The Plant the Emirates campaign announced on Sunday is the latest step by the UAE authorities to develop the country’s agricultural sector and promote food security.
It involves setting up a national centre to promote domestic farming with the aim of increasing agricultural production by one fifth over the next five years. Traditionally heavily reliant on food imports, the UAE has more recently attracted significant investment in agricultural technology to increase its own output.
For example, vertical farms, in which crops are grown indoors in stacked layers under artificial light, and hydroponic farms, where crops are nurtured in nutrients instead of soil to cut water use, have been set up.
Layers of protection
Prof Michael Mason, director of the Middle East Centre at the London School of Economics and Political Science, said the focus on food security was part of a "wider vision" to manage "key strategic resources" as the country moves to a post-fossil fuels economy in which commodities are less heavily subsidised. While he said efforts to promote food security were being made before the Ukraine war and the conflict in Gaza, these have highlighted "the precarity of global food supplies", so the UAE wants to insulate itself from fragile global supply chains.
"It's an attempt to ensure they're resilient," he said. "Part of that is [being a] confident, post-industrial nation where they’re more resilient in the face of external shocks around food security."
Efforts in the UAE to reduce food waste were part of the wider strategy to strengthen food security, Prof Mason said. Plant the Emirates also aims to encourage residents to grow crops at home and to increase the country's green spaces.
The project will consider ways to reduce agriculture’s carbon footprint, Dr Amna Al Shamsi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, told the Dubai Eye radio station on Monday. What she described as "climate smart systems" would "overcome the challenges of the region", which could be vital given that agriculture is one of the key contributors to global warming.
“The initiative will focus on leveraging advanced technology to reduce the carbon footprint. It will look at ways to use drones and artificial intelligence to monitor and minimise emissions,” she said.
One aim would be to ensure the country’s restaurants make greater use of local produce and crops, with a target to increase this by one fifth having been set. Timetables set by the project are ambitious, Dr Al Shamsi said, but she remained optimistic that progress can be achieved in the next five years.
Feeling the heat
Just as Plant the Emirates aims to reduce the carbon emissions of agriculture, so climate change poses a challenge to farming in the Gulf and elsewhere. Already, high temperatures, water scarcity and saline soils make growing crops harder than in many parts of the world, but with the region warming twice as fast as the global average – average temperatures in the Gulf are increasing by almost 0.5ºC every decade – conditions are becoming tougher.
Bob Ward, of the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, said the effect on food security was going to be "one of the most serious consequences" of climate change.
"Most countries rely on not just their own food production, but production in other parts of the world," he said. "It's difficult to isolate oneself from the impact of flooding and heat, which can impact crop yields and kill livestock."
The effects of climate change will, Mr Ward said, "grow progressively worse until the world gets closer to net-zero" carbon emissions. It was important to make agriculture "more resilient", he added.
Numerous approaches are being taken, often by the private sector, to help agriculture cope with a climate that can be increasingly warm and dry. "Technology is crucial for enhancing food security in the Gulf region, especially in the face of climate change," said Sami Joost, head of public affairs, communication and open innovation for the Middle East at the German pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, Bayer.
"Accessible digital tools are essential for farmers to optimise their practices. Advanced technologies, such as data analytics and satellite weather systems, enable farmers to grow stronger crops while minimising environmental impact. These tools help reduce food waste and improve market access with precision."
Technology the key?
Bayer has been working in the UAE with Silal, an agritech company, to trial dozens of types of crops such as aubergine, tomato and red pepper, so varieties optimised for local conditions are available.
"Our focus on assessing performance of selected crop varieties and enhancing agricultural practices aligns with government priorities, contributing to the overall goal of achieving food security in the region," Mr Joost added.
He said the company used technology including AI to "develop better seeds and more desirable plant traits". Another company that works with Silal is FarmERP, an Indian-based provider of AI tools that help farmers to, for example, decide on the optimum amount of water and nutrients to feed crops, depending on the weather.
Watch: Enterprising farmer is growing strong
A solution to have emerged in the Gulf is SecondSky from a company called iyris. Developed in Saudi Arabia, this is a film applied to the roofs of buildings such as greenhouses to allow light to penetrate while heating is reduced.
John Keppler, iyris's chairman, said that with Gulf countries importing around 85 per cent of their food, attention often turned to high-tech solutions, but more than 95 per cent of global fruit and vegetable production was from low to mid-tech growers. He said his company focused "ready for deployment" approaches.
"The tangible results for farmers means they can extend the growing season and reduce their water and energy consumption by over 30 per cent, empowering them to sustainably mitigate the impact of climate change and food security concerns," he said.
"Technology will be crucial to improving food security, but farmers need solutions which are immediately implementable and cost effective. There are considerable barriers, such as capital intensity and installation complexities, facing farmers across the region when it comes to deploying technology like vertical farming, drones, machine learning or AI."
Lab-grown meat
As well as investing in technology such as vertical farming, the UAE could, suggested Dr Mukesh Kumar, an associate professor in operations management at the University of Cambridge, who researches food security, focus on "alternative proteins".
These include meat-like products made using a fermentation process that involves fungi, a method able to produce "very large quantities" of food.
Lab-grown meat is another area they can look at, he said. "Singapore and the United States are making advances in production."
A greater reliance on these types of foods would, he said, require changes in consumer behaviour as well as more investment in technology.
Mr Ward of the Grantham Institute said it was important that countries did not merely rely on domestic food production but ensured they had secure access to global food supply chains. "If you're hit by a major weather event, you need to be able to rely on other countries," he said.
The UAE has made investments overseas to ensure it can source supplies for its growing population, with government bodies including Jenan and Al Dahra having secured agricultural land in areas as diverse as Egypt, Romania and Serbia.
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Reputation
Taylor Swift
(Big Machine Records)
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
Dhadak 2
Director: Shazia Iqbal
Starring: Siddhant Chaturvedi, Triptii Dimri
Rating: 1/5
Know your cyber adversaries
Cryptojacking: Compromises a device or network to mine cryptocurrencies without an organisation's knowledge.
Distributed denial-of-service: Floods systems, servers or networks with information, effectively blocking them.
Man-in-the-middle attack: Intercepts two-way communication to obtain information, spy on participants or alter the outcome.
Malware: Installs itself in a network when a user clicks on a compromised link or email attachment.
Phishing: Aims to secure personal information, such as passwords and credit card numbers.
Ransomware: Encrypts user data, denying access and demands a payment to decrypt it.
Spyware: Collects information without the user's knowledge, which is then passed on to bad actors.
Trojans: Create a backdoor into systems, which becomes a point of entry for an attack.
Viruses: Infect applications in a system and replicate themselves as they go, just like their biological counterparts.
Worms: Send copies of themselves to other users or contacts. They don't attack the system, but they overload it.
Zero-day exploit: Exploits a vulnerability in software before a fix is found.
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
Results:
6.30pm: Maiden Dh165,000 2,000m - Winner: Powderhouse, Sam Hitchcott (jockey), Doug Watson (trainer)
7.05pm: Handicap Dh165,000 2,200m - Winner: Heraldic, Richard Mullen, Satish Seemar
7.40pm: Conditions Dh240,000 1,600m - Winner: Walking Thunder, Connor Beasley, Ahmed bin Harmash
8.15pm: Handicap Dh190,000 2,000m - Winner: Key Bid, Fernando Jara, Ali Rashid Al Raihe
8.50pm: The Garhoud Sprint Listed Dh265,000 1,200m - Winner: Drafted, Sam Hitchcott, Doug Watson
9.25pm: Handicap Dh170,000 1,600m - Winner: Cachao, Tadhg O’Shea, Satish Seemar
10pm: Handicap Dh190,000 1,400m - Winner: Rodaini, Connor Beasley, Ahmed bin Harmash
Results
5pm: Reem Island – Conditions (PA) Dh80,000 (Turf) 1,600m; Winner: Farasah, Antonio Fresu (jockey), Musabah Al Muhairi
5.30pm: Sir Baniyas Island – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: SSR Ghazwan, Antonio Fresu, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
6pm: Wathba Stallions Cup – Handicap (PA) Dh70,000 (T) 1,400m; Winner: Astral Del Sol, Sean Kirrane, Ibrahim Al Hadhrami
6.30pm: Al Maryah Island – Maiden (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: Toumadher, Dane O’Neill, Jaber Bittar
7pm: Yas Island – Handicap (PA) Dh80,000 (T) 2,200m; Winner: AF Mukhrej, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
7.30pm: Saadiyat Island – Handicap (TB) Dh80,000 (T) 2,400m; Winner: Celestial Spheres, Gary Sanchez, Ismail Mohammed
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
How to watch Ireland v Pakistan in UAE
When: The one-off Test starts on Friday, May 11
What time: Each day’s play is scheduled to start at 2pm UAE time.
TV: The match will be broadcast on OSN Sports Cricket HD. Subscribers to the channel can also stream the action live on OSN Play.
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Why are asylum seekers being housed in hotels?
The number of asylum applications in the UK has reached a new record high, driven by those illegally entering the country in small boats crossing the English Channel.
A total of 111,084 people applied for asylum in the UK in the year to June 2025, the highest number for any 12-month period since current records began in 2001.
Asylum seekers and their families can be housed in temporary accommodation while their claim is assessed.
The Home Office provides the accommodation, meaning asylum seekers cannot choose where they live.
When there is not enough housing, the Home Office can move people to hotels or large sites like former military bases.
MORE ON TURKEY'S SYRIA OFFENCE
Huddersfield Town permanent signings:
- Steve Mounie (striker): signed from Montpellier for £11 million
- Tom Ince (winger): signed from Derby County for £7.7m
- Aaron Mooy (midfielder): signed from Manchester City for £7.7m
- Laurent Depoitre (striker): signed from Porto for £3.4m
- Scott Malone (defender): signed from Fulham for £3.3m
- Zanka (defender): signed from Copenhagen for £2.3m
- Elias Kachunga (winger): signed for Ingolstadt for £1.1m
- Danny WIlliams (midfielder): signed from Reading on a free transfer
ACL Elite (West) - fixtures
Monday, Sept 30
Al Sadd v Esteghlal (8pm)
Persepolis v Pakhtakor (8pm)
Al Wasl v Al Ahli (8pm)
Al Nassr v Al Rayyan (10pm)
Tuesday, Oct 1
Al Hilal v Al Shorta (10pm)
Al Gharafa v Al Ain (10pm)
Tips for job-seekers
- Do not submit your application through the Easy Apply button on LinkedIn. Employers receive between 600 and 800 replies for each job advert on the platform. If you are the right fit for a job, connect to a relevant person in the company on LinkedIn and send them a direct message.
- Make sure you are an exact fit for the job advertised. If you are an HR manager with five years’ experience in retail and the job requires a similar candidate with five years’ experience in consumer, you should apply. But if you have no experience in HR, do not apply for the job.
David Mackenzie, founder of recruitment agency Mackenzie Jones Middle East
ICC Women's T20 World Cup Asia Qualifier 2025, Thailand
UAE fixtures
May 9, v Malaysia
May 10, v Qatar
May 13, v Malaysia
May 15, v Qatar
May 18 and 19, semi-finals
May 20, final
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More on Quran memorisation:
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A meeting of young minds
The 3,494 entries for the 2019 Sharjah Children Biennial come from:
435 – UAE
2,000 – China
808 – United Kingdom
165 – Argentina
38 – Lebanon
16 – Saudi Arabia
16 – Bangladesh
6 – Ireland
3 – Egypt
3 – France
2 – Sudan
1 – Kuwait
1 – Australia
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
