Saudi Arabian government initiative The Sustainable Agricultural Rural Development Program, known as Reef Saudi, says its recent pilot trial of small-scale coffee peeling equipment has finished with “highly successful” results.
Following the positive pilot outcome, the peeling machines will now be made available for smallholder farmers in the region as part of ongoing efforts to enhance coffee production and improve product marketing.
Each machine can peel up to 50 kilograms of coffee beans per hour, which Reef Saudi’s official spokesperson Majid Al-Buraikan says can process the yield of an entire coffee-growing village. The machines will be offered to farmers at a price not exceeding SAR 4000 (US$1066).
The Reef Saudi program was established in 2019 “to achieve balanced economic and social development by utilising the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s natural, agricultural and renewable water resources in a sustainable and optimal manner”.
The positive pilot study follows the program’s recent launch of a new initiative that aims to plant 50,000 coffee seedlings and boost the productivity of coffee trees in Saudi Arabia by 30 per cent by the end of 2025.
