Riyadh (dpa) – Farming in Saudi Arabia has long been considered an ecological nightmare due to the country's high temperatures and arid climate, in which cowsheds are air-conditioned and non-renewable water sources used to irrigate wheat crops. But organic agriculture is slowly gaining in popularity – not least because it helps to save water in one of the world's driest countries. Saad bin Abdullah, who supervises the kingdom's organic farming development project, says that the authorities are working to develop a clear policy to boost it. “This farming technique is important, because it helps to curb the effects of conventional agriculture, which uses chemical fertilizers,” the official told dpa. According to him, organic farming is also expected to reduce water use by 70 to 80 percent. In 2008, the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Agriculture created a Department of Organic Agriculture (DOA), which has been tasked with applying the newly established Saudi Organic Farming Legislation. Government support has already prompted more than 60 farmers to switch to organic farming methods in recent years. “More than 300 (more) people will shift to the organic agriculture in the coming years,” Saad bin Abdullah predicted. In the capital Riyadh and other large cities, it is now possible to order boxes of organic fruit and vegetables, including potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and dates from palms on which no pesticides have been used. Organic produce is clearly labelled as such. “The initiative came from the Ministry of Agriculture, which was primarily concerned about the production of healthy foods before later coming around to the idea of sustainability,” says Marco Hartmann, a German agricultural economist. Hartmann works for the German Society for International Cooperation (GIZ), which advises the Saudi government on the development of organic agriculture. At the moment, less than 0.5 percent of agricultural land in Saudi Arabia is farmed according to organic methods – but things are changing. The government has ended some of the excesses formerly practiced in the largely desert country, which cultivated wheat and vegetables on a large scale for export. Although Saudi Arabia still has huge farms with thousands of high-yielding cows for milk production, the industrial-scale production of feed has been prohibited following the withdrawal of subventions for wheat growers. Vegetable exports were also stopped to slow down the rapid depletion of fossil groundwater supplies – underground water supplies built up in prehistoric times that are not renewed by the present-day climate. Saudi farmers source water from their own wells and do not have to pay any levies, which has been a major reason for high levels of water wastage. “Conventional farming methods in Saudi Arabia mostly involve the use of sprinklers to spray the fields of crops with water,” Hartmann said. “Date palms are watered using the so-called flooding technique. There is a huge amount of wastage with both methods, as a large percentage of the water simply evaporates in the intense heat.” Organic farmers, by contrast, use the drip irrigation method. “The water efficiency rate reaches between 70 and 80 percent compared to the 50 to 60 percent achieved with the conventional methods,” said Hartmann. There are still no state subsidies available to Saudi organic farmers, but that could change in the future, as the country wants organic farming to account for 5 per cent of its agricultural industry by 2017. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/7RBf6 Tags: Farming, featured, Organic, Saudi Section: Environment, Features, Food, Gulf, Latest News, Saudi Arabia
