Experience is knowing a lot of things you shouldn’t do.” William S. Knudsen

ELZUBI to Al‑Rai: Reducing Waste Strengthens the National Food Reserve

ELZUBI to Al‑Rai: Reducing Waste Strengthens the National Food Reserve

Dr. Fadel ELZUBI told Al‑Rai that while Jordan’s wheat reserves — covering about nine and a half months with 610,000 tons available and 302,000 tons incoming — appear reassuring, storage alone is not a sufficient guarantee of food security; the real vulnerabilities lie in rice, oils, and sugar, commodities with no local substitutes, and even the strong 2026 harvest met only 10% of national grain needs, so strengthening resilience requires diversifying import routes, distributing storage geographically, securing long‑term supply contracts, and including feed, seeds, and fertilizers in the strategic reserve, alongside redefining “return to the land” through water‑efficient farming and modern irrigation, while reducing food waste — nearly 81 kg per person annually — which could add weeks to the national reserve without consuming extra water, and situating Jordan’s efforts within the Arab Food Security Plan adopted in Baghdad in 2025, which enables the Kingdom to import “virtual water” through regional grain baskets in Sudan, Iraq, and Egypt.