Agriculture fairs seek to uplift small-scale farmers

AMMAN — With the aim of providing small-scale farmers with a new channel to promote their products through annual agricultural fairs, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA) on Monday launched a project titled “Institutionalisation of Agricultural Fairs in Jordan”. 

According to an FAO statement, these fairs hope to boost the sales of farmers’ fresh and processed products, create contact with the private sector and allow farms to benefit from better returns. 

The FAO, in collaboration with the MoA, also conducted a workshop to introduce the project and its scope to programme partners and stakeholders, covering the project outline, implementation strategy and work plan, the statement said.

The fairs will seek to promote the presence of women farmers as well as the Syrian community and fair managers and administrators will look to raise the awareness of the public, the agro-industry and the business community regarding the marketing potentials of products, with the aim of creating business partnerships between the private sector and producing farmers. 

Secretary General of the Ministry of Agriculture Mahmoud Al Jamaani said during the workshop: “The marketing of agricultural products is one of the most important issues and challenges facing the agricultural sector in Jordan as a result of the seasonality of agricultural production, which causes a surplus in the local markets, and the inability of farmers to deliver their products to the local and international markets,” according to the statement.

Alexis Bonte, FAO Representative ad interim in Jordan, said: “As a developing concept in Jordan, agricultural fairs will progressively become more and more popular and with benefits to the whole community…”

“By promoting and institutionalising such fairs in Jordan, it is expected that the livelihood of Jordanian and Syrian rural people will improve,” Bonte was quoted in the statement as saying.