MAY 27, 2020

Rabiya Jaffery

ABU DHABI (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - In the past four years, the United Arab Emirates has grown a small but rising share of its own organic tomatoes, aiming to shore up food security in an import-dependent desert country.

The effort - part of a broader push to produce more home-grown food amid fears climate change could trigger instability in the global food trade - started after the country was hit by food export bans during the 2008-2009 financial crisis.

Today, the move to build up food resilience is paying off early in the face of another crisis: the coronavirus pandemic.

When the United Arab Emirates (UAE) went into lockdown in April to contain the spread of the novel coronavirus, residents had the same reaction as millions of others around the world - they started panic-buying.

The instinct to stock up made sense in a country where more than 80% of food is imported, said Ismahane Elouafi, director-general of the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA).

Nonetheless supermarket shelves have remained fully stocked, partly because the UAE has long had policies in place to ensure an uninterrupted supply of food from abroad, she noted.

But in the face of the pandemic, the UAE’s confidence that it will continue to have enough food is bolstered by its success in growing its own, using innovations like vertical farming and climate-resilient crops, she added.

“Thanks to the work being done to harness the benefits of innovation, agriculture is becoming possible and profitable in a country with harsh climatic conditions,” Elouafi said.

According to data from the World Bank, the contribution of agriculture to the country’s gross domestic product rose from $2.39 billion in 2012 to $3.06 billion in 2018.

The UAE’s Ministry of Food Security declined to respond to a request for comment.

FARMING WITH FEWER RESOURCES

Currently ranked 21 out of 113 countries on the Economist Intelligence Unit’s Global Food Security Index, the UAE aims to be in the top 10 by 2021 and number one by mid-century.

By then, the federal government hopes half the food Emiratis consume will be produced locally, compared to 20% today.

Under the UAE’s National Food Security Strategy - which was officially launched in 2018, but had already been woven into government policy for several years before - the country has worked to boost domestic food production.

It has built infrastructure, including complexes for cattle-breeding - and introduced financial measures, from exempting value-added tax on food produced on local farms to paying subsidies on fodder.

But traditional farming methods can only go so far in a country with limited supplies of freshwater and arable land.

Last year, the World Resources Institute classified the UAE as under “extremely high water stress”, meaning more than 80% of the available surface and groundwater supply is withdrawn on average every year.

The bulk of that water is used by the agricultural sector. Combined with a warming climate and a growing population, this is causing available groundwater levels to drop by 0.5 cm (0.2 inches) per year.

To meet the country’s freshwater needs, the government is increasingly turning to energy-intensive desalination methods.

Another challenge is that less than 1% of the UAE’s land is arable, according to the World Bank.

The focus is on finding ways to farm with fewer resources - which is where technology and experimenting with new crops can help, said Sajid Maqsood, associate professor in the College of Food and Agriculture at United Arab Emirates University.

“Urban and vertical farming has to be an important part of the strategy,” he said by phone.

YEAR-ROUND FRUIT & VEG

Farming in the UAE has been moving in a high-tech direction over the past decade.

In 2009, for example, the Middle Eastern country had 50 hydroponic farms, where plants are grown without soil using nutrient-infused water. Today, it has more than 1,000, according to the ICBA.