UAE Undertakes to Fight Food Insecurity

March,20: Amid rising concerns over a myriad of issues-- the over-dependency of the Arab world on foreign shores for food security; stray incidents of food scare in the form of carcinogenic pesticides allegedly found in food imports; the UAE’s domestic self-sufficiency crippled by a paucity of arable land and water as well as the latest misgivings of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization about global food security expected to plummet over the next two years in case the maize and wheat production does not bump up substantially by 2011-- the oil-rich UAE has apparently undertaken to wage a war on food insecurity in all of its forms.

Several of the Gulf States may be floating on oil, but these oil-rich nations have to look further than their own shores to meet their food demands as the supplies come from India, many of the African nations such as Sudan and farmlands of other foreign countries. The UAE has to import nearly 80% of its food products as the locally processed food account for an exiguous 20%.

Quite understandably, the UAE has chalked up a plan to set up a government-owned multi-million dollar trading house in its bid to secure vagaries-free food supplies for its teeming millions. Agricultural investments abroad would have to be ramped up and the domestic produce would have to be given more of a fillip.