In light of political crises and climate changes the world is witnessing, Kuwait, like any other regional country, faces serious challenges in achieving food security, especially with increase of demand, heavy dependence on imports, and scarcity of local food products, which makes it vulnerable to fluctuations in global prices.
This shows the need for Kuwait to adopt new strategies to confront food security challenges by diversifying food sources, promoting sustainable agriculture, improving management of water resources, and encouraging awareness of healthy nutrition methods by enhancing investments in the infrastructure of agriculture, food industry, and livestock sectors.
The concept of food security includes economic, social, cultural, environmental and political aspects, which calls for the need to move from the stage of adopting public policies to sustainable food systems aimed at ensuring the four elements of food security; availability, access, benefit and stability.
Meanwhile, the World Bank inclu
ded in a report published on January 29, 2024 on its official website, the food security issue among the eight critical challenges facing the world that must be addressed on a broad international scale.
The Kuwaiti Cabinet had decided in August 2022 to establish (the Supreme National Committee for Strengthening the Food and Water Security System), which include competencies from inside and outside the country as advisors to prepare and address technicalities and recommendations regarding food and water security.
In February 2023, the committee approved the broad outlines of the strategy for achieving food, water, and drug security in Kuwait, which included 21 basic pillars and 65 initiatives, with eight pillars and 28 security initiatives, in order to reach the strategic goal of strengthening the food security system.
In such international circumstances, there is an urgent need to adopt an integrated strategy for food security that includes dimensions such as strengthening the national food basket through
expanding regional and international agricultural investments and owning agricultural lands, livestock, and fisheries in countries with fertile regions.
In that context, the General Secretariat of the Supreme Council for Planning and Development stated on its website that Kuwait fell 20 places back according to the food security index issued by the Economic Research Unit of the British Economist Group in 2022, where it was ranked 50th globally out of 113 countries, while it was ranked seventh in the Arab world and sixth in the GCC.
Kuwait was ranked 30th globally in 2021 and 33rd in 2020 on the Food Security Index, which measures the performance of 113 countries in providing the food needs of its population through four main factors; the ability to bear the costs and availability of food, the type and quality of food, natural resources, and resilience.
In its evaluation, the Food Security Index relies on giving countries a score out of 100, as it is calculated from the average of the four main factors that
make up the general index, by collecting and weighing the results of the 68 individual indicators distributed among the factors and measuring the extent of each country’s ability to provide the food needs of its population on a scale starting from zero to one hundred.
In this vein, Director General of the Public Authority for Agriculture Affairs and Fish Resources, Engineer Nasser Taqi, confirmed in a previous statement to KUNA after his meeting with the Director General of the Arab Center for Studies of Dry Zones and Dry Lands Dr. Nasraldin Al-Obaid, last January, that the Authority is ready to implement all the development plans that It serves Kuwait in a way that meets its priorities and goals and achieves food security and sustainable development goals.
When talking about food security in Kuwait, there is a major role played by governmental companies concerned with food, such as Al-Mawashi Company, Kuwait Flour Mills and Bakaries Company, and the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies (KUCCS).
Accordi
ng to a report published by KUNA on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of establishing the company, Al-Mawashi owns the largest shaded farm in Kuwait, covering about four million square meters and accommodating 200,000 heads of livestock. It also has another shaded farm in the UAE with an area of 285,000 square meters and accommodating 100,000 livestock.
The company also has a farm in South Africa with a capacity of 70,000 livestock and another in Australia, with a capacity of 100,000 sheep, while the Australian government seeks to stop the export of live sheep across the sea. According to the Australian Agriculture Minister’s announcement regarding the decision to stop exports as of May 1, 2028, necessitates searching for other sources for exporting live sheep.
Al-Mawashi relies on several goals, including providing the finest types of meat to local and regional markets in innovative ways and at reasonable prices through an integrated and sustainable supply chain managed by the company.
On the other han
d, CEO of Kuwait Flour Mills and Bakaries Company, Mutlaq Al-Zayed, in a previous statement to KUNA, said that it bears the task of achieving food security in Kuwait, expressing readiness to meet the needs of consumers, provide sufficient stocks of all products in cooperative societies and central markets, and keep up with any updates according to an established emergency plan.
For his part, President of the Union of Consumer Cooperative Societies, Musab Al-Mulla, told KUNA that the union has a pivotal role in achieving food security in Kuwait by maintaining the strategic stock of foodstuffs to ensure their continued availability to the consumer.
A study conducted by the Kuwait Society for Science, Technology and Innovation and published on its website, stated that challenges facing food security could be summarized in two main issues: sustainability of agricultural production to future generations, and maintaining the required quality of food while securing its availability in markets.
The study added tha
t there is a shortage of natural resources, increased consumption of energy and water, and a spike in fertilizers and fodder import, which requires management capable of exploiting energy without waste, with the need to find renewable sources of energy in various types of farms.
The study quoted a United Nations report on food waste saying, “An individual in Kuwait wastes 95 kilograms of food on average annually, while Kuwaiti families waste about 397 tons of food annually.” The study also recommended the availability of major food commodities of the appropriate quality from local production and develop a plan to ensure their availability under scenarios and possibilities of supply chain interruptions.
It stressed the need to improve the water management system to support the economy by expanding the use of treated wastewater in agriculture and focusing on manufacturing organic and chemical fertilizers in Kuwait as it is necessary to achieve food security.
Source: Kuwait News Agency