Standards have to be kept

Dubai: Organic regulations here certify produce to be sold in the UAE only, but farmers can choose to follow other standards suitable for the international market.

Regulations differ between Europe, the United States, Japan or even Australia but essentially the goals are the same - to grow food without using chemical pesticides or fertilisers.

Farmers who opt to grow organic produce here must apply to the Ministry of Environment and Water (MEW) and sign an agreement to follow a set of standards set by the authority.

No GCC-wide regulation exists yet to even ease import and export within the region but the UAE cannot wait as organic farming has already started and regulations have to be implemented, said Dr Riad Obaidi, from the Organic Farming Unit at the MEW.

Cooperation

"Cooperation is needed to have similar regulations so products can be exported from one country to another in the GCC, but the UAE can't wait for these. In the United States different states even have different standards initially," he said.

In the meantime then regulations call for the ministry to go and visit any farm within 10 days of applying to be organic and monitor if the land is insulated from other farms.

The main difference between certification in the UAE and other organic markets is the conversion period allocated for the soil to rejuvenate itself if the soil has previously been used.

"The land must be left for one year for the residue of chemical fertiliser to disappear. The soil here is sandy so we don't expect it to remain after a year. It also breaks down faster because of the heat," said Dr Obaidi.

European standards demand a two-year conversion period.

A lot of monitoring keeps standards in check but for the 10 farms already approved, five have been rejected. Farming in sand can be quite difficult which is why it is mixed with soil fertiliser at a ratio of one part sand-two parts soil.

"We do many inspections to check that organic fertiliser and not chemical pesticides are being used. We take soil samples at the beginning and during the growth season and again a random check is done on some vegetables," said Dr Obaidi.

However, and perhaps surprisingly, organic and non-organic produce is allowed to be farmed on the same land in the UAE, but only one type of vegetable in each category, if organic tomatoes are grown then non-organic tomatoes cannot be grown.

"Some farms are not willing to wait for the one-year conversion. They can still grow and sell their products but they are not considered organic and do not carry the label."Not all farms are obliged to sell their produce and some farmers are private, but still get certified.

"The ministry is not involved in marketing. Once we certify and give them their stickers they can choose to do what they want with the vegetables," said Dr Obaidi.

Certified organic fresh produce such as vegetables grown in the UAE can be easily spotted by a ministry distributed sticker placed on the product to alert buyers.

Each farmer is required to label his organic product with this sticker if selling it under the premise that it was grown without any chemicals, and under ministry-approved organic standards.

The labelling of organic and genetically modified foods came to the forefront earlier this year when international environment protection organisation Greenpeace visited the UAE and announced that almost half of what is on supermarket shelves here has been genetically modified but carry no labels to alert shoppers.

Greenpeace are fervent supporters of organic food and call for more stringent methods of food labelling in the UAE to give consumers a choice, and eventually they want to see a total ban on genetically modified organisms (GMOs) worldwide.

With most supermarkets adhering to EU standards concerning GM labels in Europe, Greenpeace wants European supermarkets here to quit their double standards and stop selling here what does not make it on the shelf over there.

The UAE's production of organic product could be an answer to this.