Adequate stocks of food grains available in Oman

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With a new shipment of 32,000 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat which arrived in Oman recently, officials have assured the people that adequate quantities of food grains are available in the country.

The new shipment will add to the existing reserve of wheat in the Sultanate and the market will not be affected by the shortage of wheat around the world.

This is on the back of a series of agreements to import wheat and other items from several countries like India, Australia and recently with Ukraine that Oman Flour Mills Company has signed in the past few months.

Speaking to Times of Oman’s sisterly radio on Shabiba programme Engineer Ibrahim Said Al Amri, Chief Operations Officer of Oman Flour Mills Company (OFMC) said the storage capacity of grain silos at Port Sultan Qaboos (PSQ) is 120,000 tonnes and the company uses these silos for storage of all grains and not just wheat.

“This is in addition to other stores at the port currently allocated for storage of wheat in addition to grains such as maize, oats and others,” he added.

The senior company official said the government has offered subsidies to all those companies that would help stabilise the local market with adequate supplies of grains and other essential items.

“The government has helped the companies to access various international markets like India, Australia, Ukraine and Argentina.”

“Recently we also received shipments of oats. But the shipment of oats is not received in the form of oats flour and there is a need for fodder to cover the requirement of animal wealth, he further added.

There are other storage capacities already established under all food safety and security standards and efforts are being made by the government to increase the storage capacity so as to ensure sustainability, he further said.

He added that the current 120,000 tonnes capacity is used for storage of all grains and crops every three months. The annual consumption of wheat is 300,000 tonnes and Oman Flour Mills Company provides wheat sourced from companies outside the Sultanate, he said.

Oman Flour Mills Company also exports to East African coastal countries and Yemen, besides its commitment to international companies in the region such as the Dominos and Papa Johns’ chain of restaurants, he added.