In 2014, Fahad Al-Attiya, the head of the Qatar National Food Security Programme, argued that his country’s dependence on imported food could be turned into an economic advantage: “Our hope is to make Qatar a trading hub for food commodities and a Rotterdam of this region in the future, enabling food trade to come through Qatar and arrive at other markets surrounding us.” The dream of becoming a new Rotterdam and a centre of international commerce and logistics represents a strategic decision. The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are addressing their dependence on food imports through a profitable trade and industry. In addition to being major importers of food, they have also established major agribusiness and processing sectors that serve other markets in the Middle East. Rather than just importers, they have transformed into producers and exporters of food commodities. This is a part of the Gulf economic model that rests on the circulation of energy exports and foreign investments and on extraction through commodity imports and cheap migrant labour.
During times of peace and stability, integration into the world economy can ensure food security. But during economic or geopolitical crisis, such dependence can be a vulnerability. Since the start of the US-Israeli war on Iran on February 28, 2026, the Islamic Republic has responded to the offensive by attacking airports, ports, shipping lines, and logistics infrastructure across the Gulf, leading to closure and disruption of shipping and air freight. At the time of this writing, the Strait of Hormuz is largely closed, meaning that most oil tankers and container ships cannot access ports on the Arabian Gulf littoral. This has led to the suspension of hydrocarbon exports as well as the steady flow of food and other commodities that sustain daily life for much of the region. It is estimated that as much as 70 percent of the Gulf’s food imports pass through Hormuz. Its closure thus represents a threat to the food security of the Gulf, but the disruption also risks supplies for the wider Middle East.
The Gulf imports between 80–90 percent of its food needs, a dependence that has long concerned governments in the region. As elsewhere, food is an emotive issue whose management is pervaded by narratives of legitimacy, power, and morality. But in the Gulf, reliance on imports gives these narratives a distinctive form. They are often articulated through the language of “food security,” a concept that links concerns about supply with broader agendas of state security, profit, and nationalism. Under this banner, the governance of food imports is framed as a matter of national survival and state security while also serving as a domain in which rulers generate authority and agribusiness companies generate profits. Food security is therefore a frequent subject of state-sponsored conferences, policy reports, and media coverage, all of which serve to demonstrate the success of Gulf governments’ management of import dependence. For example, a 2021 article in the Saudi magazine Al Majalla lauded the government’s food policies: “The Saudi experience is remarkable. How can a primarily desert country with 35 million inhabitants not suffer from the lack of food? However, the wise leadership has been keen to address this issue by taking innovative measures to provide the well-being of all its citizens.”
Anxiety over food security is based on real experience. It partially has its roots in the history of famine in the region. During the twentieth century, economic depression, drought, and war led to periods of famine in the Gulf. Oral historical accounts in Qatar estimate that as many as one-third of the 10,000 inhabitants died of starvation as a result of disruption to trade and food markets during the Second World War.
Today, the region could not be more different. The contemporary Gulf states are far removed from famine. Supermarkets and shopping malls across the GCC are laden with food from around the world. Fruit, vegetables, and meat are imported from producers in Africa, Asia, and Europe. The wealthy can indulge in delicacies from virtually anywhere. This plenty is corroborated in the data on food security and cost of food. The Gulf states are the only countries in the Arab region in which food insecurity and malnutrition have declined over the last decade. The share of income spent on food in countries such as Qatar or the UAE is approximately on par with OECD countries such as Germany. This stands in sharp contrast to the rest of the Arab region, where food insecurity and malnutrition are endemic. In 2022 the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimated that more than half of the population of Arab states cannot afford a healthy diet. In the poorest countries in the region such as Yemen, up to 40 percent of the population is malnourished. This deprivation is the result of regional social crises, poverty, war, and weak states. Famine is also deployed as a weapon of war, and military forces are depriving civilian populations of food in places like Gaza and Sudan, leading to death by starvation.
The data on food imports in the Arab region encapsulate what Raj Patel described as the “stuffed and starved” geography of global food inequality. According to the United Nations, food imported into the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in 2018 reached a total value of $103 billion, nearly half of which was accounted for by the Gulf states alone. The imbalance becomes even more striking when set against population figures: The MENA region is home to roughly 516 million people, yet only 58.8 million reside in the GCC states. In other words, roughly 11 percent of the region’s population is consuming half of the total food imports to the entire MENA region. This disparity becomes even more apparent at the level of individual states. Take Yemen and Saudi Arabia as an example. They both have comparable population sizes and are both dependent on food imports to the same degree. Yet in 2018, Yemen’s total food imports were valued at $1.3 billion, compared to $19.5 billion for Saudi Arabia.
The Gulf states can manage this current crisis. They have significant stockpiles of dry food and the capacity to intervene to ensure a supply of commodities. Price controls, subsidies, and cooperatives provide means for Gulf governments to control consumer food markets. Their fiscal wealth and their access to bond markets give them options to secure supply. When Qatar was subject to a siege by its neighbours, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, in 2017, during which land, air, and sea borders were closed, shortages became visible in the country’s supermarkets. But in the following months, the Qatari government spent billions of dollars on measures to ensure a stable food supply for its population of two million. New supply chains from Turkey and Iran were quickly established and a dairy company, Baladna [Our Country], was founded in order to substitute imports from its neighbours.
In many ways, the food price crisis of 2007–2008 prepared the Gulf states for this moment. Since then, they have tried to exert greater control over international food markets through direct investment with state support. The UAE and Saudi Arabia have been particularly effective at building food conglomerates that control all stages of production. They have leased farmland in Egypt, Sudan, and Ethiopia in Africa and Romania, Ukraine, and Serbia in Eastern Europe on which they cultivate raw commodities for their food processing industries. One common crop is alfalfa, a cattle feed, which is then exported to large dairy farms in the GCC. In addition to the direct control of foreign farmland, the Gulf states have the buying power and logistics to acquire and import food from a huge book of producers in international markets.
As a result of these policies, countries such as the UAE exert significant control and leverage over international food trade. In doing so, the huge scale of imports has become a strategic advantage, enabling them to secure both profit and a stable supply of low-cost food for the domestic population. This logic was alluded to by the UAE’s Minister of Climate Change and Environment, Mariam Almheiri, in 2023: “We are a country that imports most of our food. So we wanted to keep being a hub for food trade. We just want to decrease our dependency on the food imports, we don’t want to decrease the food imports, but we just want to decrease the dependency.” Almheiri was referring to the way that food imports have been leveraged to build agribusiness sectors, while dependence has been mitigated through value chains that span a diverse range of global suppliers. Consequently, food security in the Gulf is increasingly managed through a profitable private sector.
This strategy has allowed states such as the UAE to position themselves as central within global agribusiness value chains. While these sectors supply domestic markets, they also serve as a source of food for other countries in the Arab region. Industrial complexes in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and to a lesser extent, Oman, produce dairy, flour, cooking oil, sugar, pastes, and other durable goods for regional distribution. For example, Dubai’s Al Ghurair company claims around 3 percent of the global sugar market. The combined dairy exports from the UAE and Saudi Arabia are the largest in Africa and Asia. The value of the UAE’s food exports is now the greatest in the Arab region, surpassing that of states with traditionally large agricultural sectors such as Egypt and Morocco. Trade has enabled the UAE to move up the value chain, capture profit, and become an exporter of food.
Despite the preparedness of the Gulf states, the disruption to commerce will have consequences. Owing to its agribusiness and logistics sectors, the UAE is at the heart of the Gulf food system. Jebel Ali Port, one of the busiest in the world outside of China, is a transshipment point for the rest of the Arab region. Within the Gulf, it supplies countries such as Qatar and Kuwait, which lack the logistical capacity to handle large volumes of cargo, in part because their ports cannot accommodate larger classes of cargo ships. Oman and Saudi Arabia are better placed to cope with the current crisis, as both maintain ports outside of the Gulf that do not require their ships to pass through the chokepoint of the Strait of Hormuz. Moreover, internal trade in the Gulf is relatively seamless. If necessary, food commodities can be unloaded at Jeddah, or Salalah and Sohar in Oman, and trucked to other Gulf markets.
Regardless of preparedness levels, the inflationary shock will reverberate through the global economy. The Gulf states and Iran account for roughly a third of global urea exports, a key feedstock for nitrogen fertilizer, and any obstruction of these shipments will raise fertilizer costs and, in turn, global food prices. The role of the UAE and other Gulf states as hubs of production and reshipment also means that the effects of this crisis will be felt across Arab economies. Several poorer countries in the Arab region are dependent on shipments routed through Jebel Ali port. Yemen and Sudan, for example, import a significant share of their food from the UAE, and disruptions could quickly translate into higher prices. Unlike the Gulf states, the food system in these countries is already subject to severe stress and they have limited capacity to manage inflation. At the same time, the agricultural sectors in some Arab countries depend heavily on access to Gulf markets. For example, around 64 percent of Jordan’s $1.23 billion food exports and 57 percent of Yemen’s $342 million trade are destined for Gulf countries. Egypt and Lebanon also export substantial quantities of food to the GCC. If the current disruption continues, it could impair farmers’ ability to sell produce in the export markets on which they rely.
In the longer term, the war may cause Gulf governments to reconsider their faith in trade. The crisis illustrates the limits of the Gulf’s fiscal capacity in the face of geopolitical realities. The ability to intervene in food markets and support agribusiness industries does not allow the Gulf countries to escape their dependency on stable trade routes and international supply chains. One possible response is a greater emphasis on controlling agricultural land abroad and securing other parts of the supply chain. Another is the intensification of domestic production. Over the past decade, Gulf governments have invested heavily in the capitalization of indoor farming systems that produce vegetables using hydroponic irrigation and UV lighting. One example is a 330,000-square-foot warehouse in Dubai, which supplies lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers for Emirates Airline catering, and is considered the largest of its kind in the world. However, these projects are highly energy-intensive and dependent on government support, raising questions on whether they can compete with the volume and price of imported commodities.
A prudent response would be an assessment of the deeper causes of the current impasse. For decades, the Gulf region has followed a separate trajectory distinct from that of many other Arab countries, as reflected in the unequal structure of the regional food system. The Gulf’s relative food security and the development of a profitable agribusiness industry represent the ways that they have been enclaves of economic development and growth, even as other parts of the region have diminished economically. Yet the current crisis shows that the Gulf is not immune from the Arab region’s pressing problems. Although the GCC states will always be reliant on food imports, they benefit from a food system that is highly unbalanced. Their ability to extract large volumes of commodities and calories exacerbates the deep inequalities that characterize the Arab region, widening the economic gap between the Gulf and its neighbours. This regional division has great costs, as the present calamity illustrates.