The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) and the Ministry of Agriculture, in cooperation with other pertinent parties, intend to establish a crate bank (field crates) with the aim of setting a uniform crate for all agricultural products, thereby solving the problem of fines, and setting guidelines.
Manager of Amman City, Engineer Ammar Gharaibeh, announced this intention during his inauguration of a workshop organized by GAM’s Central Market Department, entitled “Agricultural Product Crates: The Reality and a Vision for the Future.” He added that a private sector company would produce and sterilize the crates, based on precise specifications, then later sell or lease them to farmers from 4 suggested locations, namely, the Central Market, Deer ‘Ala, Ghour Al Safi, and Al Mafraq.
Eng. Gharaibeh stated that the success of such a project requires GAM and the Ministry of Agriculture to facilitate matters for private sector investors and to offer them opportunities by offering land locations, ensuring the selling and leasing of the crates, and specifying which products require these crates when loading.
The Manager of Amman City pointed out that the cost of the new crates would be comparatively less, in terms of the number of times they could be used (almost 300 times) compared to the currently-used crates. He explained that one of the important problems from which the marketing system suffered was the increase in crate cost, which comprised 30 percent of the product’s final cost.
Eng. Gharaibeh indicated that farmers currently use 8 different kinds of crates at Amman’s Central Market for Fruit and Vegetables, pointing out that the Market received 19 million crates in 2007 –the equivalent of 811 thousand tons of fruit and vegetables.
Within this context, the workshop focused on the 4 axes which directly affect the agricultural sector, namely, the efforts of GAM’s and the role of the Ministry of Agriculture’s with regards to packaging on the one hand, and the responsibility of farmers and wholesale market intermediaries, on the other. Furthermore, the first session was chaired by the Secretary General of the Ministry of Agriculture, Dr. Mahmoud Al Najdawi.
Director of the Central Market, Eng. Salameh Abu Hdeib, affirmed the importance of finding an alternative to the current crates, by means of producing new plastic redeemable field crates that are made from safe, high-quality, and durable materials that can be used repeatedly. These will be leased to farmers for incentive nominal fees, allowing them to save money by leasing crates rather than buying non-refundable crates.
Dr. ‘Izzat Al ‘Ajileen from the Ministry of Agriculture indicated that the improved field crates play a key role in developing the marketing process and improving its efficacy, as selling would be by weight and not by crate, thereby establishing the necessary circumstances for applying the technical rules of selling fresh fruit and vegetables.
During the second session that was chaired by City Deputy Manager for Cultural, Social, and Sports Affairs, Eng. Haitham Jweinat, the Head of the Jordan Farmers Union (JFU), Eng. Mahmoud Al ‘Awran, demonstrated the role of JFU in the field of packaging, while the President of the Exporters of Fruit and Vegetables Syndicate, Eng. Sameer Abu Saneeneh, elaborated on the responsibility of wholesale market intermediaries with regards to packaging.
The workshop participants made a number of suggestions and recommendations to be discussed and implemented, including the importance of renewing a “field crate” that comes in 4 sizes and leasing them to farmers at a nominal fee. Participants also agreed upon the importance of hastening to request a private sector company to undertake the leasing operation, after formulating and implementing GAM’s suggested system.