Muscat – Salalah Mills Company has stated that it will import wheat from India and Australia to bolster stocks.

The consignment of 180,000 tonnes is expected to arrive in the next three months.

Ahmed bin Alawi al Dahab, CEO of Salalah Mills Company, informed that the contracted quantity will suffice for the year. “A ship loaded with 66,000 tonnes of wheat has left the Indian port of Kandla, heading to the port of Salalah,” he said.

According to Dahab, the company – one of the largest mills in the sultanate – is currently looking to cover its wheat needs for the first half of 2023. It has a daily production capacity of 1,500 tonnes and imports more than 400,000 tonnes of wheat annually.

Meanwhile, Oman Flour Mills Company recently signed agreements with three countries to import an additional 160,000 tonnes of wheat.

Of this, 100,000 tonnes will be imported from India, 35,000 tonnes from Australia, and 25,000 tonnes from Argentina.

According to statistics released by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, Oman’s wheat crop in 2020-21 produced 2,649 tonnes, 19.6 per cent more than 2019-20.

The total area of land under wheat production in 2020-21 was 2,449 acres, farmed by 3,067 wheat farmers, 5.5 per cent increase year-on-year.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources expects wheat production to increase to 3,000 tonnes this year.

A global food crisis, already impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and climate change, is being driven to famine levels worldwide by the war in Ukraine and the resulting lack of grain exports, more than 75 speakers told the Security Council last week in a ministerial-level open debate on conflict and food security.

In 2021, most of the 140mn people suffering acute hunger lived in just ten countries: Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, Nigeria, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.