The recent usufruct contracts to build a food infrastructure in the Sultanate of Oman is a much-needed step towards establishing self-sufficiency in food items and an exercise for food security.
As the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources resolves to achieve in-country reliance on other food products, there is good news about 100 per cent self-sufficiency in some food products, including dates.
The country is working on a mechanism to ensure food security amid alarming reports of agricultural shortfall. There have been reports of “impending agricultural shortfall that could fail to produce enough to feed the world’s anticipated 10 billion population by 2050.”
Oman has taken note of the impending issues related to food security as the country’s Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources, Dr Saud bin Hamoud al Habsi, shared plans to achieve food self-sufficiency ‘the next stage of which is an emphasis on agricultural industrialisation.’
The preparations are timely and in line with the future demand for food items, as a Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) report published few years ago is relevant for today as it talks about growth, development, population, consumption and other related trends.
“These trends mean that market demand for food will continue to grow. Demand for cereals for food and animal feed is projected to reach 3 billion tonnes by 2050. The advent of bio-fuels can change some of the projected trends and cause world demand to be higher, depending mainly on energy prices and government policies. The demand for other food products that are more responsive to higher incomes in the developing countries (such as livestock and dairy products, vegetable oils) will grow much faster than that for cereals,” said the FAO report.
The latest usufruct contracts are in the areas of honey, production and marketing of banana crops, soil richness, and date production worth over RO 32 million.
Another critical step that the country needs to take is awareness among the masses of food waste. Food waste needs to be understood in a global perspective.
Amid the gap in demand and supply, food waste causes further leakage of the available resources.
According to the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) Food Waste Index Report 2021, about 17 per cent of global food production may go waste, with 61 per cent of this waste coming from households, 26 per cent from food service and 13 per cent from retail.
Reports from Oman and GCC countries are no different.
According to the United Nations Food Waste Index Report 2021, the Sultanate of Oman’s estimated household food waste is 95 kg per capita per year or 470,322 tonnes in 2019.
Similar is the situation in other GCC countries, as the report suggests the estimated household food waste in UAE, Qatar and Kuwait is 95 kg per capita per year. These reports are wake-up calls for everyone to ensure that there is no food waste. There should be new ways to increase the production of agricultural goods.
@patkaushal
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