The Protein Sovereignty Index

Bloc assessment

Gulf Cooperation Council

We assess the Gulf Cooperation Council as Critically exposed (35.8). Around 85 per cent of the bloc's food is imported and about 93 per cent of its cereals, and more than 70 per cent of those food imports normally transit the Strait of Hormuz, which has been effectively impassable since March 2026.[1][12] Sovereign wealth of roughly USD 4 to 5 trillion, reserves measured in months and owned farmland abroad give the bloc deep crisis purchasing power and have kept shelves stocked through five months of closure, so endurance is the bloc's clearest strength.[32]

Affordability is where the bloc's numbers mislead. The FAO estimate this pillar would normally be scored on covers 22.7 per cent of the bloc's population: FAO derives it from World Bank income distributions dating to 2018 for the United Arab Emirates and 2017 for Qatar, the Emirati distribution records a median income above Norway's and a Gini below Norway's in a state that is roughly 87 per cent non-citizen, and Qatar's published prevalence contradicts the headcount in the same release by a factor of ten in every year since 2017.[48][49][54] No published affordability figure describes the Gulf's actual population, so the pillar is scored on the block evidence set out below.

Non-citizens are the majority of the people this pillar scores, about 55 per cent of the bloc in 2022.[49] Priced on their own evidence they are not short of money for food, since a healthy diet costs a small fraction of even the lowest measured Gulf wage, but four of the six members set no wage floor for migrant workers at all, the bloc's only statutory food allowance is unmonitored, and when wages stopped in 2020 the feeding of this population passed to charities.[61][65][71]

Access scores 64, endurance scores 70. Endurance still buys time rather than supply, which makes the GCC the clearest case of a food system whose resilience is purchased rather than produced, and whose purchasing has never extended to the majority of its residents on the terms it extends to citizens.

Covers: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman

Covering Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman.

The protein system

Sixty-one million people are fed at high standards from almost no natural base.[3] Per-capita protein supply ranges from 92.8 grams a day in Oman to 110.6 in Qatar, comfortably above requirement in every member, with Saudi Arabia at 106.0, Bahrain at 108.2, the UAE at 100.8 and Kuwait at 100.3.[2] These figures are taken directly from the FAOSTAT Food Balance Sheets rather than at second hand, because a widely used secondary source has been found to serve the wrong country's value. Animal products supply between 44 per cent of protein in Saudi Arabia and 57 per cent in Bahrain.[2]

The composition is the point: dairy, poultry and eggs dominate the domestically produced share, and all three are feed-conversion industries whose feed is bought overseas. Saudi Arabia alone is expected to import about 4.7 million tonnes of corn and 4.2 million tonnes of barley in MY2025/26, the barley almost entirely for feed.[6]

Where the bloc produces protein it does so at genuine commercial scale. Saudi dairy ran at 131 per cent of domestic demand in 2024 and poultry meat at 72 per cent, against fish at 52 per cent; Saudi marine capture landings were 74,700 tonnes in 2023 on ministry figures; and Oman produced 146 per cent of its own fish requirement in 2025.[4][5][33][34] Against consumption at Gulf income levels these are useful volumes rather than a base, and the mechanism behind them is energy: desalinated or fossil groundwater, air-conditioned barns, imported feed, imported genetics.

Durable domestic capacity: 22

Quantitative score 22, no adjustment applied

Headline self-sufficiency rates flatter the bloc because they are reported per product. Nominal sufficiency in dairy, eggs, dates and much of poultry sits on an import dependence of roughly 85 per cent for food overall and 93 per cent for cereals.[1] Saudi dairy at 131 per cent and poultry at 72 per cent are real production, drawn from imported maize, imported barley, imported genetics and water that is either desalinated or mined.[4][5][6] Saudi Arabia began phasing out domestic wheat production in 2008 and ended the programme in 2016 over depletion of water reserves; the hydrologists cited by the USGS judge the underlying fossil groundwater economic to pump for only about another 50 years.[7] That decision is the single most informative fact about Gulf capacity: the wealthiest agricultural experiment in the region's history was retired on hydrology rather than economics.

We apply no adjustment. The production that exists is genuine and operating, and also small relative to consumption and contingent on inputs assessed under other pillars.

Resource headroom: 15

Quantitative score 10, adjusted up 5 points

The GCC has the least natural headroom of any entity in this index. Renewable freshwater runs from 4 cubic metres per person per year in Kuwait through 15 in the UAE and 20 in Qatar to 75 in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, against the conventional water-stress threshold of 1,700.[8] Arable land is under 5 per cent of territory and agriculture already absorbs 70 to 80 per cent of water withdrawals, so the sector has taken most of a very small resource rather than a share of it.[9] There is no land or water frontier to grow into, and the protein mix compounds the problem, since additional poultry and dairy output requires additional imported feed grain.[6]

Two further series confirm rather than soften that picture. Land equipped for irrigation covers 73 per cent of the bloc's cropland in 2024 on a cropland-weighted basis, up from 46 per cent in 2000, with five of the six members already at 71 to 100 per cent.[82] That is a high share by the standards of every other region measured against this benchmark, and it says the opposite of what a high share usually says: the arable base is so small that it is already close to saturated with irrigation infrastructure, not sitting on spare water-banking capacity waiting to be brought into use. Saudi Arabia, the only member reporting both series at a scale that lets the difference be checked, shows why the nominal figure overstates what is real: just 757,500 of the 3.28 million hectares FAOSTAT lists as equipped were actually irrigated in 2024, 23 per cent utilisation, capacity that traces largely to the wheat programme phased out in 2016 and now standing mostly idle.[82] Agricultural credit tells the same story from the finance side. Where FAOSTAT's agriculture orientation index for credit can be measured at all it sits below the 1.00 parity value and has fallen since 2000: Bahrain from 0.673 to 0.467, the United Arab Emirates from 0.607 to 0.098, Oman from 0.387 to 0.090.[83] Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, 65 per cent of the bloc's population between them, report no agriculture-specific credit series in any year, and Qatar's last reading is from 2002.[83] Cropland grew 17 per cent bloc-wide in absolute terms between 2000 and 2024, but population grew 142 per cent over the same window, so cropland per person fell 52 per cent, a decline recorded in all six members; arable land per person fell in five of six, the exception being Oman, where arable land nearly tripled but cropland per person still fell 24 per cent.[82][84] No large-scale land-mobilisation programme exists here: the nearest equivalent is the wheat programme itself, and its documented outcome is closure rather than delivery.

We add 5 points. Energy and capital function as a partial substitute for natural headroom in a way land and water statistics do not capture. The six Gulf states operate some 3,401 desalination plants and account for about a third of global daily desalination production capacity, and operating desalination-backed dairy, poultry, controlled-environment horticulture and Red Sea aquaculture projects demonstrate the conversion of energy into protein at commercial scale.[8] This is a funded, operating capability rather than an announced intention. The uplift answers a different question from the land and credit evidence above, whether an engineered substitute exists rather than whether the natural resource base itself can be mobilised, and it is deliberately modest because the mechanism does not rescale to staple crops, and because the same infrastructure is itself a target set, as the 2026 conflict has underlined.[8][16]

Import exposure: 15

Quantitative score 10, adjusted up 5 points

This is the bloc's defining weakness and 2026 has converted it from scenario to observation. Food import dependence sits at up to 90 per cent and more than 70 per cent of those imports normally move through Hormuz.[12] At commodity level the Middle East Institute puts 81 per cent of rice through the strait, with grain routing split across two vulnerable passages, roughly 39 per cent of wheat and coarse grain from western origins arriving via Bab al-Mandab and 35 per cent via Hormuz.[10] Supplier concentration sits on top of the geography. Computing directly from UN Comtrade returns for 2024, India supplied 76.1 per cent and Pakistan 13.7 per cent of GCC rice imports by weight, 89.8 per cent between them, across the five members that filed returns.[11]

Tanker traffic through Hormuz was down by more than 90 per cent when the FAO's chief economist assessed the crisis on 26 March 2026, and the closure was still constraining Gulf logistics in July.[14][17] Grain flows were disrupted immediately: Kpler counted more than 20 laden grain vessels waiting to discharge at Iranian ports in early March, with Saudi Arabia redirecting purchases to King Abdullah Port and Jeddah on the Red Sea.[13]

We add 5 points for demonstrated partial bypass. Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports, Oman's Salalah and Duqm and the UAE's east coast have all performed under live conditions: Khor Fakkan weekly container throughput rose from about 8,000 to 65,000 TEUs after diversion, with Gulftainer committing USD 2 billion to raise annual capacity from 3.5 to 10 million TEUs, and Fujairah holds 300,000 tonnes of grain silo capacity.[17][35] That is measured performance during the disruption itself. It does not touch the structural position of Qatar, Kuwait and Bahrain, none of which has coastline outside the Gulf.

Upstream dependence: 38

Quantitative score 32, adjusted up 6 points

Upstream dependence divides cleanly. On feed, the input that governs a protein system built on poultry, dairy and aquaculture, the bloc is close to fully dependent.[6] Genetics are imported too: Baladna's herd was founded on about 4,000 Holstein cows airlifted from the United States and Europe after the June 2017 blockade, with a further 3,200 arriving by sea in May 2018 and 3,000 more planned for that November, a sequence that describes the wider model.[24]

On the other inputs the GCC is a global supplier rather than a buyer. QAFCO operates 5.6 million tonnes of urea capacity and 3.8 million tonnes of ammonia capacity and describes itself as the world's largest single-site urea exporter with 14 per cent of world supply, a company claim we report as such.[31] More conservatively, the GPCA puts the GCC at about 7 per cent of global nitrogen and phosphate output, with Saudi Arabia fifth in nitrogen and sixth in phosphate,[29] and Ma'aden's Phosphate 3 complex will add 3 million tonnes to take phosphate fertiliser capacity to roughly 9 million tonnes a year, with the second phase due in 2027.[30] The energy behind fertiliser, desalination and cold chain is sovereign.

We add 6 points for owned origination. SALIC holds 81.81 per cent of Olam Agri, up from 80.01 per cent, after integrating Continental Farmers Group in July 2026, which gives the bloc a global grain origination, processing and trading platform rather than spot-market purchasing power, and Al Dahra performs the equivalent function for forage, with ADQ holding a strategic stake since 2021.[25][28] Owned origination with secured logistics justifies the uplift.

Access and affordability: 64

Quantitative score 70, adjusted down 6 points

An FAO estimate would put this pillar at 76, on the basis that 2.0 to 2.2 per cent of the population could not afford a healthy diet. The population it describes is not the population of the Gulf.

Take provenance first. FAO computes the prevalence of unaffordability from income distributions held in the World Bank's Poverty and Inequality Platform.[55] The platform holds one survey for the United Arab Emirates, from 2018, and one for Qatar, from 2017, and none at all for Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman or Bahrain, which is why those four members carry no estimate in any year.[54] The Emirati survey records a median income of 76.52 international dollars per person per day and a Gini coefficient of 0.264, against Norway's 75.05 and 0.2756 in the same year,[54] in a state GLMM estimates to be 87 per cent non-citizen.[49] A distribution richer at the median and more equal than Norway's is not a description of a society where nine residents in ten are foreign workers. Qatar's figures are worse than unrepresentative, being internally contradictory. The July 2026 release states a prevalence of 2.2 per cent for 2024 and, in the same file, a headcount of 0.7 million people unable to afford a healthy diet, in a country of 3.14 million.[48][50] That implies 22 per cent. The same tenfold gap runs through every year from 2017 to 2025, and of the 182 countries carrying both series in the 2024 release, Qatar is the only one where the two fail to reconcile.[48] Qatar's estimate is not used; the Emirati figure is retained for provenance only. No published affordability estimate describes the Gulf's actual population, so the pillar is scored on the block evidence set out below.

Then the population. National statistics for mid-2024 put the bloc at 61.41 million people, of whom non-nationals are 67.9 per cent in Kuwait, 53.4 per cent in Bahrain, 44.4 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 43.2 per cent in Oman; Qatar and the United Arab Emirates publish no breakdown at all.[50] GLMM's bloc aggregate for 2022 is about 31 million foreign nationals, almost 55 per cent of a total population of 56 million.[49] The subject of this pillar is therefore, in the majority, migrant workers, and we price citizens and non-citizens once each on their own evidence.

Citizens, 45 per cent of the bloc,[49] score 91. GASTAT's household survey for 2023, drawn from 122,325 households sampled from the 2022 census, puts the median Saudi per-capita monthly disposable income at 2,896 riyals[51] against a cost of a healthy diet of 5.64 riyals per person per day in the same year,[48] which is 6.0 per cent of income. Undernourishment sits at or below the 2.5 per cent reporting floor in Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, with Oman at 5.9 per cent and no estimate for Qatar or Bahrain,[36] and subsidy and citizen-transfer systems are universal. Child stunting of 10.8 per cent in Saudi Arabia and 11.4 per cent in Oman holds the block below the ceiling.[37]

Non-citizens, 55 per cent, score 48, and the reason is not price. The same survey puts the median non-Saudi per-capita disposable income at 1,372 riyals a month,[51] which leaves the healthy diet at 12.5 per cent of income; Qatar's lowest-paid occupational group averaged 3,000 riyals a month in 2023 against a diet costing 223 riyals;[66][48] and Qatar's statutory food allowance of 300 riyals covers 135 per cent of that diet.[48][59] Food in the Gulf is cheap against even the lowest measured Gulf wage, and we decline to argue otherwise. What the same data show is a different thing: converted at the World Bank's private-consumption purchasing power parity factor for 2023, the median non-Saudi lives on 23.67 international dollars a day against 49.97 for the median Saudi, so more than half of the bloc's largest non-citizen population sits below the 24.36 international dollars a day that the World Bank sets as the poverty line for high-income countries.[51][53]

What fails is reliability, which is the other half of what this pillar asks. Four of the six members set no wage floor for migrant workers at all: the ILO records the minimum wage as not specified by law in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, confined to Bahraini nationals in the public sector, and not applicable to migrant workers in Oman.[61][62][63][64] Only Qatar and Kuwait set one,[59][60] and Qatar's wage protection system does not require employers to report food and accommodation allowances, so the bloc's single statutory food entitlement goes unmonitored.[65] Debt precedes the wage: the World Bank and KNOMAD measured worker-borne recruitment costs of 5,637 US dollars on the Pakistan to Saudi Arabia corridor and 1,507 on the India to Saudi Arabia corridor in constant 2016 dollars, financed at interest rates reported up to 18 per cent, and a 2021 audit found 68 per cent of workers in Qatar had paid fees averaging 1,333 dollars.[68] Non-payment is documented at population scale once, and the number is large: 1.2 million migrant workers in Saudi Arabia with delayed wages in August 2020, 8.3 per cent of the workforce.[69] What remains of the wage is then largely committed elsewhere: the six members paid out 142.5 billion US dollars in personal remittances in 2024, 58.46 billion from the Emirates and 46.56 billion from Saudi Arabia alone,[79] and the one study we could verify that measures the share of a Gulf migrant's income remitted puts it at about 43 per cent, on 200 married Kerala men in Doha with baseline data from 2010.[81]

When the wage stops the food stops, and that has now happened twice in six years. Food deprivation was cited in 39 per cent of Gulf labour-abuse cases recorded between April and August 2020, a 220 per cent rise on the year before,[71] inside 273 public allegations affecting 47,991 workers over the following twelve months.[70] The feeding of this population passed to charities and embassies: 20 million meals to 35 labour accommodation complexes in Abu Dhabi,[75] 34,926 food baskets in Doha's Industrial Area in nineteen days,[76] 7,000 workers given a month of food each within eight weeks in Bahrain,[77] and 15,228 people fed across four Saudi cities with need assessed by six origin-country missions.[78] In March 2026 Human Rights Watch interviewed 38 workers across all six members and found food prices doubled or tripled, one supplier instructed to halve the wages of more than 400 workers, and hotel staff on unpaid leave keeping their accommodation but buying their own food.[72] Qatar's food allowance has not moved since 2021, while the diet it is meant to cover rose from 6.85 to 7.41 riyals a day.[48][72]

The state of the measurement is itself a finding. No study measures food insecurity among migrant workers in any GCC state using a validated instrument. The nearest is a survey of 100 male Kerala returnees, which found roughly a quarter severely food insecure at destination during the pandemic and about a fifth losing body weight;[73] a 2018 survey of 88 workers in Doha found 39 per cent dissatisfied with the food or kitchen facilities provided, on a sample its authors say over-represented workers with complaints.[74] FAO's own experience-scale measure exists for two members, at 8.4 per cent moderate or severe food insecurity in Kuwait and 3.6 per cent in the United Arab Emirates in 2023,[56] and it is collected through a telephone poll whose coverage of Gulf labour accommodation we could not establish.[57][58]

Weighting the two blocks gives 67 on the affordability component. The rest is scored on the same coverage-aware basis: undernourishment 82, strong at face value but published for four of six members and resting on the same household surveys;[36] stunting 70, a population-weighted 9.8 per cent that cannot in any case describe a largely childless adult workforce;[37] price volatility 55, with Saudi Arabia at 1.4 per cent and the Emirates at 1.0 against Qatar at 12.74 per cent in June 2026;[38][39][40] physical access 80 on urbanisation of 79 to 100 per cent, discounted because access inside labour accommodation runs through employer-provided canteens and transport.[44] The indicators put the pillar at 70. We deduct 6 points for what no instrument in the bloc observes, taking the pillar to 64.

Shock endurance: 70

Quantitative score 63, adjusted up 7 points

Endurance is the bloc's genuine strength and it is being tested in real time. GCC sovereign funds hold roughly USD 4 to 5 trillion in aggregate, with PIF at about USD 1.15 trillion, ADIA at USD 1.11 trillion and KIA at about USD 1 trillion, which confers an unusual ability to outbid other buyers when supply is short.[32] Physical reserves are months deep, though the disclosures are uneven. Kpler put Saudi wheat cover at at least six months in March 2026,[13] against grain silo capacity raised from 2.5 million tonnes in 2016 to 3.5 million tonnes.[19] Qatar's Minister of Interior stated on 14 March 2026 that food reserves covered 18 months and water about four;[20] strategic grain storage stands at roughly 320,000 tonnes[21] and the Hamad Port food security terminal, 51 silos holding 300,000 tonnes, was 98 per cent complete in June 2026.[22] The UAE reports four to six months of market needs.[12][13]

Crisis purchasing power scores 93, built on the sovereign wealth funds above and reinforced by foreign-exchange reserves measured in months of import cover. World Bank figures for 2024 put Saudi Arabia at 15.1 months, Kuwait at 9.0, Qatar at 6.7, the UAE at 5.2 and Oman at 3.7, all at or above the IMF's conventional three-month reserve-adequacy benchmark, while Bahrain sits at 1.4 months, the bloc's thinnest margin.[46] Absolute reserves reinforce the point: Saudi Arabia alone held roughly USD 464 billion in 2024 and the UAE USD 238 billion, against Bahrain's USD 5 billion.[47] No disclosure of scalable social protection systems, of the kind the World Bank's ASPIRE database tracks elsewhere, was found for any member; Gulf welfare operates through subsidy and citizen-payment systems that are real but undocumented at that level of detail here, and that gap is the one deduction against an otherwise exceptional score. The indicators put the pillar at 63: the bloc's financial firepower, set against reserve cover, sovereign wealth and market access, is what drives crisis purchasing power. The structural pillars, capacity, headroom, imports and upstream, are unchanged.

The 2017 to 2021 blockade of Qatar produced the fastest documented protein substitution in the region. Before June 2017 Qatar imported some 400 tonnes of milk and yoghurt a day from Saudi Arabia;[24] by 2020 official figures put dairy self-sufficiency at 106 per cent on 230,000 tonnes of milk.[23]

We add 7 points for offshore farmland with secured logistics. SALIC's Continental Farmers Group operates about 200,000 hectares in western Ukraine producing over 1 million tonnes of grain a year with roughly 530,000 tonnes of storage, inside a trading house the bloc owns,[26] and Al Dahra farms roughly 400,000 hectares across 17 countries including 135,000 acres, about 55,000 hectares, at Braila in Romania.[27] Both ship through Mediterranean and Red Sea routes and have remained functional while Hormuz is closed.

Four caveats hold the score down. Qatar's 18-month claim is a wartime government statement we could not verify independently, and Qatar's own food security strategy has previously targeted up to eight months. Saudi reserve cover is disputed between roughly four and at least six months, with no disclosure at national-statistics quality. Money cannot deliver cargo that physically cannot reach a quay, which is Kuwait's and Bahrain's position exactly. And Bahrain's 1.4 months of import cover, the weakest in the bloc, is not offset by any scale advantage of its own.[46]

Trajectory

Four things would change this picture. The cheapest is measurement. Saudi Arabia already runs a food security survey that GASTAT describes as measuring moderate or severe difficulty in obtaining food, though we found no published results from it,[80] and its household income survey already reports by nationality.[51] Extending either to collective and labour accommodation and publishing the results by nationality would replace this pillar's qualitative affordability basis with a measured one for 57.5 per cent of the bloc's population. Qatar's labour force survey already enumerates labour gatherings, so the same is within reach there.[66] Publishing a nationality breakdown at all would help in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, neither of which does.[50] Making the food allowance a mandatory field in a wage protection system would turn an entitlement into a monitored one.[65] None of this requires capital, and all of it is inside the existing statistical machinery. The most consequential structural move is port and corridor geography outside Hormuz: Gulftainer's Khor Fakkan expansion is funded and under way, and DP World is in talks with the UAE government over a new Fujairah port and container terminal, though ownership and financing were not settled as of July 2026.[17][18] Every tonne that can discharge outside the Gulf raises the import pillar directly. Second, owned origination is scaling rather than merely announced, the Olam Agri consolidation giving Riyadh a platform that originates, trades and ships grain under its own control.[25][26] Third, controlled-environment and aquaculture investment continues to add domestic protein, lifting capacity slowly while raising electricity and desalination demand as it does so.[8]

What will not change is the arithmetic underneath. A bloc importing 85 per cent of its food from a handful of origins, converting imported feed into animal protein using desalinated water, cannot reach a defensible score on capacity, headroom or import exposure within a decade.[1][9] The realistic ceiling is a bloc that endures disruption at high cost and reroutes quickly. On the evidence of 2026 it has reached that ceiling.

Country notes

Saudi Arabia. The strongest member and the only one with strategic depth: dairy at 131 per cent, poultry at 72 per cent and fish at 52 per cent of demand in 2024, wheat cover put at at least six months in March 2026, and a Red Sea coast at Jeddah, Yanbu and King Abdullah Port outside Hormuz, to which grain purchases were redirected during the closure.[4][5][13] The wheat programme's phase-out, completed in 2016 after drawing down fossil aquifers, sets the ceiling on domestic capacity; SALIC's Olam Agri platform is the chosen answer.[7][25]

United Arab Emirates. Richest per capita and most logistics-capable, but Jebel Ali sits inside the Gulf: DP World suspended operations there on 1 March 2026,[15] and on 14 March Iran named Jebel Ali, Khalifa and Fujairah in an evacuation warning, with a fire at Fujairah caused by debris from an intercepted drone.[16] The east-coast pivot is the bloc's fastest adaptation, with Khor Fakkan weekly throughput up from 8,000 to 65,000 TEUs and a USD 2 billion capacity expansion under way.[17] Strategic stocks run four to six months and Al Dahra supplies forage and grain from about 400,000 hectares abroad, against renewable freshwater of 15 cubic metres per person a year and near-total desalination dependence.[8][12][27]

Qatar. The 2017 to 2021 blockade produced the bloc's best-prepared food system: dairy self-sufficiency of 106 per cent by 2020, from a starting point of 400 tonnes of imported dairy a day, on a herd founded with roughly 10,000 Holsteins brought in during 2017 and 2018.[23][24] Doha claims 18 months of food reserves behind about 320,000 tonnes of grain storage and a 51-silo terminal at Hamad Port.[20][21][22] Its geography remains wholly inside Hormuz and its herd eats imported feed under gas-fired cooling, so the resilience is stored and purchased rather than structural.[6][10]

Kuwait. The most water-poor member at 4 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person a year, wholly inside Hormuz, with minimal domestic production and protein supply of 100.3 grams a day.[2][8] KIA assets of about USD 1 trillion give it purchasing power it cannot physically deliver while the strait is shut, and it now depends on overland routes through Saudi Arabia.[32] No strategic-reserve disclosure at national-statistics quality was found.

Bahrain. We assess it as the weakest member: an island wholly inside Hormuz, with arable land under 5 per cent of a very small territory, renewable freshwater of about 75 cubic metres per person a year and the smallest fiscal buffer in the bloc.[8][9] Its protein supply of 108.2 grams a day is the bloc's second highest and the most animal-heavy at 57 per cent, which measures purchasing power rather than production.[2] No strategic-reserve disclosure at national quality was found, which is itself a finding. Its food security is in practice an extension of Saudi Arabia's across the King Fahd Causeway, now its main supply line.

Oman. Structurally the best-positioned member despite modest wealth. Its coastline faces the Arabian Sea, so Salalah, Duqm and Sohar bypass Hormuz entirely, and it is the bloc's only significant net food producer, with fish self-sufficiency at 146 per cent in 2025 on ministry figures.[34] Omani ports absorbed rerouted traffic in 2026; the binding constraint is fiscal depth rather than geography. Its per-capita protein supply of 92.8 grams a day is the bloc's lowest and still comfortably above requirement.[2]

Country notes

Saudi Arabia
The bloc's strongest member and the only one with strategic depth. Dairy runs at 131% and poultry at 72% of demand (2024), fish at 52%, and per-capita protein supply was 106.0 g/day in 2022. Kpler put wheat reserve cover at at least six months in March 2026 against 3.5 million tonnes of silo capacity, and the Red Sea coast (Jeddah, Yanbu, King Abdullah Port) lies outside Hormuz, so Saudi grain imports were redirected there and kept flowing through the 2026 closure. The phase-out of domestic wheat production, completed in 2016 over water-reserve depletion, defines the ceiling on domestic capacity; SALIC's Olam Agri platform is its answer.
United Arab Emirates
Richest per capita and most logistics-capable, but Jebel Ali sits inside the Gulf: DP World suspended operations there on 1 March 2026, and on 14 March Iran named Jebel Ali, Khalifa and Fujairah in an evacuation warning. The east-coast pivot is the bloc's fastest adaptation, with Khor Fakkan weekly throughput up from 8,000 to 65,000 TEUs, a $2bn Gulftainer expansion from 3.5 to 10 million TEUs of annual capacity, and 300,000 tonnes of Fujairah grain silos. Strategic stocks of four to six months; Al Dahra supplies forage and grain from about 400,000 ha abroad. Renewable freshwater of 15 m3 per person per year means near-total desalination dependence. Per-capita protein supply 100.8 g/day (2022).
Qatar
The 2017-21 blockade forced the bloc's best-prepared food system: dairy self-sufficiency reached 106% on 230,000 tonnes of milk by 2020, from a position where 400 tonnes of dairy a day came in from Saudi Arabia, and Baladna's herd was founded on roughly 10,000 Holsteins flown and shipped in during 2017 and 2018. Doha's interior minister claimed 18 months of food reserves in March 2026; strategic grain storage is about 320,000 tonnes, and the Hamad Port food security terminal, 51 silos and 300,000 tonnes, was 98% complete in June 2026. Geography still confines Qatar entirely within Hormuz, and its herd eats imported feed cooled by gas-fired power, so its resilience is stored and purchased rather than structural. Per-capita protein supply is the bloc's highest at 110.6 g/day (2022).
Kuwait
The most water-poor country in the bloc (4 m3 renewable freshwater per person per year) and wholly inside Hormuz, with minimal domestic production and per-capita protein supply of 100.3 g/day (2022). KIA's assets of about USD 1 trillion give it near-unlimited purchasing power it cannot physically deliver while the strait is shut; during the 2026 crisis it depends on overland routes through Saudi Arabia. No strategic-reserve disclosure at national-statistics quality was found.
Bahrain
The weakest member: an island entirely inside Hormuz with negligible farmland and fisheries, no meaningful strategic-reserve disclosure, and the smallest fiscal buffer in the bloc. Renewable freshwater is about 75 m3 per person per year and arable land under 5% of a very small territory. Per-capita protein supply is nonetheless 108.2 g/day (2022), the second highest in the bloc, and the most animal-heavy at 57% of protein from animal products, which is a measure of purchasing power rather than production. Its food security is in practice an extension of Saudi Arabia's via the King Fahd Causeway, now its main supply line.
Oman
Structurally the best-positioned member despite modest wealth: its coastline faces the Arabian Sea, so Salalah, Duqm and Sohar bypass Hormuz entirely, and it is the bloc's only significant net food producer in any category, with fish self-sufficiency at 146% in 2025 on ministry figures. During the 2026 crisis Omani ports absorbed rerouted traffic; the binding constraint is fiscal depth rather than geography. Per-capita protein supply is the bloc's lowest at 92.8 g/day (2022), still comfortably above requirement.

Sources

  1. How GCC countries can ensure their food security · Strategy& (PwC) (2020)
  2. Food Balance Sheets, protein supply quantity (g/capita/day), item 2901 Grand Total · FAOSTAT (2025 (data 2022))
  3. GCC-Stat: GCC population hits 61.2 million by end of 2024 · WAM (Emirates News Agency), reporting GCC-Stat (2025)
  4. Food Security Statistics 2024 · GASTAT (Saudi General Authority for Statistics) (2025)
  5. Saudi Arabia's food self-sufficiency rates rise significantly in 2024 · Saudi Press Agency (GASTAT release) (2025)
  6. Grain and Feed Annual, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (SA2026-0003) · USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (2026)
  7. Fossil Water: the Saudi wheat experiment · USGS EROS (2019)
  8. Could Iran disrupt the Gulf countries' desalinated water supplies? · CSIS (19 March 2026)
  9. Water resources availability, sustainability and challenges in the GCC countries: an overview · Heliyon (Elsevier) (2023)
  10. Interconnected: trade, food security, and stability in the GCC and MENA (Amal A. Kandeel) · Middle East Institute (2023)
  11. Rice (HS 1006) import returns for GCC reporters, 2024; supplier shares computed by PSI · UN Comtrade (2024)
  12. GCC states 'face reliance on Saudi Arabia for food imports' (Reuters wire, quoting Neil Quilliam, Chatham House) · Reuters, via Arab News (6 March 2026)
  13. Grain imports disrupted across the Middle East Gulf · Kpler (6 March 2026)
  14. Persian Gulf crisis impacting food security, FAO warns · UN News (26 March 2026)
  15. DP World suspends operations at Jebel Ali port in Dubai · Bloomberg (1 March 2026)
  16. Iran openly threatens neighbour's non-US assets for first time, telling UAE ports to evacuate · Fortune (14 March 2026)
  17. Gulftainer expansion to absorb 90% of UAE container demand if Hormuz shuts · The National (7 July 2026)
  18. DP World is building its way around the Strait of Hormuz · Enterprise AM (Logistics) (July 2026)
  19. Country focus: Saudi Arabia's strategic approach to grain production and food security under Vision 2030 · Milling MEA (2024)
  20. Qatar says water reserves sufficient for 4 months, food reserves for 18 months · Khaleej Times (14 March 2026)
  21. Qatar develops integrated food security system with strategic grain reserve · The Peninsula Qatar (15 March 2026)
  22. Ashghal achieves 98% of Hamad Port food security facilities and warehouses project · Qatar News Agency (25 June 2026)
  23. Qatar achieves huge leaps in food self-sufficiency · The Peninsula Qatar, reporting the Ministry of Municipality and Environment (16 October 2021)
  24. Qatar will have enough milk by Ramadan: Baladna · Al Jazeera (10 March 2018)
  25. Olam Agri integrates Continental Farmers Group from SALIC · Olam Agri (2026)
  26. SALIC integrates CFG into Olam Agri · World Grain (July 2026)
  27. Commercial seed planted by UAE's Al Dahra grows into a mighty food producer in Romania and Serbia · CMS Emerging Europe M&A Report 2021/2022 (2022)
  28. ADQ to expand its food and agriculture portfolio with strategic investment in Al Dahra Holding · ADQ (2021)
  29. The GCC agri-nutrient industry in 2025: trends, risks, and the road ahead · GPCA (2025)
  30. Ma'aden's $7.4bn Phosphate 3 project construction work launched · Zawya Projects (2025)
  31. QAFCO corporate overview (capacity and export position) · Qatar Fertiliser Company (2026)
  32. Sovereign giants PIF, ADIA, KIA thrive in trillion-dollar club with surging AUMs · Zawya (2025)
  33. Saudi Arabia's fisheries, aquaculture production jumps 55.56% in 2023 (MEWA figures) · Arab News (2024)
  34. Oman's fish sector hits 146% as food production rises (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Water Resources) · Zawya (2026)
  35. Dry bulk terminal (Etihad Mills grain silos), Port of Fujairah · Port of Fujairah (2026 (facility operating since 2016))
  36. Prevalence of undernourishment (% of population), indicator SN.ITK.DEFC.ZS · World Bank World Development Indicators (FAO SOFI-sourced) (2023 data)
  37. Prevalence of stunting, height for age (% of children under 5), indicator SH.STA.STNT.ZS · World Bank World Development Indicators (UNICEF/WHO/World Bank Joint Malnutrition Estimates) (2015-2023 data)
  38. Saudi Arabia food inflation · Trading Economics (2026)
  39. United Arab Emirates food inflation · Trading Economics (2025)
  40. Qatar food inflation · Trading Economics (2026)
  41. Kuwait food inflation · Trading Economics (2026)
  42. Bahrain food inflation · Trading Economics (2026)
  43. Oman food inflation · Trading Economics (2026)
  44. Urban population (% of total population), indicator SP.URB.TOTL.IN.ZS · World Bank World Development Indicators (2024 data)
  45. Population, total, indicator SP.POP.TOTL · World Bank World Development Indicators (2024 data)
  46. Total reserves in months of imports, indicator FI.RES.TOTL.MO · World Bank World Development Indicators (IMF balance-of-payments-derived) (2024 data)
  47. Total reserves including gold (current US$), indicator FI.RES.TOTL.CD · World Bank World Development Indicators (2024-2025 data)
  48. Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD): cost of a healthy diet and prevalence of unaffordability · FAOSTAT (FAO), data (2024 data)
  49. National and Foreign Populations in GCC Countries, Factsheet No. 13 (Francoise De Bel-Air) · GLMM (Gulf Labour Markets, Migration and Population Programme), Gulf Research Center (February 2025 (2022 data))
  50. GCC: total population and percentage of nationals and non-nationals in GCC countries (national statistics, mid-2024) · GLMM database, compiled from national statistical institutes (2024 data)
  51. Household Income and Consumption Expenditure Survey Publication 2023 · GASTAT (Saudi General Authority for Statistics) (2023 data)
  52. Methodology and Quality Report of Household Income and Consumption Expenditure Statistics · GASTAT (2024)
  53. PPP conversion factor, private consumption (LCU per international $), indicator PA.NUS.PRVT.PP · World Bank World Development Indicators (2023-2024 data)
  54. Poverty and Inequality Platform (PIP), survey-level income distributions for the United Arab Emirates (2018), Qatar (2017) and comparators · World Bank (2017-2018 surveys)
  55. Methods and data sources for Cost and Affordability of a Healthy Diet (CoAHD) · FAOSTAT (FAO) (2025)
  56. Prevalence of moderate or severe food insecurity in the population, indicator SN.ITK.MSFI.ZS, and prevalence of severe food insecurity, indicator SN.ITK.SVFI.ZS · World Bank World Development Indicators (FAO Food Insecurity Experience Scale) (2023 data)
  57. Gallup World Poll methodology (sampling frame and coverage) · FAO Voices of the Hungry (2016)
  58. Life Evaluations in the GCC: subjective well-being and health (methodology note on national and expatriate weighting) · Gallup (2012 (2010 survey))
  59. Qatar's new minimum wage enters into force · International Labour Organization (19 March 2021)
  60. Regulatory framework governing migrant workers: Kuwait · International Labour Organization (December 2023)
  61. Regulatory framework governing migrant workers: Saudi Arabia · International Labour Organization (December 2023)
  62. Regulatory framework governing migrant workers: United Arab Emirates · International Labour Organization (May 2024)
  63. Regulatory framework governing migrant workers: Bahrain · International Labour Organization (2023)
  64. Regulatory framework governing migrant workers: Oman · International Labour Organization (2023)
  65. Wage Protection Systems in the GCC: a regional analysis · International Labour Organization (ILO Regional Office for the Arab States) (November 2025)
  66. Labour Force Sample Survey 2023 (average monthly wage by occupation and activity) · Qatar National Planning Council (2023 data)
  67. Qatar: employed population (15 years and above) by nationality (Qatari/non-Qatari) and occupation, 2024, from the Annual Bulletin of Labour Force Sample Survey 2024 · GLMM database, compiled from Qatar National Planning Council (2024 data)
  68. Migration costs surveys: what the data tell us about the cost of migration (Seshan) · World Bank / KNOMAD (2018 (2015-16 survey data))
  69. Stolen Livelihoods: depriving migrant workers of their wages in the Gulf · ARIJ (Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism) (18 January 2022)
  70. A year battling the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated an already grim reality for migrant workers in the Gulf · Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (6 April 2021)
  71. Spike in allegations of labour abuse against migrant workers in the Gulf · Business and Human Rights Resource Centre (23 September 2020)
  72. Gulf Countries: conflict, hardships leave migrants in limbo · Human Rights Watch (31 March 2026)
  73. Food insecurity among return migrants from the Gulf: evidence from Kerala (MiFOOD Paper 51) · Abraham and Jose, MiFOOD Network (2025 (2022-23 survey))
  74. Migration to the Gulf: policies in sending and receiving countries, Research Report 1/2019 (Fargues, Shah and Brouwer, Doha worker survey) · GLMM / Gulf Research Center (2019 (2018 survey))
  75. Campaign to feed low-income workers delivers 20 million meals in Abu Dhabi (Authority of Social Contribution, Ma'an) · The National (9 June 2020)
  76. Over 151,000 benefit from Qatar Charity's campaign against COVID-19 · The Peninsula Qatar (7 April 2020)
  77. MWPS help for needy expat workers (Migrant Workers Protection Society) · Gulf Daily News (Bahrain) (19 May 2020)
  78. Food assistance for migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, with the Saudi Food Bank (Eta'am) · UN Network on Migration, Saudi Arabia (1 July 2020)
  79. Personal remittances, paid (current US$), indicator BM.TRF.PWKR.CD.DT · World Bank World Development Indicators (2024 data)
  80. Food Security Survey (survey scope: moderate or severe difficulty in obtaining food) · GASTAT (Saudi General Authority for Statistics) (2026)
  81. Motivating migrants: a field experiment on financial decision-making in transnational households (NBER Working Paper 19805), Seshan and Yang · National Bureau of Economic Research (2014 (2010 baseline survey))
  82. Land, Inputs and Sustainability: Land Use, data, items 6690 (land area equipped for irrigation), 6611 (agriculture area actually irrigated), 6621 (arable land) and 6620 (cropland) · FAOSTAT (2026 (data 2000-2024))
  83. Investment: Credit to Agriculture, data, element 6193 (agriculture orientation index for credit) · FAOSTAT (2026 (data through 2024))
  84. Population, total, indicator SP.POP.TOTL, 2000 and 2024 · World Bank World Development Indicators (2025)

What we could not measure

The FAO affordability measure exists for only two of six members, and Qatar's own published figures contradict each other by a factor of ten, so access is scored qualitatively instead. No comparable measurement of food security among the migrant workers who make up most of the bloc's population exists anywhere, using any validated instrument. Reserve holdings are undisclosed for Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman, and Saudi Arabia's wheat reserve cover is disputed.

Published August 2026 ·How scores are produced