Global Food Crisis Hasn't Affected Gulf Countries

"Why hasn't the food crisis impacted the Gulf countries yet?" the article asks. According to CNN, Russia's conflict with Ukraine has triggered a catastrophic food crisis in certain nations in the area, but it has had little influence on the region's driest and least food-producing countries, such as the Arab Gulf states.

According to a local Arabic newspaper, the Arab Gulf countries, who utilize less than 2% of their land for agriculture and import 85 percent of their food needs, we're well equipped to tackle the present global food crisis after learning from the global financial crisis in 2008.

Food prices rose as a result of the crisis, prompting several producing nations to place a restriction on food exports in order to safeguard their inventories.

According to the article, the "Intelligence" arm of the journal "The Economist" stated that the shock had a substantial influence on regional food and agricultural policy.

According to the report, Qatar is rated 24th in the world among nations with food security, followed by Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Bahrain, while Saudi Arabia is placed 44th.

After the Corona outbreak intensified worries about food security, the Gulf nations shifted their focus, according to Karen Young, a fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, to seek other options, especially given the lack of funding.

Seawater desalination plants with low energy consumption, agriculture with low water use, and the adoption of current water-based agricultural technologies are all examples of these options, according to the article.

There's also the contentious practice of Gulf countries purchasing agricultural estates in Third World countries and exploiting them to grow their own crops.

After deciding to limit wheat output by around 12.5 percent yearly in 2008 in order to safeguard the country's restricted water resources, Saudi Arabia was among the first countries to buy agricultural property in Sudan, Kenya, and Ethiopia.

According to the report, some of these choices are expensive, and their long-term viability is questionable, especially in the face of a worldwide food crisis. In the event that the global food crisis develops, Stephen Hertog, an associate professor at the London School of Economics, is reported as being pessimistic about the capacity of agricultural land-buying countries to prevent their governments from implementing rationing or prohibitions on food exports.

On the other hand, while Russia's conflict in Ukraine caused the present food crisis, it also put oil-exporting nations in a strong financial position, allowing them to not only improve their financial circumstances but also overcome the harshest effects of the crisis.

According to Karen Young, who is quoted in the article, food purchases account for a lower percentage of consumer expenditure in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries than in other countries in the area.

However, the most essential bet for the Arab Gulf states in terms of improving their food security is to create the groundwork for self-sufficiency in order to reduce the effect of future food crises.

The UAE, for example, formed a specific ministry for food security and announced a national plan in 2018 with the goal of placing the UAE among the top ten nations on the global food security index by 2051.

The growth of salt-resistant crops in the desert, as well as the creation of vertical roofed farms and Smart plastic homes in the desert, is all part of this approach.

Qatar, for its part, attempted to execute a similar approach to attain dairy self-sufficiency by developing dairy enterprises in the desert.

These businesses, of course, rely on government funding, which is possible for a variety of reasons, the most notable of which is the increased financial abundance arising from the rise in energy prices.

Comments Post Comment

Leave a Comment

Submit