Body steps up efforts to ensure food safety standards

SHARJAH: Global food security which starts off with robust local and community-based productions is more than the perennial availability of bountiful agricultural crops and animal products for all. It is making sure that all these are affordable, accessible and highly nutritious to sustain everyone’s health needs.

Moreover, global food security means that as advancing modern technology are critical to its realisation, everyone must at the very least learn to contribute to the sustainability of the entire food chain.

These are the take-aways from the two panel discussions that constituted the first-of-a-kind “Global Foodtech Challenge Awarding Ceremonies,” virtually held on Wednesday aternoon, co-organised by the UAE Food and Security Office and Tamkeen in Abu Dhabi, mandated to develop projects that support the country’s knowledge-based economy, and under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai.

Out of 437 entries from 68 countries, the four winners, which went through about six months of mentoring and coaching by a panel of international experts-jury, alongside eight other shortlisted, are QS Monitor (UAE), Red Sea Farms (Saudi Arabia), Has Algae (Australia), and Safetynet Technologies (UK). These four jointly won the pool prize of $1 million (Dhs3.673 million) with $100,000.00 (Dhs367,000) cash and mentorship through the Catalyst Accelerator Programme of Masdar City and BP in the capital.

QS Monitor has developed a monitoring plaform that supports efforts to ensure food sold in the UAE meets all necessary safety standards. At present around 12 to 17 per cent of food coming into Dubai from 172 countries each year is rejected by Customs for not meeting the necessary standards - part of an estimated $4 billion in food waste each year that QS Monitor’s system could help reduce. By providing guidance, resources, and information to exporters looking to sell to the UAE, QS Monitor also encourages the diversification of food sources, increasing imports from around the world.

Red Sea Farms has developed a greenhouse system that uses saltwater as the primary input, providing a solution that can reduce freshwater use in crops by up to 90 per cent thereby helping to tackle water scarcity in countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Alongside developing unique climate-controlled cooling techniques using seawater, Red Sea Farms has also successfully grown saltwater-tolerant crops including tomatoes and strawberries through a combination of grating and hybridisation techniques.