Agricultural settlement in Jordan: The case of Qatrana projects.

Abstract

Agricultural settlement projects have been the main Jordanian strategy to settle the nomads. This study focuses on one example of this strategy, namely the Qatrana projects. The main objectives of this study are to analyze the traditional socio-economic aspects of the Qatrana people, spontaneous settlement and changes which have experienced by them, the Jordanian policy to settle the nomads, and the achievements of the Qatrana settlement projects to the planned governmental goals and the settlers' objectives. Major findings of the study are that: (1) traditional nomads in Qatrana were adaptive to their arid environment in terms of their socio-economic way of life. (2) in Qatrana, the traditional nomadic way of life is diminishing, and the number of nomads is declining because they are vulnerable to the recent forces of change. (3) Jordan's official strategy to settle the nomads has been to encourage them to settle on the basis of agricultural projects and social services provided at these projects. This strategy has been carried out within the general policy of national development. To determine the achievements of settlement projects in Jordan, interview schedules in Qatrana were conducted by the writer with 66 settlers, representing all the families in the projects and 50 households of the squatters. Results of the survey showed that the governmental goals in terms of creating a reserve fodder for the animals in the area and for sheep fattening, and alleviating pressure put on the natural range have failed. The governmental goals to settle the nomads and improve their living conditions, which coincides with the settlers' goals to settle, have succeeded in social equity terms, but not in economic efficiency terms. The majority of Qatrana nomads were settled in fixed houses, received title to the lands, enjoyed better living conditions, social services and greater income. These achievements have been of high governmental costs. It seems that settling the Jordanian nomads on the basis of livestock and range management strategy would develop the nomadic sector in Jordan with less costs than the agricultural strategy.