Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia has affirmed its keenness to address challenges facing agricultural development and food security and work to come up with strategies to sustain the agricultural sector locally, regionally and internationally.

This came during the participation of the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Engineer Ahmed Al-Eyada, at an extraordinary virtual meeting of the GCC Agriculture and Food Security Agents Committee.

Al-Eyada explained that Saudi Arabia is keen to achieve agricultural and food sustainability and to determine the main directions to achieve the goals of the food security strategy.

The meeting reviewed the assessment of the current situation of food security in GCC in addition to studying standard comparisons for regional cooperation efforts in the field of food security. It summarized the results of a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and challenges) while discussing ways to develop the food security strategy for the GCC.

The GCC countries have advanced in many aspects of food security. Most notably, the agricultural GDP increased by 43% during 2012 -2021, while the Consumer Price Index for foodstuffs (FCPI) witnessed an increase of 14.6% compared to a global increase of 21.9%, during 2018 -2022 .