With challenges like limited arable land and water scarcity, many countries in the Middle East region actively seeks cutting-edge solutions to reinforce its food security.
For instance, Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO), a state-backed investment entity, established a $200 million fund to support agtech companies entering or expanding in the UAE.
Additionally, the region is well-positioned as a regional hub with access to South Asia and Africa.
These are just some of the reasons why countries like the UAE has become an attractive market for agtech startups.
While the country is open to innovation, Dr Shamal Mohammed, CEO of Silal Innovation Oasis, said startups must demonstrate how it can align with national goals.
“The perception is that you’re going to go to the Middle East, where people are quite rich and you’re going to sell that technology… Unfortunately, that’s not the case. That’s probably never been the case,” said Mohammed, who was speaking on a panel at Future Food Asia 2025 on May 22 in Singapore.
Mohammed said that investors from the Middle East are looking for companies that are committed to collaboration and long-term value creation in the countries.
“What we are interested in is creation of value in the country – that value is either commercial or non-commercial – but you need to be a partner. We are not interested in buying technology. We are very interested and very much invested in partners that can help us build the capability in the country and creating the money together as well,” said Mohammed.
“My message is: if you bring value, you will secure funding, definitely – capital is there.”
UAE ag innovation landscape is shifting
Silal Innovation Oasis is under the Silal Group, a leading agtech food firm from the UAE. It is supported by the Abu Dhabi Developmental Holding Company (ADQ), a major sovereign wealth fund.
While the UAE collaborates with the partners overseas, Mohammed emphasised the need for innovation to come from within the country.
“The landscape of research and development in the UAE includes a large number of universities – some more specialised in agriculture, and others focused on high-tech research. On the other side, we have the industry, companies, and the private sector. Most of the time, you’re looking at technologies developed somewhere else. But for us at Silal, we believe that innovation needs to be done in the country, because our challenges are very unique, and technologies need to be proven here.”
He highlighted that in the UAE, more universities an research organisations are delving into agriculture.
“I think in the next probably a decade or so, we see the UAE moving from sort of an oil-based economy country to a knowledge-based country, and this is where agriculture and food security is always a high priority for the country. We have seen a lot of non-agriculture universities and research organisations actually moving into more agriculture.