What makes a crop strategic?

As Dhofar Governorate moves through the khareef Dhofar Season, figures issued during this year's wheat harvest deserve a closer look. Officials projected production of about 8,000 tonnes from 6,408 feddans — approximately 2,690 hectares — across 51 farms in the Najd area during the 2025/26 season.
The number is encouraging. It is also not enough, by itself, to answer the more important policy question: what makes wheat, or any other crop, strategic for Oman?
The latest confirmed national result provides useful context. In 2024/25, Oman produced 10,128 tonnes of wheat from 8,327 feddans, with an official market value of about RO 3.04 million. Dhofar supplied 7,723 tonnes, accounting for 76 per cent of national production.
Scale matters. In 2022, the government estimated Oman's annual wheat consumption at between 320,000 and 350,000 tonnes and set an ambition to produce 10 per cent domestically. Against that demand benchmark, the latest confirmed harvest represents roughly 3 per cent of annual consumption — equivalent, by volume, to about 11 days of demand.
That comparison is not an argument against domestic wheat. It clarifies the job that local production is expected to perform.
The term “strategic crop” is often used as though it simply means a crop grown locally or supported by the state. But a crop can be commercially valuable, nutritionally important or culturally significant without necessarily being strategic.
A crop becomes strategic when disruption to its supply would create a serious national vulnerability and when domestic production can reduce that vulnerability at an acceptable cost.
Wheat makes a strong case. It is a staple, can be stored for long periods and feeds directly into flour and other essential foods. International supplies can also be affected by export restrictions, conflict, shipping disruption and sudden price increases.
Yet wheat's strategic importance does not mean Oman must pursue complete self-sufficiency. Nor does it mean that every additional hectare planted automatically strengthens food security.
A more realistic objective is resilience: diversified overseas suppliers, adequate strategic stocks, reliable ports and mills; and a carefully calibrated level of domestic production. Local wheat should function as part of that portfolio — an insurance policy against disruption, not a replacement for trade.
Insurance, however, has a premium. In agriculture, that premium includes land, groundwater, energy, procurement support, machinery and public administration. The relevant question is therefore not only how many tonnes can be produced, but how much supply risk each tonne removes relative to the resources it consumes.
This is particularly important in the Najd. An official groundwater model published in 2024 estimated that water withdrawals across its study area rose from 19 million cubic metres a year in 1995 to 139 million in 2021. It also identified part of the Umm Er Radhuma aquifer as non-renewable and advised against concentrating pumping and agricultural projects in limited locations.
Those findings do not prove that wheat is the wrong crop for the area. They do mean that groundwater cannot be treated as a free input when deciding what qualifies as strategic.
Before acreage or public support is expanded, every proposed strategic crop should pass the same test.
How vulnerable is Oman to disruption in its imported supply? How much additional stock cover would domestic production provide? How much water, land and public support are required per tonne? Can production be expanded during an emergency? Does the crop strengthen associated capabilities such as seed development, storage, processing and logistics?
The answers will vary by crop. Wheat may score highly for storability and national importance, while a perishable crop may require investment in processing and cold storage before additional production improves resilience. A high-value export crop may support farmers and diversify income without materially reducing the country's exposure to shortages of essential food.
“Strategic” should therefore be a decision reached through evidence, not a prestige label attached permanently to selected crops.
One counterargument is that this approach risks reducing food security to a spreadsheet. Imported wheat may be cheaper in normal conditions, but markets do not remain normal during every crisis. A purely commercial calculation could undervalue the farmers, adapted seeds, machinery and procurement systems that Oman would need if imports were interrupted.
That objection is valid. Domestic production has an insurance value beyond the market price of the harvest. But the answer is to recognise and price that value explicitly, not to exempt strategic agriculture from economic and environmental scrutiny.
Oman does not need to choose between self-sufficiency and import dependence. It needs a balanced portfolio: targeted domestic production, diversified supply countries and shipping routes, sufficient reserves, dependable milling capacity and agricultural research focused on yields and water productivity.
The 10 per cent domestic wheat ambition should be treated in the same way. At the government's stated demand benchmark, it would represent approximately five weeks of annual consumption. If that cover can be secured at a sustainable water and fiscal cost, it has a clear strategic rationale.
If the final percentage points require disproportionate use of non-renewable groundwater, however, the same resources might buy more security through larger reserves, broader import partnerships or improvements to storage and logistics.
With Dhofar now providing most of Oman's domestic wheat, the next question should not simply be how many more hectares can be planted. It should be what level of production delivers the greatest reduction in national supply risk for every unit of water, land and public support.
Oman should grow strategic crops because they reduce strategic risk — not call them strategic merely because it has chosen to grow them.