How Saudi Arabia is Turning it's Desert into a Farmland
Oasis
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How Saudi Arabia's is Turning it's Desert into an Oasis
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desert with John D. Liu, Arabia Oasis
In today's video, we're going to introduce How Saudi
Arabia's is Turning it's Desert into an Oasis
Large areas of the desert have been turned into
agricultural fields. This transformation can be
definitely called as a major accomplishment for a
country. Especially when the country receives an
average of about 4 inches of rain a year.
In today's video, we are going to tell you how and why
Saudi Arabia is turning its deserts into huge
farmlands. So stick with us and let's dive into our
today's video.
Saudi Arabia is called as a desert kingdom! The
country's wealth soared when oil was discovered. It
utilizes billions of dollars of oil earnings to fuel
many aspects of its economy and the lives of its
citizens. One of these elements is the Kingdom's food
supply, which imports more than 80% of its required
food using oil revenue. Approximately, just 1.5 percent
of Saudi Arabia's land area is arable, and what
agriculture the nation does have consumes 80 percent of
the country's limited water supply. While the kingdom
is now food secure, agriculture in Saudi Arabia has
been a key focus for those looking to increase the
country's sustainability and mitigate the danger of
global food supply network failures.
1970s marked the beginning of serious agricultural
development in the Kingdom. And by 1990 Saudi Arabia
was one of the largest wheat exporters in the world.
Not just wheat, it also exports vegetables, fruits,
dairy products and dates.
Now just think of Saudi Arabia. Also to encourage
agricultural research and training institutions. Huge
circular greeneries are all across the country. And
there are farmlands in the middle of the desert as
well. Surprisingly, in the past 60 years, Saudi Arabia
has transformed 24 000 square kilometers of desert into
fertile land.
When we talk about the western mountainous region of
Saudi Arabia, mostly rainfall and flows back to the sea
unused. This means Saudi Arabia is suffering from water
loss and this also affects its agriculture. But to meet
the needs of its people, Saudi Arabia planned smartly
and has brought agricultural lands in US, Indonesia,
Argentina and other African countries.
The mountain terraces trapped water and gave life to
soil.
After that comes another project. The government
launched the Al-Baydha project to manage the flood
water that was directly going to sea unused. If the
entire west coast is covered under this project then 30
million acres can be transformed into agricultural
land. But this will cost billions of dollars and time.
Positively, the agricultural capacity of Saudi Arabia
could be multiplied by a minimum of 6 times which will
increase the GDP up to 5%. It will be helpful to
reverse desertification as carbon gases will again be
fixed to fertile soil and this will result in rainfall
in the region.
To supply the population with fresh water, Saudi Arabia
is using another tactic. That is to use desalination
plants to de-salinate the seawater into freshwater. One
method for desalination is by using thermal gases and
the other is by membrane-based reverse osmosis which
runs by using electricity. This electricity is
harnessed by nuclear power.
So before you get confused lets simplify it. To make a
land green, we need water and for water we need to
desalinate it, for desalination nuclear energy is
required. All of this is interconnected. Facilities
have also been put into place to treat urban and
industrial runoff for agricultural irrigation.
Liquid Nano-clay (LNC) serves as another important
tactic. This is being used nowadays that can save water
consumption by 50% but it is quite expensive. LNC is a
treatment that gives the sand a clay coating so that it
can trap water efficiently.
Saudi Arabia has also allocated financial resources for
agricultural research purposes to further improve its
agriculture system.
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