A United Nations agency is working with water-scarce UAE, which is heavily dependent on imported food, to develop greenhouses to save water and boost food security, an expert said.

 

Greenhouses use only 10 per cent of the water needed to produce the same yields from open farming, said Pasquale Steduto, deputy regional representative for the Near East and North Africa at the UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO).

 

They work by recycling water - normally lost in plant transpiration and evaporation in the open - in contained spaces where farming and climate conditions are controlled.

 

Steduto said the FAO and the Ministry of Environment and Water (MoEW) are “collaborating to use greenhouses as much as possible to save water while producing food”.

 

Steduto said a proposal to develop greenhouses as a conservation and security strategy is expected to take shape “in the next few months”. He added “public-private-partnerships” between a number of government bodies and industry will probably be needed.

 

Produce from relatively small plants or trees - such as tomatoes, grapes, citrus fruits and “the usual salad line” - are suited to greenhouse farming, the FAO official added.

 

The projects will only require roughly one-tenth of the water need to produce the same results in open farming. Water use is a concern in the UAE, where only 500 cubic metres of fresh water is available per person per year. The country heavily uses desalinated seawater and treated wastewater for industrial and home use.

 

To make projects more viable, solar power can be used to run the greenhouses, taking stress of the main grid, he said.