ABSTRACT
Arab agriculture faces two major challenges oyer the next twenty years. First, food demand will double as rapid population growth produces an additional 133 million Arabs by the year 2000.1 Currently, food requirements are being met in eighteen of twenty Arab countries only because huge imports have been financed by petro-dollars, grants-in-aid or government subsidies. For the region as a whole, food imports rose by more than 75 per cent between 1970 and 1978. During the same period, the ratio of agricultural imports to exports grew five-fold, and dollar values of vegetable and animal imports quadrupled. The oil-rich countries imported 22 times more than they exported in 1977, resulting in an agricultural trade deficit of some US $2,990 million. The oil-poor countries imported 1.9 times more than they exported, resulting in a deficit of some US $1,600 million. Policy-makers are particularly anxious to reduce dependency on such imports in view of their vulnerability to high commodity prices and fears that trade arrangements may be disrupted by international tensions.2
