Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the top food importers among Arab countries in the Gulf, are now looking to Asia and Africa as opportunities for agricultural investments.

Officials in Egypt, where a shortage of subsidised bread led to rioting in April, say they are looking into growing wheat on 808,000ha straddling the border with Sudan.

Investing in agriculture abroad 'is part of our strategic investment in general', said UAE Economy Minister Sultan bin Said al-Mansuri this month.

Yesterday, President Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahayan said the UAE, which imports 85 per cent of its food, is interested in Kazakhstan 'to diversify its sources of food supplies'.

The oil-rich nations of the Gulf are among the world's poorest in natural water resources and arable land. For decades they have drained aquifers or groundwater, sucked the salt from seawater and diverted the Nile to make the deserts bloom.

But those projects proved costly and used so much water that it remained far more practical to import food than to produce it. Today, some countries import 90 per cent or more of their staples.

Now, the huge influx of expatriates in the Gulf - due to rapid growth fuelled by record oil revenues - has stretched the region's ability to meet demand for mostly imported foodstuffs.

The total population of the six members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) - Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE - is expected to reach nearly 39 million by 2010, according to a Dubai-based Gulf Research Centre (GRC) report.

And the current worldwide food crisis is making many countries in this politically volatile region rethink that maths.

Food imports cost US$10 billion (S$13.5 billion) last year, the GRC study showed. Export bans from big crop-producing nations have caused fear and declining resources could worsen political tensions - prompting GCC states to want food lifelines.

The Gulf nations have thus started searching for farmland in fertile but politically unstable countries such as Pakistan and Sudan, with the goal of growing crops to be shipped home.

'A number of GCC countries are looking at establishing agricultural ventures...for food security and as a cheaper alternative to domestic production,' said Ms Monica Malik, economist at the Dubai-based EFG-Hermes investment bank.

For Saudi Arabia, investing in agriculture abroad marks a shift from its own costly crop self-sufficiency scheme. In a kingdom with scarce water reserves, planting a tonne of barley requires 1,212 cubic m of practically exhausted groundwater reserves, the GRC said.

Close ties with partner countries could protect the GCC nations against export bans in times of crop shortages in exporting countries, Ms Malik pointed out.

'Proximity is important, as is a good relationship with the other country to secure food supplies,' she added.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, NEW YORK TIMES