticing, as you get to know new things and new faces constantly.”

“At the end of the day, it’s a women’s community here, with all that comes with it… there is time for work, but also for laughter, fights, and gossip!” Reem laughs along with her colleagues as she says this, and they reminisce about days spent at the nursery while joyfully mocking each other.

Despite the laughter and fun, the job is no picnic, Reem notes, as, depending on the season, work can be physically and mentally demanding, and there is not much time for socializing.


Seedlings propagated at Sabha Nursery being planted in an outplanting site in Sabha, Mafraq Governorate, in January 2018.

‘Like a child’Reem learned about the project of Sabha Nursery from a charitable society in the area, for which her father worked as a tipper-truck driver.

“They called me for a training, in which I learned about this kind of work, and a while later they called me to join the team here in Sabha.”

Since then, they have studied the full process, and they currently manage and carry it out every year, starting from preparing the media mix for new seeds, and up until the seedling is fully grown and ready to be planted, where it would have to survive on its own in a particularly dry and challenging environment, in the hope that such seedlings would help restore these lands and allow for other plants to grow naturally.

“[A seedling] is like a child; when you start raising them you shower them with affection, but once they start school, the serious work begins. … During the tempering stage, after the stage in which you spoil the seedling, you must prepare it for living outside, so it wouldn’t get a shock from being watered only once a year,” Reem said.


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