National Agricultural Research Centre strives to increase wheat, barley cultivation

AMMAN — As key assets to the Kingdom’s food security, the National Agricultural Research Centre (NARC) has intensified its efforts to expand the cultivation of high-yielding varieties of wheat and barley.

“Wheat and barley development programmes have been ongoing for over 30 years. New varieties are constantly cultivated in different parts of the Kingdom, after which we do the sampling and testing,” Awad Kaabnah, director of Mshaqar Agricultural Research Centre which is part of NARC, told The Jordan Times in an interview on Tuesday. It takes many years to approve a particular variety of wheat or barley, he said.

According to field reports, nine wheat varieties and eight barley varieties were approved in 2019, with seed quality testing performed on the cultivated crops.

Drought-resistant wheat and barley varieties are chosen, due their ability to tolerate low-rainfall areas, and also due to specific quality traits that are suitable for Jordan’s geography, Kaabnah stated.

“Climate change and erratic weather patterns do not have direct adverse effects on the centre’s tests due to already selecting drought-resilient wheat.” 

Climate change and drought only affect crop varieties that are to be grown, Kaabnah said.

The limited availability of arable land poses another challenge that puts downward pressure on wheat and barley cultivation in Jordan. Due to this issue, the focus of agricultural research has shifted to high-yield varieties of the grains instead of increasing the area of planted wheat and barley. Lately there has been a tendency to concentrate on the cultivation of irrigated wheat, Kaabnah added.

Regarding the current efforts supporting the expansion of wheat and barley cultivation, he revealed that “the Jordanian government subsidises wheat and barley seeds, which provides a backing force to the local agricultural sector”.