​Farming in water scarce regions of the

​Middle East

Agriculture throughout the Middle East has a rich and complicated history of change and adversity. These factors, in addition to arid growing environments and extreme weather changes, force farmers to deal with some very difficult growing conditions.   

The country of Jordan is no exception as they face troubling water scarcity issues with aquifers are being overdrawn, average rainfalls  declining, and drought frequencies escalating. An unsustainable problem that, if left unaddressed, will lead to decreased productivity and availability of food for its' people. 
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Fortunately, the Jordanian government is resolutely focusing on stronger food security strategies in light of these compounding problems and are partnering with global food organizations to help find collaborative solutions to these critical concerns. 

Collaborating with the UN World

​Food Programme 

AST has partnered with the UN World Food Programme (Adaptation Fund Climate Innovation Accelerator) to work with small landholder farms to address their water and crop growth issues. A small team of esteemed Jordanian scientists are aiding in the collaboration with small landholder farmers interested in testing our microbial products. These microbes are plant symbionts that specialize in increasing plant stress tolerance, harvest yields and yield quality. We have 255 farmers that started testing in Spring 2025 and some exciting preliminary results are shown below from Fall 2025.

​We are excited to see the impact these small but mighty microbes will have on the farms of Jordan and its' people.