In this regard, food security expert Dr. Fadel ELZUBI explained that in agricultural economics, a farmer’s income is not determined at the boundaries of his field, but at the gate of the market. This reality has burdened Jordanian agriculture for decades, as national policies focused heavily on expanding production and improving productivity, while leaving marketing to evolve spontaneously under the control of intermediaries and unequal power balances.
ELZUBI added that the numbers show the sector carries more weight than its apparent size suggests. In 2024, agriculture contributed 5.8% of GDP, with added value exceeding 1.9 billion dinarsm, of which plant production accounted for 72.7% and animal production 27.3%.
He continued: “Export performance recorded a remarkable leap; agricultural and food exports rose from 695.8 million dinars in 2020 to 1.334 billion dinars in 2024, a growth of more than 91%. Plant product exports nearly doubled from 292.6 to 606.1 million dinars, while exports of live animals and their products grew from 175.4 to 268.6 million dinars. This leaves only a limited gap of about 270 million dinars to reach the Economic Modernization Vision target of 1.6 billion dinars by 2033.”
Yet, he noted, this export success conceals structural imbalances domestically. Historically, marketing policies accumulated flaws: in the 1960s and 1970s, with major irrigation projects in the Jordan Valley, government and cooperative institutions purchased crops and marketed them locally and abroad under a self‑sufficiency policy. But this role lacked an organizational framework to define what to produce, when, and how to market. Production remained at the discretion of individual farmers, leading to seasonal surpluses and price collapses at peak harvests.
“After 1985,” he said, “cooperative institutions weakened, and tools such as indicative pricing were abolished without institutional alternatives. The marketing identity of Jordanian products was lost, and responsibility fragmented among the Ministries of Agriculture, Industry and Trade, the Farmers’ Union, and specialized syndicates.”
In the past two decades, the central wholesale market in Amman entrenched itself as the main hub, handling more than 60% of agricultural products through daily auctions lacking transparency. Prices are set without objective standards of quality or cost, and without regulatory or arbitration bodies to ensure fairness.
ELZUBI pointed out that the cost of this imbalance is measurable: the sector lost more than 300 million dinars in three years due to uncoordinated regulatory decisions (equivalent to 0.8% of GDP), and more than 250 million dinars over a decade due to disrupted exports to traditional markets. Over 60% of agricultural investors complain of legislative and regulatory instability, while farmers’ debts range between 400 and 500 million dinars—a high ratio compared to the sector’s GDP contribution.
Against this backdrop, the Jordanian‑Palestinian Agricultural Marketing Company (JPACO) was established in 2021 with capital of USD 18 million, equally shared between the two countries. Its board includes both ministries, the Jordanian Farmers’ Union, and the Palestinian Farmers’ Union. The company’s mandate extended beyond exports to reclaim traditional foreign markets, open new ones, establish grading and packing stations, organize the domestic market, correct distortions, and expand contract farming—providing small farmers with guaranteed markets before planting, not after harvest.
The company achieved tangible export results: it regained 16 European markets, increased exports to the Gulf via Saudi Arabia by 28%, and through its branch in Palestine opened new markets for Palestinian avocados in Dubai and Turkey. Its 2026–2027 plan targets expansion in Kuwait, Iraq, and Turkey, supported by direct government subsidies for air freight worth 2 million dinars in 2026, of which 1.5 million was spent in less than six months, alongside a joint project with the General Farmers’ Union in Zarqa Governorate.
However, ELZUBI cautioned: “Analytical integrity requires acknowledging that the domestic track has not achieved what the external track has. The reason is structural, not managerial. The company was created as a marketing incubator intended to be transferred later to the private sector, not as a market regulator. A single commercial company, no matter how efficient, cannot substitute for the absence of a regulatory authority for the agricultural market, nor for the absence of a chamber of agriculture that genuinely represents producers, nor for the lack of a national database linking cropping patterns to land areas, costs, returns, and market needs.”
He concluded that the Jordanian‑Palestinian company is an achievement worth building upon, not settling for. Agricultural marketing is not a commercial activity appended to production; it is the system that determines whether Jordanian agriculture is a sector generating income, employment, and exports, or merely an activity consuming scarce water and distributing losses across its weakest links.