Under the guidance and support of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Vice President of the UAE, Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Presidential Court and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority (ADAFSA), the authority has launched the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Security Data Platform.
The platform is a strategic tool to support decision-making on food security and agriculture issues in Abu Dhabi. The advanced electronic gateway provides accurate and comprehensive information on all aspects of the agriculture and food sector in Abu Dhabi, from agricultural production to distribution and consumption.
The platform enables the analysis of up-to-date data and the extraction of reports that help policymakers make decisions that contribute to improving the efficiency and effectiveness of food security policies and programmes, and to developing a sustainable, flexible and integrated food system that meets the needs of the emirate and enhances the rapid response to mitigate any threats or risks to food security and biosecurity in Abu Dhabi and the country.
His Excellency Saeed Al Bahri Salem Al Ameri, Director General of ADAFSA, said that the launch of the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Security Data Platform is an important step towards promoting innovation in the field of food security. By providing an advanced digital platform that provides access to reliable data, it helps support policymakers and researchers in developing innovative solutions that enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of the agriculture and food sector in the emirate.
“We greatly appreciate the full support of His Highness Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan for this important initiative, as this support embodies the insightful vision of a wise leadership that recognises the importance of food security in achieving stability and prosperity, within the framework of the Abu Dhabi government's commitment to utilise all resources and capabilities to ensure the provision of safe and sustainable food for all residents of the emirate.”
He emphasised that the platform has been developed in collaboration with strategic partners from the public and private sectors. The platform was fed with data from 16 strategic partners of the authority. The collaboration will enable the provision of comprehensive data for the agriculture and food sector in accordance with best practices in data management and governance. He said that the platform aims to support the achievement of ADAFSA's priorities to ensure food abundance and safety and enable sustainable agricultural development in the emirate by developing and monitoring a sustainable, flexible and integrated food system, supported by a rapid response system to effectively contain food and biosecurity threats and risks, thus serving to enhance the competitiveness of local products.
The platform monitors the local, regional and global food security situation through a comprehensive and integrated dashboard that covers more than 335 indicators and supports a flexible response to food emergencies, animal diseases and agricultural pests, leading to early action to prevent supply chain disruptions, preparedness for all potential risks, and the development of scenarios and plans to manage crises and food emergencies.
The platform works to collect and monitor all data related to agriculture, food and food security, such as data on local agricultural production, both crops and livestock, trade and investment data, future production data and strategic food reserve levels, as well as data on food loss and waste rates throughout the value chain.
Additionally, it monitors data on animal and plant health, pest control and eradication programmes, vaccination programmes against animal and zoonotic diseases, investment data, and anticipated investment opportunities. It also provides real-time updates of this data, along with over 200 dashboards for displaying this data, analytical reports, and future forecasts, aiding in sound planning and addressing threats to food and biosecurity based on actionable insights.
It also provides forecasts and scientific predictions about production and consumption, as well as supply and demand forecasts for food commodities, ensuring accurate analysis of self-sufficiency levels by monitoring the ratio of local production to consumption and the adequacy of strategic food reserves, analysing price trends for key local and global commodities and products and import dependency rates for each food category.
The platform also includes a warning system for local, regional and global risks and threats, ensuring the development of scenarios for dealing with normal conditions as well as other scenarios for emergencies and crises. Alerts are activated when there are changes in global or local prices of essential food items, and alerts are also activated when there are changes in production levels, whether rising or falling, in addition to alerts on weather and diseases that affect the availability of local or international supplies, and the ability to track biosecurity threats, environmental data and other data that support decision-making in the agriculture and food sector in Abu Dhabi.
