Abdirashid Elmi
Kuwait University, Kuwait
Title: Organic agriculture as a form of sustainable farming and public perception
Biography
Biography: Abdirashid Elmi
Abstract
Kuwait is one of the few countries in the world that depend entirely on food imports for food security. Consequently, there is a sense of urgency to promote local food production to meet, partly at least, the growing food demand. Local farmers are adopting organic agriculture on a growing scale with little experience and absence of well-defined standards against which the quality of their products can be measured. This study is designed to investigate the organic farming in Kuwait by comparing the organically grown vegetables with conventional grown vegetables samples. Total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) contents were higher in the organically grown than in conventional crops. A striking observation was high concentrations of heavy metals (As, Pb, Cu and Zn) under organic crops than conventional crops, a sharp contrast with the findings of previous studies. With respect to survey study, results indicate that people perceive organic food as a healthy and safe food to consume.