April 29, 2018
Jonathan Doelman, Researcher, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency
The Middle East and Northern Africa region will experience large population growth in the coming decades. Already today, land for agriculture relative to the population in many MENA region countries is very low compared to the rest of the world. Figure 1 shows agricultural land per capita, which is less than 0.1 hectare per inhabitant already today in Egypt, Lebanon, the UAE, Qatar and Kuwait. With increasing population, agricultural land per capita will further decrease threatening food security in the region.
Last year, PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency was co-author of the first Global Land Outlook (GLO) report which has been produced for the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD). For this report, scenario projections were developed that explore varying socio-economic futures under business-as-usual, optimistic and pessimistic assumptions. These scenarios are called the Shared Socio-economic Pathways (SSPs) and are numbered SSP2, SSP1 and SSP3 respectively. The SSPs are used to explore effects of uncertain futures on land-use, agriculture and food security for the world.
Almost all land that is suitable for agriculture in the MENA region is currently in use. The possible socio-economic futures considered in the SSPs all project high population growth in the region, with the business-as-usual scenario projecting an increase of 440 million people today to over 600 million people in 2050. The optimistic SSP1 scenario projects 560 million and the pessimistic scenario 700 million. All these people must eat. Assuming historic trends of agricultural intensification and knowing that agricultural expansion is virtually impossible, all scenario projections show little improvement in average food consumption or undernourishment (see Figure 2). The pessimistic SSP3 scenario even shows a doubling in food prices and increasing dependency on food imports from 2010 to 2050. These results imply that there is limited potential for improved food security in the region. Moreover, if pessimistic projections become reality food security might be in danger.
The three SSP scenarios all project increased trade in agricultural commodities to fulfil demand from a growing, more affluent world population. Countries with large availability of agricultural land such as Brazil, USA and Russia become increasingly important suppliers of food. The MENA region is increasingly dependent on imports in all scenarios. Whether this dependency affects food security depends on trade barriers. In SSP2 current trade barriers are assumed to stay in place, in SSP3 it is assumed that import tariffs rise while in SSP1 it is assumed that all barriers are removed. As a consequence, food prices are lower and undernourishment is reduced in SSP1 compared to SSP3 which indicates that facilitating global trade of food is an important part of the solution to reduce threats to food security.
The scenarios used in the GLO report did not consider additional threats to food security such as climate change causing increased risk of droughts, and soil degradation that might reduce productivity of the land. Including these effects would exacerbate the identified threats. Quantifying these effects is the specific goal of the second Global Land Outlook project that will be published in 2020. Solutions can be expected in the direction of improved soil management and expansion of irrigation using sustainable irrigation techniques. The overall goal of the Global Land Outlook is to provide a global perspective on the importance of land and land management that will increase awareness of challenges in the land system in the international policy arena.
References
Van der Esch S, ten Brink B, Stehfest E, Bakkenes M, Sewell A, Bouwman A, Meijer J, Westhoek H and van den Berg, M (2017). Exploring future changes in land use and land condition and the impacts on food, water, climate change and biodiversity: Scenarios for the Global Land Outlook. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague.
