The GCC at aGlance

The six nations that make up the GCC are developing a range of innovative projects to boost food security. We take a look at the strides each country has made in recent months.

Saudi Arabia

- Tanmiah Food Co. plans to invest US$1.2 billion by 2030 to cover 80% of the country’s poultry needs by 2025. Furthermore, a community partnership initiative with small investors in the poultry industry aims to produce 1.2 million chickens per day. A new healthy production line called “Tanmiah Life”, which focuses on healthy poultry products, will be launched soon.

- National Grain Company, a US$110 million project aims to meet the future demand for major grains in Saudi Arabia. The company will oversee the trade, handling, and storage of grains between its sources and will start with a capacity of about 3 million tons per year in 2022, and gradually increase to 5 million tons per year.

The UAE

- Agritech leader Veggitech recently unveiled a Saffron farm in Sharjah, the first of its kind the UAE and largest in the Mena region.

- Food Tech Valley is a UAE government-led initiative, which is a first-of-its-kind initiative uniting the complete food and agriculture ecosystem. The project aims to bring together stakeholders to pioneer sustainable food production that will reimagine how the world produces and consumes food.

Oman

- Al Bashayer Meat Company, the largest integrated meat project in the region, is expected to contribute to increasing the self-sufficiency of red meat in Oman from 37 percent to 46 percent. The project features an array of farms for the rearing of cattle, goats and sheep and capacity is in excess of one million heads of livestock annually.

- The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources has signed a contract worth USD$ 77million to establish a finfish farm in Muscat. Production capacity of the first phase of the project using floating cages is projected to be 3,000 tonnes.