The Secretary of the Union of Arab Chambers, Dr. Khaled Hanafy, considered during his speech at the high-level dialogue, which was held virtually and organized by the “FAO” organization on the transformation of agro-food systems to achieve the goals of sustainable development, that improving and enhancing the efficiency of food systems constitutes one of the most important axes of work for the Union of Arab Chambers and its members from the Arab Chambers to encourage the private sector to invest in improving food systems and Arab food security and the transition towards a green economy, especially to face the environmental and climatic challenges facing the Arab region, especially water scarcity, deterioration of arable lands, and the expansion of desertification, by focusing on adopting sustainable agricultural patterns, smart farming methods and techniques, and the technologies offered by the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
Hanafy pointed to the cross-border risks from the upstream countries of surface water resources that violate international laws related to the management of these resources and disregarding them, which threatening social, food and living security, especially since 66% of the fresh water are shared resources with countries outside the Arab region.
He also stated that food security remains a major future concern in the Arab world, where the physical and economic productivity of natural resources is relatively low, while food waste reaches one third of what is available, and there is great waste within the food chain, especially in distribution. As for the waste of fresh water, it is concentrated in agriculture, which consumes about 86% of the available resources.
Dr. Hanafy added: The region is still greatly affected by the fluctuations of global food markets, especially since all Arab countries are considered net food importers and depend to a large extent on imports to secure their basic food needs, while expectations indicate a continued rise in food prices in the future.
Hanafy emphasized that the role of the Union of Arab Chambers includes absorbing young energies through the program to support entrepreneurship projects, and for this purpose, the Union launched in May 2021 the second edition of the Arab Rally competition to reward and support innovative projects, after it had organized the first version in Bahrain in 2019. It is worth noting that many of the innovations and inventions that won were centered on sustainable agricultural innovations.
Source (Union of Arab Chambers)
