Plant Factory in MENA countries

Although food security has traditionally been considered a rural development issue, this is now changing in the context of growing cities and urban poverty. Research demonstrates clearly that the urban poor shoulder the greatest economic burden in meeting their food needs, accounting for an estimated 54% of their income. This makes their food supply extremely vulnerable to any changes in supply chains.

There is increasing recognition that part of the effort to feed the world’s population has to be achieved within cities in order to increase local productivity and availability, build resilience to climate shocks and conflict, and reduce the vulnerability of the urban poor to food and nutrition insecurity. University of Plymouth is collaborating with the Royal Scientific Society of Jordan to develop solutions to the challenges of urban food insecurity.

One of the key outputs of the project was to create a network of CEA stakeholders across the MENA region and worldwide – a pool of experts, and associated social platforms, that provides an interactive platform to share ideas, success stories and lessons learned. It is hoped that this will result in the concept of Plant Factories being integrated into national food supply policies and will improve the food security status of participating MENA countries. Introducing urban CEA has begun to develop resilience for people living in cities, particularly the urban poor, and will contribute to the overall body of knowledge concerning Plant Factories and CEA.