Food problem tops the list of issues facing most countriesspecially developing ones. Successive food crises motivated concerned parties to examine causes of such crises & establish systems which help forecast any future crises to evade or mitigate their occurrence.

Therefore, an interest grew for establishing the Egyptian Food Observatory which provides tools for monitoring & Introduction Dr. Hussein Abdel Aziz Consultant to IDSC Principal Investigator Dr. Mohamed A. Ramadan evaluating the situation of a set of agricultural crops & main food commodities essential to the Egyptian citizen. In addition, the Observatory develops early warning tools which predict future food crises whether they are triggered locally or consequent to the global situation. The series of Observatory bulletins aim at:

1. Monitoring & following up the current situation through tracking the consumption pattern of the vulnerable households, market prices of the agricultural crops as well as Deputy Manager of Quality & Development Department Research Team Ms. Neveen El-Helw households, market prices of the agricultural crops as well as commodities in the selected food basket.

2. Monitoring & following up local crises through tracking consumption, production, & market prices of the agricultural crops as well as commodities in the selected food basket.

3. Identifying the status of food security with special focus on the poor & most vulnerable groups to poverty risk. In addition, it connects the different dimensions of food security to production, consumption & prices through the proposed Observatory system.