The Minister of State for Food Security, Maryam Bint Mohammed Saeed Hareb Al Muhairi, confirmed that the UAE has made a qualitative leap in the World Food Security Index for 2019, by advancing 10 centers to reach the 21st globally, embodying the government's efforts to implement the directions and visions of leadership to transform the UAE into a global center for security Innovative food, and achieving the goals of the National Food Security Strategy, which aims to provide healthy, safe, and nutritionally valuable food at reasonable prices, at all times and conditions, for all members of society.
Al-Muhairi said: “The strong support of the leadership, its follow-up and its permanent guidance represented a major incentive for the work team to turn challenges into opportunities and successes, and provided a stimulating work environment through which we were able to discuss the challenges of this vital sector and work with stakeholders inside and outside the country, to turn them into opportunities and solutions that contribute to achieving our goals represented By increasing innovation-based national food and agricultural production, ensuring food safety, improving nutrition systems, external investment, diversifying food import sources, engaging society in the food security system and transforming food culture into a community approach.
The Minister of State for Food Security added: "This great development in our arrangement is the result of a collective work of the team of the Office of Food Security, government agencies, partners in the private sector and society, to build an integrated system that includes the achievement of concrete steps in the national food security file, and to establish an integrated cooperation model that includes our partners in various Federal and local government agencies, the private sector and community members.
Maryam Al-Muhairi pointed out that enhancing the country's competitiveness and leadership is a goal of the national food security strategy to achieve food security for the UAE, stressing the continuation and intensification of efforts to reach the United Arab Emirates among the top ten countries in the global food security index by 2021.
The jump in the UAE’s ranking in the annual global food security index issued by the Economic Information Unit in the “Economist” magazine represented a new achievement adding to the efforts to enhance the competitiveness and leadership of the UAE, after it advanced to the 21st place in the global food security index, achieving a jump of ten centers from its location Year 2018.
The index is based on three main criteria related to food security: affordability, food availability, and food quality and safety, while data for a new standard are being pilot-monitored for the abundance of natural resources for the resilience of diets.
The World Food Security Index this year covered 113 countries, and Singapore and Ireland maintained the lead in the index in the first and second places respectively, while the United States of America ranked third, Switzerland ranked fourth, Finland ranked fifth and Norway ranked sixth. Sweden, Canada, the Netherlands, and Austria ranked seventh to tenth respectively, while the UAE overtook highly competitive countries in the field of food security such as Italy, Spain and South Korea.
The new success achieved by the state in the food security file reflects the vision of the wise leadership that put this challenge among the priorities of the government’s work, in light of the challenges facing the UAE from water scarcity, climate change, lack of arable land and scarcity of rain, in addition to the increasing population that led to import About 90% of food is from abroad.