The United Arab Emirates is leading the way regionally and globally in its strategic efforts to future-proof food systems in a push for greater self-sufficiency and more sustainable agriculture.
One of the ways to make agriculture more sustainable and environmentally friendly is through technology adoption – and the UAE is doing precisely that.
The UAE is among one of the world’s leading players in adopting technology in the agriculture sector, leading the way in the Middle East and North Africa region, experts believe.
“The UAE is one of the leading players [in AgriTech adoption], especially in the region, in adopting the latest technologies from around the world with the main agenda being more sustainable food production and food security, with a special focus on water-saving,” Yazen Al Kodmani, Partner at 3Y Agtech and Deputy GM at Emirates Bio Farm, told ESG MENA in an interview.
“You can find all types of high-tech, conventional, low-tech agriculture happening in the UAE in all aspects of agriculture whether its vegetables [being grown] indoors or fish, oysters, and even insects and mushrooms,” the AgriTech expert added.
Emirates Bio Farm has made its mission to develop and protect the UAE’s local food system through increasing local produce, tech adoption, and pushing for more sustainable agriculture.
With the ability to improve supply chain efficiency, transform food production systems, and reduce food waste, tech adoption has proven to be truly transformational for the agricultural sector.
Tech adoption is particularly crucial because the pandemic’s onset in 2020 wreaked havoc on almost every industry across the world; the agriculture sector was no exception. The global food system was threatened, and just as the world began to recover from the health crisis’ impact, a range of geopolitical issues earlier this year, again, caused wide-scale disruption, essentially threatening the state of global food security.
Recognizing these crises, the UAE took swift action and massively ramped up its food security strategy.
For decades, the UAE was known to import most goods, particularly when it came to food. However, since adopting the National Food Security Strategy in November 2018, the Gulf country has worked consistently to ensure an increase in the capacity of its domestic agricultural production and implemented strategies to mitigate any potential future food security risks in a strategic push to become more self-sufficient.
“Food security doesn’t just mean that we are never going to produce our own. Food security is also about reducing food loss and waste because that increases efficiency,” said Al Kodmani.
“It’s about diversifying [supply chains], so having five different sources.”
Al Kodmani added that while increasing local production is a key priority when it comes to food security, nutrition also needs to be taken into account.
Under its National Food Security Strategy, the UAE Government aims to continue to develop a comprehensive system based on enabling sustainable food production through the use of modern technologies, enhance local production, develop international partnerships, pass legislation and policies that contribute to waste reduction, improve nutrition, and to top the Global Food Security Index (GSFI) list by 2051. The GSFI assesses the global food environment by taking into consideration: food affordability, availability, quality, and safety.
The UAE aims to achieve zero hunger by 2051 by implementing more sustainable and resilient agricultural practices that increase food production, are environmentally friendly, and can simultaneously help maintain flourishing ecosystems.
A company that has been at the forefront of achieving the government’s ambitious vision is Ocean Harvest, a start-up that works to build climate-agnostic, land-based aquaculture technologies to create a sustainable environment for salmon fish.
Ocean Harvest aims to combat climate change by saving over 30,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year, eliminate micro-plastics through its self-contained environment – which will prevent the release of over 53 tons of microplastics a year – and contribute to water conservation by leveraging advanced wastewater technology solutions.
The start-up is also working to make food supply chains more efficient by taking salmon, a traditionally import-dependent market which has often relied heavily on air-freighting, and localizing its production closer to the end-consumer. In addition, by recycling and re-using fish waste, Ocean Harvest can divert over of waste a year from contaminating sensitive ecological systems.
Ocean Harvest is now in the process of finalizing the design of its inaugural 3,000-tonne-per-year farm in Abu Dhabi and plans to begin construction next year, bringing its first harvest to happen around 2026 or 2027.
“We are contributing to food security in the sense that they’re localizing the production of food, which is otherwise important, and perishable products like fruits and vegetables and fresh seafood products, which are typically air-freighted,” Robert Kupstas, Co-Founder and Chief strategy Officer, Ocean Harvest said in an interview with ESG MENA.
“Salmon is a cold-water fish, so it’s flown in from Norway, from Scotland, so there are some other varieties of seafood grown locally or regionally, but salmon is a huge market. This is a great opportunity to use technology to be able to localize that and deliver reliability of supply because the closure of airports and flights during COVID really showed the vulnerability that a lot of countries have on relying on imports,” he explained.
Kupstas is also one of the Co-Founders of leading sustainable agriculture start-up Pure Harvest, which has developed a novel solution for producing “tomatoes, salad [greens], and strawberries in desert climates, year-round,” he said.
“The main way that the company does this is through multiple climate control systems with cooling and dehumidification. Those are the main technology areas that the company is using to be able to solve the challenges in the region.”
In Pure Harvest’s tech adoption, the company’s approach was to focus on what the “core problem” was in order to solve it.
“We really just focus on innovation and climate, because that’s really where the pain points are in the region. There’s about six months of the year when it’s very hot and humid in the region, so we tried to solve that specific problem to extend the growing season.”
Current gaps in the market and challenges that lies ahead
Al Kodmani believes there is still an investment gap in the agriculture sector.
“It’s a bit tough; investment is needed. Agriculture is a huge industry. But the main elements that are being focused on in the UAE are food loss and waste, and traceability – those are very important for the retail sector and for food security,” Al Kodmani pointed out.
“Organic agriculture, sustainable regenerative agriculture, still has a long way to go because a lot of the high-tech indoor systems are limited in what they can grow. You end up seeing a lot of leafy greens like lettuce and strawberries, and maybe some cherry tomatoes, so high-value sensitive crops are what is being grown indoors.”
“We still have date palms and open fields, and for food security especially. It’s very important,” Al Kodmani added.
Strategic crops such as wheat, rice, soy, corn, and maize are essential to achieve food security.
“A lot of people say: we’re going to feed 10 billion people by 2050. Well, it’s these crops [that will be needed] so we still have a lot to do in terms of open-field crops and what you would call strategic crops.
Other significant challenges include freshwater use, which Al Kodmani says the UAE is “very much focused on,” and “balancing being a free-trade country in the world,” meaning that countries need to find the right balance to protect and develop their own agriculture sectors.
Echoing Al Kodmani’s sentiment, Kupstas believes that while the UAE has put a great deal of effort into its food security initiatives, it will most likely be a “medium to long-term process.”
Although the UAE has put a great deal of effort into ensuring food security, with many strategic initiatives already in place, Kupstas believes that achieving food security in the Gulf country will most likely be a “medium to long-term process.”
“In terms of actual production and actual footprint of projects and farms, I think we need a little more time to get there. But I think there’s definitely been a big push to get these projects going.”
However, he believes there are many more opportunities for future investment in the UAE’s agricultural sector.
“There are tons of opportunities… Any kind of highly perishable product – which is important in large quantities – I think, is well placed for disruption. There are other companies developing technologies related to poultry farming, and also solving climate-related challenges to cooling poultry farms.” Kupstas said.