Antalya, 25 September 2014
Christine Ton Nu
Food dependency in the region A production that cannot satisfy the demand
Scarcity of natural resources in the Mediterranean
High food price volatility on international markets and increasing role of international markets in the supply chains
Competition between the Mediterranean States?
REMINDER OF THE CONTEXT 1/3
Source: IEMED, data: FAO
Cereal Production in the Mediterranean (2009)
Evolution of wheat production and consumption in North Africa (MT, Abis, source USDA 2013)
Source: WORLD BANK INDICATORS
Arable land (hectares per person) in Middle East and North Africa
Source: IEMED, data: UNCTAD, WB and OECD
Imports of Food Items in 2008 in the Mediterranean (% of total imports)
Aftermaths of food dependency: the cost of food subsidies (in % of the GDP) between 2000 and 2011
Source: Matthieu Brun (CIHEAM), Data: FAO, FMI, Cereal Office.
The erosion of the EU and the rise of new entrants in Mediterranean agricultural and agro-food
markets, 2000-2010 evolution - Mediterra 2014
Origin Market share 2000
Market share 2010
Difference %
Western Europe 64.4% 56.0% - 8.4%
Eastern Europe 0.9% 2.6% + 1.6%
Americas 10.7% 12.2% + 1.5%
Asia/Oceania 6% 8.4% + 2.4%
Other countries 18.8% 20.8% + 2.1%
A constantly rising demand of cereals in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean countries due to
population and economic growth
changes in food habits
Insufficient production due to climate and geographic constraints
REMINDER OF THE CONTEXT 2/3
Evolution of the Cereal Situation in the MENA Region from 1960 to 2011 (in Mt) (Abis, Mediterra 2012)
Source: IEMED, Data: FAO
Nutrition in the Mediterranean (2004-2006)
MENA share in world wheat imports
Source : Abis, 2012 (CIHEAM)
Wheat as a key commodity in the region
Bread as a symbolic food
Wheat: most imported agricultural product
Strategic dimensions of this commodity
REMINDER OF THE CONTEXT 3/3
North Africa’s dependency to cereal imports (Abis, 2012)
Share of imports in cereal consumption (FAOSTAT, 2013) Evolution of cereal import bills (source UN Comtrade)
A request of the 13 CIHEAM Member States end of 2012
Launching of the MED-AMIN initiative early 2014 (kick-off meeting in Paris)
Approval by the 13 agricultural ministries of CIHEAM in Feb. 2014 in Algiers
MED-AMIN : the result of a collective political will
MED-AMIN : MEDiterranean Agricultural
Market Information Network
A network coordinated by CIHEAM (Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Montpellier & General Secretariat)
Work in close collaboration with FAO, AMIS Secretariat and the services of the European Commission
Name based on the notion of trust in Arabic “amin”
Overall Goal : contribute to food security of the Mediterranean populations, by providing advice to policy-makers on agricultural markets issues
Main objective: Promote cooperation and share experiences among the national information systems
on agricultural markets
“Promoting the implementation of the initiative "Mediterranean Agricultural Market Information Network (MED-AMIN)", launched in January 2014 to meet the CIHEAM member countries’ expectations of establishing an area of dialogue, exchange, and technical cooperation around the monitoring of agricultural cereal markets and the methodology of statistical systems for these commodities” CIHEAM Ministerial Declaration, February 2014
MED-AMIN’s main objective
1. Create trust among the network's members as well as mutual knowledge and understanding by means of meetings, exchanges of experience and good practices, and common work on monitoring the cereal markets in the Mediterranean;
2. Improve the knowledge on cereal markets (production, utilization, stocks, prices, trade exchanges) in the region, in a forward-looking way (« market intelligence ») ;
3. Share information and create a common understanding of market monitoring in the countries;
4. Reinforce the countries' capacities to produce, collect and analyze data of better quality by means of trainings, experts' missions, methodological exchanges, common projects, etc.;
5. Produce analysis, in particular on short term perspectives for the commodities selected, as well as advocacy about cereals and food security, and better communication to the decision-makers and the media.
Specific short-term objectives
In a first stage (possible extensions in the future)
• Cereals: wheat (soft and durum wheat), corn, barley and rice
• 13 countries of CIHEAM
• Public sector : focal points / country
Med-AMIN’s scope
Activities undertaken are:
1. Perform an inventory of data collected at the national level through a single template built by the Secretariat with the assistance of experts and sent to the focal points
2. Work on methodologies to build cereal balances
3. Identify additional sources of funding to sustain the network
MED-AMIN activities
Conclusions
A promising start but lots of challenges ahead
… we have to turn this initiative into a success
Next meeting: 6-7 November, Izmir
Coming soon: Med-AMIN website…
More information: [email protected]
Thank you for your attention!