RIYADH, 29 August — Saudi Arabia’s plan to produce world-class vaccines for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) announced yesterday is part of a major national project to be launched shortly to control and monitor several animal diseases that have broken out in the country. These highly infectious diseases, especially FMD, have infected animal herds at different locations in the Kingdom and inflicted losses worth millions of riyals on the agriculture sector.
The announcement was made by Dr. Abdullah A. Al-Obaid, deputy minister for agricultural research and development affairs. Dr. Al-Obaid said that “the Ministry of Agriculture and Water has proposed a national project to control the disease in Saudi Arabia and has also proposed to establish a facility to produce FMD vaccines in bulk. These proposals are expected to be implemented in the near future.”
He said that FMD is a disease which causes more economic problems than health problems and creates constraints on the world trade in animals. The Kingdom alone detected some 2,417 cases of FMD at over 46 infected sites before Aug. 8 this year. This prompted Saudi authorities to import a huge quantity of FMD vaccines to treat over 170,000 cows and other animals.
The ministry, Dr. Al-Obaid said, will cut the cost of vaccine imports after it establishes a full-fledged vaccine production facility of its own. The vaccines will be commonly prepared from local strains in tissue cells. Potency tests will also be carried out in cattle after vaccination, while challenged with a fully virulent virus.
Asked about agriculture research centers and the major research projects currently under way, the deputy minister said that the ministry has set up 12 agriculture research centers in different parts of the Kingdom.
“But now, we have planned to streamline the operations of the research centers with an aim to making them more competent, specialized and advanced in their respective fields. We are currently reviewing their performance,” he said.
However, he said that budgetary constraint is another problem, and has prompted this cost-cutting move. The ministry has initiated a process of evaluation and identification of the non-functional departments of the research centers. A majority of the developing countries, including the Kingdom, have not been spending substantially on research and development in agriculture sector.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Water has set up 12 national research centers in Riyadh, Qassim, Hasa, Jizan, Najran, Makkah, Jouf, Al-Kharj, Baha, Madinah, Dirab and Jeddah. The one in Jeddah is equipped to carry out special research and development programs on fish and shrimp farming. This research center has also become a major training center for the aquaculture industry.
Asked about the results of major projects undertaken by the research centers, Dr. Al-Obaid said that these organizations have contributed largely in promoting the agriculture sector of the Kingdom.
“They have been involved in designing and running the training programs, improving varieties of crops including wheat and potatoes and eliminating the problems of the farmers in different regions of the Kingdom,” he said.
Asked about the production of different crops, whose quality and yield have improved as a result of research, Dr. Al-Obaid said that the Kingdom has become more or less self-sufficient in terms of potato production. Saudi Arabia has been producing more than 500,000 tons of potatoes annually — thanks to the Netherlands, which helped the Kingdom to produce best-quality potatoes following the signing of a Saudi-Dutch agreement 30 yeas ago.
“We have also done a lot of research on wheat and wheat production,” said the deputy minister, who added that Saudi Arabia has also emerged as one of the largest producers of dates. It has an annual yield of 648,000 tons from a total of 18 million palm trees.
