DUBAI: Dr. Abdulkareem Sultan AlOlama, CEO of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives (MBRGI), emphasised the significance of the Food Innovation Conference 2024 for the Gulf region. He pointed out that the region, being a desert area with limited natural resources and water, needs innovative solutions to tackle the obstacles to food sustainability in the future. The conference aims to address global food and agricultural challenges by exploring new approaches like vertical, climate-smart, smart agriculture, and alternative proteins.

He said that the use of modern technology and artificial intelligence in agriculture has become an urgent necessity, pointing out that the UAE has the largest vertical farm that relies on hydroponics in the world in Dubai “Bustanica” farm with an investment of US$40 million, owned by Emirates Flight Catering, one of the largest providers of aircraft catering services in the world, which provides meals to approximately 250,000 passengers daily.

He added that global
research centres are currently being developed in Colombia, India, Kenya, Europe and Vietnam, affiliated with the World Economic Forum, stressing that the UAE’s hosting of more than 150 experts in this vital field represents an opportunity to exchange solutions between research centres, experts and specialists to look to the future.

He explained that the conference is an extension of the partnership between the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives Foundation and the World Economic Forum, as the two sides cooperated in 2022 to establish the “Global Initiative for the Food Innovation Hubs Network”, as well as to establish the Food Innovation Hub in the UAE in December last year during the COP 28 climate summit.

Source: Emirates News Agency