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The Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries, which have one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, are grappling with the key issue of how best to provide food to the millions without heavily relying on imports.
GCC states, which control nearly 45 per cent of the world's proven oil deposits, are among the largest food importers in the world given their poor farm potential due to the desert nature of their land. The bulk of their food imports come from outside the Arab region, including the United States and other Western countries.
Official figures show the GCC's combined farm imports exceeded $60 billion during 2005-2008. They accounted for about 45 per cent of the total Arab food import value of $120 billion although the population of the six members of about 35 million do not exceed 11 per cent of the total Arab population.
A breakdown shows Saudi Arabia was the largest Arab food importer, with a value of about $35 billion during 2005-2008.
Farm imports by the UAE totalled nearly $12 billion while they stood at $5 billion in Oman, $4.8 billion in Kuwait, $2 billion in Bahrain and about 1.3 million in Qatar.
The rising expatriate population will contribute to economic growth and an expanding pool of skilled professionals from overseas should help stimulate further economic diversification.
At the same time, GCC countries will face questions about how best to provide affordable food to the immigrants.
According to official figures, Arab nations have reeled under a cumulative farm gap of more than $155 billion over the past nine years to emerge as the largest single food importer despite their massive land potential.
Except for fish and vegetables, Arabs are suffering from a shortage in all types of farm products and the gap has steadily worsened over the past two decades, shows the figures by the Arab Monetary Fund (AMF) in Abu Dhabi and the Khartoum-based Arab Organisation for Agricultural Development (AOAD).
The gap is underscored in cereal, wheat, barley and cooking oil as the Arab world's self-sufficiency in such products range between 30 and 53 per cent.
The farm gap, the difference between imports and exports of food products, peaked at about $23 billion in 2008 to bring the cumulative Arab food shortage to $155.5 billion during 2000-2008.
The level is more than double the cumulative gap of about $45 billion during the preceding nine years, when the region's population did not exceed 240 million in early 1990s compared with about 334 million at the end of 2008.
Total Arab food exports stood at only $10.5 billion in 2008 while imports were as high as $33 billion, their highest level.
Poor water resources in the region, low land utilisation and investments, and defective Arab farm policies are the major reasons cited for the current state of affairs.
Nearly three years after they approved a 15-year common farm strategy in 2005, the Arab countries have become more reliant on farm imports as such a strategy remains inefficient in the absence of right policies and sufficient funds.
What complicates the problem is that most wealthy Arab nations are still reluctant to invest heavily in farming projects in fertile member states for political and security reasons while only about 12 per cent of the total available arable land in the region is exploited, says AOAD.
AOAD's figures show the gap in most products has worsened over the past years, with that in grain and flour rising from about $8.5 billion in 2004 to $9.1 billion in 2005 and a record $9.5 billion in 2008.
The wheat gap widened from $4.4 billion in 2004 to $4.6 billion in 2005 and about $4.8 billion in 2008 while that in corn surged from about $1.5 billion to $2.02 billion and $2.4 billion respectively.
The gap looks worse when it is taken from the volume perspective, with that in cereal standing at a staggering 51.5 million tonnes in 2008.
The shortage in wheat alone was as high as 24 million tonnes while that in corn stood at more than 13 million tonnes and in rice at more than 2,300 tonnes.
As a result, the self-sufficiency level in most farm products retreated in many Arab nations. From 54.9 per cent in 2006, self-sufficiency in cereal shrank to about 52.3 per cent in 2008 while wheat dropped from 57.3 to 52 per cent.
Corn self-sufficiency declined from 38.4 to 37.6 per cent while it tumbled from 39.4 to 31.9 per cent in barley and from 85.4 to 83.2 per cent in meat.
Experts expect the food import bill to widen in the coming years because of higher food prices and a rapid population growth in most regional nations.
With the GCC population is forecast to increase by one-third, to 53 million people, by 2020, governments need to make efforts to improve farm policies, utilise better the available arable land and develop existing national agricultural institutions.
They should also support the joint Arab agricultural ventures and establishments, invest in fertile Arab nations, adopt necessary policies and national programmes to curb price increases, create a pan-Arab fund to finance Arab food security projects, and set up a joint strategic food stockpile.
