War on want: The battle is on to make Sultanate food secure

As Oman has launched a diversification drive, farm produce will be the key for food security

MUSCAT: A massive operation to improve Oman’s food security is underway, as the Sultanate brings vast quantities of livestock to set up a sustainable future for the country. 10,000 sheep have arrived by ship from Australia, 1.2 million young fish have been flown in from Turkey to populate hatcheries, and another 72 million eggs from Europe and India will be distributed to raise chickens across 250 new poultry farms in the country, in ad- dition to 4,000 cows from North America. The mind-boggling scale of the operations all have one thing in common – to ensure Oman is self-sufficient in the future and does not rely on imports.

The spin-off will be thousands of jobs across all sectors for young Omanis.

With the Sultanate looking to diversify its economy under the Tanfeedh directives, agriculture possesses huge potential across the nation, and a food security con- ference was recently held by the Oman Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Salalah which detailed the efforts.

“Achieving food security is an imperative for countries seeking to achieve relative self-sufficiency in domestic food production,” said Saleh Al Shanfari, CEO of holding company Oman Food and Investment Company (OFIC).

“Given the challenges of securing supplies from producing nations on a long-term basis, it has become necessary for importdependent nations like Oman to find suitable solutions to mitigate this risk.” OFIC also has a hand in Al Mazoon farms, a new dairy farm development in Al Buraimi Governorate. “Phase one of this farm will be complete by the end of 2018, and we will have 4,000 cows producing milk at that time,” he added.“At full efficiency, we expect to have around 25,000 cows, and that will lead to self-sufficiency.

“These cows are Holstein Friesians, which we will import from North America and Europe,” added Al Shanfari.“They are known to have the best dairy yield of all animals and are of the best genetic quality.”