Al Rajhi for International Investment will spend an estimated $400 million by 2011 to produce wheat and maize in Egypt and Sudan.

The Saudi private firm is already farming 42,000 hectares of farmland in Egypt this year, reports Reuters. It is also planting 52,500 hectares of sorghum in Sudan, to pave the way for future cultivation.

Saudi Arabia companies are being encouraged to invest in agriculture abroad after the government decided to reduce wheat production by 12.5% per year last year. 

It abandoned a 30-year-old self-sufficiency programme that was depleting the country’s scarce water supplies.