The National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) of Jordan and the Office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) signed on Wednesday a technical cooperation agreement under which a mobile irrigation application will be developed to serve Jordanian farmers, specifically in the Jordan Valley.
The agreement was signed by NARC Director General Nizar Haddad and Director of the FAO office in Jordan Nabil Assaf on the sidelines of the 21st National Olive Festival and Rural Products Exhibition, according to a NARC statement.
Assaf said that the irrigation application to be developed will be fed with real-time climatic information from NARC meteorological stations in the Jordan Valley region in particular. He added that this application, in its first phase, will serve the farmers of the Jordan Valley and will provide them with accurate scientific information on irrigation dates and the required quantities of water.
He further explained that the WAPOR application is FAO’s gateway to monitoring water productivity through globally available climate data sources that employ remote sensing technologies and satellite imagery.
Haddad stressed the importance of this partnership, which he said will contribute to pushing the Jordanian agricultural sector towards digitization more in line with the latest global developments. He also indicated that the irrigation application will verify the accuracy of the information provided by WAPOR for two vegetable crops and one tree crop in the Jordan Valley region.
Haddad added that the agreement includes provisions for raising public awareness and organizing workshops and training courses on using the irrigation application after it goes online.