Irregular rainfall and very high temperatures have severely affected Jordan’s 2001 wheat and barley production. This follows a severe drought in the previous two years. Jordan’s 2001 wheat crop is forecast at 13,000 tons, 54 percent below last year’s reduced crop, according to a report by the US Embassy in Amman. Similarly, the barley crop, estimated at 17 000 tons, is about 77 percent below average.
Jordan’s wheat crops declined by 52 percent in the 2000 compared with the average wheat output in the years 1991-1999, according to recently published statistics by the Ministry of Agriculture. Jordan produced 28,600 tons of wheat in 2000 compared with an average production volume of 59,750 tons in the years 1991-1999.
Consequently, the wheat sufficiency rate, measured as the ratio between local wheat production and consumption, decreased to two percent in 2001. Wheat consumption in Jordan is estimated at 680,000 tons per year, based on statistics published by the Ministry of Agriculture. Of this total, some 80,000 tons are used as animal feed.
The total land cultivated for wheat totaled 236,800 donoms in 2000, a 57 percent fall compared with the average wheat farmed areas in the years 1991-2000, which was at 548,400 donoms. In the 2000/2001 marketing year, the US supplied 81.5 percent of Jordan’s wheat imports, or 442,000 tons. — (menareport.com)
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
