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Food trade relations of the Middle East and North Africa with tropical countries

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Abstract

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region is the world’s largest importer of food, especially of cereals, sugar and poultry. Tropical regions have gained growing importance as suppliers of such commodities in recent decades. Latin America and Africa in particular have been identified as sources of future agricultural growth that could provide exportable surpluses to the MENA and other food import dependent regions, such as East Asia. Foreign investors, host governments, local communities and international organizations are crucial actors in these agricultural expansion processes, which do, however, entail ecological and socio-economic risks. The article provides a historical perspective of tropical agriculture and the MENA in various food regimes since the 19th century. It then outlines the importance of tropical agriculture and the MENA in global food trade flows and analyzes to what extent the MENA relies on countries with tropical agriculture in its food trade. Finally, it takes a look at agricultural investment flows from the MENA to the tropics. Associated political and socio-economic issues are analyzed, reasons for a marked implementation gap are identified and finally how such investments might relate to MENA food security strategies is discussed.

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Notes

  1. For the purpose of this article the MENA definition of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) is used (https://apps.fas.usda.gov/psdonline/psdRegions.aspx). It includes all Arab League countries except those south of North Africa (Mauritania, Sudan, Somalia, Djibouti and Comoros) plus Iran, Israel and Turkey.

  2. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) includes Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

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Acknowledgement

A Marie Curie grant of the European Commission and the OCP Policy Center supported research for this article.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CIDOB, Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, Barcelona, Spain

    Eckart Woertz

  2. Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN, USA

    Martin Keulertz

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Woertz, E., Keulertz, M. Food trade relations of the Middle East and North Africa with tropical countries. Food Sec. 7, 1101–1111 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12571-015-0502-5

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