A growing scene:
Exploring organic farms in the UAE
Abdulla Al Owais, 23, runs his family’s two farms in Sharjah and was the first to be certified as organic by the Ministry of Environment and Water. His father, Abdulrahman, bought the land in 1993 and farmed it for personal use before establishing a commercial farm in 2005. The staple produce are tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet potatoes, herbs, aubergine, marrows and spinach. The first seeds are planted in October and the growing season lasts until about May. Only a handful of vegetables survive the summer months.
“When we started, there was only one organic farm, our farm, and last year there was 30 farms in the country,” says Abdulla Al Owais. “First, no one knew about what organic was, they just asked: ‘Why is it expensive?’ Now they understand it more; they are learning.
The larger farm is 4.65 hectares in Al Dhaid, employing 50 staff, and the smaller is 2.5 hectares in Al Zubair. They yield more than 100 kilograms of produce per day during the busiest periods. There are 35 greenhouses on the site, most of them protecting cucumbers.
In the past month, outdoor markets have been popping up around the country. The Ripe Food and Craft Market now runs in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. There’s also a growing number of organic supermarkets, including the Organic Foods and Cafe in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, which imports much of its stock, Blue Planet Green People, The Farm House and Greenheart Organic Farms Shop.
Some of the major supermarkets including Spinneys, LuLu and Carrefour also stock a small variety of products, and it appears that from here onwards the availability of organic product is only set to grow and grow.
Source: thenational.ae
