Food security strategy to be released in September
Ministry is working on a food self-sufficiency plan in preparation for challenges of the future
Astrategy that will enable the UAE to be one of the top most food secure countries in the world that produces its own food with less reliance on imports and maximises the UAE’s abundant resources will be released in September.
The Ministry of State for Future Food Security will launch the UAE’s Future Food Security Strategy later in the year focusing on new technologies that will revolutionise agriculture and food production in the country.
Mariam Al Muhairi, Minister of State for Food Security, during a meeting with Dr Ismahane Elouafi, Director General of the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), yesterday said though the UAE is currently food secure, the country is already preparing for the challenges of the future.
The UAE is the 33rd most food secure countries in the world out of 113, according to the Global Food Security Index 2017 by the Economist Intelligence Unit.
“Yes, the UAE is considered food secure. But if we look into the future, there lie many challenges for us: the effects of climate change, the high demand for food globally, and water scarcity. We cannot only rely on our buying power of food. We need to look into other innovative systems on how we can start producing food more locally and change the way we consume food as well,” Al Muhairi told Gulf News.
Al Muhairi said the strategy will enable the country to reach its target to become among the top 20 countries in the Food Security File by 2021 and to be the top by 2071. The initiatives will include new economic sectors such as aquaculture, which has shown very promising results in the UAE, and the closed-system agriculture, among others.
Al Muhairi said the goal is to “look into growing our food with seawater and that would be a breakthrough because we have [abundant] sunshine, sand and seawater”.