Gulf crisis broadens definitions of food security
By James M. Dorsey
Food security has taken on a new dimension almost five
months into the Gulf crisis that pits a UAE-Saudi alliance against Qatar and
for which there is no resolution in sight.
The UAE and Saudi Arabia would deny that they are attempting
to starve Qatar into submission with their diplomatic and economic boycott that
has forced Qatar to seek alternative food suppliers and alternative air and sea
shipment routes. Yet, de facto, their strategy is to drive the cost of Qatari
food and other imports up to the point that the wealthy Gulf state no longer
can afford the more expensive imports.
In the process, the boycott has redefined the national
security aspects of food security, particularly for small states that are more
vulnerable to external pressures.
Food security amounted for the Gulf states in the first
decade of the 21st century to ensuring access in a global market in
which shortages were driving up prices. The Gulf states responded to the food
crises and massive price hikes in 2007-2008 and in 2010-2011 by following in
the footsteps of China South Korea and Europe and acquiring huge tracts of
agricultural land in Asia and Africa.
Ironically, high oil prices were one driver of the increased
cost of food that prompted some exporters in Africa and Asia confronted with
domestic shortages to restrict exports. The restrictions were what prompted the
Gulf states to go on their land acquisition binge.
At the time, food security was for cash-rich but soil-poor
Gulf states a question of market supply and demand and ensuring the food supply
chain at whatever price. That narrow definition first changed with the popular
Arab revolts in 2011 that toppled long-standing autocrats and sparked civil
wars and a counterrevolution. Some of those revolts, like in Syria, which
started as a peaceful protest in demand of change before it deteriorated into a
catastrophic civil war, were prompted in part by droughts that effected the
agricultural economy.
With the revolts, food security took on a far greater
domestic security aspect for autocratic Gulf leaders whose legitimacy was
rooted in a social contract that promised a cradle-to-grave subsidized welfare
state in exchange for surrender of all political rights.
The Gulf crisis, however, has taken the dimensions of food
security for the Gulf as well as small states elsewhere to a new level. Food
security no longer is primarily about commercial access or preferred access to
world markets at times of shortages and rising prices. Control of agricultural
resources in far-flung lands no longer provides necessary levels of security. The
Gulf crisis has broadened the aim of food security, particularly for small
states, to include a diversified supply, guaranteed shipping routes, and self-sufficiency
to the degree possible as a means of defense against attempts to starve a small
state into submission.
The defense and security as opposed to market aspects of
food have taken on additional significance not only because of Qatar’s need to
fend off pressure on its food supplies by neighbours determined to undermine
its independence and force it to adhere to policies devised in Abu Dhabi and
Riyadh rather than Doha.
The most recent joint
agricultural outlook of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture
Organisation (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development’s (OECD) for the next ten years suggests that the food crises of
the first decade of the 21st century are for now a thing of the
past. “Prices for the main crops, livestock and fish products all fell in 2015,
signalling that an era of high prices is quite likely over for all sub-sectors,”
the outlook said.
Food security is at the core of Qatar’s ability to resist
UAE-Saudi pressure. Its continued capability to do so will likely define
perceptions of margins of manoeuvrability that small states have in
relationship to big brothers. “It sometimes takes war or the threat of war to
make countries look at their food security,” John Dore, an Irishman who is
helping Qatar become self-sufficient in dairy products, told The
Guardian.
To compensate for the effects of the UAE-Saudi blocking of
land, sea and air routes, Qatar initially shifted the bulk of its dairy imports
from Saud Arabia to Turkey and Iran. Trade between Qatar and Iran has increased
by 60 percent since the imposition
of the boycott in early June.
Importing thousands of cows from Europe and the United
States, Mr. Dore’s operation, within a matter of months, has been able to
supply up to 40 percent of Qatar’s milk needs. He expects that the import of
another 10,000 animals over the next year will make Qatar self-sufficient.
To be sure, Qatar’s enormous wealth gave it a leg up in its
ability to fund resilience and its refusal to cave into the demands of its
bigger brothers. In doing so, it relied not only on its financial muscle but
also on the relationships and dependencies it established by diversifying the
client base for its liquified natural gas.
Nonetheless, the long and short of Qatar’s fight is that how
the battle in the Gulf unfolds and how the crisis is resolved will likely have
far-reaching consequences for definitions of food security, priorities in
shaping food security strategies, and the architecture of international
relations as small states gain confidence, recognizing that size is no longer
the only or main factor that determines their ability to chart an independent
course.
Dr. James M. Dorsey is a senior fellow at the S.
Rajaratnam School of International Studies, co-director of the University of
Würzburg’s Institute for Fan Culture, and co-host of the New Books in
Middle Eastern Studies podcast. James is the author of The Turbulent World
of Middle East Soccer blog, a book with
the same title as well as Comparative Political Transitions
between Southeast Asia and the Middle East and North Africa, co-authored with Dr.
Teresita Cruz-Del Rosario and Shifting
Sands, Essays on Sports and Politics in the Middle East and North Africa
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