Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Abdulrahman Al-Fadley, launched a project to study the feasibility of using desalinated seawater in agriculture.
This comes as part of the ministry's efforts to find additional water sources that support the growth of the agricultural sector and contribute to balancing between agricultural development and water security, in light of the scarcity of non-renewable water from natural resources in the Kingdom, according to Saudi Press Agency (SPA).
The project aims to conduct a comprehensive assessment of the feasibility of using desalinated seawater in agriculture from the economic, technical, and environmental aspects, while benefiting from global experiences, and identifying appropriate crops and cultivation and irrigation systems.
The study will focus on the mechanism of creating agricultural and economic alliances and establishing entities capable of implementing the outputs of this project with high efficiency. This will be made possible by offering the project up for investment or by initiating partnerships between the public and private sectors.
It is noteworthy that Saudi Arabia ranks as the top producer of desalinated water in the world, and is aiming to produce 9 million cubic meters of drinking water by 2025, SPA reported.
