Food Security in MPC’s

Some 842 million people are estimated to have been suffering from chronic hunger in 2011–2013, according to the last UN estimations. This scenario is worsened by several contingent and structural factors of today’s world. The last years have been characterized by a trend of increasing market instability for agricultural market, illustrated by the commodities price volatility and the so-called food crisis in 2008. Volatility has a greater impact on developing countries and on the poorer, because it creates major import bill uncertainty. Currently 16 % of the world population use the opportunities of international trade to cover their demand for agricultural products. In the South Eastern Mediterranean countries (SEMC), food security is strongly interrelated with several key economic and political issues. Many of these countries are becoming increasingly import-dependent, particularly on cereals, which are the essential raw material for human and animal food and feed. The SEMC are responsible for 1/3 of world cereals imports, whereas they account for only 5 % of the world population. Given the set of constraints and this dependence on global markets, SEMC will be probably more exposed to severe swings in agricultural commodity prices in the coming years. This picture implicitly reveals the multidimensional nature of the concept of food insecurity and calls for a first general (and methodological) need, concerning the development of an integrated approach in measuring food insecurity, aimed to better explore the country—specific conditions.