Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Through protected houses, the Ministry of Environment, Water and Agriculture (MEWA) has started growing Khawlani coffee beans in Riyadh. The experiment was a huge success as coffee seedlings were brought in from farms in the south, and their cultivation was tested in Riyadh in protected buildings, which provided the ideal atmosphere for coffee production.

Dr. Ali Abdel Jalil, adviser to the Undersecretary of the Ministry of Agriculture and supervisor of research and study of promising plants, told Al-Arabiya that the goal of the experiment was to change the production base for farmers and introduce crops with efficient and high economic returns to the farms.

"We import more than 95% of our needs from other countries, so we started developing it and selecting good kinds in order to extend its cultivation throughout the Kingdom,” he said.

"We began to grow coffee in protected zones that control the temperature and discovered that it began to give high output, twice as much as what is produced in the open ground," Dr. Abdel Jalil said, adding that this was a green light for the farmers and investors to begin planting coffee in huge quantities.

He said the yield in protected zones was more than 30 kilos per tree, compared to only 18 kilos per tree on the open ground.

"By giving fresh water and healthy soil, productivity increased threefold," he said, pointing out that if seedlings were planted at a specific size in the greenhouses, they would produce after a year, whereas starting production on an open farm took two to three years.

According to Dr. Abdel Jalil, the ministry is in contact with experts to investigate and assess the quality of milk produced in greenhouses. Nutritional value, flavor, caffeine, and the extent of chemical residues, if any, are all measured, allowing laboratories to see everything that goes into this product.

He affirmed that manufacturing and quality experts will collaborate, adding, "We are confident that it will be a high-end production.”