Levo Considers the Future of the Jordan Water Crisis and Syrian Refugee Communities

By Thea Burke

According to The World Economic Forum, the roots of a hydroponically grown plant takes just as much as it needs, resulting in a healthier crop and maximized yields. No water or fertilizer is lost in runoff; the only loss occurs through the plant’s uptake. Using between 70 and 90 percent less water, this is a promising way to grow food in a water poor country like Jordan, the second most water scarce country in the world. According to a study out of Stanford led by Earth, Energy, and Environmental Sciences professor Steve Gorelick, a country is considered severely water scarce if a person receives 500 cubic meters per year; Jordan averages out to about 100 cubic meters per person per year, making it incredibly water poor. The reasons for this scarcity range from geography and rainfall (Jordan is an almost completely landlocked country with rare rainfall), to pipe leaks, to the more politically charged alleged theft of water by surrounding countries. To put Jordan’s rainfall in perspective, in this video summarizing the study, Professor Gorelick says that the “US gets around 30 inches of rain per year, while Jordan gets around 10.” They call the ever increasing drought a warning for the world. Gorelick also draws attention to the country’s population that swells and decreases with waves of refugees, citing major events such as the Syrian War in 2011. This war left Jordan strained for adequate resources after accepting 1 million Syrian refugees. 

The UN Refugee Agency calls the Syrian refugee crisis silent, despite being one of the largest, because of its lack of dialogue. According to the United Nations, 6.6 million refugees have left the country under duress, while 6.7 million struggle with displacement inside Syria. This is called being internally displaced, and it’s possible the number of migrants to Jordan can fluctuate because of this. Around 670,000 of these refugees are in Jordan, with around 542,000 concentrated in Jordan’s urban areas. This means Jordan is the second largest asylum country to Syrian refugees, after Lebanon. Urban crowding in a low income country can result in disease and food insecurity, as space is tight and resources are scarce. In a country that is facing debt, unemployment, and 80 percent of its refugees under the poverty line, this is a strain on resource scarce Jordan. The UN Refugee Agency states that most Syrian refugee households resort to begging and foregoing meals. They also suffer potentially negative social impacts, such as premature marriage and skipping school in order to survive their food insecurity. This likely affects women and girls doubly, as they are more likely to be subject to early marriage and shortened school educations.

Food security is a pervasive issue, and water scarcity hinders agricultural solutions. Omer Karasapan worked for over 30 years at the World Bank, where he was the Middle East and North Africa’s Region’s Knowledge Coordinator, and previously worked in the private sector development department. We reached out for his thoughts on how hydroponics could work as a possible solution in a country like Jordan. “In this context, hydroponics does indeed make sense since it can save up to 70% of the water used in traditional agriculture,” he stated in an email. He brought up a challenge that is worth thinking about as we aim to implement more hydroponics around the world. “Hydroponic agriculture requires high levels of capital to install the necessary infrastructure to get started. This makes it difficult for smaller farmers to enter the field even if productivity is up to three times higher than traditional farms. Yet climate change means that water scarcity and the need for creative solutions is only going to grow. Agencies like the World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and other developmental agencies need to work together with the Jordanian government and farmers and entrepreneurs to solve the financing challenge.”

Hydroponics requires infrastructure not only to get started, but to sustain. This is a challenge when a piece breaks, becomes old, or otherwise needs replacement in a community that does not have the resources to do so. Levo’s research is dedicated to creating simplified hydroponic systems that could mean this challenge isn’t felt by the communities we serve. “One of the reasons that our work has the potential to be impactful is because we use and develop hydroponics with minimal infrastructure requirements that still retain much of the benefit of perhaps more typical high-tech hydroponics,” says Nate Heiden, science director at Levo and PhD candidate at The Ohio State University. “Our research program aims to question the importance of all those expensive inputs that many in the hydroponics field consider necessary.” Levo primarily uses two types of simplified systems: Bokit systems and deep flow technique (DFT) systems. Bokit systems are based on the design invented by Bernard A. Kratky (Kratky 2005). They are non-circulating systems and all the inputs to grow a crop are provided initially, making them set it and forget it systems. Levo also has developed simplified DFT systems which can produce either leafy greens or fruits in high density, and can be watered by hand. Levo’s research team found that these systems can yield leafy greens or fruits similar to in-field production in both the U.S.A. and Haiti and can be circulated without water (Vega et al. 2022). These systems have a great deal of potential to be applied to areas in Jordan where agriculture is currently difficult. 

As Karasapan pointed out, at the higher structural level this implementation also requires collaboration. He believes this should include the government of each community, nonprofits, and social entrepreneurs working in tandem. One of Levo’s core values is the belief that sustainability, economic justice, and economic development cannot happen independently of one another. Collaboration is key to any large scale project and every organization level nonprofit effort. Economic justice and development can’t be fostered without the community at the ground level of project implementation and continuation. This means that Levo places an emphasis on working with the community we serve rather than for, above, or around them, with research designed to tackle community oriented challenges.

Levo is hoping to begin a project with Syrian refugees, and founder Christian Heiden has recently traveled to Jordan to investigate the possibilities for Levo's approach. We are also pursuing efforts in partnership with the University of Connecticut's Daigle Labs, where we hope to establish a program with Syrian refugees and investigate the entrepreneurial aspects of Levo’s simplified hydroponics. 

Sources Cited

Kratky BA. Growing lettuce in non-aerated, non-circulated hydroponic systems. Journal of vegetable science. 2005;11(2):35-42.

Vega, I., Bien-amié, D., Augustin, G., Heiden, W., Heiden, N. 2022. DFT hydroponic system for lettuce and pepper production with limited electricity. agriRxiv, preprint doi: 10.31220/agriRxiv.2022.00136

Yoon, J., Klassart, C., Selby, P., Gorelick, S. 2021.A coupled human–natural system analysis of freshwater security under climate and population change. https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2020431118

Syrian refugees in Jordan: A decade and counting. Brookings Institute, 27 Jan. 2022, www.brookings.edu/blog/future-development/2022/01/27/syrian-refugees-in-jordan-a-decade-and-counting/.

Syria emergency. The UN Refugee Agency, www.unhcr.org/en-us/syria-emergency.html.

Jordan issues record number of work permits to Syrian refugees. The UN Refugee Agency, https://www.unhcr.org/en-us/news/press/2022/1/61effaa54/jordan-issues-record-number-work-permits-syrian-refugees.html.