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Making agriculture more environmentally sustainable, efficient and profitable is the focus of the United Arab Emirates’ (UAE) first national agricultural policy.

FAO supported the UAE Government in developing the policy, which promotes a better use of the country’s limited natural resources, particularly water.

Strong ownership

“The UAE had a national agricultural strategy, they requested FAO’s support to make it much more concrete and operational,” said Chakib Zouaghi, the FAO investment support officer based in FAO’s regional office in Cairo.

An FAO team, including the FAO subregional office for the Gulf Cooperation Council States and Yemen, and specialists in key technical areas, investment and policy began assisting the Government in 2015.

“The idea was to support the Government and the key national stakeholders to develop the country’s own policy. We didn’t come with a ready-to-use policy. We listened to the Government and to the key country stakeholders and facilitated a dialogue with the national authorities and the national stakeholders involved in agriculture and natural resources management from the public and private sectors and civil society,” said Mr Zouaghi. “We advocated a participatory approach because we needed strong ownership from everyone.”

Priority areas

What emerged was a national agricultural policy made up of ten programmes built around three policy areas.

The first policy area focuses on making the agrifood system more environmentally sustainable and resilient to climate change. Water is a huge challenge in the UAE, as renewable water is scarce and rising sea levels are increasing groundwater salinity.

The second revolves around making the agrifood system more efficient and profitable. This means increasing the availability of diverse agricultural products, ensuring the safety and quality of local and imported foods, strengthening producers’ capacity to add value along the food chain and having risk management mechanisms in place.

And the third looks at improving knowledge and national data on critical issues such as water consumption, raising awareness among farmers and consumers on the importance of sustainability and ensuring effective coordination and implementation of the agricultural policy at all levels. The purpose is to create an enabling policy environment for effective investments and to provide for monitoring, evaluation and learning.

Translating policy into action

FAO worked with the Government to develop action sheets for each programme. For example, it recommended phasing out production subsidies that distort markets and replacing them with smart subsidies.

The Government can measure water consumption by installing metres on farms – something farm owners have been reluctant to embrace. But rather than penalizing farm owners for using water, the Government can offer smart subsidies to those who consume less than the average. It’s an incentive for farmers to save water, and use the money to invest in their businesses.

Another recommended action involves helping farmers identify niche markets and improve production of high-value food products, likes dates, honey and vegetables. For example, by investing in appropriate technologies, farmers can grow vegetables more efficiently, like hydroponic tomatoes for international markets.

“These technologies, which aren’t that expensive, could have a big impact on reducing water consumption,” said Zouaghi.

Finding solutions

The national agricultural policy contributes to the country’s Vision 2021 – a comprehensive plan to improve the welfare of all UAE citizens and make UAE one of the world’s leading countries in time for its Golden Jubilee year.

As a sign of its growing commitment to climate change adaptation and mitigation, UAE recently renamed its Ministry of Environment and Water to the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment.

Finding alternative ways to manage the country’s natural resources for agriculture is vital – from reducing water and energy consumption to producing fresh water through desalinization to treating wastewater for reuse.  

“Markets, water, technology, research, capacity development – these are the main issues,” said Mr Zouaghi.

“The reality is that the UAE will continue to import most of its food, like it’s doing today,” he said. “Food security for them is about having enough water for tourism and for producing high-value agricultural products for the domestic market and for export, and having enough healthy and affordable food for its people.”