Penelope Walsh visits Greenheart Organic Farm’s Sharjah site to unearth its holistic approach to local produce.
Organic and locally produced food has earned increased interest in the UAE, from both top chefs and consumers. Since 2012, farm shops have opened around the country, the number of weekly farmers’ markets has grown steadily, and a government-run initiative to support the local, organic farming scene is a sign that the UAE is taking the matter pretty seriously.
Although, globally speaking, we’re a long way off from the all-organic, all-local eating habits of our ancestors, there is definitely a positive seed spreading its roots in the desert soil as both supply and demand grow.
It is important to point out, however, that organic and locally grown do not always go hand-in-hand. While farms in the region are certainly taking more care over how they produce their harvest, there have been murmurs that organic labels in this region do not always suggest the 100 per cent chemical-free production you’d assume. Occasional claims regarding local sourcing can also be confusing, and supply chains can come with issues of traceability. For example, have you ever realised that ‘locally sourced’ can refer to produce from India, Jordan and Lebanon?
One organic local company that it would be tricky to level any such concern at is Greenheart Organic Farms. This farming group is open about how and where its produce is grown and, to demonstrate this transparency, Time Out was invited to one of its farms.
Having grown up in the world of organic farming, Elena Kinane launched Greenheart Organic Farms in conjunction with business partner Azam Mubarak. In addition to home delivery, Greenheart Organic Farms has gone on to supply all the fresh produce for Dubai-based NKD Pizza (aside, Elena tells us, from the artichokes), it opened its own farm shop in 2013 and now provides ingredients for healthy juice specialist Detox Delight.
The first thing that hits you on arrival at the Greenheart farm in Sharjah is the smell of manure. In order to adhere to 100 per cent organic farming regulations, Elena explains that it is important for farms to keep animals. Here, the chickens are fed on the all-organic produce grown by the farm, specifically alfafa grass, which is considered especially nutritious. Manure from the chickens is then used to fertilise the soil, which in turn nourishes the crops that will later feed the chickens (and the consumers). As such, an entirely organic cycle of life is established on the farm.
Elena explains that the care taken in building the soil is especially important in desert farming, where the natural sand requires extra help to make it nutrient-rich. As Elena shows us the well of ‘sweet water’ (or fresh water, as opposed to salt water) dug deep from a natural spring, she tells us that the limited availability of this water is an issue for desert farming.
Greenheart Organic also places importance on heirloom seeds, which are used predominantly across the farm. Heirloom seeds are ancestral (used by generations of farmers), and they can be taken from the new crop, dried and used again the following year. Hybrid seeds are the new generation of seeds, which cannot be used again each year, and have been modified to provide reliable harvests and consistent crops.
Elena explains that one small row of tomatoes grown from hybrid seeds (in an air-conditioned growing house full of heirloom varieties) is effectively there as insurance – security against a blighted crop. A bristly looking vegetable, which looks more like an overgrown yellow gooseberry, is in fact an heirloom cucumber called a lemon cucumber, and Elena says this pre-dates the variety we are now more familiar with.
Elena points out how turnips and radishes in the same patch have grown to different sizes and explains how this indicates that they have absorbed the nutrients in the soil at different stages of their growth. This compares with hybrid crops, which have greater uniformity in absorption (and therefore appearance). Elena points to a patch of overripe tomatoes, which will not be harvested – instead, the seeds will be dried, collected and planted again the following year.
The farm provides a same-day harvest and retail of its fruit and vegetables, meaning the produce in the shop has been picked the same morning. It also means the produce is at the peak of freshness when it hits the shop, and we’re told the shop is only stocked with as much as will be realistically sold in one day.
Elena tells us that the number of farms being operated by the company in the UAE has been reduced from six to three. This is partly in a bid to reduce the amount of driving required (across the country) in order to continue providing this daily harvest. Instead, Greenheart Organic has made the decision to downsize and develop those remaining farms.
The farm-fresh quality achieved through same-day harvesting is clear: the kale is a vibrant purple, with silvery tones; the leaves of the sweet basil plants are huge, sculptural and glossy; touch the tomato vine’s leaves and you’ll be left with the fruit’s intense aroma on your fingertips.
But it is the aubergine that really wows. Purple aubergine cannot be grown outside in this region because the skin blisters, but the ‘black beauty’ variety ripens in the desert sun and the result is the most attractive specimen you’ve ever seen: dark, shiny and as taut as a marble.
www.greenheartuae.com
