Amman — The challenges facing agriculture in Jordan are not limited to the losses caused by climate fluctuations. They also include farmers’ ability to overcome their impact and resume production without a loss-making season turning into a financial crisis whose consequences extend into subsequent seasons.
When crops are destroyed or livestock is affected, farmers lose more than an expected harvest. They may also lose the capital invested in production while remaining burdened by financial obligations that do not stop when production does. At the same time, their ability to finance a new production cycle declines.
This highlights the need for an agricultural safety net to compensate those affected, strengthen the sector’s ability to absorb shocks, maintain production continuity and prevent farmers from leaving the sector under the pressure of repeated losses.
Compensation, however important, does not necessarily restore a farmer’s productive capacity. Likewise, intervention after damage occurs cannot replace a system designed to reduce the likelihood and cost of such damage in advance.
In general, the Agricultural Risk Mitigation Solidarity Fund Law No. 5 of 2025, which provides a legal framework for addressing agricultural risks, could serve as a starting point for establishing such a safety net. The real test, however, lies not merely in the existence of legislation, but in how it affects farmers on the ground and whether it can shift agricultural protection from responding to losses after they occur toward risk management that preserves farmers’ ability to remain in business.
Compensation Does Not Automatically Restore Production
Agricultural losses extend beyond the value of a damaged crop. Farmers may have already spent money on seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, labor, water and energy, and may have financed part of these expenses through borrowing, anticipating revenues from the harvest. When those revenues disappear, financial obligations remain while the farmer’s ability to meet them and finance the next season declines.
In such cases, partial compensation may not be enough to prevent a decline in production. Farmers may be forced to reduce cultivated areas, postpone planting, borrow again or abandon an activity whose risks they can no longer afford.
The effects of a loss can therefore carry over from one season into the next production cycle, reducing the farm’s economic viability even after the event that caused the damage has passed. Agricultural protection should therefore be assessed not only by the amount of money disbursed or the number of beneficiaries, but also by the real-world outcomes of compensation.
Ultimately, the true value of compensation is not determined solely by the amount paid to farmers, but by its ability to narrow the gap between the occurrence of a loss and the resumption of productive activity.
Who Bears the Cost of Agricultural Risks?
Farmers cannot control weather events, and their ability to anticipate their severity and limit their impact varies depending on the nature of their agricultural activity and the resources available to them. However, quality infrastructure, early warning systems, agricultural extension services, and access to preventive measures, financing and insurance can help farmers reduce the impact of such events.
This means agricultural risk management cannot leave farmers alone to bear the consequences, nor should the state shoulder the entire burden without clear criteria. What is needed is a balanced distribution of responsibilities, in which farmers take whatever preventive measures they can, while relevant institutions provide information, services and regulatory frameworks, with protection mechanisms activated when damage occurs according to established rules.
This balance becomes even more important when large areas or multiple crops are affected simultaneously, potentially creating a surge in compensation needs and putting available resources under considerable pressure.
Under such circumstances, sustainable financing, clear eligibility criteria and rapid damage assessment become essential to the system’s ability to protect farmers and enable them to continue their activities.
The goal is not to expand compensation regardless of available resources, but to build a system capable of identifying risks that require intervention, assessing damage according to clear standards and directing resources toward cases in need of protection. This would strengthen farmers’ confidence in the system and its ability to respond.
Fair Protection Requires More Than Equal Treatment
Farmers differ in their ability to cope with losses depending on the size of their farms, financial resources, the nature of their crops and their reliance on agricultural income. A farmer with financial reserves or other sources of income is in a different position from one who depends on a single crop to cover both living and production expenses.
Likewise, the loss of a seasonal crop does not have the same consequences as damage to fruit trees, which may require considerable time to regain their productive capacity.
Therefore, fair agricultural protection is not simply a matter of applying uniform procedures. It requires criteria that take into account the nature of the damage, the type of agricultural activity and eligibility conditions within the framework of existing legislation. It also requires clear and accessible procedures for submitting claims and assessing damage, as well as providing farmers with information about their rights and obligations.
The fairness of government measures cannot be assessed without knowing which groups are benefiting from protection, which groups may face difficulties accessing it and why. Clear requirements and easy access to procedures are no less important than the availability of funding. A protection system whose mechanisms are difficult to understand or whose requirements are difficult to complete may fail to achieve its intended purpose.
This highlights the importance of evaluating the results of government efforts to support farmers—not because there is necessarily a problem with the distribution of compensation, but to ensure that the rules respond to the diversity of agricultural activities and differences in farmers’ ability to bear risks.
Protecting Farmers Is Part of Protecting Food Security
Food security is often viewed in terms of the availability and prices of goods and consumers’ ability to purchase them, while the continuity of domestic production receives less attention. Yet farmers’ ability to continue their activities is a key part of this equation. Repeated losses that are difficult to absorb may push farmers to reduce production, change the crops they grow or leave the agricultural sector altogether.
This does not mean that every agricultural loss will result in shortages or increased imports. However, a continued decline in productive capacity could weaken the sector’s resilience to disruptions and limit its ability to meet domestic demand during certain seasons.
Production stability also depends on farmers’ ability to plan and invest, rather than simply survive temporary losses. Protecting farmers therefore requires linking compensation policies with financing, agricultural extension, marketing and water-management policies, rather than treating each loss as an isolated event that can be contained through financial intervention.
Food security is not achieved simply by having products available in the market at a particular moment. It requires maintaining a productive base capable of continuity and ensuring that farmers have the financial capacity and confidence needed to continue investing in their land.
From Addressing Losses to Preventing Them
No matter how important compensation is, it will remain a tool for dealing with the consequences of risks and cannot replace prevention and preparedness. The most effective farmer protection system is one that combines early warning systems, agricultural extension, insurance, rapid intervention and recovery mechanisms within an integrated policy that begins before damage occurs and does not end when compensation is paid.
This requires improving the way warnings reach farmers, strengthening their ability to take appropriate preventive measures, and expanding insurance and financing options suited to the nature of agricultural activities.
Clear information on the risks covered by insurance, exclusions, eligibility requirements and damage-assessment mechanisms enables farmers to make decisions based on a clear understanding of the protection available to them.
Ultimately, a distinction should be made between damage caused by disasters and climate events and losses resulting from price fluctuations, rising production costs or marketing difficulties. The latter can also threaten the survival of farms, but they require different tools. It cannot be assumed that the Agricultural Risk Fund alone can address the economic challenges facing the sector.
The effectiveness of protection lies in the integration of its various tools. Compensation addresses part of the damage, insurance distributes some of the risks, prevention reduces the likelihood and impact of losses, while financing and marketing policies strengthen farmers’ ability to continue production.
Measuring Success by What the System Achieves
On May 14, the Ministry of Agriculture announced that around 320 farmers had been compensated with a total of JD200,000 for damage caused by weather conditions that affected the Kingdom late last year and early this year. The damage affected crop and livestock production, including fruit trees, vegetables and field crops, as well as livestock, bees and fish. Greenhouses were also damaged.
The figures confirm that intervention has taken place to mitigate the impact of losses, but they are not sufficient on their own to determine whether the safety net is adequate or comprehensive. This requires information on the total scale of the damage, the ratio of compensation to estimated losses, the time required to assess and disburse compensation, and the outcomes achieved for affected farmers.
There is therefore a need for clear, periodic indicators issued by the government to measure the performance and impact of agricultural protection programs, including response times, fairness in access to compensation, financing sustainability and farmers’ ability to resume production after damage occurs.
Making these indicators available to farmers could strengthen confidence in the system while providing the government with a basis for improving it and directing resources toward the most urgent needs.
The goal should not be merely to establish that compensation has been paid, but to determine whether it achieved its purpose, whether it prevented losses from carrying over into the following season, and whether prevention and insurance tools are actually reducing the scale of losses borne by farmers.
The challenge facing Jordan’s agricultural safety net is to move from responding to losses toward managing risks, and from measuring performance by the amount spent to evaluating it based on its ability to protect production continuity.
The success of a farmer protection system is determined not only by what it pays after a disaster occurs, but also by what it helps prevent beforehand and by its ability to stop the loss of a season from becoming the loss of the farm itself.
In a sector whose sustainability depends on farmers’ ability to withstand risks and continue investing, an effective safety net is more than a compensation mechanism. It is a tool that can help protect domestic production, strengthen farmers’ resilience and safeguard the future of agriculture.
Source: Al-Ghad
