Feeding the world has troubled many an artist, thinker and, in recent decades, philanthropic organisations. Agriculture’s ever-challenged and shifting fields of supply are coming under extreme pressure and scrutiny to yield to utilitarian principles, but that’s no easy idealistic feat.
Managing the world’s nutritional resources is an issue that gains significance each year as any developing country exports its organic reserves, while it starves and struggles to make ends meet.
Tackling shortages
Epitomising the stark imbalance in food supply and consumption, smallholder farms (those that span less than two hectares in area) in Ethiopia account for more than 80 per cent of all exporting farms in the country. Yet the farmers face a constant battle to feed themselves and find enough surplus to lift themselves out of poverty.
In response to Ethiopia’s struggle DuPont recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the US Agency for International Development on the Advanced Maize Seed Adoption Programme in alliance with the Ethiopian government to increase the productivity of smallholder farms in the East African nation.
The situation in Ethiopia is not an anomaly. “Most countries that have food shortages have large populations. Large populations should mean accessibility to a willing workforce. One of the greatest costs to developed countries is accessibility to staff,” explains Jamie Ferguson, Regional Manager for Meat and Livestock Australia in the Middle East and North Africa.
“In a perfect world the best approach is value adding the products prior to exporting, rather than exporting raw materials for other countries to benefit from. Once people are working then there should be an inflow of benefits through better education and a greater ability to provide the basic food requirements.”
It’s no surprise that the African Union has declared 2014 the year of agriculture and food security.
India is another example of how plenty sits cheek by jowl with nothing. Nearly half of all children under the age of three are malnourished, while in urban areas lifestyle-related type 2 diabetes afflicts nearly a tenth of the population — one of the highest rates in the world.
And with the earth’s population set to hit eight billion by 2024 and nine billion soon after, with an explosion of the middle class in China and India in particular, the need to feed these new mouths remains a top priority.
In contrast, the GCC imports an estimated 80-90 per cent of all its food supplies, and a short-term shelf life means swathes of food goes to waste, while it produces hardly any food because of the barren agricultural conditions of the region.
The UAE has the fifth-highest obesity rate in the world. And residents in the UAE and Qatar consume more than 3,000 calories a day — 20 per cent higher than the average, according to a study published by the BMC Public Health Journal. By 2015, it is predicted that more than 40 per cent of women in the UAE could be classified as obese.
Local sources
“This entire region is importing a lot of food. The future lies in Africa because it has the land and the resources. So it is a no brainer that you cannot continue to grow food in China and Latin America and bring it to the Middle East — it has to be sourced locally,” says Sanjay Sethi, Managing Director and CEO, Signature Agri Ventures Ltd.
However, with the cost of production versus cost of distribution from African farms remaining at an unsustainable level, and the local food production scene in the UAE an inevitably costly industry to implement, there’s no easy remedy to the Gulf’s insatiable appetite for foreign food.
Given the backlash of sentiment that has arisen from the UAE’s investments in poor African nations for vital food supplies, a number of food security investors have changed tack in recent months.
Al Ain-based agricultural firm Al Dahra has diversified its operations by buying eight agricultural companies for $400 million (about Dh1.46 billion) in Serbia, according to a Reuters report late last year, where public attitudes to foreign-owned farming may be less sensitive.
And there is much work being done by organisations throughout the world to combat the inconsistencies entrenched within food supply and distribution. A large number of these companies will be represented at Gulfood.
Top priority
“The region is entering a new period of economic growth underpinned by a burgeoning population with a high dependence on imported food from around the world — food security is an immediate priority,” says Dr Rashid Ahmad Bin Fahd, Minister of Environment and Water, who will address a ministerial panel on Ensuring a Sustainable Food Security Policy at Gulfood. “Development and execution of a core food security strategy is essential to provide a sustainable growth platform.” The biggest hurdles facing the industry’s stakeholders right now, Ferguson says, are “the complexities to supply the countries that are in the most need for affordable food.”
These complexities range from payment risk and substandard handling practices — both at the ports and at the importing warehouses — all the way through to price barriers.
Food safety, traceability, packaging standards and processes need to become embedded in the supply chain to overcome these difficulties. But all come at a cost and investments in technology and time are essential.
“There needs to be a focus on reducing exporting countries’ technical barriers to trade that affect the price and availability of safe and wholesome food products to the importing countries,” says Ferguson.
World Food Summit 1996’s definition of food security existing “when all people at all times have access to sufficient, safe, nutritious food to maintain a healthy and active life” is still a long way off, and questions over its achievability linger.
