Omani and foreign merchants sell fresh vegetables in a souk. Credit: ILO/Apex Image (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)Zawya | May 29, 2025
Food security explored between Oman and East Africa
by Lakshmi Kothaneth, Oman Daily Observer
MUSCAT: The two-day Oman-East Africa Trade and Investment Expo explored one of the most important topics the world is facing: food security.
“As the first expo of its kind with a dedicated focus on East Africa, EATIX Oman 2025 will reinforce Oman’s role as a trade and investment hub linking East Africa with the Middle East,” said HH Sayyid Barghash bin Turki al Said, Chairman of the Organising Committee for EATIX.
Shaikh Mohammed Suleiman al Harthy, Chairman of Al Harthy Investments and one of the panelists for the discussion on food security, pointed out that the GCC as a whole spends about $110 billion in the food sector alone in both retail and wholesale.
“Oman has about $8 billion in the food sector per annum - so there is a big potential to cooperate with East Africa and the rest of the world to narrow the gap on food security. If we look at coffee, the market in the GCC is about $8 billion; livestock is $4 billion and these two commodities alone have great potential for East Africa,” Al Harthy pointed out.
Milk production is an area of huge potential, said Saleh Kigoye, Managing Director, Royal Milk, Uganda and adviser at the National Agriculture Research Organisation in Uganda.
“I want to address the wastage because we waste about 2.8 billion litres of milk a year. And if we could build a partnership between Oman and Uganda, this could be utilised. Oman imports products from other countries and we would like to explore in the area of milk,” Kigoye pointed out.
According to the Chairman of East African Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Richard Ngatia, the synergy sectors between Oman and East Africa, in addition to energy, are food security and logistics.
“Oman’s food-security programmes and water technology can link with East Africa’s arable land and examples are Kenya’s tea and coffee farms and Tanzania’s horticulture. Projects could include dairy, fruit processing, or fisheries as in the case of tuna across the coast of Somalia.”
MUSCAT: The two-day Oman-East Africa Trade and Investment Expo explored one of the most important topics the world is facing: food security.
“As the first expo of its kind with a dedicated focus on East Africa, EATIX Oman 2025 will reinforce Oman’s role as a trade and investment hub linking East Africa with the Middle East,” said HH Sayyid Barghash bin Turki al Said, Chairman of the Organising Committee for EATIX.
Shaikh Mohammed Suleiman al Harthy, Chairman of Al Harthy Investments and one of the panelists for the discussion on food security, pointed out that the GCC as a whole spends about $110 billion in the food sector alone in both retail and wholesale.
“Oman has about $8 billion in the food sector per annum - so there is a big potential to cooperate with East Africa and the rest of the world to narrow the gap on food security. If we look at coffee, the market in the GCC is about $8 billion; livestock is $4 billion and these two commodities alone have great potential for East Africa,” Al Harthy pointed out.
Milk production is an area of huge potential, said Saleh Kigoye, Managing Director, Royal Milk, Uganda and adviser at the National Agriculture Research Organisation in Uganda.
“I want to address the wastage because we waste about 2.8 billion litres of milk a year. And if we could build a partnership between Oman and Uganda, this could be utilised. Oman imports products from other countries and we would like to explore in the area of milk,” Kigoye pointed out.
According to the Chairman of East African Chamber of Commerce, Industry and Agriculture, Richard Ngatia, the synergy sectors between Oman and East Africa, in addition to energy, are food security and logistics.
“Oman’s food-security programmes and water technology can link with East Africa’s arable land and examples are Kenya’s tea and coffee farms and Tanzania’s horticulture. Projects could include dairy, fruit processing, or fisheries as in the case of tuna across the coast of Somalia.”
