AGRICULTURAL PATTERNS IN JORDAN: A NEW ANALYTICAL APPROACH

This research aims to identify, analyze, and illustrate the main agricultural patterns in Jordan. Agricultural regions in Jordan are often defined in terms of the country's physiography and climate, and local ('traditional' or 'modern') economy. Principal component and cluster analysis were used to explore data from the 2017 agricultural census, which comprised 30 variables that described the characteristics of agricultural activities in relation to land use, water resources and employment, amalgamated at the liwa level. Six components, accounting for 67.5% of the total variance in the data, were interpreted to be indicative of: intensive irrigation (component 1); pastoralism (component 2); organized dry farming (component 3); extensive dry farming (component 4); natural grazing (component 5); and well-fed farming (component 6). The first two components delimit the end-members of Jordan's spectrum of agricultural production, and were focused on liwas in the Jordan Valley and liwa of Rwaished. Both components are expressions of the more homogeneous, spatially cohesive patterns that emerged from hierarchical clustering, which also have a close affinity with land cover type at the liwa level. These different agricultural systems and farm types (intensive irrigation, pastoralism, extensive dry farming, rain fed cropping and natural grazing, well-fed farming, and Mediterranean-style agriculture) provide a contemporary, evidence-based representation of Jordan's principle agricultural regions.