Saudi Arabia’s SAGO buys wheat replacing green fodder planting

Saudi Arabia’s state grain buyer SAGO has started buying domestic wheat from farmers who have grown the crop as a replacement for green fodder this year, it said on Sunday.

Saudi Arabia, which has steadily reduced wheat cultivation to rely completely on imports in a bid to save water, also said in 2015 it would halt the cultivation of green fodder with the same aim.

The decision to stop growing green fodder included an option for farmers to grow wheat instead, over five years with a total quantity not exceeding 700,000 tonnes a year.

SAGO said its branches across the kingdom had bought 1,336 tonnes of wheat since it started buying last week.