Muscat – Wheat harvest in the farms of the Najd area in Dhofar is set to reach nearly 1,500 tonnes in the 2021-22 season, an increase of more than 1,000 tonnes over the last season, according to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources (MAFWR).

On Sunday, Rashid bin Saeed al Ghafri, director general of the Directorate General of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources in the Governorate of Dhofar, said, “The expected production of this season’s wheat crop in the Najd area in the wilayat of Thumrait in Dhofar is about 1,500 tonnes, an increase of more than 1,000 tonnes over last season.”

He added, “The cultivation area for wheat crop was 600 acres last season. Wheat harvesting for this season has started in 35 farms spread on an estimated area of 1,547 acres – an increase in cultivation area by about 61 per cent over the last season.”

The cultivation of wheat crop is growing at a fast pace in the Najd area as a result of the efforts made by the ministry to encourage farmers to increase strategic cultivations in order to achieve the objectives of Oman Vision 2040 for food security.

According to Ghafri, the Najd area in Dhofar is important for wheat cultivation due to the availability of water, the quality of soil and appropriate climate.

He stressed that wheat tops the list of strategic food crops in the world, and its cultivation area accounts for 28 per cent of the total grain growing area in the world, and is the main food for more than half of the world’s population.

Oman produced 2,649 tonnes of wheat in the 2020-21 farming season, 19 per cent more than the 2019-20 season, according to statistics released by MAFWR.

Ministry statistics show that the total area of farmland under wheat cultivation in Oman was 2,449 acres, and the number of farmers increased by 5.5 per cent in the 2020-21 season.