UAE general news20 Oct 2020 11:08
CropX CEO Tomer Tzach explains how the company’s technology enables fields to talk to farmers (OurCrowd)
“Dry-climate agriculture is a field in which Israel excels, and we see a very bright future for Israeli companies in the region,” said Dorian Barak, founder of the UAE-Israel Business Council, which promotes trade and economic cooperation. “In general, the UAE represents an enormous opportunity for the Israeli business community, and export-oriented companies in particular.”
Israel’s economy ministry estimates that exports to the UAE could total between $300 million and $500 million a year, and business leaders in both countries say they complement each other well in many fields.
In the oil-rich Emirates, “financial capital has far outstripped human capital,” explained Sabah Al-Binali, newly-appointed head of Gulf Region for OurCrowd, ab equity investment platform based in Jerusalem. But Israel has the opposite situation, he said. “Each one of these markets wants what the other has,” he said. “You actually have a natural fit.”
As for CropX, Tzach cites the UAE’s climate, with very little rain and a landscape dominated by desert, as conditions where the company’s technology can make a difference.
The UAE is trying to modernize its agricultural system and decrease its reliance on imports, which account for about 80% of its food. The CropX system, which allows many users to reduce their water use by up to 50% while also increasing yields, could help the UAE, and other countries in the region, meet such goals, Tzach said. “CropX’s product is highly relevant to the current needs and challenges” of the Gulf countries, “and to the UAE in particular, as it helps farmers become more efficient and save significant amounts of water, agrochemicals, energy and manual labor,” Tzach said. The UAE’s agricultural sector has shown signs of modernization in recent years, with about 90% of farmers now using modern irrigation systems rather than flooding rows of crops with water — long a traditional, although more wasteful, practice.
The UAE is also developing its own AgTech sector, with the government last year committing $272 million in funding and tax benefits for research and development.
“We live in a very harsh climate,” said Motaz Abu-Hijleh, co-founder and CEO of World of Farming, a Dubai-based vertical- and indoor-farming technology company, at a recent online conference organized by OurCrowd and the Emirates Angels Investors Association introducing Emirati startups to Israeli investors and entrepreneurs. “We always have to look at modernizing the agriculture scene.”
The coronavirus pandemic has made the UAE’s goal of increased self-sufficiency in agriculture more urgent, Abu-Hijleh said, with lockdowns and reduced air traffic disrupting supply chains and raising fears of shortages and price jumps, something the region has experienced in the past.
“This crisis is a wakeup call for the whole world,” said Mariam bint Mohammed Almaheiri,
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