Souq al Ard - a taste of rural life at Beit al Bawadi

JOHUD operates Souq al Ard - farmers market where  people can buy fresh  produce directly from small producers and small traders.  On Souq al Ard Saturdays more than  25 stalls and hundreds of customers converge on Beit al Bawadi for a one-day rural experience - a feast of bright colours,  tantalizing  aromas and delicious tastes. 

  Souq al Ard specializes in farm produce - vegetables and salad of every kind:  salty tomatoes from the Ghour, long curvy hot green peppers, freshly picked beans and sweet and tender peas already shelled and ready to cook.   There are seasonal fruits:  the strawberry season is eagerly anticipated, and then cherries, plums, mulberries, apricots, figs...the list is endless.  There are  local cheeses, free range eggs and chicken, pigeon and rabbit meat ready for cooking. There's also a wide range of home preserves - jars of jams, pickles, honey, bottles of oil and packets of flour, and lentils and dried herbs. Every week new products appear -  so the souq experience offers pleasant surprises.

We give priority to small farmers who use sustainable farming practices such as grey water recycling, drip irrigation, chemical free production, organics and permaculture But we also welcome  a wide range of stall holders - so the market meets diverse needs and so that producers get exposed to new ways of working.

A typical range of producer stalls includes:

Small scale producers – like the women from JOHUD's 50 community centres  many of whom have home gardens and use sustainable techniques to grow vegetables and salads

Rural women's co-ops – like the associations of farmers from Ajloun and Mafraq. They know that by working together they can reduce the vulnerability of farming life.

Project-supported enterprise  producers – where JOHUD and other NGOs have helped communities set up businesses: there are pickles from the Jordan River Foundation project in Ajloun, dried fruit and organic jam from Wild Jordan.

Medium sized farmers – who work their own land and provide valuable employment for rural men and women.  A good example is Khadiga who uses a chemical free approach to her farm in Iraq al Amir

Large farmers who employ hundreds of workers and who export their crops- they mentor smaller farmers and help them get into exporting

Intermediaries – who supply high end markets like restaurants. They help small producers understand the market and how to get a better price for quality produce.
  

Meet the souq al ard producers: click here 

At souq al ard, we also invite leading artists and craftspeople to sell their handcrafts – so that we support traditional heritage, and also develop new products. 

We pilot tested the Souq al Ard concept in 2007, and then after remodeling the garden floor at Bawadi, we re-launched it in 2008. In the first 25 weeks of the year, we estimate that around JD45,000 of trade took place at Souq al Ard. That's a significant contribution to household incomes.

On the next pages, meet the producers who trade at Souq al Ard.. Read more