53% increase in UAE organic farms products and an additional 1.8 million square meters

Abu Dhabi, UAE, 5 May 2019: The United Arab Emirates has recorded a significant increase in the number of organic farms products over the past six months by 53%. The Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (ESMA) data showed a significant increase in the number of products from 1240 in the last quarter last year to 2356 Until April.

A 1.8 million square meters of Organic Farms during the same period, producing about 1116 new organic products in the UAE’s markets, including vegetables, fruits and dates, farms for meat, poultry, eggs and others, H.E Abdullah Al Maeeni, ESMA’s Director General said.

He added that organic products are an ideal opportunity to diversify national investments in the agricultural and productive sectors. ESMA supports this trend through the issuance conformity certificates to organic farms to qualify these products for export outside the UAE and to open new markets to UAE producers.

Organic products are highly regarded by consumers and are popular in local, GCC and regional markets, Organic products are grown naturally without the use of any prohibited chemical pesticides, it is a system where all the farm inputs are to be taken in the farm itself and all the seeds have to be organic and non-genetically modified organisms (GMO). This is not the case with hydroponics.

ESMA grants an "organic" mark in the so-called certificate of conformity to the farm, stating that its products comply with the standards of organic products according to the UAE conformity assessment program "ECAS", which confirms their conformity with the technical requirements contained in Ministerial Resolution No. 84 of 2012.

The UAE government supports environmentally friendly projects that are consistent with sustainability concepts, as organic agriculture is an integrated system aimed at sustaining agricultural production and environmental resources, protecting human health, and coordinating the Emirates Authority for Standardisation and Metrology (ESMA) with the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment to promote this File.

A few years ago, ESMA has issued the UAE standard known as mandatory standard that includes what these products should be before they reach consumers in the market, and is considered one of the most important food standards in the UAE and the GCC countries.

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