Abstract EN:

This thesis explores the question of arab food gap from different perspectives, and examines the distabilizing effects of systematic food import on both agricultural rural development and decision making process in the arab world. It gives a general account of the basic factors affecting agriculture and food in most arab countries and of the application of existing knowledge of the principles of food security planning to its improvement. In general the study deals with principles rather than with specific detail. It does not set out to give a comprehensive treatment of any arab food policies. Nor does it cover in detail those aspects of food security such as, poverty and malnutrition, where acces to information is very difficult. However the reader is referred in the text to be guided by books and documents dealing with these later subjects, all giving specialized accounts of particular aspects or facets of food security. The author set tree focal points for the research, summurized as follows : 1. To identify the major constraints hindering or inhibiting the progress, the development, and the implementation of agricultural and food policies in the arab world ; ii. To review the latest developments concerning the concept of food security ; iii. To discuss the mesures needed to initiate global cooperation between arab states, in strategic fields such as food security. Given the complexity of those focal points, and given the varied obstacles which block the course of scientific research in the arab world, the issue of arab food gap is rather questionned than totally answered ; in others words, the problematic of arab food security remainds open for furthers empiricals investigations.