Dubai Municipality honours heroes of ‘Grow Your Food' organic farming initiative

• Aimed at seeding a culture of freshness and healthy living among the UAE residents, the competition enrolled over 4,000 school students and hundreds of residents.
• The contestants set up organic gardens in their premises -- school campuses, balconies and rooftops of residential apartments, courtyards of villas and even small spaces down car parking lots.

DUBAI- March 10, 2015: Dubai Municipality (DM), in association with Jaleel Holdings and Eastern Condiments, honoured winners of its ‘Grow Your Food’ initiative, which witnessed participation of over 4,000 school students and hundreds of residents across the UAE since its launch in October last year. The one-of-its-kind initiative, under the patronage of DM’s Food Control Department, promoted organic farming among the residents, who cultivated vegetables and herbs at their residential premises and school campuses.

The ‘Grow Your Food’ initiative was conceptualised in line with the World Food Day theme -- ‘Family Farming: Feeding the world, caring for the earth’. The campaign encouraged the residents to adopt a culture of growing vegetable gardens at their own premises to have fresh and safe food for their use.

As part of the initiative, the organisers hosted a competition for students and residents who set up organic gardens in their premises -- school campuses, balconies and rooftops of residential apartments, courtyards of villas and even small spaces down car parking lots. The contestants in School and Educational Institution, Villa, Apartment and Labour Camp categories cultivated varieties of vegetables, fruits and herbs to enjoy healthy produces.

Eng. Salem Bin Mesmar, Asst. Director General for Environment, Health & Safety Control Sector at Dubai Municipality (DM), honoured winners of the organic farming contest. He commended the inspiring efforts of the top winners who walked away with a total of AED 150,000 worth of shopping vouchers. Each winner received grocery vouchers worth AED 10,000, in addition to other prizes and certificates.

Commenting on the initiative, HE Eng. Hussain Nasser Lootah, Director General of Dubai Municipality (DM), said, “The ‘Grow Your Food’ programme turned out to be a pioneer in the organic agriculture movement in the UAE. Kitchen farming is being identified world over as a way to overcome several health issues of families. Civic bodies in the developed world are keen to make urban spaces greener. In such a backdrop, the ‘Grow Your Food’ idea comes forth as a powerful and feasible game changer. We encouraged the residents to be part of this great movement, which emphasised the long-term message of the programme. Apart from inspiring people to take up farming, the campaign is also aimed at inculcating a love for farming among the residents as well as students.”

Mr. Khalid Mohammed Sharif Al Awadhi, Director of Food Control Department at the DM; said, “We aimed to promote the theme of organic bio-farming by motivating the residents to adopt the habit of producing vegetables and herbs at their own premises. Inspired by the modest but successful harvest in their premises, we hope the participants would spread the message of health and food safety benefits of cultivating own vegetables in the society.”

“We promoted the concept of kitchen garden on a large scale during the ‘Grow Your Food’ campaign, to encourage people to eat fresh, home-grown vegetables. Our aim is to have kitchen garden at all households in the emirate over the next few years. The kitchen garden concept attains greater significance, especially at a time when several studies have recommended daily consumption of good amount of fresh vegetables would help lead a healthy life,” he added.

Mr. Sameer K Mohamed, Managing Director - Jaleel Holdings, said, “We are pleased that the ‘Grow Your Food’ initiative received an overwhelming response from the residents who jumped on the bandwagon to use home-grown vegetables and lead a healthier life. We are extremely proud to associate with Dubai Municipality to run this Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative, which aimed at creating a culture of growing vegetable gardens at residential premises.”

“As part of the campaign, we guided the participants about organic household farming methods and distributed high-yielding vegetable seeds suited for their gardens. We, at Jaleel Holdings, have a strong social commitment and focused devotion to the environment, promoting natural products among the residents in the UAE. We always support campaigns that encourage the people to embrace the concepts like home-made vegetables and herbs,” he added.

Mr. Navas Meeran, Chairman - Eastern Group of Companies, said, “We, at Eastern Condiments, believe in innovation, freshness, purity, healthy living and traditional values. Purpose of this ‘Grow Your Food’ campaign has been to encourage the residents to set up organic vegetable gardens and lead a healthy life.

Throughout the ‘Grow your Food’ campaign, we tried to pass on the message to everyone and to uphold the significance of natural products in making life worth living. This eco-friendly initiative contributed to the society in terms of creating a platform for a sustainable tomorrow.”

The organisers distributed varieties of seeds to all participants for sowing, and guided them to grow vegetables in their gardens. In the individual category, the campaign enrolled more than 100 participants, out of them 30 contestants were screened and hand-picked for the final evaluation. The campaign charted intra-school and inter-school categories among the students. In the intra-school category, the campaign enrolled about 4,000 students from 20 different schools across the UAE, while 25 schools registered in the inter-school category.

The participants posted pictures of their gardens on the dedicated Facebook page of the campaign. A specialist jury assessed the posts and identified the best 100 images. The jury selected the winners after visiting to the sites of the registered vegetable gardens in campuses, residential apartments, villas and labour camps for screening and evaluation of the gardens in different stages. The jury selected winners from each school. The evaluation procedures for the different categories completed in accordance with Dubai Municipality criteria, which include creative utilisation of space, healthy way of growing (without fertilisers), sustainability, water saving and best utilisation mechanisms developed and followed by the participant, and the varieties of produces cultivated in the garden.

The top winners in different categories are: Ms. Ashimol Shabu, Mr. Yusuf Gadiwala and Mr. Sam Abraham George (Apartments); Ms. Jasmin Shabeer, Ms. Susan Thomas, Ms. Nadeera Abdul Jabbar, Ms. Yana Samir and Ms. Aisha Abdulla Al Suwaidi (Villas). In the labour camp category, Aati Contracting and Forecast Abu Dhabi have emerged as the winners of special jury award.

During the campaign, the ‘organisers mobilised thousands of residents for road shows held at different sites setting up registration booths for the public join the drive. A road show at Dubai Creek Park formed one of the largest human chains for this cause where the participants endorsed their support to the cause of freshness and healthy living by signing on a centrally placed huge pot. The participants were also entitled to a raffle draw, out of which 10 lucky winners walked away with two-gram gold coins for each.  

Jaleel Holdings is a UAE-based leading investment company with strong presence in fast moving consumer goods (FMCG), metal fabrication and education. Jaleel Holdings owns Jaleel Wholesale Point (the largest FMCG wholesaler in the UAE), Jaleel Distribution and J-Mart Supermarkets. Eastern Condiments is one of the leading Indian producers of spice powders, masala mixes, breakfast staples and a host of other products, with a large manufacturing unit in the UAE.

Eastern Condiments is India’s largest exporters of spices with supply chains in the US, Europe, African and the Middle East countries, with more than 600,000 stores showcasing and selling its products across the globe.