The Importance of Increasing Grain Silos in Kuwait

Agricultural expert Mohammed Al-Fraih stressed the need to increase the number of grain silos in Kuwait to ensure that our essential food reserves are protected from loss and waste in the event of any emergency, similar to what happened following the Beirut port explosion. Al-Fraih told Al-Qabas: “After the Kuwait United Poultry Company was established in 1974, it called for the construction of corn silos sufficient to meet Kuwait’s needs for a period exceeding three months, located near the wheat silos at Shuwaikh Port, which was done in the mid-1980s to meet poultry farmers’ corn needs, which account for 70% of feed consumption for both egg-laying and broiler chickens. Al-Fraih added that the silos’ capacity was subsequently increased, with Kuwait importing approximately 550,000 tons of wheat, 450,000 tons of barley, 250,000 tons of corn, and 40,000 tons of soybean meal in 2019. He noted that the explosion of grain silos at the Port of Beirut destroyed the entire stock of grains, most importantly wheat. He noted that the Arab world has recorded a series of silo explosions, including in 2005 when silos at the port of Latakia in Syria exploded, in 2016 when silos at the port of Damietta in Egypt exploded, and in the same year when silos in Shubra al-Kheima, Egypt, also exploded, in addition to several other explosions that have not been documented. He noted that if statistics from the Fire Department are reviewed, most warehouse fires in Kuwait are caused by welding and workers’ lack of familiarity with safety requirements, indicating that the Beirut port explosion is a wake-up call that must be heeded to protect our essential food reserves from loss, emphasizing the importance of constructing additional grain silos at Shuaiba Port—as this port is the closest to the major poultry and livestock farming centers in Al-Wafra—along with building additional storage facilities for soybean meal, which is currently unavailable.