(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) More than 100 families and over 4,000 school children in the UAE have made their arid surroundings greener by making their own vegetable gardens on their premises.
Participating in the Dubai Municipality-led Grow Your Food campaign, they have grown vegetables and herbs on balconies, rooftops and backyards of their accommodations.
Be it in apartments, villas, schools or even labour accommodations, these eco-champions have not only extended the green lungs of the emirates; they have also contributed to sustainable, indigenous farming that can go a long way in ensuring better food security and food safety here.
The campaign that kick started on last year's World Food Day in October under the theme 'Family Farming: Feeding the World, Caring for the Earth', has now come to a close and the winners will be announced at a function tomorrow. They will take home a total of Dh150,000 worth grocery vouchers as an incentive to them and as an inspiration to others, said Sameer K. Mohammed, managing director of Jaleel Holdings, which came up with the initiative along with Eastern Condiments.
"Our objective was to create awareness among the residents here on growing their own vegetables in a sustainable way," he told Khaleej Times.
"There are people who implement the concept of organic farms here. But, when you do it as a campaign and reward the winners, it will help spread the message to many more and motivate them also to follow suit."
He said the core message of the campaign was "feeding a culture of freshness and healthy living in a sustainable way".
"The water we use here is predominantly purified salt water. We wanted to see what residents can do to come up with different ways that save water and also to boost the concept of having organic farms."
Food products are produced mostly with financial motives and some of them are not necessarily ethical, he pointed out. So, the message of having fresh food with minimal use of pesticides was promoted during the campaign.
The contest was run for different categories such as villas, apartments, labour accommodations, inter-school and intra-school.
Over 4,000 students from 25 schools took part in the campaign. They were given the seeds of seasonal vegetables by the organisers. However, contestants farming at homes and labour accommodations were allowed to choose the vegetables for farming.
A panel of judges from the municipality, sponsoring companies, the Ministry of Education and agricultural industry visited the sites and selected the winners.
"The results we saw were amazing. It was heartening to see some schools in the UAE were already into greenhouse farming while others took part with fresh enthusiasm. Some families came up with innovative ideas to sow the seeds and minimize water usage," said Mohamed.
Using tissue papers for initial sowing of seeds, channelizing the water dripping from air conditioners to the garden and making use of leftover food as fertilizer were some of the ideas adopted by the home farmers.
Dubai Municipality Food Control Department's senior food safety expert Bashir Hassan Yousif said the campaign was a role model in ensuring better food safety and security in the country.
"We depend largely on imported food. If the food is grown abroad, obviously you don't have full control over it. When you grow it here, you know what things have gone into it," he said.
"In this case, the idea was to give the right documentation and procedures to follow. Even if they use pesticide they will use the permitted ones and in the right amount."
Yousif said more people should support and take part in such initiatives to help realizing the goals of food security and safety in the whole chain of food safety.
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