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The United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose food security is based on imports from global markets, is now focusing on the twin goals of food access and readiness to respond to supply chain crises. India, the world’s second largest food producer, is an important partner for the UAE in enhancing food security. The India-UAE food security partnership will benefit from several points of convergence.
many functions
With its vast arable land, extremely favorable climate and large and growing food production and processing sector, India has established itself as a global agricultural exporter. In recent years, apart from serving the global market with diversified agricultural products, India has also taken on the role of providing humanitarian food to developing countries, demonstrating awareness of India’s changing role in promoting regional and global food security. India has also invested significant budgets in creating large food parks with due emphasis on modern supply chain management from farm gates to retail outlets. These investments, coupled with how India has enabled its food sector to benefit from bilateral trade agreements, reflect the country’s strong and sustained intention to leverage its agricultural capabilities in the global food market.
Meanwhile, India runs the world’s largest food subsidy program, the Public Distribution System, providing nearly 800 million citizens with subsidized grains to provide affordable daily meals for its people. Also to be commended is India’s Prime Minister’s Overall Nutrition Master Plan (POSHAN) Abhiyaan, the world’s largest nutrition program for children and women. As part of the G-20 presidency, India is promoting the consumption and cultivation of millet – a nutritious, drought-resistant, sustainable crop – in a sign of India’s resilient focus on the global food security dialogue. In the area of ​​food security, India’s G20 presidency seeks to address “Covid, Conflict and Climate” (to borrow a speech from India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar last year), three issues that are detrimental to food security in India and globally.
what the uae bring
Taken together, India brings an incredible depth of food industry experience and the ability to run the world’s largest food supply chain – strong capabilities that are strengthening the India-UAE food safety partnership in various ways. During the I2U2 (India, Israel, United Arab Emirates, and the United States) summit last July, the UAE committed to invest $2 billion in food parks in India (Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat), while signing the venue for the Food Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA). The Outer Security Corridor (with logistics partner DP World) advances India’s vision for global food value chains outside the UAE.
This corridor could potentially open a route for Indian-made and processed food products to start their outbound journey from the Indian shores of the Arabian Sea, via the UAE, to key international markets. With the ability to build a substantial food trade, the corridor is poised to become a world-class template for successful agricultural trade in India, while also unlocking higher productivity, efficiency and growth for its millions of workers and employees.
The benefits for the UAE go beyond maintaining and diversifying its food reserves, but trade links could allow the UAE to leverage its strategic location between Asia and Europe, becoming India’s gateway to West Asia and Africa and beyond Food Export Gateway. Given the incredible commercial potential of food corridors, several UAE companies have expressed interest in building supporting logistics and infrastructure pipelines to accelerate trade and strengthen food corridors.
Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, the UAE’s largest free trade zone, has launched Agriota, an agro trade and commodities platform connecting Indian farmers with Emirati food companies. Agriota gives millions of Indian farmers the opportunity to directly access the entire UAE food ecosystem (processing companies, traders, wholesalers) and stock their produce in UAE stores. Alongside this move, a consortium of UAE-based entities is investing up to $7 billion in large-scale food parks, contract farming and produce procurement in India. The scheme will include large food parks, logistics and storage centers and fruit and vegetable centres.
benefit
India can benefit a lot from UAE private sector projects in agriculture and food processing. These projects will create hundreds of thousands of off-farm farm jobs while enabling farmers to find better prices for their produce. With the support of the UAE’s infrastructure capabilities, Indian agricultural products will have more resilient and diverse access to global markets.
The Indian Presidency of the G20 has demonstrated to India and the UAE a viable strategy and framework that can lay the foundations for food security in the global South. In shaping the global development agenda, India can seek to leverage and enhance trade avenues with the UAE for a sustainable, inclusive, efficient and resilient food future.
Abdulnasser Alshaali is the Ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to India
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