Food Security Situation in RNE Food Security Information and Statistics Workshop for the Arab Countries August, 2015 Mohamed Barre 1

Outline Trends of World and RNE Population and Hunger Agriculture production per Capita Malnutrition in children under five years: vitamin and mineral deficiencies, Obesity rates Food loss and Waste and Costs Unsustainable Patterns of Food Consumption Environmental Costs of agriculture production: Pesticide and Fertilizer Use

Agriculture Production Per Capita

Malnutrition in children under five years: vitamin and mineral deficiencies, Obesity rates Nutrition indicators for children under the age of 5 have not seen great improvements in most countries in the region when comparing the period of to the period of Apart from Saudi Arabia which succeeded in reducing stunting from 24% to 9.1% and Tunisia from 30.9% to 9.0% in the comparison periods, the rest of the countries have not managed to reduce stunting prevalence from their 1990s high (Egypt (30.7%), Libya (21%), Morocco (23.1%), Sudan (37.9), Syria (28.6%), Yemen(57.7)) or have managed to reduce the prevalence from very high to high (Mauritania from 49.8% to 24.2% in the comparison periods). Obesity and cardiovascular diseases related to the dietary habits and sedentary lifestyles have increased all over the region regardless of the economic level of the country. Obesity and stunting cohabit in the same community or the same country. Most countries are going through nutrition transition where over- nutrition and under-nutrition are concomitant – the double burden of malnutrition.

Malnutrition in children under five years: vitamin and mineral deficiencies, Obesity rates (Cont.) NENA is among the regions with the highest prevalence of obesity. Nearly one-quarter of the population is obese. This is double the world average and nearly three times that of developing countries as a whole. Economic growth has not always led to improvement in nutritional outcomes, e.g Egypt was witnessing an increase in the prevalence of stunting among children during the same period it was witnessing economic growth – inequity in the distribution of wealth The problem in the Near East is not in the availability of calories, it is in: the composition of calories and their suitability to the lifestyle and age the accessibility to economically feasible diversified, nutritionally balance and safe food.

Malnutrition and Obesity: Way Forward Government policies need to consciously make the food supply more diversified and adapted to the nutritional challenges of the population, whether through the promotion of more diversified cropping patterns, nutrition-sensitive producer and/or consumer subsidy schemes, or trade policies conducive to better nutrition. Increasing consumers’ knowledge of what constitutes good nutrition can help consumers make healthier dietary choices and follow healthier lifestyles. Nutrition education in schools, especially through garden-based learning, is particularly interesting in addressing problems of malnutrition and behavior. Similarly integrating nutrition education and awareness raising into programs that aim to improve household food security and livelihoods, especially when targeting women, has been shown to improve the nutritional outcomes of the more vulnerable, especially children.

Food loss and Waste and Costs Regional FL&W are estimated to be 250kg per capita/year, which exceeds the global average The amount of water consumed in production per unit of food is lost along with food losses and waste, at every stage from production to transport, marketing, processing, and consumption. This is equally true for crop production, fishery and aquaculture, and animal origin products, as well as for crops destined for animal feed or fuel. Regional blue water intensity is much higher in NA, WA&CA (North Africa, West and Central Asia) than in other regions. In these two regions, a large share of the footprint is due to cereals which account for about 50 and 60 percent, respectively. The wastage of irrigation water taken from ground or surface water, is the 2 nd world in this region (North Africa, West and Central Asia), behind Asia, and is mostly because of wastage of wheat and maize in the Northern Africa sub-region; and wheat and rice in the Western Asia sub-region.

Food loss and Waste: Way Forward Improved productive efficiency of water (“more crop per drop”) and allocative efficiency (“more value per drop”) are both needed to meet the food security needs. Pairing improved production-level practices for irrigation efficiency and farming system water-management, with post-harvest actions to improve food system efficiency thus reducing FL&W and preserving the scarce water resources used to produce food.

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