As the United Arab Emirates prepares to host the debut edition of EuroTier Middle East, which takes place in Abu Dhabi from 2nd to 4th September 2019, DLG dairy and energy experts have been to the region to look at how its livestock production differs from Europe and the rest of the world.
FRANKFURT/MAIN, Germany, 15th February 2019 – The Middle East offers great investment and marketing potential for agricultural technology as the regions strives to increase local food production. Abu Dhabi, as a central meeting point for the Arab world, in this context offers ideal conditions for a successful trade fair with its attractive and functional exhibition center. The DLG will launch its new EuroTier Middle East exhibition in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in September this year. Following a study tour to the region, DLG animal production experts confirmed the importance of this region.
The EuroTier Middle East trade fair is one of three new exhibitions to take place in 2019, which was announced at EuroTier in Hanover in November last year. These offshoots of the world's leading trade fair for animal husbandry, all taking place for the first time in 2019 in Brazil, China and the UAE, will offer an incomparable platform for professional agriculture and agribusiness in a new regional format.
The DLG is being supported in the implementation and organisation of EuroTier Middle East by the Abu Dhabi Food Control Authority (ADFCA), which performs a vital role in food safety and consumer protection role in the UAE. The ADFCA’s mission is to develop a sustainable agriculture and food sector that ensures the delivery of safe food to the public and protects the health of animals and plants while promoting sound agricultural and food practices through cohesive and effective policies and regulations, quality standards, research and awareness.
The ADFCA will take on an important role in helping design the technical program at the EuroTier Middle East, as well as setting accents that will shape the new trade fair. Farming and livestock production in the Arab world is different from Europe and the rest of the world, and with the organisation’s help, the event will accurately reflect the region's predominant production and farming practices.
As a prelude to the selection of the focal points for the technical program at EuroTier Middle East, DLG specialist for renewable energy, Marcus Vagt, and Dieter Mirbach, DLG expert for dairy farming, visited the region to undertake a study tour of typical farms and agricultural facilities. They found the UAE is home to 46,000 dairy cows kept on units that average 4,000 cattle including young stock, and that broiler production is also carried out on a large scale, with specialist units growing 40,000 to 80,000 birds to help meet the Arab world’s poultry consumption of more than 50 kg per person per year. However, sheep and goat farms also have a prominent position in the region, and the importance of camels can’t be ignored.
The DLG experts also had the opportunity to learn how important Saudi Arabia is for agriculture. "Saudi Arabia is the key to success for agriculture in the Region," said Vagt. Saudi Arabia has by far the largest agriculture in the region with Qasim region alone bigger than all of the United Arab Emirates," added Vagt.
“The impression of livestock farming we gathered from our tour to UEA included a large number of farms with camels and small ruminants such as sheep and goats,” said Vagt. “Frequently, animal husbandry is based on prestige, traditional and aesthetic motives, but it also serves the production of food, and is already often on the threshold of proffessionalisation.
“However, livestock farming as we would know it in Europe does not actually take place due to the high temperatures and very low annual precipitation,” added Vagt. “All types of feed – be it forage, straight feed ingredients or compound feeds – are imported. State agencies actively subsidise feed imports by up to 70 percent, and they are interested in appreciably increasing the proportion of food produced in the region from its current level of just 10 percent.”
Visits made by the DLG team included the BaniYas Research Station, where the focus is on breeding sheep and goats that are better adapted to the arid living conditions in the Middle East.
“It was particularly noticeable that milk or meat production was clearly subordinate to the fertility and health of the animals in the breeding programme,” said Mirbach. “Although ways of economic and meaningful use of the wool are also increasingly being sought.
“Smaller scale poultry systems were also being studied,” added Mirbach. “Similar to the mobile, decentralised solutions we see in Europe, these management systems could help expand food security in the region.”
The topic of water is clearly important in terms of farm management, and this is also being studied at the BaniYas site.
“Solutions related to the water shortage and the quite high salinity of well water were being explored,” said Mirbach. “Renewable energies, in particular photovoltaic panels for power generation and water treatment or desalination, have opened completely new fields of application.”
A visit to a fully integrated poultry unit with 80,000 broilers, that begins with the hatchery and ends with a processing plant producing meat for UAE consumers, contrasted hugely with visits to traditional sheep and goat farms. And while camels are new territory for EuroTier, they play an indispensable role in Arab countries. In addition to their use as a mount, both camel milk and meat is omnipresent in traditional cuisine. A visit to a camel farm had, therefore, to be part of the tour, as was one of the 22 slaughterhouses in the region.
A visit to a modern 2,000-cow dairy unit brought the study tour to a close. The Holstein cows are kept in open-air sheds equipped with the latest fan and cooling technology, and are milked up to four times a day to maximise yields.
According to Vagt, every sector had a wish list for investment, from disinfection systems for vehicles and hygiene concepts to improve biosecurity on poultry units, to technology to optimise artificial insemination and embryo transfer in camels.
“From the point of view of ADFCA, there is also a lot of potential for improvement in the efficient production and delivery of feedstuffs,” he said. “Feed rations, mostly consisting of alfalfa, cereal meal, soybean meal, special feed additives and partially sorted dates of inferior quality, are currently mixed on-site, either in small stationary feed mills or by hand.”
The DLG and its specialist partners are looking forward to welcoming not only the sheikh and the president of Abu Dhabi to EuroTier Middle East, but also expert visitors and companies from the region with a passion for camels, sheep and goats, as well as professional animal husbandry and food safety. The event takes place at Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre (ADNEC), in the UAE’s capital, from 2nd to 4th September 2019. More information can be found online by visiting: www.eurotiermiddleeast.com