National Strategy to Achieve Food Security

The Kingdom is drawing up a national strategy for food security with clear deadlines and scope of work. This includes forming a higher national authority for food security, which will consolidate efforts that are currently scattered amongst different jurisdictions.

The proposed strategy recommends introducing unified criteria for licenses within the Ministry of Works, Municipalities Affairs and Urban Planning and the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism until the authority is launched, and allocating a special fund for food security within the national budget.

Among the recommendations included in the strategy are imposing restrictions on excessive imports that compete with local products; encouraging banks to enter as partners or financing food security projects; seeking financial support from international organisations Bahrain belongs to; forging unified deals with other GCC member states on food security; and securing plots in other countries that Bahrainis could invest in for agriculture.