COMCEC Agriculture Outlook 2016
51
Conclusion
After examining the macro agricultural indicators, sectoral indicators and state of food
security, it is evident that agriculture is one of the prominent sectors in the OIC Member
Countries. Even though agricultural activity in most OIC countries has been slightly replaced
by services and industrial activity over time, the power of agriculture sector on national
economies is still undeniable. For this reason, agricultural based economy has prevailed in
most of the individual countries with some exceptions at sub-regional levels.
The value of agricultural production in the OIC Member Countries rose in the last
decades due to increases in production as well as higher prices. Furthermore, the share of OIC
agricultural production in the world agricultural production has an increasing trend. This
achievement in agriculture sector can be explained by noteworthy rate of agricultural growth
in the OIC that surpassed the world average during the period of 1994-2014.
Nonetheless, the potential of agricultural sector in OIC Member Countries could still be
utilized to increase the agricultural productivity and to sustain the food security. The need for
productivity improvement in the most common, important and strategic crops such as wheat,
maize and cotton seed, which plays a crucial role in the OIC production, consumption and
trade, is still valid. Moreover, millions of people in the Member Countries are facing
undernourishment. Recent data show that 168.6 million people are undernourished in the OIC
Member Countries which accounts for the 21.2 percent of undernourished people in the world.
Furthermore, after examining the related indicators with respect to all dimensions of food
security such as availability, access, utilization and stability, it is clear that more efforts are still
required to enhance the state of food security level in member states.
At the sub-regional and individual country level, the situation of agriculture sector in the
OIC Member Countries substantially differs. On the one hand, there are countries having a well
performing agriculture sector, on the other hand, there are many countries which have
considerable structural challenges and problems in their agriculture sector mainly arising
from the agro-ecological conditions, different land and water resources in terms of quantity
and quality, lack of a modern agricultural infrastructure and inefficient input utilization.
Notwithstanding the structural issues mentioned above, the OIC Member countries have
also a great potential in agriculture sector especially for cross country investments. On the
other hand, as the global demand for quality food is increasing, along with efforts for
increasing quantity, quality related issues also need to be addressed adequately. Among
others, organic farming, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), prevention of post-harvest losses,
wastage and extravagance, ensuring mid-long term sustainability and introducing agriculture
production systems commensurate with agro ecological conditions of the country should be
given special emphasis in agricultural planning. Especially, the percentage of post-harvest
losses is quite high in most of the OIC countries. Nonetheless, with simple measures, basic
infrastructure and training, these losses will be decreased substantially which will, in turn,
increase the availability of food to a great extent. Furthermore, while water scarcity is a major