Jordan is a chronically water-scarce country, and many of its poor rural farmers cannot grow enough crops to feed their families because the land is arid and drought is regular. During the drought of 1999-2000, wheat production dropped from 70,000 tonnes to just 9,000 tonnes. As increased drought means less agriculture, Jordan’s ability to adapt to increased water scarcity will be crucial to human security.

The Yarmouk Agricultural Resources Development Project, supported by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and begun in 2000, supported almost 3,000 poor farming households by providing technical and financial help to promote conservation and boost agricultural production, and helped more than 800 women develop small-scale businesses to increase family incomes.

Khaled Hamed Mutlaq Al-Bis, known as ‘Abu Ihab’, 55, grows pomegranates on a narrow strip of farmland known as Ain Al-Ghadir in Jordan’s northern Yarmouk valley. Before the project, the pomegranate trees on his three-hectare farm were suffering. “Now the situation is entirely different,” he says. “My production has more than doubled and so did my sales of fresh fruits and pomegranate syrup.”

More than 2,600 resource-poor farming families have been able to improve their production, incomes and food security through the project. Several water springs, including some that had dried up, were rehabilitated and linked to reservoirs and a network of downstream water canals, benefiting 618 farming families. The project’s first phase built about 7,830 metres of canals to bring water from a reservoir to farmers with water-sharing rights.

The canals connect three water springs that pass through farming plots in the narrow valley where Abu Ihab, his wife and 10 children eke out a living. Little of the water from two springs that pass through his land used to reach him, and he and his family spent three days a week collecting water. Now his and his neighbours’ water use has increased by 80%, and irrigation takes him only one day a week so he has more time to make and package syrup and sell fresh fruits and syrup in local markets. “My annual income from this land has increased from JOD2,000 (about US$2,820) before the project to more than JOD5,500 now,” he says. More canals are under construction in the project area.

Aida Kanaan, a 50-year-old dairy producer in Samar in Jordan’s northern Bani Kanana district, is one of more than 800 poor rural women who have developed small scale enterprises through microcredit. “Our cheese and yogurt products are being sold in Amman and have even been taken by travellers to Italy,” she says. Aida and her retired husband Ismael make and sell cheese, yogurt, butter, cream, ghee and jameed (dried yogurt), have their own small milk-processing workshop, and run two shops where they sell directly to customers. They also have contracts with supply-chain dealers who buy and re-sell the products to retail stores in Irbid province and Amman.

“We are not rich, but we are no longer poor,” Aida says. The family lived on Ismael’s meagre pension and Aida’s small home-made cheese-making efforts, before she joined a microfinance group set up by the Yarmouk project in 2001. With a loan of JOD2,000 (about US$2,820) from the project’s microfinance provider, Agricultural Credit Corporation (ACC), she bought milk and made cheese and yogurt at her rented house which she sold to neighbours and at the local market. Aida repaid her loan over three years, even as her household income increased by 50%, and in 2006, moved her thriving milk-processing activity to a rented workshop with JOD3,000 borrowed from the ACC.

Aida’s success encouraged other rural women, including Sahira Obeidat, a 35-year-old honey producer, who received an ACC loan of JOD1,000 to launch her own small business in 2004. Choosing the Islamic banking system, under which borrowers do not directly receive cash loans and are not charged a monthly interest fee, Sahira purchased 10 beehives. Sahira started beekeeping at her family’s olive farm with the help of her family - her husband, three children and her elderly parents-in-law.“With my first ten beehives, I produced about 100 kilograms of honey in the first year,” she says. “I sold my first season’s honey for JOD10 per kilogram, earning almost JOD900.” Sahira settled half of her debt by 2006, but then she took out a second loan of JOD3,000 to purchase more beehives. “Now I have 35 beehives and produce enough to satisfy my family’s honey consumption, pay my debts and cover part of the household expenses,” she says. “As a military staff member, my husband earns only JOD110, so the money we earn from beekeeping is an important part of our income.”

This story was adapted from a longer story entitled Conserving water, boosting incomes in Jordan’s Yarmouk valley, produced and distributed by IFAD. Many more stories can be found in Stories from the Field on IFAD’s website. IFAD, a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution in 1977. Its creation was a recommendation of the 1974 World Food Conference, organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s in Africa. Recognizing that 75% of the world's poorest people - 720 million women, children and men - live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods, IFAD's goal is to empower poor rural women and men in developing countries to achieve higher incomes and improved food security. Working with rural poor people, governments, donors, non-governmental organizations and many other partners, IFAD focuses on country-specific solutions that can involve increasing rural poor peoples' access to financial services, markets, technology, land and other natural resources.

For other stories about water use and management, see:

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Mosque water helps traditional gardens bloom again in Yemen

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Orangi Pilot Project proves poor people in slums can meet own sewage and water needs

Facilitating south-south sharing on water governance