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Achieving Food Security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Through Innovation: Potential Role of Agricultural Extension

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Achieving Food Security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Through Innovation: Potential Role of Agricultural Extension CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Elsevier - Publisher Connector Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences (2016) xxx, xxx–xxx King Saud University Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences www.ksu.edu.sa www.sciencedirect.com REVIEW ARTICLE Achieving food security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through innovation: Potential role of agricultural extension Sajid Fiaz a,c,1,*, Mehmood Ali Noor b,c,1, Fahad Owis Aldosri c a State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou 310006, China b Institute of Crop Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Key Laboratory of Crop Physiology and Ecology, Ministry of Agriculture, Beijing 100081, China c Department of Agricultural Extension and Rural Society, College of Food and Agricultural Sciences, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia Received 18 June 2016; accepted 18 September 2016 KEYWORDS Abstract In the Middle East, especially Saudi Arabia, food security will be a matter of concern for Saudi Arabia; policy makers. In desert countries the food commodities are mostly imported from other countries Food security; as their local production is not enough to meet the domestic needs and Saudi Arabia has no excep- Innovative technologies; tion. Most of the cereals and red meat are imported. Major limiting factors in agriculture produc- Extension services; tion are land and water, such that by 2050, Saudi Arabia is expected to import all of its domestic Awareness; needs. Meanwhile, there are many land and water saving technologies which have the potential to Energy need strategies help produce enough to meet the domestic energy requirements. Promotion of traditional crops, hydroponics and greenhouse farming, seawater harvesting, investing in bio-salinity research and rainwater harvesting are among those technologies. Therefore, role of extension agent is critical to promote the innovative technologies as well as creating awareness among farming community to implement the guidelines to meet the country dietary needs. This paper suggests substitute exper- tise and methodologies that can be engaged by Saudi Arabia under prevalent situation, which can be helpful to expand national food fabrication to achieve food security in the Kingdom. Efficient role of agriculture extension is need of the hour that should be exploited and utilized in a precise and efficient manner. All the possible strategies related to agricultural extension for prevailing agri- cultural challenges in the Kingdom are discussed in detail. Ó 2016 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). * Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Rice Biology, China National Rice Research Institute, Hangzhou 310006, China. E-mail address: fi[email protected] (S. Fiaz). 1 These authors have equal contribution in the paper. Peer review under responsibility of King Saud University. Production and hosting by Elsevier http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jssas.2016.09.001 1658-077X Ó 2016 The Authors. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of King Saud University. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Please cite this article in press as: Fiaz, S. et al., Achieving food security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through innovation: Potential role of agricultural extension. Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jssas.2016.09.001 2 S. Fiaz et al. Contents 1. Introduction . 00 2. Saudi Arabia’s present and future needs to boost domestic production without utilizing desert agriculture . 00 3. Water and land saving technologies . 00 3.1. Promoting conventional crops . 00 3.2. Hydroponics and greenhouse farming . 00 3.3. Investment in biosalinity research. 00 3.4. Seawater greenhouses . 00 3.5. Rainwater harvesting . 00 4. Food security overview in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia . 00 4.1. Determining Kingdom’s domestic energy requirements. 00 4.2. Body weight and population size . 00 4.3. Current per capita energy requirement and domestic agriculture production. 00 5. Saudi Arabia’s future investment opportunities . 00 5.1. Saudi Arabian agriculture development fund. 00 5.2. Investment in abroad . 00 5.3. New wheat silo projects. 00 6. Possible role of agricultural extension department . 00 6.1. Sustainable agriculture . 00 6.2. Capacity building . 00 6.3. Potential role in food security . 00 7. Conclusion . 00 References . 00 1. Introduction production could only be gained by addressing the agricultural problems and keeping the farmers aware of modern agricul- The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) covers approximately an tural technologies, necessary for improving productivity, by area of 2,149,690 square kilometers (World Bank, 2015), home the effective use of extension services. Agricultural extension of 30.77 million people (Ministry of Economy and Planning, is considered as a service to spread/extend information based 2014). It covers the predominant (80%) area of the Arabian on research, to the rural people to develop their living standard region (Al-Hamzi, 1997), which makes it the largest country (IFPRI, 2010). Hence, it includes components such as technol- of the Gulf region. It has shared borders with Qatar, United ogy transfer, wider rural development objectives and non- Arab Emirates and Bahrain in east; with Iraq, Kuwait and formal education (Birner et al., 2009; CTA, 2012). In this arti- Jordan in the north; with sultanate of Oman and Yemen in cle, an effort has been made to identify problems and devise a south; and has 1750 km Red Sea shoreline in west (FAO, solution to assist policy makers and farmers through the chan- 2009). The environmental conditions are not favorable for nel of agriculture extension. farming due to harsh and extreme temperature. Many agricul- The General objective of the present study was to examine tural programs were started at different times to ensure food the present situation of food security in regard to agricultural security and rural development (Bailey and Willoughby, production and consumption. Specific objectives are to iden- 2013). Introduction of recent agricultural expertise, farmer tify and analyze (1) the modern resource efficient agricultural responsive plans, feasible credit scheme, free land distribution technologies, (2) their possible contribution in achieving food and effective extension programs improved the yield of cereals, security with available resources, and (3) the potential contri- fruits, vegetables and animal related products. These effective bution of agricultural extension and education for sustainable programs not only enabled the Kingdom to fulfill the domestic farming in the Kingdom. needs, but made it capable to export the surplus (FAO, 2007; FAO, 2009). By giving due consideration to existing water 2. Saudi Arabia’s present and future needs to boost domestic resources the Kingdom decided rollback policy because pro- production without utilizing desert agriculture duction through unjust use of nonrenewable natural resources was not a feasible practice (Al-Subaiee et al., 2005). Hence, the The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s present and future needs to impact of the agricultural sector on Gross Domestic Produc- expand domestic production without utilizing desert agricul- tion (GDP) decreased over the period from 5.2% to 4.7%, ture are limited by land and water scarcity. The available water and its contribution to the non-oil economy from 7.6% to resources of any country are key elements in agricultural pro- 6.2%, while the volume of production remained stable, due duction. Saudi Arabia fall in the category of countries which to the improvement in productivity, the rate of which averaged will face acute water shortage by 2050, as depicted in Fig. 1. 5% per annum over the period (Ministry of Agriculture, 2008). In Fig. 1, green color depicts the countries having surplus Agriculture is the base on which the economic strength of a water (>1300 cubic meter), and orange and red color shows country relies. If the agricultural practices are not enough to countries facing challenge of freshwater shortage (<1300 become self-sufficient in food production, the strength of the cubic meter) per capita per year. The kingdom has 3850 cubic country will be at risk. Therefore, self-sufficiency in food meters per year available groundwater, whereas, the surface Please cite this article in press as: Fiaz, S. et al., Achieving food security in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia through innovation: Potential role of agricultural extension. Journal of the Saudi Society of Agricultural Sciences (2016), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jssas.2016.09.001 Saudi food security through innovation 3 Figure 1 Countries around the world facing water surplusage and deficit. Source:Falkenmark et al. (2009). water is 1300 cubic meters per year, which is variable and depends on annual rainfall. The kingdom’s estimated total Table 1 Sustainable water yields and water demand of KSA renewable water resources are about 500 km3, 340 km3 of in the year 2010. which is economically feasible to extract. The kingdom con- Sustainable water yields Capacity (million m3/year) sumes 24 billion cubic meter water per year, and agriculture Groundwater 3850 is the leading sector with 88% usage, municipal sector 9% Surface water 1300a usage (Al-Hussayen, 2007), and industrial sector accounts Total conventional Sources 5150 3% usage of total water consumption. On an average, the Treated wastewater 240 municipal sector consumes about 260 liters water per capita Desalinated water 1050 per day (World Bank, 2010). The major water demand of Total non-conventional sources 1290 about 65% for municipal and industrial sector is used to be Total water yields 6440 supplied with groundwater while the 35% leftover is met by Water demand per sector desalination water treatment plants.
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