According to “The National” informational agency, on 23 September 2019 Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum announced a Global Food Technology Challenge with $1million prize fund. The contest aims to find creative and innovative solutions in agriculture to make food production in UAE more effective.
“Experts claimed that vegetation cannot grow on our land but we proved them wrong”, – says Sheikh Al Maktoum. “The number of local farms have grown from 4,000 in 1971 to 40,000. We’d like to see innovative ideas at the very heart of agricultural projects to bring to life our ambitious vision of food security.”
Companies, private entities and world scientific research institutions are all elegible to participate in the contest. In April 2020, contest jury represented by a group of international experts, will identify four winners that will share the prize fund.
The contest is organized by a “Center of Food Security” in partnership with “Tamkeen” company and NY University, both based in Abu Dhabi.
In recent years UAE pays close attention to local food production in attempts to decrease its dependency on imported food supplies (90% of food is imported at the moment). UAE is currently experimenting with methods of vertical farming and hydroponics.
Source: Embassy of Republic of Kazakhstan in UAE
