Saturday, February 28, 2015

Value in Peacemaking

There are two sets of relationships that are fundamentally broken in the Jordan Valley agricultural community; the relationship between land owners and farmers, and the relationship between producers and buyers.  Mistrust between these parties is a major contributor to the poverty that ensnares smallholder farmers.  

Land owner/water right holders are seldom the primary decision makers regarding the use of their resources.  This leads to decisions that do not take the long term interests like soil health and water conservation into account as farmers most commonly partner with land owners in inter-annual agreements that end when soil salinity starts to seriously affect productivity.   

Buyers and sellers are adversely affected by one another's mistrust due to the fact that farmers do not adequately quality control the produce that they send to market.  As a consequence, farmers are given prices commensurate with a very high percentage of spoiled / unmarketable produce bringing the price at the farm gate down, while keeping market prices high for consumers.

The goal of AC4Ds trial and demo farm is to generate knowledge to enhance smallholder decision making, but the barometer by which we measure our success in community building is the increase in the integrity and level of trust that we see in these two key relationships.  Peacemaking between these parties is as important as any work that we undertake.  Fighting poverty is enhancing relationships, developing trust within the community and modeling cooperation for mutual benefit.         

Monday, February 9, 2015

Food Aid for Syrian Refugees in Northern Jordan

We spend a lot of time working to provide high quality demonstrations and agricultural extension services for Jordan Valley farmers.  The byproduct of those demonstrations is a great deal of high quality food.  Currently we are privileged to feed over 300 families, some 1300 to 1500 people, in three different cities across northern Jordan.



Thursday, February 5, 2015

AC4D surpasses 3 tons per week in production for Syrian refugee feeding program

Spring came early this year in the Jordan Valley enabling our small trial and demo farm to exceed three metric tons per week in vegetable production for the first time.  Our team is enormously proud of the quality and diversity of food that we are able to produce and we are honored to be able to see it go to feed families displaced by fighting in Syria. 

We are currently meeting fresh produce needs for over 300 families, an estimated 1300-1500 people.  Our refugee program began in December, 2014 and will continue through May, 2015 when our season ends.  We hope to continue our refugee feeding program through the 2015/2016 growing season as well since the refugee crisis here in Jordan is unlikely to abate anytime soon. 

Cauliflower, cucumbers, tomatoes and corn


Corn, eggplant, greenhouse tomatoes

Monday, February 2, 2015

Guests from Saudi Arabia

A few days before the farmer field day we had surprise visitors at the farm.  They had come from Saudi Arabia, where they live and farm, to see the "foreigner farm" that has been set up in the Jordan Valley.  (The farm is near where some of their relatives live.)  They were most interested in our water saving technologies like the use of greenhouses, drip irrigation and plastic mulch.  These technologies serve to extend our growing periods because they reduce evaporation at the ground level, a key factor in how long our Saudi neighbors can farm before they have to stop for the summer.

Currently they are using a furrow (small canal) flood irrigation method that wastes over half of the water applied to a field to evaporation.   Flood irrigation also maintains a minimum amount of residual soil moisture which means that plants are often water stressed further reducing their productivity and lifespan.   

We were able to calculate with them what it would cost to run some trials of these technologies on a portion of their own land for comparison next year and we were even invited to visit and see how the new technologies are working. 

Guests from Saudi discussing water saving technologies

First Farmer Field Day

On January 31 our team hosted over 25 local farmers for a field day and traditional meal in the Jordan Valley.  We walked farmers through the trial and demo farm and explained our interventions, new crops and variety comparisons.  Many of the farmers who came were very familiar faces but several new farmers accepted our invitation and came to see what we are doing.  The artichoke and asparagus got most of the attention as people have not seen these crops in production in the Jordan Valley before.  We also have 2 local farmers asking us to help them to implement artichoke and asparagus into their cropping cycle.  We will be working closely with them to formulate a simple adoption plan for asparagus and artichoke on their farms.


Area farmers enjoying a traditional Mansaf meal


Conversation continued after the field day and meal late into the afternoon.  The main issues that farmers raised were about soil salinity and how it is effecting productivity and plant longevity.  In light of those concerns we were able to highlight our soil remediation work.  Overall it was a great day at the farm and went a long way toward building cooperation between farmers in our area. 

One of the most senior members of the Adwan tribe was in attendance and his message was well met, "if we would cooperate we could do anything."