Food Security Program of GCC

The countries of the world are interdependent. No country is self sufficient. Natural resources are unevenly distributed across the world. Some countries have to import some things from other countries to meet their indigenous needs and demands, while some things they can offer to other countries of their needs and demands. Barter system still exists, though not exactly the things are exchanged for each other.

It is the responsibility the leadership and management of a country to assess what type of things and in how much quantity their country needs to import and what should they export and in what quantity. Lack of good governance in the policy of import and export often results in economic upset in a country.

Import and export is very complex job. Many internal and external factors have to be taken into consideration. Apart from import and export, there is another policy to meet indigenous demands and needs, which is less complex that is to invest abroad in the required sectors to acquire what is needed at home. This is the policy which has been adopted by the leadership and management of GCC to fulfill their indigenous requirement of food. GCC leadership has consistently been showing signs of maturity in the journey of their leadership development and this is another proof. The leadership development study should make it a topic of their study.


In GCC regions, there is only 1.7% of the total land area which is arable. Water resources are extremely short. GCC countries have to import the required food from abroad to meet their food requirement. Around 60 to 80 percent of the total food is imported. According to a current estimation, GCC countries will have to import 90% of their total food from abroad in near future. Their food import reached USD25.8 billion in the year 2010.

Short of water, arable land and unfavorable weather condition have made the former policy of self sufficiency unworkable. Fluctuation in the world food market directly affects the GCC countries. Whenever there is any constraint either due to some restriction in export policy of the countries which supply food to GCC or due to some natural calamity, the GCC countries face difficulties to meet their indigenous food requirement.

GCC governments found home irrigation, with the help of modern technology, much expensive and still insufficient. Since the GCC regions are too hot for open agriculture, protected cultivation has been used in which plastic or fiberglass protection has been used to grow vegetables. A few glass greenhouses are initiated which are cooled with pad- and-fan system. However, not only are these projects expensive but also insufficient to meet the required level and variety of agriculture produce.

On the other hand, increase in the population of GCC is at the rate of 3.3%. Food consumption may rise to CAGR of 4.6% that is 51.5 million tones till 2015. This raises the concern of the food security in the region even further. The future food requirement will grow more; and more investment will have to be made to import food from abroad.

To meet the present and future demands of food, the leadership and management of GCC decided to acquire farmlands abroad to meet its food requirement. Working on this policy the GCC governments are investing heavily to acquire farmlands abroad on leases.

Saudi Arabia has acquired farmlands in Pakistan in return for financial and oil aid of 6 billion dollars. UAE has acquired 1.4 million hectares of farmland in Morocco, Pakistan and Sudan. Qatar made investment of 5.1 billion dollars in its food security programs. It has acquired 400,000 hectares of farmland in Kenya.

It is hoped that the steps taken by GCC will satisfy the concerns regarding food security of GCC countries, yet food security will remain a matter of concern, which needs to be looked with vigilance all the time.

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