Saudi Arabia Plans To Begin Importing Wheat, End Food Self-Sufficiency Program To Save Water

[hatrack]

Saudi Arabia’s plan to start importing wheat and end a massive grain self-sufficiency programme it launched more than two decades ago will weaken the Kingdom’s food security and aggravate a painful Arab farm gap. The Gulf Kingdom, the world’s richest in oil resources and one of the poorest in terms of water, said this week it would begin importing wheat at the start of 2009 and gradually eliminate a 25-year grain programme that has allowed it to be self sufficient but drained its scarce desert water wealth.

“We have decided that the first imported shipment of wheat will enter the country at the beginning of 2009,” said Saleh bin Mohammed Al Suleiman, director-general of Saudi’s Grain Silos and Flour Mills Organization. “We are working out arrangements for these imports and will select the best… the size of imports will initially depend on the domestic need and size of production… this year, there has been a decline in cultivated areas while wheat consumption is growing by around eight per cent annually.”

Quoted by Saudi media, Suleiman estimated the Kingdom’s wheat demand at nearly 2.7 million tonnes in 2007, adding that almost all the demand in 2007 and the previous years had been met through local production.

In January, Saudi Arabia announced plans to import wheat and cut purchases from local farmers by 12 per cent a year to conserve water, following reports about an alarming decline in underground resources. Officials said the government would start reducing purchases of wheat from local farmers gradually and move to 100 per cent reliance on imports by 2015.

EDIT

http://www.business24-7.ae/cs/article_show_mainh1_story.aspx?HeadlineID=5000

[RC]

1. We can now expect a wheat shortage in the US and

$10 a loaf bread. We are growing way too much corn for our own good. The rich get richer and the rest of us are gonna starve.