Analytical Report “Agrarian and Food Systems of the Global South” (June 2024) The lack of full food security prompts an increasing number of countries to boost food imports. Iraq has to import more food due to the growing deficit of water and land under the influence of climate and environmental challenge. At the same time, significant changes are taking place in the structure of food consumption in Iraq, which directly affect Baghdad's policy in the field of food imports. These changes are due, among other things, to growing oil revenues in Iraq and consumer incomes after domestic political stabilization and the victory over the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, a terrorist organization banned in Russia) in 2017. In turn, this leads to a change in consumer preferences and forms higher demand of the growing urban population for quality, diversified nutrition. The transformation of the model of food consumption and imports in Iraq primarily affects two strategic sectors - vegetable oil and grain. An assessment of the prospects for the national agriculture and food system of another dynamically developing country in the Global South, Kenya, reveals two notable, interrelated trends of recent years. On the one hand, Kenya has seen deterioration in food security, as the share of undernourished people increased from 18% of the population in 2012–2014 (the all-time low) to 28% in 2022–2023. On the other hand, during the same period, Kenya sharply increased food purchases on external markets, primarily grain, thus growing dependent on food imports. Read more about Kenya’s increasing dependence on food imports and the transformation of Iraq’s agricultural model in the context of new agriculture and food security risks in the document.

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