AMMAN – As Jordan Valley farmers prepare their land for winter crops, the Jordan Valley Authority (JVA) on Thursday said enough water has been secured to irrigate the vegetables.
The water situation in the Jordan Valley is stable, and around 80 million cubic metres (mcm) have been allocated for the irrigation of winter crops, locally referred to as orweh tishrineyeh, according to JVA Secretary General Saad Abu Hammour.
Orweh tishrineyeh is a local agricultural term that refers to the period during which farmers plant vegetables in the Jordan Valley between September and the end of the year. Different kinds of vegetables are cultivated during this period, including cucumber, tomato, eggplant and zucchini.
Abu Hammour said 370,000 cubic metres of water are pumped every day to Balqa Governorate and Amman for drinking purposes from different sources such as the Mujib Dam and the King Abdullah Canal.
"This of course affects the amount of water left for irrigating crops in the Jordan Valley, but the 80mcm allocated for orweh tishrineyeh crops should meet farmers’ water needs," Abu Hammour told The Jordan Times over the phone yesterday.
He underscored that farmers also rely on rainwater for irrigating their winter crops during orweh tishrineyeh, highlighting that the authority will increase the amount of water allocated for irrigation if rainfall comes late this year.
"We are hoping for a good rainy season, but as a precautionary measure, the authority drew up an emergency plan in order to provide farmers with enough water if the rain is delayed," the JVA secretary general said.
A total of 360,000 dunums in the Jordan Valley are cultivated and irrigated, Abu Hammour said, noting that 250,000 dunums of that land is planted with winter crops every year.
The first rainfall of the wet season is usually witnessed in mid-September or early October, with the rain usually continuing until February, according to meteorologists.
The Kingdom relies mainly on rainwater, but only 1.1 per cent of its total area receives an average of 400-600 millimetres of rain, according to the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.
Approximately 91 per cent of Jordan’s total area of 97,000 square kilometres is situated in arid areas with an annual rainfall average of 50-200 millimetres, while 2.9 per cent of the country’s land is categorised as semi-arid.
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