Arab food security disregards sustainability and social peace

Experts fear that food security of the Gulf region will be endangered by factors such as population growth, climate change and natural disasters affecting food-producing countries, primarily in East  Asia. Food shortage and high food prices are expected in the next five years.  [1]

This is being increased by decline of fishing and easying of  open-imports caused by the outcomes of oil export. According to the analyst Omar Al-Juraifani, barley cultivation in the 1980thn was discouraged by the high cost of water. Barley is used as feed for livestock and must be imported  because its production requires extensive irrigation.

Al-Juraifani encourages investment in the agriculture sector beyond the Gulf region, such as  Egypt, Sudan, Indonesia and others. and  re-export the production. Further research on seawater desalination and develop agricultural techniques to save water is necessary.  Keeping reserve food stocks of large quantities could help stabilize prices  neutralising the bets on food commodities at the stock market.  Al-Juraifani suggestions are focused on financial profit.  He  disregards all social aspects and safety issues.

Insecure investments creates social injustice [2]
The investments in large scale are not secure because they are based on investments on usable crop lands displacing the local small farmers. This creates social injustice and imperils the rain forests. Cargill, for instance, is an example how such investments destroy the ecology and the social stability of these places.

How Saudi Arabia's land-investment projects damage agrarian structure and social stability of their poor neighbours [3]
Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Ali Al Amoudi, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, is the son of a Yemeni father and Ethiopian mother. He is the 64th richest man in the world.  His fortune is based on oil refineries and the booming construction industry.

His company, the Saudi Star Agricultural Development leases for nearly 25,000 acres in the northeast of Ethiopia to produce rice for the Saudi market. The Horizon Plantations, another Al Amoudi venture, secured licenses for more than 600,000 acres of farmland in western Ethiopia.
The Sheikh is now reportedly the largest foreign-based investor in Ethiopian land.

Other Activities of the Gulf States and Lybia [4]
Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), Qatar has agrarian Joint venture funds in Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia and Philippines. Kuwait Investment Authority approached several countries in South East Asia to discuss potential for long-term investment in agriculture and other sectors. Libya Africa Investment Portfolio (LAP), Libya accomplished  a partnership with the Liberian Foundation for Africa Development Aid, to  produce rice in Liberia. Lybia will also develop 100,000 ha in the Office du Niger, the land area with highest agricultural potential in Mali.

Profitable global investments retailing good agrarian lands [2]
Agricultural land is being bought, leased or taken from peasant farmers at an alarming pace for the production of export crops by foreign investors or wealthier, food-insecure nations like China, Libya and South Korea and Saudi Arabia. The developing poor countries are on target.  According to a World Bank report, some 111 million acres of farmland were acquired by global investors in 2009, nearly 75 percent of which were in Africa. The lands are being taken for the production of  rice, corn , wheat and agrofuels like jatropha and palm oil. In Ghana  maize and sorghum ccrops are being displaced by about 2.5 million acres of jatropha plantations under current agreements with foreign companies.

In 2011 devastating floodwaters covered large parts of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, killing hundreds of people and damaging wide swaths of farmland. Rice crops were seriously damaged.  Samarendu Mohanty of the the International Rice Research Institute in the Philippines estimates that global rice stocks are at least 20 million tons higher than 2008, however, rice prices quickly doubled, following rumours about a shortage of this commodity at the stock market. Its a problem of the financial system betting of rising prices, and not of food security. [5]

Logistics and transportation issues
Concepcion Calpe of  the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome said that  the region is able to plant a second crop once flood waters recede.  He sees  bottlenecks not based on crop losses, but problems are the  logistics to store and transport the supplies. Therefore production should be focused on autarchy of the consumers.
 

Urban agriculture The current industrial agriculture system is accountable for high energy costs for the transportation of foodstuffs. The average conventional produce item travels 1,500 miles (2,400 km). The energy used to transport food is decreased when urban agriculture can provide cities with locally grown food. locally produced foods are increasingly abundant, convenient and rewarding. [6]   Picture: An urban farm in Chicago. By Steven Walling http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_agriculture

The way to improve local food production; Grower's Manual, a template for grower cooperatives [4]
The Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture presents a most useful manual for local produced foods. It focuses on hygiene and food safety issues, which can be adhered to at local farm. Many of these issues, however cannot be monitored in distant regions which are not under the local law.

Looking to a sustainable world,  Arabian countries should invest in greening their own region by planting trees, desalinate water for agriculture. Separating the household garbage  in paper, organic  garbage mostly of rejected or date expired food or other green garbage. This can be used to fertilise the soil, it retains humidity. Rain water should be gathered in artificial sees building dams.
The Leopold Center describes effective chlorine sanitizing in treating a food and food contact surface with a sanitizing solution. [7]

[1] New solutions needed to improve food security in Gulf. Arab News 03.Dec 2011.
http://arabnews.com/economy/article542583.ece

[2] Peasant Struggles for Land, Seeds and Water in Africa. Food First. 15 April 2011
http://www.foodfirst.org/en/node/3393

[3] "African land, up for grabs" by Ashwin Parulkar, Anyuak Media. March 27, 2010.
http://farmlandgrab.org/post/view/18359

[4] Land grab or development opportunity? Agricultural investment and international land deals in Africa. FAO IIED and IFAD, 2009.
http://www.ifad.org/pub/land/land_grab.pdf

[5] Thai Floods Damage Rice Fields, Small Impact on Global Market Predicted. Voice of America. . 10 Dec 2011.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/Thai-Floods-Damage-Rice-Small-Impact-on-Global-Market-Predicted-133797298.html

[6] Urban Agriculture. Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_agriculture

[7] Grower's Manual: A template for  Grower Cooperatives. Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. October 2011.
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/sites/default/files/pubs-and-papers/2011-10-growers-manual-template-grower-cooperatives_0.pdf