STORY: Meeting of Arab Agriculture Ministers kicks off
DATELINE: Sept. 27, 2023
LENGTH: 00:01:57
LOCATION: Cairo
CATEGORY: POLITICS

SHOTLIST:
1. various of the meeting
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic): AHMED ABOUL GHEIT, Secretary-General of the Arab League

STORYLINE:

A meeting of Arab agriculture ministers kicked off on Tuesday, headed by the Secretary-General of the Arab League Ahmed Aboul Gheit.

The ministers discussed Arab food security and agricultural development in the Arab world.

The session focused on the priority of achieving food security in the Arab region, as the Arab states' population is rapidly increasing.

SOUNDBITE (Arabic): AHMED ABOUL GHEIT, Secretary-General of the Arab League
"When one looks into the inputs of the Arab food security, one will notice a growing rise in the food gap, estimated at more than 100 million tons of food products, affected by a number of concomitant and complex factors, including, for example, the increasing number of the Arab nations' populations, expected to double by 2050, hitting about 800 million people in the Arab region."

The session also addressed the repercussions of climate change, along with the difficult economic conditions the world is witnessing at the present time.

The Arab world has been one of the regions most affected by the pandemic and the Russian-Ukranian war, which have caused a severe food crisis; moreover, the Arab world is also in the grips of a severe water shortage that is making it difficult for Arab countries to meet their food needs.

Xinhua News Agency correspondents reporting from Cairo.
(XHTV)