CAIRO: The head of the UN food organization urged Arab states on Tuesday to invest increased oil revenues in developing agriculture to ensure food supplies in the future in a region threatened by land degradation, water scarcity and conflicts. Jacques Diouf, secretary-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said investment in agriculture in the region remains low and that outside assistance has been decreasing since 1995 It is crucial that governments forge ambitious policies to raise agriculture s share of total expenditures, Diouf told the annual FAO regional conference for the Mideast. It would also be desirable for the countries of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which contribute 17 percent of total regional aid to the agricultural sector, to increase their support by allocating more funds to agriculture. The FAO said that hunger and malnourishment are on the rise in the region, which under the organization s categorization includes Arab nations, Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iran and several Central Asian nations. It said the number of undernourished people in the area increased to 104 million from 33 million between the early 1990s and early 2000s. Limited water supplies are the main obstacle in agricultural production, Diouf said. With less than two percent of the world s freshwater resources but 11 percent of its population, the region s food security is dependent on extracting extra output from each drop of water. Despite improved water use and more effective irrigation thanks to advances in technology, results remain inadequate, he said. Diouf also pointed to degradation of already limited agricultural lands as well conflicts that worsen the situation in countries including Afghanistan, Sudan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon. -AP
