Growing in the Desert: The UAE's Food-Tech and Vertical-Farming Build-Out

Key figures (as of October 2026)

A national plan with a 2051 horizon

The national food strategy to 2051 was launched in 2018. It has 38 short- and long-term initiatives built around five strategic goals. Its stated ambition is for the UAE to rank first in the world's leading global food index by 2051. It sets a national food basket of 18 main food types and aims for three to five alternative supply sources for each major food category. Its tools include modern farming technologies, better nutrition and laws to cut food waste.

The country has long relied on imports for most of its food, and it is using technology to grow more at home. In October 2026 officials said the strategy was being updated together with the private sector. The new aim is to produce half of the country's crops locally, through smart farming, indoor agriculture and hydroponics. No separate target date or measurement method had been published as of October 2026.

Capital and incentives for AgTech

Abu Dhabi set up an AgTech Incentive Programme worth AED 1 billion under its Ghadan 21 accelerator. The programme is open to local and international firms. It offers cash and non-cash support, including rebates on research and development, high-skilled payroll and high-tech capital spending, as well as help with land, utilities and intellectual property. Two rounds of awards in 2020 committed AED 367 million to four AgTech companies and a further AED 152 million to three companies whose projects span land, sea and space. These covered indoor vertical farming, climate-controlled greenhouses, irrigation technology, aquaculture and crop research in orbit.

Abu Dhabi's own farm statistics show the effect. In 2024 the emirate had about 28,800 greenhouses, up from 19,303 in 2022 and a third more than in 2023. Greenhouse floor area rose 55% in a single year, to about 10,900 donums. For the first time, hydroponic systems were listed as their own irrigation category in 2024, covering about 1,600 donums.

Vertical farms and food-tech hubs

Dubai is home to one of the largest vertical farms in the world, which opened in July 2022 near Al Maktoum International Airport. Built for USD 40 million over 330,000 sq ft on three floors, it grows more than 1,000 tonnes of leafy greens a year, about 3 tonnes a day, with more than a million plants growing at any time. It uses about 15 litres of water per kilogram of produce, against about 317 litres in open fields. That is up to 95% less, or a saving of about 250 million litres a year.

Food Tech Valley in Dubai is an 18 million sq ft district built around food technology. It includes a 6.2 million sq ft production zone, a 1.5 million sq ft logistics zone and a 600,000 sq ft innovation park, so research, farming and distribution sit side by side. One of its flagship projects is a circular "gigafarm" of 200 growing towers on a 900,000 sq ft site. At full capacity it is designed to produce more than 3,000 tonnes of fresh produce a year and to recycle more than 50,000 tonnes of food waste a year. That would replace about 1% of the country's fresh-produce imports. Its first phase, 20 towers, was due to come online in mid-2026, with first harvests expected later in the year.

Other emirates are joining in. Sharjah is setting up an agri-tech centre to test farming technologies before wider use, and the country has approved its first agricultural crowdfunding platform.

Greenhouses, water and the date palm

Abu Dhabi's farms show how much controlled-environment growing has spread. In 2024 the emirate produced about 166,000 tonnes of vegetables, 13% more than in 2023. Output under protective cover reached 142,074 tonnes, up 29%, while open-field output fell to about 23,900 tonnes. Greenhouse production has also risen as a share of all vegetables, from 73% in 2022 to 75.0% in 2023 and 85.6% in 2024. Cucumbers and tomatoes make up most of the greenhouse harvest.

Saving water is central to the plan. In 2024, 89.2% of Abu Dhabi's irrigated farmland used drip irrigation, compared with 87.9% in 2023. Indoor farms go further, recycling water in closed loops so that a kilogram of greens needs only a small fraction of the water used in open fields.

The date palm is still the country's signature crop. Abu Dhabi harvested about 226,000 tonnes of dates in 2024, against 234,000 tonnes in 2023. Research is also widening the range of crops that suit desert conditions. A Dubai-based international research centre for saline agriculture tested 121 types of quinoa on UAE soils. Two salt-tolerant varieties were officially registered for commercial cultivation in September 2024. They mature in about 100 to 130 days and can yield about 2.0 to 3.5 tonnes per hectare under favourable conditions.

The sea as a farm

Aquaculture is the marine side of the same strategy. The Sheikh Khalifa Marine Research Centre in Umm Al Quwain runs a hatchery that can produce nearly 30 million fish fingerlings a year. After a full renovation it delivered its first 600,000 fingerlings to UAE fish farms in late 2021. Its operator planned to produce more than 7 million fingerlings across species such as seabream, hammour, seabass and cobia.

Across the Gulf, neighbours are investing in the same direction. Saudi Arabia harvested about 1.92 million tonnes of dates in 2024. Gulf countries share the same constraints of heat, scarce water and limited arable land, and many of the same solutions: greenhouses, hydroponics, salt-tolerant crops and fish farming.

Scenarios: greenhouse share of Abu Dhabi's vegetables in 2025

Resolution rule: the share of Abu Dhabi's 2025 vegetable production grown under protective cover, as first published in the emirate's official annual agriculture statistics for 2025. It is calculated from the unrounded totals as tonnes under protective cover divided by total vegetable tonnes, multiplied by 100 and rounded half up to one decimal place. The bands use the rounded value: 79.9% or below; 80.0% to 84.9%; 85.0% to 87.4%; 87.5% to 89.9%; 90.0% or above. A value of exactly 80.0%, 85.0%, 87.5% or 90.0% falls in the band that starts at that value. Recent editions covering 2023 and 2024 came out 12 and 18 months after the year ended, so the 2025 edition is expected between December 2026 and July 2027. If no edition covering 2025 is published by 31 December 2027, or if it no longer reports vegetable output under protective cover, the forecast is withdrawn. The 2024 baseline is 85.6%: 142,074 tonnes out of 166,016 tonnes. The five ranges are mutually exclusive and cover every outcome. Probabilities are the Centre's analytical estimates. The forecast is scored with the multi-category Brier score and the ranked probability score, as the bands are ordered.* *Scenarios revised on 30 October 2026 to a finer split.

What to watch

1. The updated national strategy: whether the aim of growing half of crops locally gets a target year and a published measurement method.
2. Food Tech Valley: first harvests and the move to full capacity at the gigafarm, and new tenants in the production zone.
3. Greenhouse capacity: greenhouse numbers and floor area in Abu Dhabi's 2025 farm statistics, and the spread of hydroponics.
4. Water use: further moves from flood irrigation to drip and closed-loop systems.
5. New crops and fish farming: commercial planting of salt-tolerant varieties and more fingerlings stocked in UAE fish farms.

Figures as of October 2026. Probabilities are analytical estimates by the Ghaf Centre for Studies & Research.