Addressing Social and Environmental Challenges in the Jordan Valley: What Future Are We Cultivating?

This presentation provides an overview of the social (de)composition of rural areas in Jordan Valley, analysing power relations, the ability to access resources, and the trajectories of several categories of actors involved in agricultural production. Through different political phases, the valley has undergone a profound agrarian transformation, and is now characterized by intensive and largely export-oriented agriculture. The transformation has also changed the social fabric of these rural areas, and the sustainability of the sector. In the context of the dramatic environmental crisis that the valley is facing, national and international policy makers promote market-oriented solutions. According to these narratives, a greater integration to global markets, the adoption of the latest technical innovations and strategies to adapt to climate change are the only possible solutions in this context.

Building on three years of qualitative research, I discuss the possible outcomes of such market-oriented solutions by replacing them in the social and environmental reality of the valley. By analysing power dynamics between food producers I show that the impoverishment of the rural population is part of a wider process of dispossession of local producers in favour of wealthy urban elites, that has accelerated after the economic liberalisation of the early 2000s. The livelihood of commercial farmers is more and more precarious, with negative repercussions on the incomes of agricultural workers. Environmental degradation and climate change appear as aggravating circumstances that further casualize rural populations, rather than being the root of the problem. In this context, the solutions currently promoted might further the polarise and impoverish rural areas, while exacerbating the negative effects of the environmental crisis.