Agriculture experts have said the Cabinet's decision to raise the budget allocated for purchasing locally grown wheat and barley from the 2025/2026 season to JD59 million, up from JD45 million, deserves to be understood for what it is: a serious tool for rural development and income protection for grain farmers, not a solution to Jordan's food security challenge. They warned that presenting it as a shift in the strategic stockpile equation does the measure more harm than good, by raising expectations it cannot meet and obscuring its real value behind a larger promise.
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The experts told Al Ghad that two conditions must be met for the decision's impact to last. First, the purchase allocations must become a multi-year commitment, with quantities and prices announced before the planting season rather than mid-harvest. Second, collection and payment mechanisms must be designed to ensure small farmers can access the government price directly, through nearby collection centres and prompt payment of dues. Only then, they said, will domestically grown wheat serve as a genuine lever for rural areas and take its natural place in the strategic stock - as an important supplementary source, not a substitute for a robust import and storage policy.
Dr Fadel Al Zo'bi, Secretary-General of the National Alliance to Combat Hunger, said the decision marks the second increase in a single season. The allocation for purchasing wheat and barley from the 2025/2026 agricultural season has now reached JD59 million, up from JD45 million, with the target purchase volume rising from 110,000 tonnes to 147,000 tonnes.
Al Zo'bi said the government had already doubled allocations to JD45 million last June, after they stood at JD19 million in the previous season, during which only 40,000 tonnes were purchased. Revising the figure twice within a few months indicates that what farmers offered for sale exceeded initial estimates. The decision was framed as reinforcing the strategic stockpile, but the more useful question, he said, is where its greatest impact actually falls.
"The greater impact falls in farming villages, before it reaches the silos," Al Zo'bi said. "These millions are not an accounting entry in the stockpile file; they are cash liquidity flowing directly to communities living on the margins of the national economy, where employment opportunities are narrow and the pull towards the cities is strong." He described rainfed grain farmers as the weakest link in the agricultural sector: they farm without irrigation, harvest without knowing their return in advance, and then face traders at the marketing stage who know the farmer has no storage and cannot afford to wait.
When the state commits to buying the crop at a published price, Al Zo'bi said, it removes the two heaviest burdens the farmer carries - price risk and marketing risk. Those two risks, not low productivity alone, have driven many farmers over the years to abandon grain cultivation or simply lease their land for grazing.
The effect of that commitment extends beyond the current season, he added. A farmer who is confident there is a market for the crop is better placed to keep the land in production rather than leave it fallow or surrender it to urban encroachment, which erodes rainfed farmland year after year. Such a farmer is also better placed to service accumulated debts and prepare for the next season.
Al Zo'bi said the impact widens further to encompass the employment chain surrounding the harvest - from combine harvesters to transport, packaging and storage - activities that are modest in scale but preserve some economic vitality for many villages. Money disbursed during harvest season quickly circulates within the local economy, reaching village shops, workshops and services, and benefiting people who own no land at all. Keeping grain farming alive is not purely an economic matter; it is part of preserving the social fabric of these communities and their connection to the land.
However, Al Zo'bi said, analytical honesty requires not assuming that this benefit reaches small farmers automatically. Government purchasing rewards volume delivered: those who deliver more receive more, meaning the larger share of the allocation goes, by the mechanism's own logic, to large landholders and those who own equipment and transport. A smallholder who cannot get the crop to collection centres, or who cannot wait for payment, may be forced to sell through an intermediary at a lower price, diverting part of the support away from its intended recipients. At that point, the design of collection mechanisms, the proximity of centres and the speed of payment matter more than the size of the allocation itself.
He noted that rainfed production remains hostage to rainfall. A good season that lifted the quantities offered for sale does not mean a new trajectory has begun: a single dry season is enough to reverse the figures, however high the allocations are set. The value of the policy should therefore be measured not by what it achieves in a single year but by its capacity to become a standing commitment on which farmers base their decisions before sowing, rather than an adjustment that arrives after the harvest.
On the food security balance sheet, Al Zo'bi said the calculation is different. The quantities announced are what the government purchases, not total national production, since part of the crop goes to household consumption, seed and the open market, even if the purchased portion is what actually enters the strategic stock. However notable the increase looks against the previous season, it remains a limited share of the Kingdom's annual grain needs, in a country that imports the bulk of its wheat and barley. That gap is not a matter of degree to be closed by one or two decisions; it is a structural gap created by water scarcity, limited land suitable for grain cultivation and growing demand.
To illustrate the point, Al Zo'bi likened the strategic stock to a tank fed by two pipes: a main pipe representing imports and a secondary pipe representing local production. Widening the secondary pipe is useful, but it will not change the fact that the tank's level depends on the main pipe, and that disruption to global markets or shipping routes will remain the decisive factor. Even so, every locally produced tonne carries a value beyond its arithmetic share: it does not cross the seas, it is not exposed to international price swings and freight costs, and it is not subject to the export bans that producing countries impose during crises. In moments of disruption, that tonne carries a weight greater than its place in the tables suggests.
Barley deserves a separate note, he added: most of it is used as animal feed, so supporting its local production directly affects livestock-raising costs and the incomes of herders. In that sense, it is closer to a support for livestock production and the rural economy than to securing bread for consumers.
Dr Nail Al Zaher, an expert in rural development and food security, said the Cabinet decision carries an importance that exceeds its direct financial value. The decision will raise the target purchase volume from farmers from 110,000 to 147,000 tonnes in the 2025/2026 agricultural season. What matters most, he said, is that this is the second increase within the season: the government had already raised allocations last June from JD19 million to JD45 million, after volumes in the previous season reached only around 40,000 tonnes.
Economically, Al Zaher said, the decision can be read as an investment in two complementary dimensions of food security: the strategic stockpile and local productive capacity. Adding domestically produced grain to the stockpile reduces, even if only partially, the degree of exposure to disruptions in external markets and supply chains, at a time when regional crises and volatility in shipping, energy and trade have become more frequent. The deeper value of the decision, however, lies in preserving a national base for grain production that can be supported and expanded within achievable economic and water constraints.
The decision also sends an important economic signal to farmers, Al Zaher said. Agriculture responds not only to calls for higher output but to economic incentives and market expectations. When the government announces in advance its readiness to buy and sets known prices, it reduces some of the uncertainty farmers face when deciding whether to plant. The June decision included purchase prices of JD520 per tonne for seed wheat and JD440 per tonne for seed barley, alongside specified prices for other varieties, and allowed for the advance announcement of prices for the following season.
From a rural development perspective, Al Zaher said, spending on local production should not be viewed solely as the cost of obtaining wheat and barley. Part of that money returns to agricultural areas as farmer income, helps sustain agricultural activity and land use, and keeps services linked to production, transport and storage running. Local grain purchasing thus performs a social and developmental function alongside its food security role.
For the policy to succeed, he said, a careful balance is needed between food security and water security. Jordan cannot, and does not need to, build its food security on a goal of full self-sufficiency in wheat and barley if that would drain its limited water resources. Expansion should therefore be directed primarily towards appropriate areas and land - particularly rainfed production wherever conditions allow - and support should be tied to water productivity and resource-use efficiency rather than simply to increasing planted areas.
The next step, Al Zaher said, should be a shift from supporting quantity to supporting efficiency and sustainability. He called for annual evaluation of the policy against clear indicators: how much does local production add to the strategic stockpile? How much does the farmer benefit? What is the cost per locally produced tonne compared with an imported tonne? How much water is used to produce it? And what is the policy's impact on rural household incomes and the continued productive use of land?
The importance of the decision, Al Zaher said, is that it connects the strategic stockpile with the Jordanian farmer and with rural development. Holding a stock of wheat and barley is necessary, but maintaining a national production capacity is no less important. The challenge is to achieve that without imposing an unsustainable burden on water and financial resources.
"The JD59 million should not be read only as an allocation for purchasing 147,000 tonnes of grain," Al Zaher said. "It should be read as an investment in Jordan's ability to retain its options in a crisis." In a regional environment of growing uncertainty, he said, food security strength lies in the diversity of its sources: stocks in the silos, secure supplies from abroad, sustainable domestic production capacity and farmers able to remain on their land.
Dr Hassan Al Asofi, a third expert consulted by Al Ghad, said that buying wheat and barley from farmers at incentive prices is an important tool for encouraging farmers to continue cultivating field crops, particularly given rising production costs - seeds, fertilisers, fuel, labour and agricultural services. A clear and guaranteed purchase price, known before or at the start of the season, gives the farmer greater security and stability, reduces exposure to price and marketing risks, and encourages expansion of planted areas and investment in improving productivity and quality rather than switching to other crops that may be more profitable in the short term.
Al Asofi added that local wheat and barley purchasing does not only support the farmer: it is directly linked to food security and to strengthening reliance on national production, particularly since Jordan depends heavily on grain imports. Every tonne produced and marketed domestically contributes to narrowing the import gap and to the state's ability to withstand global market disruptions and supply chain shocks. Regular purchasing from farmers also creates a more stable relationship between producers and the bodies responsible for marketing and storage, and builds farmer confidence in the agricultural sector and in government policy on strategic crops.
On the technical side, Al Asofi said that support for wheat and barley purchasing should not consist merely of raising the purchase price but should form part of a comprehensive support system for field crops. That system would begin with providing improved seed varieties suited to climatic and water conditions and guidance on planting schedules, fertiliser rates and water management, and would conclude with guaranteed marketing and purchasing against clear quality standards. It is also important to link the purchase price to crop quality and productivity, with additional incentives for farmers who use water-efficient varieties and farming practices that raise productivity and protect the soil. In that way, he said, support shifts from a short-term measure to a sustainable production policy that encourages farmers to raise output and improve efficiency while serving national food security goals.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad.
