HE Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture Abdulrahman Abdulmohsen A. AlFadley signed a contract with the Cooperative Societies Council worth over to SR16.9 million for the rehabilitation of agricultural terraces and implementation of rainwater harvesting techniques in Jazan. The project has a 6 months period of implementation.
The contract aims to rehabilitate terraces in Jazan, implement rainwater harvesting techniques and modern irrigation systems, and develop crop cultivation to provide reliable volumes of water, improve agricultural water use efficiency, rely on renewable sources contributing to achieve food security and sustainable development, increase productivity of strategic crops and promote socio-economic development.
The project falls under the "Agricultural Terraces Rehabilitation and Rainwater Harvesting Techniques Implementation in Southwestern Saudi Arabia " initiative, which is one of the Ministry's initiatives for the Saudi vision 2030. The initiative's projects, which will be carried out in Baha, Asir, Jazan, and Taif on an area consisted of 2,500 hectares, at a rate of approximately 600 hectares per area, valued at SR600 million.
Through this initiative, the Ministry will provide many services including terrace wall construction, land levelling and rock cutting, and dam wall construction and land levelling to collect rainwater, in addition to the construction of concrete water tanks, the installation of water irrigation systems, and provision of agricultural soil and different seedlings including coffee, bananas, pomegranates, almonds, plums, roses and grapes seedlings.