Qatar

As part of Doha’s efforts to ensure food security, Qatar and Sudan yesterday agreed to establish a joint holding company, which is expected to focus on agricultural investment, food industry and animal husbandry.

Both public and private sector investors in the Gulf are also looking at ways to improve local food supplies, by investing in a range of outlets from arable farm land in the Sudan, Algeria and Pakistan to introduce new technology to enhance the local production of foodstuffs and grains, livestock, poultry and fish.

Globalisation has taken yet another twist with some Middle Eastern countries deciding to grow their crops in other countries.

To break the runaway inflation that is fuelled by high food costs, Gulf rulers have a new strategy: they are buying unused agricultural land in poor countries like Pakistan, Thailand and Sudan, and becoming large-scale farmers.

Dubai-based Abraaj Capital, one of the Middle East’s largest private equity companies, has been quietly buying farmland in Pakistan as part of plans by the United Arab Emirates to increase food security and to damp inflation.