The 28th FAO Regional Conference for the Near East (NERC-28) held in Sanaa, Yemen, in March 2006, requested FAO to ". conduct a prospective study that would outline the expected long-term changes in the global economic environment and their anticipated impact on agricultural development and food security in the Region." This document is in direct response to this request. It is based on the FAO global study "World agriculture: towards 2030/2050" (Interim Report, published June 2006; hereafter called AT2050). The AT2050 study examined the world prospects for food and agriculture to the year 2050 and provided the broad framework within which prospects for particular countries or regional groups may be assessed by taking into account possible evolutions in the whole world.

Due to limitations of available or reliable data, this study covers only 14 countries of the Near East Region (plus Iraq, when data was available):

. North Africa: Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Tunisia;

. West Asia: Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria;

. North East Africa: Egypt, Somalia, Sudan;

. Arabian Peninsula: Saudi Arabia, Yemen.

The main contributing factors of agricultural production have been identified and analysed separately. However, because of space constraints, the results presented are mainly at regional level or for selective alternative country groups which masks wide inter-country differences. In addition, the degree of uncertainty increases as the time horizon is extended, so the results envisaged for 2050 should be interpreted more cautiously than those for 2015 and 2030.

This study uses a "positive" approach rather than a "normative" approach. This means that its assumptions and projections reflect the most likely future but not necessarily the most desirable one. Therefore, the prospective developments presented here are not strategic goals. Rather, they can provide a basis for action when coping with both existing problems that are likely to persist and new ones that may emerge. It should also be stressed that the projections are not trend extrapolations. Instead, they incorporate a multitude of assumptions about the future and often represent significant deviations from past trends.

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Near East Agriculture Towards 2050: Prospects and Challenges