Food Security in the Middle East

Zahra Babar is project manager at the Center for International and Regional Studies of Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Her current research interests lie in gender and development, Persian Gulf migration policy, and GCC integration. Suzi Mirgani is manager and editor for publications at the Center for International and Regional Studies, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service in Qatar. Her work is based on theorising the connections between law, commerce, and the circulation of cultural material.

'Food Security in the Middle East opens up urgent policy issues (in the 'food crisis' shadow) about food security/sovereignty across a region characterised by urban bias and food dependence, unsustainable food subsidy programs, and questionable offshoring of food provisioning. Chapters addressing member state particularities offer comparative perspectives within a global food regime context, providing a comprehensive and nuanced account of regional food insecurities, agrarian neglect, super-marketisation, dietary transformation and public health concerns. This volume's notable achievement is a historicised and diversified view of 'food crisis' as deeply embedded in the structuring of state, corporate and institutional practices in an oil-rich, post-colonial region.'