Sustainable Social Agriculture Al Baha Province

Sustainable Social Agriculture Al Baha Province

14 September 2015

At the invitation of His Royal Highness the Prince of Al Baha Region, Prince Mishari Bin Abdulaziz, Dr Turki Faisal Al Rasheed visited the Al Baha Region during the Pomegranate Festival in Al Baha for five days from 8 September 2015.

While he was there, Dr Rasheed, in his role of Adjunct Professor in the University of Arizona Department of Agricultural and Bio-systems Engineering, met with Dr Abdullah Al Zahrani, the Rector of Al Baha University, to discuss the possibility of a joint collaboration to launch a pilot project on Sustainable Social Agriculture in the Al Baha Region. Also attending the meeting were Dr Mohamed E Wagih, Dr Ali bin Mohammed Al Shehri and Dr Osama Badawi.

Dr Al Rasheed’s initial task is to bring the two universities together to agree a memorandum of understanding. Dr Al Rasheed’s experience in the area of sustainable agricultural development includes authorship of “Agricultural Development Strategies: the Saudi Experience”.

Dr Al Rasheed presented the concept of Social Agriculture and its vision, mission and objectives, and discussed the need to identify the mechanism to be implemented in this joint collaboration between the Al Baha University and the University of Arizona.

Dr Al Zahrani explained that this joint collaboration comes in the light of regional challenges and considerations of climate change and the scarcity of water and food security, population growth, environmental degradation and dwindling arable land for agricultural use and urbanization.

Additionally, the joint collaboration will seek the participation of the Saudi Arabia Ministry of Agriculture, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Bank in the future. The Al Baha province leadership will also need to develop sustainable agriculture strategies for Al Baha.

The agenda of the meeting was to start implementing sustainable strategic social agriculture in Al Baha by identifying a pilot village.The joint collaboration will work with the stakeholders to identify its most significant challenges such that, when addressed with a rather simple solution at a relatively low cost and over a moderate period of time, a significant change can be produced in the agricultural landscape of Al Baha Region.

At the conclusion of the meeting, it was agreed to entrust the Vice Rector for Graduate Studies and Scientific Research, Prof Saeed Saleh Al Ghamdi, to represent Al Baha University in this joint collaboration with the University of Arizona, and he will hold the first meeting in three months’ time.

In order to identify a pilot village, Dr Rasheed visited the Thee Ain historical village in Al Baha which holds a yearly festival in March. The village includes old archaeological buildings, agricultural lands, springs, and distinctive cultural and natural landscapes. In March 2015, it was reported that the sales of bananas and kadi (pandanus palms) exceeded SR 500,000 from 150 farms and 60 farmers in this village. Other villages in the region grow crops including pomegranates, almonds, bananas, and kadi patta, and this, coupled with the region’s tourist attractions, makes the region suitable for implementation of the Social Agriculture program and the building of successful marketing strategies. With the technical support of the University of Al Baha and the University of Arizona, and the financial support of the Ministry of Agriculture and the Agricultural Development Fund, there is a strong potential for the region to achieve considerable success in implementing this program.

“The joint collaboration will work with the stakeholders to identify its most significant challenges such that, when addressed with a rather simple solution at a relatively low cost and over a moderate period of time, a significant change can be produced in the agricultural landscape of Al Baha Region.”

Note on terms

The Global Institute for Strategic Agriculture in Drylands (GISAD) at the University of Arizona uses the term Sustainable Social Agriculture, but the concept is also known as Social Agriculture, which the UN FAO describes as an arrangement or strategy that provides village farmers (both men and women) with access to appropriate innovations and linkages to achieve economic profitability while fostering environmental sustainability.

Background about the Al Baha Region

Al-Baha region is a tourist destination rich with natural resources and is known for its cool weather and natural diversity. Its seasonal crops are pomegranates, almonds, bananas, and kadi patta.

Last week, it celebrated the pomegranate festival, which started on the 8th September 2015 and lasted for five days. In 2014, the amount of money raised from the sale of the pomegranates from 130 farmers and 555 farms was SR3.0 million.