LEI, part of Wageningen UR, and IT company Al Elm are building a business information network for agriculture and horticulture in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi government realises that, in order to pursue its agricultural policy efficiently, it needs access to up-to-date and reliable information on prices, costs, incomes and the market. It is with this in mind that it has decided to set up an Agricultural Information Centre under the auspices of a large-scale agricultural development programme. The AIC will be implemented in a five-year programme. LEI will earn 2.7 million euros from the contract.
LEI will assist in the development of the centre by sharing its specialist knowledge and experience of the collection, management and application of information in agriculture and agribusiness. This is exactly what it has been doing in the Netherlands for seventy years during which it has built up an international reputation as a top institute in this field. LEI has helped to develop a similar information network in Hungary and Turkey.
The AIC management team will learn all the aspects of an agricultural information centre in a four-week executive training programme in the Netherlands, which will be organised and facilitated by LEI. LEI will also be responsible for the ‘train-the-trainer’ sessions, which will show the Saudis how people in the regional offices are taught to collect data systematically and uniformly from the agricultural businesses. LEI researcher George Beers has been seconded to Riyadh as a member of the AIC management team.