FAO

As Mideast investors make plans to pump cash into farm projects in the developing world, the head of the United Nations' food agency said he is discouraging them from making direct purchases of farmland to avoid local backlash or other controversy, which could cause the investment trend to dry up.

Alarmed by exporting countries’ trade restrictions, importing countries have realised that their dependence on the international food market makes them vulnerable not only to an abrupt surge in prices but, more crucially, to an interruption in supplies.

The race by food-importing countries to secure farmland overseas to improve their food security risks creating a “neo-colonial” system, the United Nations’ top agriculture official, Jacques Diouf, has cautioned.

Dr Kayan Jaff, the FAO’s regional chief, has warned that only a multi-billion dollar investment in agriculture will curb soaring supermarket prices — urging governments to buy up farmland in regions like the Horn of Africa and Asia.

The UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization is expanding its Abu Dhabi office tenfold to broker deals with farmers in such areas as the Horn of Africa.

The UAE and its food-importing neighbours are “particularly vulnerable” to spiralling costs and should make significant investments in “contract farming” in Africa and Asia, says the UN’s Gulf food chief, Dr Kayan Jaff.

A new joint strategy for agricultural investment will be launched by the GCC soon, it was announced in Bahrain yesterday.

“Buying farms is not a bad thing,” Panos Konandreas, acting director of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization in Geneva, said in a telephone interview. “If you are like Saudi Arabia and have all the resources in the world, you can help farms optimize their strategies and there will be more production.”