Smart DESERT

Smart DESERT project is a consortium of partners with complementary expertise addressing the range of challenges and opportunities facing vulnerable populations in the agricultural sector. The team brings together proven leaders in agriculture, water, and livelihoods, and combines local innovations with international best practices to shape impactful initiatives that boost and diversify incomes, improve work conditions, and address the complex vulnerabilities affecting Syrian refugees and the Jordanian host communities in which they reside. The partners have co-designed a demand-driven, nexus approach to reach the widest possible number of beneficiaries and deliver tangible results on the ground for farmers, workers, and farm-related businesses. Smart DESERT project, endorsed by the Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MoWI) and the Ministry of Agriculture (MoA).

Project consortium

Consortium partners are the IUCN international union of conservation of nature and  Inter-Islamic Network on Water Resources Development and Management (INWRDAM), Blumont International (Blumont), Horizons for Green Development (Horizons), and GreenTech, as well as the National Agricultural Research Center (NARC) as subcontractor

Project components

1. On-farm technical support,
2. Business support,
3. Support related to work conditions and labor rights.

INWRDAM main activities through the project

• Increase year-round incomes for project beneficiaries through diversification of farming activities (e.g., planting between trees, aquaponics, hydroponics, and growing new off-season crops); better on-farm practices and technologies to increase outputs at lower cost; rehabilitation of agro-processing facilities to create jobs and increase revenues for small farms in their supply chain
• On-farm best practices training. As INWRDAM expertise in water technologies and know-how in conservation techniques, capacity building on-farm training and workshops on topics such as smart irrigation techniques using INWRDAM’s weather data systems; proper crop selection based on soil, season, and water specifications, including the potential to introduce higher-value crops; water-harvesting techniques, use of unconventional water sources such as treated wastewater and brackish/saline water; and year-round farming techniques to create off-season jobs for Syrian workers and increase economic outputs, such as intensive agriculture in unused land between trees.
• INWRDAM supported agro-efforts by helping of rehabilitate low-output farmland through install new technologies such as water-efficient irrigation systems, maintenance and upgrading systems, and expand their operations to increase revenues and job opportunities.
• Creating 3 demonstration sites which established in the various location of the northern of Jordan to be used to convince farmers to adopt similar approaches and technologies at their farms, the demonstration site included:

1. Automated irrigation system
2. Slaine water Reuse / a mix demonstration site of using sline water for fish breeding and high-salty tolerance crops planting.
3. Training Hub for the reuse of treated waste water / subsurface irrigation

• Establishing Sama AL Sarhan cluster a WEFE nexus project, the project fully irrigated by harvested rain water, and operated with solar energy and planting a seedling in a hydroponic system were the high productivity and less resources consuming.
• INWRDAM identify disaster risks relevant to the project area and beneficiaries, taking into account existing vulnerabilities. Based on the DRR toolkit, INWRDAM conduct capacity-building exercises to help farmers mitigate and adapt to risks through measures such as proper use of pesticides, drought-fighting techniques, and mitigating loss of income due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Promote Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) through

• Identification of disaster risks relevant to small farms, farmers, and workers in project area;
• Creation of DRR toolkit;
• Capacity-building exercises to raise awareness of disaster risks using the toolkit, develop plans to mitigate and adapt to risks
• Implementation of hazard-specific mitigation measures on farms;
• Establishing a friendly user Mobile application to help the farmers by giving them right direction and decision on their farming activities