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Bringing The Future To life In Abu Dhabi
A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture
Amid the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators are sowing the seeds of a more sustainable future.
Image from: Wired
A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture.
Madar Farms is one of a number of agtech startups benefitting from a package of incentives from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) aimed at spurring the development of innovative solutions for sustainable desert farming. The partnership is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Programme dedicated to supporting companies in high-growth areas.
“Abu Dhabi is pressing ahead with our mission to ‘turn the desert green’,” explained H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, in November 2020. “We have created an environment where innovative ideas can flourish and the companies we partnered with earlier this year are already propelling the growth of Abu Dhabi’s 24,000 farms.”
The pandemic has made food supply a critical concern across the entire world, combined with the effects of population growth and climate change, which are stretching the capacity of less efficient traditional farming methods. Abu Dhabi’s pioneering efforts to drive agricultural innovation have been gathering pace and look set to produce cutting-edge solutions addressing food security challenges.
Beyond work supporting the application of novel agricultural technologies, Abu Dhabi is also investing in foundational research and development to tackle this growing problem.
In December, the emirate’s recently created Advanced Technology Research Council [ATRC], responsible for defining Abu Dhabi’s R&D strategy and establishing the emirate and the wider UAE as a desired home for advanced technology talent, announced a four-year competition with a $15 million prize for food security research. Launched through ATRC’s project management arm, ASPIRE, in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the award will support the development of environmentally-friendly protein alternatives with the aim to "feed the next billion".
Image from: Madar Farms
Global Challenges, Local Solutions
Food security is far from the only global challenge on the emirate’s R&D menu. In November 2020, the ATRC announced the launch of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), created to support applied research on the key priorities of quantum research, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy and secure systems.
“The technologies under development at TII are not randomly selected,” explains the centre’s secretary general Faisal Al Bannai. “This research will complement fields that are of national importance. Quantum technologies and cryptography are crucial for protecting critical infrastructure, for example, while directed energy research has use-cases in healthcare. But beyond this, the technologies and research of TII will have global impact.”
Future research directions will be developed by the ATRC’s ASPIRE pillar, in collaboration with stakeholders from across a diverse range of industry sectors.
“ASPIRE defines the problem, sets milestones, and monitors the progress of the projects,” Al Bannai says. “It will also make impactful decisions related to the selection of research partners and the allocation of funding, to ensure that their R&D priorities align with Abu Dhabi and the UAE's broader development goals.”
Image from: Agritecture
Nurturing Next-Generation Talent
To address these challenges, ATRC’s first initiative is a talent development programme, NexTech, which has begun the recruitment of 125 local researchers, who will work across 31 projects in collaboration with 23 world-leading research centres.
Alongside universities and research institutes from across the US, the UK, Europe and South America, these partners include Abu Dhabi’s own Khalifa University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first graduate-level institute focused on artificial intelligence.
“Our aim is to up skill the researchers by allowing them to work across various disciplines in collaboration with world-renowned experts,” Al Bannai says.
Beyond academic collaborators, TII is also working with a number of industry partners, such as hyperloop technology company, Virgin Hyperloop. Such industry collaborations, Al Bannai points out, are essential to ensuring that TII research directly tackles relevant problems and has a smooth path to commercial impact in order to fuel job creation across the UAE.
“By engaging with top global talent, universities and research institutions and industry players, TII connects an intellectual community,” he says. “This reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge-based economy.”
President Biden & The Future of Regenerative Agriculture In The US
With a new administration in Washington, the next few years could be interesting for efforts to improve agriculture production while addressing environmental issues at the same time
February 5, 2021
Editor’s note: Steve Groff is a farmer, a regenerative agriculture consultant, and the founder of Cover Crop Coaching, which educates farmers and farm advisors about effective cover crop use. The views expressed in this guest article are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of AFN.
With a new administration in Washington, the next few years could be interesting for efforts to improve agriculture production while addressing environmental issues at the same time.
President Joe Biden has expressed support for climate-friendly farming practices, but there are questions about what that ultimately will mean. Will helping American farms be a high priority for the new president or will it get lost amid other pressing concerns, including the Covid-19 pandemic? And just how open is a good portion of the agriculture community to the government getting involved in what they do?
Among other proposals, Biden has vowed to pursue policies that would expand and fortify the federal Conservation Stewardship Program. One desired result of this effort would be to make more money available for payments to farmers who reduce their carbon footprint through a variety of methods, including the use of cover crops.
While the big-business side of agriculture has been more willing to use government programs, grassroots farmers involved in regenerative agriculture tend to be leery of government programs and handouts. Most of them, in fact, suggest getting out of government-related programs – particularly the use of crop insurance.
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Those in the regenerative agriculture movement come from the perspective that we have ruined the resiliency of our soils and if we ‘regenerate’ them, they can better handle weather extremes brought on by climate change.
But one challenge for the regenerative agriculture movement is getting farmers educated on how to use these practices. That is a huge reason why I wrote my book, The Future Proof Farm. I wanted not only to educate but to inspire farmers to take their first step in that direction.
I firmly believe regenerative agriculture is scalable, as we now have large farms with thousands of acres that are successfully using these practices with little to no inputs such as fertilizers and pesticides.
And yes, most of those farms are doing it with no government help.
But on the other side are farmers drooling over the potential to get paid to use cover crops, no-till, and other soil health practices that can sequester carbon. Farmers are primed like never before to try those practices due to rising awareness over the past 20 years or so. In any business, it’s ‘all about the money’ – so if a farmer can get paid to engage in a good practice, it’s a favorable thing in their minds.
How do farmers feel about cover crops? We asked a cover crop coach – read more here
I am biased toward letting the market work, as we know there is a demand for food and fiber grown using regenerative agriculture – and we can accomplish what we need to without government help. With regenerative agriculture, we can lower our costs of production.
That being said, there are not enough resources to help farmers learn these methods. I believe we have an education hurdle – not a need for another handout. I also believe we need to take a deeper look at how regenerative agriculture actually leads to a more nutritious or nutrient-dense food product, whether it is fed to livestock or ends up on the kitchen table.
I do see some merit in the government helping farmers for a few years to get started in these carbon-sequestering practices, but more important are educational efforts to help farmers be effective in using those practices. The old adage applies: give a person a fish and you will be giving them fish for a lifetime; teach each person to fish, and they will meet their own needs for a lifetime.
If the Biden administration can somehow capture a holistic approach by supporting the education necessary for farmers to grow healthy food, it will be a win for producers, a win for the people, and a win for the planet.
Report Finds Agriculture A Leading Cause of Climate Change
If we want to combat our changing climate, we need to rethink the way we produce food, says new report by the United Nations
by Rodale Institute
August 9, 2019
If we want to combat our changing climate, we need to rethink the way we produce food, says new report by the United Nations.
The Problem
A new report released by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which examines how land use changes have contributed to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere, has concluded that agriculture and forestry have contributed nearly a quarter of global greenhouse gas emissions.
While fossil fuel usage is still identified as the largest driver of climate change, emissions from livestock, nitrogen fertilizers, and deforestation have significant effects on the warming of the atmosphere.
The only way to keep global warming below the 2-degree Celsius threshold is to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, partly by changing the way we use land and produce food.
The report underscores the urgency of adopting regenerative and holistic farming techniques that are able to sequester carbon, increase soil health, and reduce fossil fuel use.
Climate change can also negatively affect agriculture, states the report. As the Earth experiences more extreme weather events, agricultural systems must be resilient to flooding, droughts, and other meteorological anomalies in order to continue feeding the population.
READ THE REPORT EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Solution
Regenerative organic farming prioritizes working with natural systems to produce food, instead of relying on synthetic inputs, which can help mitigate climate change.
Rodale Institute’s Farming Systems Trial has found that organic systems use 45% less energy, release 40% fewer carbon emissions, and have the potential to produce yields up to 40% higher in times of drought over conventional systems.
Utilizing methods like organic no-till allows the soil to remain undisturbed, capitalizing on its potential to sequester carbon in the ground and return nutrients to our food.
As illustrated by the IPCC’s report, changing our land use practices while maintaining food security is critical for the future of our society. Regenerative organic agriculture is one solution for the problem of continuing to feed the world while healing our planet.