EDDAH: The food security committee at the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry has approved the preparation of a study about the possibility of wheat production in Saudi areas rich in renewable water resources, Al Riyadh daily reported Saturday. The committee, in a meeting last week, also decided to organize a workshop next January about the strategic storage of food commodities, the paper reports. Saudi Water and Electricity Minister Abdullah Bin Abdul-Rahman Al Husayen said in June that Saudi Arabia is shifting away from water-intensive crops in order to preserve water and that it has started with wheat and barley, and will do the same with other crops. Meanwhile, Australia, the world's fourth largest wheat exporter, boosted sales of the grain to Bangladesh and the Middle East in August, as countries scrambled to replace cargoes lost to export bans in the drought-stricken Black Sea region. Sales to Saudi Arabia also picked up with Australia shipping 120,700 tons in the first 11 months of 2010/11 marketing year to the Kingdom compared with 71,700 tons a year earlier, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics said on Friday. Australia also exported 127,400 tons in August to Bangladesh, the second largest buyer of Australian wheat, up from 79,900 tons a month earlier and just 5,100 tons a year earlier, the bureau said. In the first 11 months of the wheat-marketing year, exports to Bangladesh nearly doubled to 608,800 tons. Indonesia remained the biggest buyer of Australian wheat with imports of 264,000 tons in August and 2.80 million tons for the 11 months ended August, up around eight per cent from a year earlier. The boost in exports was in line with trade reports that suppliers of wheat to Bangladesh had turned to Australia after being unable to source grain from the Black Sea region where a severe drought shrunk this year's harvest. Bangladesh had been relying on cheaper Black Sea but Russia banned grain exports in earlier August and other Black Sea countries such as Ukraine struggled to fill export orders.
