Saudi Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Eng. Abdulrahman bin Abdulmohsen Al-Fadhli has stressed the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s commitment to and support for international efforts to build food systems that contribute to achieving sustainable development goals, noting that the world faces many challenges in food supplies, which requires greater cooperation and joint action among the world’s nations, as well as a commitment to the pathways of achieving sustainable transformation of food systems.
Al-Fadhli made the remarks during the Kingdom’s speech at the UN Food Systems Summit held between July 24 and 26 in Italy; he delivered in a session entitled “Food Systems Transformation in Practice – Successes, Challenges and the Way Forward.”
He noted that the success of the transformation of the Kingdom’s food systems had increased the financing of agricultural investments by about 1,000% over the past five years, enhanced the volume of agricultural loans to some SAR 7 billion in 2022, in addition to allocating SAR 12 billion to the Sustainable Agricultural Rural Development Program, stimulating the private sector to diversify sources of food import, and building strategic sustainable food reserves. All these factors played a role in boosting the Kingdom’s agricultural production to more than 11 million tons, achieving a surplus in products and price stability, and increasing the rates of self-sufficiency for many basic commodities.
Source: Saudi Press Agency