World Grain - August 2016 - 44

REGIONAL REVIEW: FOOD SECURITY ISSUES PLAGUE MIDDLE EAST

windblown desert dust, the environmental conditions could become intolerable
and may force people to migrate.
"In the future, the climate in large
parts of the Middle East and North
Africa could change in such a manner
that the very existence of its inhabitants is in jeopardy," said Jos Lelieveld,
director at the Max Planck Institute for
Chemistry and Professor at the Cyprus
Institute.

third of Iraq's population works in the
agricultural sector, which provides a living for about 11 million out of 35 million Iraqis.
Abboudi told the newspaper AlHayat, "The plan was designed to fully
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end of this year. Yet, security developments and the entry and control of terrorist gangs, namely IS, over the richest
agricultural towns have prevented that."
WAR TAKING TOLL ON IRAQ, SYRIA
In a separate article the same source
&RQÀLFWKDVKDGDGUDPDWLFHIIHFWRQ reported that Syrian agriculture is near
agricultural production in parts of the collapse. It quoted a telephone call to
region. A report published in 2015 by Semaan al-Kheir, a farmer from the
AL Monitor, quoted Iraqi Minister of countryside of Homs. "We previously
Agriculture Ghazi al-Abboudi as say- relied on rainfall to irrigate winter crops
ing that his country "lost 40% of its ag- and on the irrigation water provided by
ricultural production capacity after the the Ministry of Agriculture during the
Islamic State (IS) took control of the three months of summer, which proved
most productive provinces."
enough for summer crops, leaving the
He said the Ministry of Agriculture soil well irrigated with the needed orKDG KRSHG WR DFKLHYH VHOIVXI¿FLHQF\ ganic components," he said. "Today,
DQGWRDQQRXQFHLWRI¿FLDOO\DWWKHHQG ¿YH\HDUVLQWRWKHZDUZHDUHRQO\UHof this year.
lying on rainfall, bringing summer agThe report pointed out that nearly a riculture to a halt. The production de-

Milling industry struggles with overcapacity
The Middle East is home to several countries with large milling industries, although
many wrestle with overcapacity. Levels of state ownership vary.
Egypt, according to a USDA attaché, has more than 410 mills divided between the
public, public/private, and private sector mills with total investments of more than $1
billion. The capacity of public and public/private mills range from 50,000 to 55,000
tonnes per day, while private mills' capacity is estimated at 20,000 tonnes per day.
The attaché put capacity utilization, particularly in smaller mills, at less than 50% in
2015-16, "due, in part, to shortages of imported wheat as Egypt goes through a foreign currency crunch," and quoted private investors as saying that Egypt has overall
excess milling capacity of more than 35%.
According to the USDA, Turkey has 725 plants producing wheat flour, with a capacity of 38 million tonnes. Capacity usage is put at 45%.
Turkey is a massive exporter of flour, with about 3.26 million tonnes in wheat
equivalent, as well as 700,000 tonnes of pasta exported in 2015-16, according to
the USDA.
The big customers are Iraq, which bought about 1.3 million tonnes, Sudan, which
bought 550,000 tonnes and Syria, which bought 280,000 tonnes.
Iran has more than 300 licensed flour mills, a number which is steady. Exports of
flour to Iraq are rising, with the Ministry of Industry and the Federation of Iranian
millers targeting 1 million tonnes of flour exports in one year's time, especially to Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Israel has 19 flour mills with a total capacity of about 1.3 million tonnes, according
to the USDA. In addition to milling wheat, there are some imports of packaged flour,
mainly from Ukraine and Russia.
44

creased due to soil exhaustion and lack
of condensed chemical fertilizers. We
are now using the available natural fertilizer (manure)."
Hopma explained that the high load
placed by refugee movements on countries like Jordan strengthens their case
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always been reliant on foreign aid since
it was founded in 1948," she said. "The
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Jordan an extra bargaining card."
She explained many in the region
believe that it cannot improve its food
security situation without taking a
region-wide approach. Policy-makers
do bring up these ideas about having
a pan-Arab approach to food security.
One organization originally set up as a
potential vehicle for such an approach is
the Arab Organization for Agricultural
Development.
"It is basically a body in which all
Arab agriculture ministers come together," she said. "They still very much
argue for a regional approach to food
security in which trading between countries of the region is preferred but obviously within the global free trade system
there is limited scope for that.
"A lot of people argue that the global
free-trade model doesn't work for them.
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expected. In Jordan, King Abdullah was
talking about turning Jordan into the
new Arab Singapore."
That includes making conditions favorable for foreign direct investment. At
Jordan's only port, Aqaba, a new grain
terminal has been built.
"They would love to see themselves
as this regional facilitator and regional
importer of foods," she said. "So on the
one hand you have elites who actually
might be interested in a vision of global
food security and who say we can actually facilitate the import of food, versus
the region toward the Arab hinterland."
On the other hand, social movements
and local agricultural sectors contest
such an import-reliant vision of regional
food security.
"It depends on the country. Import reAugust 2016 / World Grain / www.World-Grain.com
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World Grain - August 2016

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