G20

White Paper
Food Security and Water

UAE @

Food security and Water

This White Paper articulates the principles of the UAE in its approach to food and water security and outlines the key positions it is seeking to promote within the context of the G-20 process this year. The document begins by explaining why food and water security are particularly important to the UAE and the region before exploring their growing status as critical issues on the international agenda. It then summarizes the key items relating to food and water on the G-20 agenda and describes the ways in which the UAE will seek to work constructively within that framework to help develop practical solutions to these emerging challenges. Specifically, the UAE believes that food and water security must be treated as highly interdependent policy outcomes as sustainable use of water resources is an essential pre-requisite for long term food security initiatives to be successful. Food and water security are key priorities for the UAE both domestically and internationally and represent a major area of interest for the UAE on the G-20 agenda.

Food Security and Water: The Domestic Context

In a twist of geological fate, the abundance of the UAEs energy reserves have been counter balanced by the scarcity of its water resources. With little natural freshwater, the UAEs domestic agricultural capacity - and therefore food production capabilities - are severely restrained. For the UAE, water usage is costly and potential shortages are a serious concern for the future. In fact, few nations and no other region experience water scarcity to such a degree. While the Middle East has five percent of the worlds population, it has less than one percent of the worlds renewable freshwater resources. On current trends, the situation is expected to get worse. Water availability in the region is estimated to fall by half by 2050 having reached absolute water scarcity by 2025, resulting in potentially acute shortages. The UAE is relies on water desalination for a significant amount of its freshwater needs. Water desalination is expensive and requires significant energy inputs. The UAEs desalination plants rely exclusively on fossil fuels to make freshwater, the largest contributing factor to the countrys carbon footprint. By 2030, even with advances in technology, water desalination will consume at least 20 percent of the countrys overall energy demand. Without water security there can be no food security. The UAE already imports more than 85 percent of its food requirements meaning that disruptions to food supply or policy changes by other countries can affect the UAE. Expanding domestic food production is difficult due to the lack of local water supplies and their cost. Ensuring that the supply of these most basic of human requirements can be sustained is absolutely vital to the UAEs and the regions ongoing human, social and economic development. If not addressed, these issues present potential risks for many countries in the region. Arid regions such as the Middle East are likely to be the most strongly hit by the effects of water and food scarcity. Given the UAEs extreme climate, lack of fresh water resources and geographical location, it is in the UAEs national interest, and that of the region, to dedicate the resources necessary to tackle food and water security.

Food Security and Water: The International Context

With nearly a billion people in the world suffering from chronic hunger, food security is and will continue to be a critical issue for the international community. Climate change and an estimated global population increase to nine billion people by 2050 (according to the United Nations) together raise considerable uncertainty about the planets ability to continue to feed its inhabitants. The food crisis of 2008, the high food prices that we have seen in 2011, and the humanitarian crisis in the Horn of Africa, have highlighted the importance of food security. The G-20, under the leadership of the French Presidency, has brought G-20 Agriculture Ministers together to agree an Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture. Through that process, Ministers dealt with four main issues: Increasing agricultural production and productivity. This is the most important long term challenge as feeding a rapidly growing population will require increased agricultural production by 70 percent by 2050. Ministers emphasized the need for investment in research and development in agriculture, for governments to create the appropriate enabling environments to encourage greater investment in agriculture, and for the private sector to invest responsibly. Increasing the transparency of agricultural markets. This principally included establishing a new Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) to make data more accessible on the supply, demand, and prices of agricultural commodities. Improving international policy coordination. This included establishing a Rapid Response Forum of senior agriculture policy officials that agreed to seek to minimize trade distortions, and urge better understanding of the challenges and opportunities associated with bio-fuels and especially their impact on food prices. Mitigating risks for the most vulnerable. This included looking at developing a pilot for a regional system of emergency humanitarian food reserves and encouraging the use of market and non-market instruments for protecting the most vulnerable from price shocks. Neither food security nor water scarcity can be addressed in isolation representing a complex set of challenges for the region and the world to address.

Food security and Water

Food Security and Water: The UAE at the G-20

The Action Plan on Food Price Volatility and Agriculture agreed to by agriculture ministers on 23 June 2011, represents an important step forward for the international communitys efforts to enhance global food security. The UAE fully supports the Action Plan. In the process of negotiating the Action Plan, the UAE consistently highlighted the centrality of water to boosting agricultural production and enhancing food security. Water is a basic requirement for food production. The daily drinking water requirement for one person is 2-4 litres yet it takes two to five thousand litres to produce one persons daily food. As population growth and urbanization increase the demand for water, we are simultaneously witnessing a reduction in clean and fresh water access through drought, climate change, pollution and increased costs for desalination. The UAE therefore argued that addressing food security also requires an examination of water-related issues. Specifically, the UAE proposed that the G-20 examine how it could: Promote the sharing of best practice in water management; Facilitate cooperation on technology development; Improve information about water supply and demand; Enhance technical assistance; and Maximize synergies between international organizations. The UAE therefore welcomes the fact that in paragraph 21 of the Action Plan, G-20 agriculture ministers stated the following: We emphasize the need for a sustainable supply of water resources. We take note of the concerns expressed by countries with scarce or insufficient water resources and therefore we invite international organizations to produce a report on how water and related issues could be addressed in 2012.

Beyond the G-20

Many public and private organisations in the UAE are already working to address food and water security issues at home through innovative techniques that account for the countrys challenging climate. On the agricultural front, the governments of the UAE and those of individual Emirates are encouraging farmers to move away from traditional farming techniques towards water-saving options, including discontinuing the growth of a particularly water-intensive fodder for camels. One result of the UAEs agricultural initiatives has been a 15 percent increase in local, organic production of farming via greenhouses. Farming in greenhouses helps save water by reducing evaporation in hot temperatures and can also be more conducive to organic farming techniques. Another initiative is that of the Abu Dhabi Farmers Services Centre (FSC) which is seeking the testing and gradual implementation of G-Earth, an innovative technology for self-sustainable greenhouses that could significantly augment water and energy savings for hundreds of UAE farmers. This technology allows farmers to be more selfsufficient by reducing their reliance upon both power and water grids through the combination of solar panels and greenhouses. The Ministry of Water and Environment is taking a national initiative in the water conservation campaign by announcing the construction of 68 more dams that should be completed by 2013. These recharge dams are designed to replenish the groundwater reserve when it rains and collect more freshwater that comes from natural springs and wadis, while simultaneously limiting farm and soil damage caused by flash flooding. Another excellent example of how conservation education can make a difference is an initiative taking place in Sharjah. Sharjahs Electricity and Water Authority (SEWA) promotes education on water saving techniques by distributing free water conservation kits to businesses and residents. These kits consist of water saving tools such as more efficient faucet heads, discs that detect water leakage in toilets, and garden devices that measure how much water is needed for irrigation. These tools, which SEWA installs for free, can reduce water consumption by up to 40%.