Revolutionising the agricultural infrastructure in the Middle East

Timon Singh

In terms of arable land, the Middle East has a distinct lack of fertile soil, coupled with arid temperatures and limited water supplies. As such, importing food is often a necessity, but this is often expensive and causes huge amounts of emissions as a result. However recently there have been several ideas that could revolutionise the agricultural infrastructure within the Middle East.

With profitable oil and gas exports, many Middle Eastern countries are not short of money, and as such having been looking at way to increase food production and revitalise the agricultural infrastructure.

This week, it was announced that Abu Dhabi had conducted a soil survey in order to identify areas with decent underground water supplies and soil quality that could be further enhanced in order to literally create farmlands within the desert.

Utilising microbes

The emirate is not alone in this endeavour. Other emirates in the UAE as well as Qatar and Kuwait have all pursued agendas to completely reshape their agricultural infrastructure as well as their landscape, turning arid landscapes into fertile farmland, providing food security and staving off mass shortages.

They plan to increase domestic agricultural supply by utilising selected types of fungus that enhance the growth of plant roots in arid areas. According to Rajendra Pachauri, director general of the New Delhi based Energy and Resources Institute, this method has the potential to transform the Middle East.

"By mixing the soil with these microbes, or what we call mycorrhiza, the roots of a plant can absorb nutrients from the soil that otherwise it would not be able to do given the climate and soil conditions in the Gulf," he said to Arabian Business.

As such, these soil surveys have been extensive in the region, as there is the potential for food production to rise by up to 70 percent if enough arable land is found. Already, initial tests and experiments have converted 4000 square meters of "hyper-saline waste-land" into a vegetable and grain producing farm. However, the region is looking for over 200,000 hectares to transform. Thus far, areas in the western regions of Madinat Zayed, Ghayathi and the Eastern region of Al Ain have been highlighted as potential sites.

Faisal Taha, who headed the project by the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency was quoted as saying, "This land will not be able to guarantee 100 percent food security for the UAE, but the strategy comes at a right time when many of the international agencies are criticizing rich countries for buying land in nations that cant feed themselves and exporting their crops."

High-rise farming

It is not the only idea however. High-tech vertical farms in the heart of cities such as Abu Dhabi and Dubai have also been discussed as a way of increasing food production and cutting the costs and emissions of food production.

Multi-story farms, such as the planned Oasis Tower, have been touted as not a way of reducing land use and emissions, but making entire cities self-sustainable and keep crops safe from floods, droughts and wildfires, that have devastated harvests in the past.

It is a situation that is expected to worsen with India's agricultural output predicted to diminish by 30 percent by the end of the century due to changing rain patterns. Not just that, but mankind is rapidly running out of land to grow crops due to a rapidly growing population.

According to the United Nations, the amount of arable land per person decreased from about an acre in 1970 to roughly half an acre in 2000 and is projected to decline to about a third of an acre by 2050.

Vertical farms could stop this, transforming the region's agricultural infrastructure by having buildings that would act as fully functional ecosystems, in which waste was recycled and the water used in hydroponics and aeroponics was recaptured by de-humidification and used over and over again. This in turn would lead to less pollution as the CO2 of major cities were absorbed by the abundance of plant-life being grown.

With increased desertification around the world and irrigation responsible for draining lakes and rivers around the world, perhaps the ideas being discussed could not only transform agricultural infrastructure in the Middle East, but around the world.

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