Food Issues in the Middle East

Greg Nottingham

Death from Malnutrition per 100,000

• Region Rank

• 1. Arab Emirates• 2. Yemen• 3. Algeria• 4. Iraq• 5. Morocco• 6. Iran• 7. Syria• 8. Bahrain• 9. Libya• 10. Egypt• 11. Tunisia• 12. Israel• 13. Turkey• 14. Oman• 15. Lebanon• 16. Saudi Arabia• 17. Jordan• 18. Qatar• 19. Kuwait

• Rate

• 3.5• 3.13• 3.02• 2.69• 1.35• 1.22• 1.07• 0.98• 0.85• 0.77• 0.63• 0.37• 0.16• 0.14• 0.12• 0.06• 0.03• 0.00• 0.00

• World Rank

• 79• 84• 85• 91• 107• 108• 110• 112• 116• 117• 121• 132• 152• 155• 161• 173• 177• 192• 192

Yemen

• Yemen has the second worst food crisis in the Middle East

• Seven million of Yemen’s 21 million are acutely hungry

• Yemen is the 11th most insecure food country in the world.

Egypt

• Out of the 80 million people in Egypt, 20 million Egyptians live on 2 dollars or less a day

• Egypt is the world’s largest wheat importer• Their ability to buy grain has been diminished

due to the steep decline of tourism, which was a main source of income

• By September, Egypt will have no money to buy wheat, and millions of Egyptians will starve

UN Involvement

• Libya is in a pickle due to the conflicts they are involved in.

• The production of cereal grains has gone down by 50 %

• The UN has made an appeal for $150 million to aid Libya for food, healt care, logistics, water and sanitation, protection and common services

The Future

• The future seems pretty bleak for the Middle East

• Due to the fact that there is always some kind of conflict in the Middle East, there will always be a problem with food issues.

• The food for the public will be taken and given to the army

• Money to buy food will be instead used for weapons

What Has to Be Done

• First, the countries in the Middle East have to stop fighting

• Two, the governments need to stabilize and focus on their people

• Three, each country need to develop an agricultural program to help farmers improve their farms and increase food production

What the UN Has to Do

• The UN needs to realize that the UN was created to help countries in need and promote peace

• The UN needs to send people to each country to train farmers how to run a productive farm

• The UN has to make sure that all of the governments in the Middle East’s main focus is on the people