Oil for Food

The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East

Eckart Woertz

Concise overview of the Global Food Crisis and the Middle East
Sheds light on the geopolitical importance of food trade and food boycotts and how this has played out in the Middle East since World War II
Draws lessons from the failed Sudan bread-basket strategy of the 1970s
Analyses the foreign agro-investments by Gulf countries- the so-called Gulf 'land grab'- and accounts for the gap between project plans and their actual implementation
Historical account of the political economy of Gulf agriculture and food security

New to this Edition:

New Preface

Oil for Food

The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East

Eckart Woertz

Description

In the wake of the global food crisis of 2008, Middle Eastern oil producers have announced multi-billion investments to secure food supplies from abroad. Often called land grabs, such investments are at the heart of the global food security challenge and put the Middle East in the spotlight of simultaneous global crises in the fields of food, finance, and energy. Water scarcity here is most pronounced, import dependence growing, and the links between oil and food are manifold ranging from the economics of biofuels to climate change and the provision of crucial input factors like fuels and fertilizers. In the future the Middle East will not only play a prominent role in global oil, but also in global food markets, this time on the consumption side.

In Oil for Food, Eckart Woertz analyzes the geopolitical implications behind the current investment drive of Arab Gulf countries in food insecure countries like Sudan or Pakistan. Having lived in Dubai for seven years, and drawing on extensive archival sources and interviews, he gives the inside story of how regional food security concerns have developed historically, how domestic agro-lobbies shape policy making, and how the failed attempt to develop Sudan as an Arab bread-basket in the 1970s carries important lessons for today.

The book argues against the media hype that has been created around land grabs and analyzes why there has been such a gap between announced projects and their actual implementation. Instead, it calls for a revision of Gulf food security policies and suggests policy alternatives. It is essential reading for academics interested in the political economy of the Gulf region and for practitioners in governments, the media, and international organizations who deal with contemporary food security and energy issues.

Oil for Food

The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East

Eckart Woertz

Preface to the Paperback Edition
Preface
Introduction
1:The Gulf Food Security Predicament
Part I: Gulf Food Security: History, Political Economy, and Geopolitics
2:Ethiopian Wheat and American Tires: Gulf Food Security and World War II
3:Rise and Fall of the Blooming Desert: The Self-Sufficiency Illusion
4:The Food Weapon: Geopolitics in the Middle East
Part II: Gulf Food Security and International Agro-Investments
5:The Global Land Grab Phenomenon
6:The Sudan Bread-Basket Dream
7:Return to the Future: Current Gulf Agro-investments
8:Explaining the Implementation Gap: Money, Water, and Politics
9:Oil-for-Food Policies?
References

Oil for Food

The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East

Eckart Woertz

Author Information

Eckart Woertz, Senior Research Fellow Associate at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB)

Eckart Woertz is senior researcher at the Barcelona Centre for International Affairs (CIDOB). Formerly he was a visiting fellow at Princeton University, director of economic studies at the Gulf Research Center in Dubai, and worked for banks in Germany and the United Arab Emirates.

Oil for Food

The Global Food Crisis and the Middle East

Eckart Woertz

Reviews and Awards

"... it is to Woertz's credit that he has done such a skilled job of amassing and synthesizing a tremendous pile of historical and contemporary evidence" - Max Ajl , The Journal of Peasant Studies

"This carefully researched book focuses on food security in the Middle East, especially in the Persian Gulf and on the Arabian Peninsula, but it ranges far beyond that subject to delve into the relative impact of oil and food on international trade and the likely effects of climate change on agricultural markets." - John Waterbury in Foreign Affairs

"Woertzs book is carefully and broadly researched. It will appeal to those interested in the political economies of food in the region as well as to students of the regions transnational linkages and pressures." - Pete W. Moore in the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES)

"The books strength is its solid research that combines archival material with on-site visits and interviews. Woertzs deep knowledge of the region is evident in the discussion of the Gulf States overseas investments in agricultural projects." - Erika Weinthal in the Journal of Natural Resources Policy Research (JNRPR)

"The book provides a fascinating geopolitical history of Gulf food security, including the disruptions to food imports caused by World War II and the way that food imports have been used as a foreign policy tool by the United States and others in their dealings with the region." - Jane Harrigan in the Middle East Journal (MEJ)

"What these historical tracks show is a pattern embedded in regional political ecology [] The pattern is Braudelian in its simplicity and recurrence, although also one dependent on the centrality of petroleum production to the contemporary economic system. It is the story which Eckart Woertz sets out to tell in Oil for food, the broadest canvass of regional food issues to emerge in some time." - Max Ajl in the Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS)