Tomorrow, Friday, October 16, marks the World Food Day, which is celebrated this year under the theme “Grow, Nourish, Sustain Together- Our Actions Are Our Future”. The aim of this day is to deepen public awareness of the plight of the world’s hungry and undernourished, and encourage people around the world to take measures to combat hunger.
In a special press release on this occasion, HPC Secretary General, Dr. Abla Amawi, said that despite the significant progress made globally towards improving agricultural production, food systems suffer imbalances. Hunger, obesity, environmental and agricultural degradation, food loss and waste, and lack of security for workers in the food chain are some of the numerous issues that confirm this imbalance.
Amawi noted that Jordan imports 57% of food for its population of 10.749 million, of which three million are Arab nationals residing in Jordan, putting a strain on national food security. Amawi explained that according to the 2018 Comprehensive Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis, less than one in four Syrian refugees (23%) enjoys food security, compared to 28% in 2016.
Amawi said that about 10% of Jordan's population receive some type of World Food Program assistance, noting that the 2018 food budget issued by the Department of Statistics showed that the amount of produced food commodities (plant and animal-based) and their byproducts amounted to 5,288 tons.
Amawi added that in order to provide and secure sufficient amounts of food, Jordan adopts a number of sectoral strategies, the most important of which is securing enough food reserves, including wheat and basic food to cover at least six months, in addition to conducting research and adopting technology to enhance food security. Amawi indicated that Jordan has made remarkable progress in addressing food insecurity in the past two decades, reducing undernourishment rates by half between 2000 and 2015 (8.1% and 4.2%, respectively).
Amawi pointed out that although women play a major role in enhancing food security in society, their economic participation in Jordan is still low, indicating that while some women participate in household income-generating activities such as home-based food production, only 0.6%, of women work in agriculture, their ownership of land is limited, they work in the informal sector, they have a limited ability to obtain formal financing compared to men, and they also face marketing challenges.
HPC stated in the statement that the Government of Jordan has taken several precautionary measures to make food available during the Cvid-19 pandemic, the most important of which is the bread subsidy program for the poor, the provision of basic items, including food, at reduced prices through the civil and military consumer associations for daily-paid workers and Syrian refugees in the camps, granting inetrest-free loans to farmers, especially to small farmers and women, to implement agricultural projects, skilling women, especially in rural communities, in home-based food production, organic farming and water harvesting to achieve food security, in addition to offerring trianing courses on food preservation methods for future consumption.
HPC added that despite these achievements, enhancing food security remains a challenge in Jordan due to the increased demand for food and high population growth rates driven by forced migrations, unsustainable consumption patterns, urbanization of agricultural lands, desertification, decline of cultivated areas due to water scarcity, illegal use of groundwater, high production costs, border closures due to political unrest in neighboring regions, as well as climate change and its consequences.
HPC pointed out that the shortage of labor due to the spread of Covid-19, the suspension of transport and lockdowns have restricted access to markets, thus reducing the purchasing power and individuals’ ability to change diet patterns of individuals, and leading to malnutrition.
To ensure food accessibility, safety, quality and sustainability, HPC recommends enhancing agricultural productivity as a source of food, improving water productivity, using energy-efficient technologies in agricultural production, minimizing the impact of climate change, and increasing local food production to reduce imports and avoid global market fluctuations or events that could lead producing-countries to stop exporting, as what happened in the first weeks of the pandemic. HPC also recommends promoting the active participation of rural women in the agricultural sector and recognizes that home-based food manufacturing has become an urgent necessity considering the exceptional circumstances caused by the pandemic, as many families managed to produce basic food items at home, thereby helping them generate savings and avoid overcrowding to buy the needed items.
