Deputy Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Eng. Mansour bin Hilal Al-Mushaiti stressed that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia had taken important steps towards improving agricultural development, enhancing food security, facing climate change, increasing temperatures, and scarce water resources, all together contributed to improving indicators of food security, consumption systems, reducing waste, realizing high rates of self-sufficiency for many strategic food items in the local market and increasing the operational and production levels of agricultural and food systems.
During his participation remotely in the Arab-Hellenic Food Conference hosted by the Arab-Hellenic Chamber for Commerce on October 5 and 6, 2021, Eng. Al-Mushaiti said that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has developed its vision based on building a sustainable agricultural sector that contributes to realizing food and water security and the economic, social and environmental development, in addition to adopting a strategy for responsible agricultural investments abroad, developing systems of agricultural and marketing services, in addition to improving agricultural productivity and food quality and adopted several systems, technologies and innovations through its local, regional and international partnerships.
Al-Mushaiti said that the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has contributed to increasing the number of people who suffer from undernutrition by 132 million, where the percentage of loss of food produced equals 14 percent, of which 17 percent is wasted according to statistics by the Food and Agriculture Organization, stressing the need to utilize digital innovation technologies and digital platforms, such as FAO’s Knowledge Platform that is concerned with chains of sustainable food value, in addition to benefiting from successful experiments, such as the Greek experience in the sustainable irrigation and agricultural technologies and food industries, and the Saudi experiment in date palms and fish farming.
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Saudi Arabia strives for a 50% cut in food waste by 2030. Check the full story here.
