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Near East countries that fill the food gap
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Near East -- how far to food security?
Near East countries face severe environmental problems and managing natural resources sustainably is one of the most critical issues for increasing food production, says the report of FAO's Regional Conference in the run up to the World Food Summit.
The Near East region, which takes in countries as diverse as Turkey, Libya, Afghanistan and the United Arab Emirates, is dominated by arid and semi-arid lands (70 percent of the total) with low and erratic rainfall, making the variability in crop production higher than in all other developing regions.
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Arid lands threatened by wind and water erosion |
Despite the diversity of individual countries, they share common environmental problems. Some 35 percent of the land is affected by wind erosion, while water erosion affects 17 percent. Such conditions have led to desertification, which is irreversible in many areas. And where irrigation is intensive, as in Egypt, salinization has emerged as a major constraint.
Food security across the region varies. Daily energy supplies (DES) for the region as a whole stood at 2 730 Calories in 1990-92, among the highest of developing regions. But this masks wide variations. While Egypt, Cyprus, Libya, Turkey, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates had an average DES of around 3 300 C, close to developed countries, others including Afghanistan (1 670 C) and Yemen (2 150 C) were well below the average of developing countries.
FAO predicts that the region as a whole will continue to improve its food security, but low-income countries are likely to continue to experience serious food problems. Growth in food production could be achieved by a combination of increases in yield, intensification of farming and some expansion of the area under irrigation.
The report also said that there is scope for controlled-environment farming and changes in national cropping patterns by including new crops such as sunflower and soybean. Countries lsuch as Egypt, the Gulf States and Jordan have made remarkable advances in horticultural farming. Besides generating foreign exchange and seasonal employment opportunities, such farming sytems are noted for controlled use of agricultural chemicals and water saving.
"It is important," says the report, "that agricultural production effort focuses primarily on those areas that offer the greatest potential for cost-effective and ecologically sustainable increases in land productivity."
