A new category aimed at helping UAE farmers get their products into the market will be introduced in the fifth cycle of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Agricultural Excellence Award, after an assessment of the programme’s first four cycles found that marketing remains a challenge for local producers.
The Dh10 million award will also recognise farmers who help other producers improve their operations, as organisers seek to turn successful farms into practical learning centres for the wider agricultural community.
Mubarak Al Mansouri, Chair of the Festivals and Accompanying Competitions Committee, said the new Best Supporting Marketing Outlet category was created after farmers and livestock breeders highlighted difficulties in finding outlets for their products.
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“The farmers and breeders had a challenge in marketing outlets,” Al Mansouri said at a press conference in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. “So, we introduced this category to encourage the sales outlets to adopt local products and give them a greater market share.”
The fifth cycle of the award, which offers about Dh10 million in prizes, also introduces the Agricultural Impact Maker category.
Al Mansouri said the idea came from something already happening among previous participants: successful farmers and breeders are opening their farms to others, showing them how they prepared for the award and sharing the practices that helped them succeed.
“We have some farmers and winners who are mentoring other farmers,” he said. “They host them at their farms and teach them how to apply for the award and how to implement the criteria and practices that helped them win.”
The changes come after Adafsa carried out an impact assessment of the award’s first four cycles, with officials saying it found that the competition was influencing farming practices beyond the winners themselves.
Mouza Al Muhairi, Deputy Director-General for Regulatory and Administrative Affairs at Adafsa and Chairperson of the Higher Committee, said the assessment found greater awareness of agricultural practices among farmers and livestock breeders, more positive competition and increased use of new technologies and farming practices.
Field visits also showed greater awareness of reducing waste and making more efficient use of natural resources, she said.
One of the clearest changes was the growing participation of women and young people, while UAE agricultural products were also becoming more competitive internationally.
“Local products have become globally competitive,” Al Muhairi said, noting that farmers and beekeepers had won international awards and achieved first- and second-place rankings.
But the impact of the award is perhaps more visible in what happens on individual farms.
Al Mansouri cited the case of a livestock breeder in Al Ain who told organisers that, before entering the award, he did not know how to properly manage his livestock operation.
Preparing the application forced her to examine the farm in much greater detail, including his herd, expenses and income, breeding and rearing methods and biosecurity measures.
In other words, the application itself became a management exercise.
Al Mansouri said the example showed how the award’s criteria were designed not simply to identify the best farms, but to encourage better practices.
Al Muhairi also cited the case of a beekeeper who applied in an earlier cycle but did not win.
Rather than giving up, she used the award criteria to identify areas for improvement in her apiary and farm. She subsequently won the Sheikh Mansour award and later ranked among the top winners in a competition in the UK.
Al Muhairi said the assessment had also shown a growing appetite among women and young people to take part.
Dedicated categories for female farmers and breeders were introduced about three cycles ago, opening the competition to women who own farms and agricultural holdings.
“We have many women who own farms and holdings,” she said, adding that the dedicated categories had helped open the way for greater participation.
Young participants are now appearing in areas including beekeeping, protected agriculture and practical technological innovations aimed at improving sustainability.
The award is also trying to solve another problem: farmers and breeders who want to participate but do not know where to begin.
Al Muhairi said Adafsa provides guidance and training to help participants understand the requirements and improve their farms.
The fifth cycle will expand the programme to 97 accompanying competitions, compared with 77 in the fourth cycle, an increase of about 26 per cent. The competitions cover livestock, plant production, food, honey and flowers, alongside five festivals at Sheikh Zayed Festival in Al Wathba.
Applications for the main award categories will remain open until December 15, with winners expected to be announced in April 2027.
The scale of the programme has also grown. According to Adafsa, the first four cycles produced 1,603 participants and 196 winners across the main award categories.
And the projects that have made the winners’ list show that “agricultural excellence” can mean much more than simply producing a successful crop or raising a high-quality herd.
In the inaugural cycle, for example, Salem Hariz Al-Rashedi won the animal production innovation category after working with Adafsa to source camel meat from Al Khaznah slaughterhouse and turning it into new food products, including camel-meat mortadella. The project generated Dh2.055 million in revenue.
Another inaugural winner, Ghanim Sultan Al Suwaidi, developed a modern buffalo-feeding system and operated his own feed factory, using dates and syrups in the feed. His operation also included its own outlets for marketing livestock products, artificial insemination and the introduction of livestock strains from countries known for genetic improvement.
Other winners have focused on resource efficiency and technology. Pure Harvest Farm, for example, was recognised for modern irrigation, cooling and humidity and temperature monitoring systems, as well as fertilisation systems, operational planning and worker training.
The award’s criteria in the new cycle will continue to focus on issues such as resource efficiency, water footprint, economic return, innovation and digital transformation.
For Al Muhairi, however, the wider test of the award is whether the practices demonstrated by its winners spread beyond their own farms.
“The award is not only about winning,” she said; it is about turning the lessons of the winners into practices that other farmers can adopt.
Source: Khaleej Times