After decades of following policies designed to ensure self-sufficiency in major agricultural commodities, many countries in the Middle East have reversed course and opened their markets to imports so as to protect their domestic water supplies. North Africa also supplies a large share of the world’s cotton and is home to world’s largest reserves of phosphate rock, a key component in fertilizer and one for which there is no substitute.

Recent and/or ongoing projects include:

• Analyzing the regulations regarding importation and agrochemical residue testing for green tea to Dubai;
• Studying the coffee export systems in Ethiopia;
• Conducting extensive research into safflower seeds for human consumption in Ethiopia.