Financial Times published an article on how desert countries with little arable land and water are dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on food supply. Saudi Arabia is looking again to increase its wheat production with a target of doubling its output, equivalent to 45 percent of the kingdom’s needs, next year. Senior Research Fellow Joseph Glauber states, “This is a high-cost insurance to put their [leaders] minds at ease. The strategy is understandable and might help to deal with a short-term crisis. But it would be prohibitively expensive to achieve self-sufficiency, especially in bulk grains like wheat.”
