Jordan Valley Farmers Urge Amending Expat Worker Regulations

(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency)

Amman, July 23 (Petra) - The Senate's Agriculture and Water Committee, headed by Dr. Akef Zoubi, met Tuesday, with representatives of Jordan Valley farmers.
Zoubi said the meeting aims to discuss mechanisms for regulating agricultural expatriate workers, given the reluctance of most Jordanians to work in the sector, pointing to the shortage of expatriate workforce in this field, due to the "weak" organization of the national institutions in charge of recruiting foreign workers.
For their part, farmer representatives spoke about the challenges facing availability of expatriate workers, primarily the "continuous" change in government decisions to regulate the sector's activities and lack of comprehensive expatriate worker regulations for recruitment and follow-up processes.
Noting change in the decisions to allocate the sufficient number of workers to meet the farmers' needs, the representatives said every 6 greenhouses are allocated 1 worker and only 2 workers are hired to every agricultural unit in the Jordan Valley area, which represents 30% of the farms' real need.
The representatives also referred to raising fees for recruiting expatriate workers, which amount to JD430 and increasing medical testing fees to JD80, which led to a shortage of expatriate workers, higher wages, and increased production costs, primarily higher prices for production supplies.
To follow up on the sector's remarks, the committee's members valued the farmer's contribution and role in achieving Jordan's food security, pledging to discuss all the farmers' challenges with the relevant authorities, led by Ministries of Labor and Agriculture, and then send a letter to the Prime Minister and inform farmers of outcomes.

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