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AMMAN — The Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) has organised a national consultative workshop that brought together national, regional, and international stakeholders in Amman to participate in the First National Consultative Workshop on Strengthening Rural Advisory Services.
The workshop, held in the presence of Minister of Agriculture Saeb Khraisat, represented a key step towards establishing the Jordan Forum for Agricultural Extension and Advisory Services (JFAAS), with regional and international participants also joining remotely, according to a FAO statement.
The one day consultation aimed to foster a more coordinated and inclusive national approach to rural advisory services amid growing challenges facing Jordan’s agriculture sector, including water scarcity, climate variability, rising production costs, and declining rural livelihoods.
Despite the diversity of actors involved in extension and advisory services, limited coordination continues to constrain their effectiveness.
The proposed JFAAS seeks to address these gaps by serving as a national platform that enhances collaboration among public institutions, research bodies, academia, civil society, and the private sector.
The forum will be affiliated with the Arab Forum for Rural Advisory Services (AFRAS) and aligned with the Global Forum for Rural Advisory Services (GFRAS), drawing on regional and global best practices.
Khraisat stressed that "this approach reflects Jordan's advanced position as a regional model in developing agricultural extension services, which seeks to build an integrated national system through the development of an interactive agricultural extension platform, especially in the field of digital transformation, to provide integrated data-driven services and direct communication with farmers."
"This workshop comes as a starting point for reviewing the current state of agricultural extension, identifying gaps, and benefiting from regional and international experiences to improve the level of services provided to farmers.” he added.
“Rural Advisory Services are essential for improving productivity, strengthening resilience, and ensuring farmers-especially smallholders, women, and youth-have access to the knowledge and support they need to adapt and thrive,” said Paul Opio, FAO Representative a.i in Jordan.
“A national platform like JFAAS can strengthen coordination, facilitate knowledge exchange, and promote more impactful service delivery,” Opio added.
The workshop featured discussions on global and regional trends in rural advisory services, the status of extension services in Jordan, and stakeholder consultations on the vision, structure, and partnership model of JFAAS.
Participants also identified priority actions to operationalise the forum in line with national development goals.
The consultation concluded with agreement to establish a multi stakeholder core team to finalise the JFAAS framework, develop its constitution and action plan, and prepare for the official launch of the Forum in alignment with Jordan’s National Plan for Extension Services (2024–2030).
