Princeton University Speech
Date: 27 September 2011
Time: 4:30 PM
Opening remarks:
First of all I wish to express my gratitude for being invited to give this talk to you today, which is entitled “Running out of food in the Middle East? Food Security and the Challenges of the Arab Spring”.
Thank you professor Eckart Woertz for organizing the talk and also, professor Bernard Haykel, Director of the Transregional Institute at the Department of Near Eastern Studies for his support.
It is an honor for me to be here with all of you this afternoon. I have graduated as an agriculture engineer and have since in tandem with my role as Chairman of Golden Grass, Inc., strongly pursued the issue of the role of agriculture to enhance security, alleviate poverty and promote economic growth.
Before I give the PowerPoint presentation which I have prepared, I would like to preface it with these observations:
Food shortages in the Asia-Pacific Region have contributed to soaring food prices.
Saudi Arabia has raised questions about the long-term prospects for food security.
The Arab world imports 50 to 90 percent of the food calories they consume. They are the largest net importers of cereal.
Arab countries are more exposed than other countries to food prices’ volatility. Their vulnerability will worsen in coming years due to ballooning population growth, low agricultural producti
vity, and the dependence on a global commodities market. (The World Bank, 2009)
Discussion of “security”, globally and locally, has dominated the news.
Security has been linked to terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, regime change, failed states, religion, the world petroleum industries, and a host of other domestic and international issues. Astonishingly, “food security” has been only infrequently mentioned.
Poverty and unemployment are the main motivating factors for mass demonstrations, overthrown governments or descent into civil war, e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, Syria and Bahrain.
Before the protests that ended his 30-year-rule, the fiercest unrest to challenge Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak was caused by lack of bread, and was not a direct response to his regime’s policies.
In Tunisia, in 2010, Mohammed Bouazizi, a 26-year-old fruit vendor protested against police abuses by setting himself on fire. His death, and the subsequent uprising which followed, can also be blamed on lack of food and employment.
The importance of food security must be remembered. Unrest in Egypt and Tunisia stretching through Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain is a good reminder.
Access to food is still perceived by many as a privilege, rather than a basic human right, and thousands of people around the world die each day from hunger.
Way as to remove the fear that there will not be enough to eat. In particular, food security A country and its people are food secure when the food system operates in such a will be achieved when the poor and vulnerable, particularly women and children and those living in marginal areas, have secure access to more food than they want (Maxwell 1988).
The presentation you will now see details and addresses these challenges, and gives some possible solutions. I hope you will enjoy it – and I will be taking questions at the end.