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This article aims to explore the natural and anthropogenic causes of the food crisis in the Mediterranean and its impact on the development of the Region. Faced with a very modern European agriculture, the agricultural systems of the southern Mediterranean maintain a structural weakness, partly due to natural constraints. This weakness is compounded by climate change which causes a decrease in water availability and penalizes agriculture. In the SEMC, the food crisis is the result of various local factors such as population dynamics, which generate a sustained demand for food, agro-climatic constraints that limit agricultural production and increase dependency on imports in order to achieve food security, as well as rapid changes in consumption patterns.