The Political Economy of Arab Food Sovereignty

Abstract

Three recent phenomena serve as the background to this book: the global food price crises of 2007/08 and 2011, the Arab Spring and the growing practice of foreign land acquisition, sometimes referred to as ‘land grab’ , whereby richer food scarce countries acquire land in poorer land abundant countries to directly source their food needs. This book argues that these three phenomena are intimately linked and are part of the new political economy of food in the Arab region, whereby Arab states are developing a new approach to food security which we have called ‘food sovereignty’. Food politics and its relationship to power is of crucial importance to the Arab region yet remains under-studied. This book hopes to help fill this gap by providing a political economy analysis of food security and food sovereignty in the Arab world.