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agricultural area relative to their total land area, some COMCEC countries, like Saudi
Arabia (80.8%), Kazakhstan (77%), Djibouti (73.4%), Somalia (70.2%) and
Turkmenistan (69.4%), have very small arable land areas (less than 10% of their
agricultural areas) and even negligible permanent crops land areas. This is due to the
fact that the bulk of the agricultural area in these countries is permanent pastureland
(more than 90%) used for the grazing of livestock. In contrast, with small agricultural
area relative to their total land area, some COMCEC countries like Egypt, Indonesia,
Malaysia, Guyana, Suriname, Cameroon, Jordan, UAE, Qatar and Palestine have
relatively large arable and permanent crops land areas in terms of the percentage of
these areas in their agricultural areas.
The share of arable land area within agricultural area was over 50% in 11
COMCEC countries, namely Bangladesh (88.1%), Egypt (85.3%), Pakistan (78.8%),
Benin (76.7%), Suriname (69.9%), Togo (67.8%), Cameroon (65.1%), Turkey (55.6%),
Iraq (55%), Comoros (53.3%) and Albania (51.7%). This ratio was less than 10% in 11
COMCEC Member Countries. In contrast, the share of permanent crops land within
agricultural area was higher than 30% in only 8 COMCEC countries, namely Malaysia
(73.5%), Maldives (61.5%), Brunei (43.9%), Bahrain (40%), UAE (37%), Comoros
(36.7%), Indonesia (32%) and Palestine (30.6%). Moreover, it is observed that
permanent crops land is negligible (less than 1%) in 16 COMCEC countries (Annex 3).
All in all, while the percentage of agricultural area within total land area of the
COMCEC countries is quite higher than that of the developing countries and the world
average, the percentage of their arable land area within total agricultural area is still
significantly below the world and developing countries average. Among other factors,
this is due to the unsatisfactory use of land in agriculture, particularly due to the scarcity
of water resources and the use of insufficient irrigation systems and techniques.
Cultivated area is around 10% of the total area in COMCEC Member Countries.
This value is quite low when compared with world average and it must be increased to
ensure food safety.