Prospects of Environmentally Friendly Farms for Food Security in Hot and Dry Coastal Areas Based on Seawater Irrigation and Wasteproducts – An Inspirational Proposal

Abstract

Salt-water-irrigated projects have been set-up in the 1980s and 1990s, with varying degrees of success, especially in Abu Dhabi, Khor Kalba, and Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, Ras as Zawr in Saudi Arabia, but also in Eritrea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Pakistan, Sudan and elsewhere, with the rational to develop productive agro-systems for food production under marginal soil-water conditions. The human population in coastal dry lands has significantly increased in the last 20–30 years, or so, and with it, their dependency on food-important, even more limited freshwater resources, and the increase of waste products. This manuscript is not another proposal to establish seawater experimental farms – it is a call to continue the overall process of the sustainable utilization of halophytes in hyper-saline ecosystems. In order to achieve meaningful progress, these projects need to find long-term support, with targeted scientific research, capacity augmentation, education, and the utilization of waste-products from human settlements.