AMMAN — The head of the
Jordan Valley Farmers Union Adnan Khaddam said that the increase in the price of vegetables
was due to several reasons, chiefly the farmers’ inability to produce more, due
to their dire economic situation, and the shrinking of agricultural lands by 50
percent.
اضافة اعلان
Khaddam told
Jordan News that
the price of the production inputs increased by 400 percent, and this affects
the farmers' ability to produce more. To that, one should add "the drying
up of dams and the lack of irrigation water, and the frost that ruined many
crops".
Khaddam called on the government to
help the agricultural sector, since the situation of the farmers goes “from bad
to worse, and agricultural areas are expected to decline next year by 70
percent, which will inevitably lead to another rise in prices", and stressed
that setting price ceilings will not work.
The spokesman of the
Ministry of Industry Trade and Supply, Yanal Barmawi, told
Jordan News that
"price ceilings may be set for some vegetables if their prices continue to
rise in the market".
Barmawi also said that the increase
in the prices of some types of vegetables over the last 10 days is due to the
decrease in the quantities supplied to the market due to the frost wave.
The spokesman of the
Ministry of Agriculture, Lawrence Al-Majali, told
Jordan News that there was an
increase in the quantities supplied to the vegetable and fruit sellers; 3,000
tonnes made it to the market on Wednesday, while last week 2,300 tonnes were
distributed to sales points.
Majali said vegetable prices are
expected to go down during the next few days in light of the greater quantities
supplied to the market.
Farmer Mahmoud Al-Enezi told
Jordan
News that farmers are passing through difficult conditions, and that the
prices will continue to go up if their situation is not addressed.
Farmers may not be able to produce
in the upcoming days "due to the fact that we are losing, and our expenses
are much higher than our income", he said, urging the government to help
the agricultural sector as "our bad situation will also affect the
consumer”.
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