Food security and the right to food in the Mediterranean
The issue of food will become a crucial problem for the whole region owing to:
• Growing population in the South and East of the Mediterranean, with almost 400 million people to feed by 2030,
• Rising nutritional imbalances and diseases linked to the gradual abort of the Mediterranean diet,
• Deteriorating ecosystems, global warming, reduction of available farming land and water resources, with serious effects on the potential of local production, which currently provides more than 25 million jobs in the region.
Consequence: rising biological and economic food deficit, increased dependency on imports coming from instable international markets.
If nothing is done immediately, a social, economic and ecological disaster is inevitable in the fairly near future. The EU is directly concerned geopolitically and for its contribution to the right to food and sustainable development. It needs to react and go beyond the discussions on Euro-Mediterranean free trade agreements that have been dragging on for thirty years.
