Jordan water ministry cracks down on illegal pumping

The Ministry of Water is coordinating with lawmakers in some areas to end the problem of illegal water wells and stop the depletion of water resources in Jordan, one of the world's water scarce countries, agriculture minister Akef Zu'bi said on Saturday.
"The illegal pumping of water from these wells is the gravest problem facing underground water reservoirs in Jordan," the minister told a meeting on vegetable export organised by the Private Sector Committee.
He said over 1,300 illegal wells were consuming large amounts of underground water for farming, causing problems in marketing produce. He urged the agriculture sector to launch marketing companies to push their produce, mainly in the Gulf countries, Iraq and Syria, which are open to Jordanian products despite the political turmoil in Iraq and Syria.
President of the Agricultural Engineers Association Mahmoud Abu Ghaneimeh said Jordanian farm produce is of good quality and was being exported to about 44 Arab and other countries.