AMMAN - The Ministry of Environment decided on Wednesday to bar the entry of all untreated fertilisers into the Jordan Valley as of August 15.
The decision was made during the Lower House Agriculture Committee meeting yesterday in which lawmakers complained that fertilisers attract flies and cause health problems for their constituents.
In the meeting, Minister of Environment Khalid Irani said the ministry will carry out a media campaign soon to inform citizens of the decision.
Also during yesterday's meeting, the MPs demanded the ministry find a solution to the health problems and illnesses caused by the potash and bromine factories in the Jordan Valley.
"These factories have led to serious health problems and there should be a solution regarding their location," MP Jamil Hshoush said.
Deputies also urged the government to require owners of stone quarries in the Eastern Badia to rehabilitate the areas they work in due to the environmental impact of their activities.
As for the compensation provided to Jordan from the United Nations Compensation Committee (UNCC) due to environmental damage caused by the 1991 Gulf War, Irani told deputies that the committee sent $57 million to the Kingdom in 2006 and will soon send another $50 million in compensation.
Following the Gulf War, the Kingdom's water, environment, wildlife, marine life and agriculture sustained damage and in 1998, the country presented the incurred damages to the UNCC, which decided in 2005 to grant $160.5 million in compensation and $1.4 million to tackle the salinity of the country's underground water basins.
As for the implementation of the stalled Jordanian agricultural megaproject in Sudan, Minister of Agriculture Saeed Masri told the committee that investors should cultivate 80 per cent of the land allocated under the project with crops requested by the government, which would then buy the produce for prices 5-10 per cent less than the international level.
In 1998, the government signed an agricultural protocol with the Sudanese government which entitles Jordan to utilise vast fertile lands on the banks of the Nile to rear livestock and grow crops.
In early 2008, the governor of the Nile River State distributed more than half the land included in the agreement to locals in the area as the plan did not materialise a decade after the deal was signed, leaving Jordan with around 87,000 dunums to utilise.
By Khetam Malkawi
© Jordan Times 2009
