Abu Dhabi date palm award to focus on innovation in agriculture

Abu Dhabi - Projects specifically for arid and desert regions to be showcased.

 The eighth Khalifa International Date Palm Award has broaden its scope, focusing now on agriculture innovation. On Tuesday, Shaikh Nahyan bin Mubarak Al Nahyan, Minister of Culture and Knowledge Development and president of the award's Board of Trustees, officially launched the new Khalifa International Award for Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation (KIADPAI).
"The droughts the world is witnessing and the causes leading to decline of agriculture call for work on creating new mechanisms and preparing constructive studies and innovations to ensure development of this sector and its access to better levels through motivation of experts, researchers and farmers to contribute their ideas and pilot projects to ensure the achievement of this goal," said Shaikh Nahyan.
KIADPAI is divided into five categories, each awarding one winner.
Winners of Distinguished Innovative Studies and Modern Technology category and Pioneering Development and Productive Projects category will also get Dh1 million each while in Distinguished Producers in Date Palm Sector and Pioneering and Sophisticated Innovations Serving the Agricultural Sector, the winners will be given Dh750,000 each. Besides these, Influential Figure in the Field of Date Palm and Agricultural Innovation will be awarded Dh750,000.
While the award is international and the best agricultural projects and studies will be considered, the jury will look out for innovations specifically for arid, desert regions that can be applied in the UAE and Middle East in general.
Water scarcity, drastic change in weather cycles, extreme storms and floods or lack of rain leading to severe draughts are all becoming more frequent, causing a decline in crop yields.
According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations, some 795 million people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That's about one in nine people on Earth.While agriculture is increasingly affected by climate change, leaving ever more people hungry, the world population is increasing fast.
"In the face of climate change, agricultural innovation is part of the solution for the challenge we face today of feeding the world population," said Dr Jose Graziano da Silva, Director-General of FAO, who came to Abu Dhabi for the launch of KIADPAI. He further pointed out that for years food security has been taken for granted, but climate change has changed that perception.
"There is a close relation now between the impacts of climate change and food security," stressed da Silva.
The UAE is kind of a laboratory now. What happens here today will help the world in the future," he added. KIADPAI will receive entries for all its categories from May 1 till October 31 with the winners being announced in February 2017 and honoured in a special ceremony in March next year.
silvia@khaleejtimes.com

• UAE
• Abu Dhabi