H.E. Dr. Rashid Ahmed Bin Fahad, Minister of Environment and Water, headed the UAE delegation to the 26th meeting of the GCC Agricultural Cooperation Committee in Doha, Qatar. The UAE delegation comprised other high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Environment and Water, including H.E. Sultan Alwan, Assistant Undersecretary of Areas Sector, and Engineer Fatima Al Kalbani, Director of Plant Health and Development Department.

The meeting included a panel discussion where various committee members presented topics like systems and agriculture policies, livestock, fisheries, GCC food security, guidelines and standards in the use of fertilizers and soil conditioners. The event also served as a platform to present the current status of the project covering the development and sustainability of date palms in the region. MoEW officials were also briefed on the recommendations received from the recently concluded workshop, ‘The Study of Agricultural and Environmental Biotechnology Applications.’

The meeting also focused on livestock protection wherein participants agreed on the establishment for common laboratory references for animal diseases in GCC countries—thereby resulting in a unified and collective procurement of medical and veterinary vaccines; development of new legislation on livestock importation and the lifting of the ban on the importation of animals and birds outside the GCC countries. Other topics also included for discussion were the unification of the veterinary health certificate standard and the lifting of the ban on horse importation from Kuwait. The existing laws and systems governing preventive measures against infectious, epidemiological and animal diseases were also examined.     

Meanwhile, the Committee on Fisheries reviewed the laws and systems on the protection and exploitation of living aquatic resources as well as the program aimed at preserving the Spanish mackerel fish. It also looked into distributing a brochure on proper fishing and fishing gears in the Gulf region; conducting a comprehensive survey on the shrimp fishing project, and addressing bio-security and its applications for Gulf fisheries.