Frankly Speaking: Food crisis will have ‘huge impact’ on Middle East, says agritech entrepreneur David Meszaros

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Updated 19 June 2022
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Frankly Speaking: Food crisis will have ‘huge impact’ on Middle East, says agritech entrepreneur David Meszaros

  • CEO of Dutch company SmartKas plans to build “mega smart farm” that can provide food for the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia using renewable energy and water sources
  • Meszaros believes planet can feed 10 billion people by 2050 but not with current system as it will run out of food “within the next decade or so”

DUBAI: The brewing global food crisis will have a “huge impact” on the Middle East and North Africa, whose populations and economies have suffered “a critical blow” owing to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

That is according to Dr. David Meszaros, a technology entrepreneur and CEO of SmartKas, an agritech company that is building the largest smart farm in the Netherlands using artificial intelligence, drones and robotics.

“If we’re talking about today, if we’re talking about the next few weeks, there’s a huge impact for them,” he told Katie Jensen, the host of “Frankly Speaking,” the video interview show featuring leading regional and international policymakers and business leaders.

Meszaros also revealed plans to build a “mega smart farm” — run completely sustainably, completely autonomously, using only renewable sources of energy and water — to provide food for the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

Speaking more broadly, he said the world can feed 10 billion people by 2050 but not with the current food system. “We’re going to run out of food within the next decade or so,” he said.

The comments come as the UN warns that global hunger levels are at a new record, with food prices about 30 percent higher since the outbreak of the war, food exports dropping significantly worldwide, and inflation soaring in many countries.

In the interview, Meszaros also offered his take on the real reasons for the food crisis, who will suffer most, why new technologies could be the solution and whether can they materialize quickly enough.

Referring to the MENA countries currently facing food insecurity, he said: “Their strong reliance on imported wheat, imported rice, all kinds of grains (and fertilizers) … is completely disrupting their economy, especially the agro-economy. And there is no other choice for the government than to buy food at an increased price to try to meet the demand for food.”

On the upside, according to Meszaros, it is not too late yet as the critical moment will come in another five to 10 years. “If they make the conscious decision to switch now, as in really now,” he said, “then within the next 6-12 months we could see the appearance of smart farms powered by whatever natural resources they have and producing their own food.”

Charles Michel, the EU president, has accused Russia of using food supplies as a “stealth missile” against developing countries, but Meszaros believes the causes of the crisis go deeper than just the war in Ukraine.

“I would say it’s a bit of a stretch to say that (the Russians) are solely to blame. We can all recall that we just had a supply-chain crisis the years prior, as well as an ongoing pandemic — and there are rumors of another wave reaching Europe and the MENA region soon,” he said.




A sunken Ukrainian warship is seen near the pier with the grain storage in Mariupol, scene of heavy destruction in the past weeks amid Russian missile and artillery strikes. (AP Photo) 

“We can actually turn back the clock all the way to the 1960s (as) the whole issue started back then. The world’s population is now two and a half times what it was in the 1960s.”

The global food crisis is “an ongoing, long-expected problem that has been brewing and brewing and brewing” which was “never taken seriously,” Meszaros said. As a case in point, he cited the use of fertilizers, which he said has increased by eight times since the 1960s “but because of diminishing returns, its effectiveness has dropped by about 95 percent.”

He likened the situation to running a business without having insurance. “You just hope for the best that nothing goes awry, but then it did,” he said, “and the frequency of these catastrophic events is just increasing.”

Having said that, Meszaros did not play down the importance of Russia’s role as the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers, or that of Russia and Ukraine jointly as the supplier of 30 percent of the world’s wheat supplies and 70 percent of its sunflower oil. Global food supplies are “under extreme stress (which) has been a huge blow not only to the regional, but global food supply as well,” he said. 




Fertilizers are stored at a factory compound in Moscow. Russia is the world’s largest exporter of fertilizers. (Shutterstock)

“The problem is that we have increasingly relied on an outdated, very, very old, obsolete food system. This food system positions itself on field farming, and, because of that, there is a non-renewable aspect to it,” Meszaros said.

“There is a continuous new need for fertilizers — whether that’s phosphorus, or nitrogen, or potassium-based fertilizers. There is still a need for (such fertilizers) and you cannot just expect the food system to switch in a matter of weeks or months.

“This is why people are seeing (the Russia-Ukraine) war as a massive trigger that finally made us realize that the current, unsustainable and non-renewable system just cannot continue.”

Meszaros is known for being a big advocate of the autonomous smart farm, having created the biggest of its kind in the Netherlands. But how exactly does it work?

He put it this way: “Imagine you have a farm field. You try to grow strawberries on it. Usually, you have a yield of 10 to 15 metric tons on one hectare. But on the same amount of land, when a 10 or 12-layer vertical farm is built by SmartKas, you can grow above 2,000 metric tons — that is, approximately 200 times more high-quality, pesticide-free and sustainably grown fresh strawberries. 




The Food and Agriculture Organization is advocating the adoption of smart farming to meet the world's food needs amid worsening climate change. (Courtesy: FAO.org)

“Not only that, but those are grown 24/7 — so from Jan. 1 until Dec. 31 — and they are grown right next to the city where they are sold.

“We are recirculating the water, we are using solar or wind or whatever energy is possible for us — and this is grown all pesticide-free and sold locally. So, we are cutting out the middleman, there’s no import, there’s no export and, by orders of magnitude, higher amounts. I am here in the Amsterdam location, but we also have a location in London, we have a R&D facility in Hungary and we are building a massive greenhouse in Brazil.”

Elaborating on his plans for creating a “mega farm” for several Gulf Cooperation Council countries, he said discussions are underway with government officials as well as individuals in the UAE, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

“What we believe in, is that, especially for the GCC countries, we could build one massive mega facility that — running completely sustainably, autonomously and using only renewable sources of energy and water — could feed the three countries,” he said.




Discussions are under way to create a “mega farm” for several Gulf Cooperation Council countries, says SmartKas CEO David Meszaros. (AN photo)

Meszaros envisions “a triangle format, where one equal piece of the triangle would be in one of the three countries,” supplemented by the introduction of “autonomous electric vehicles — trucks, essentially — for supplying fresh fruits and vegetables to the largest cities of these three countries.”

With regard to the location of the project, he said: “We can pick the most ideal position from a climate perspective, from a power-line perspective, from a water perspective etc.”

As for the total cost, he believes it would be between $900 million and $1.1 billion, with a capacity for producing “about 50,000 tons of fresh fruits and vegetables, which, according to our studies, would be more than enough for the fresh fruit and vegetable supply for these countries.”

Meszaros hopes to rely heavily on solar because, as he put it, “the sun is not in short supply in these countries, land is available and you can utilize it, and there are newer and newer technologies in photovoltaic, or PV, panels — some elevated, some transparent.”

 

 

He said SmartKas is experimenting with transparent PVs “which allow for even more energy generation per target area,” adding that “we have automated robots, strings, drones that can clean (dust and sand) from the panels regularly without human intervention.”

With regard to water supplies, he said there are some potential solutions. “Number one, because the systems themselves are hermetically closed, anything we can recycle. The recycling will not be perfect, we will have some losses. So, we would introduce two water-capture units,” he said.

“One would be a desalination plant and the other one would be an atmospheric water-generation unit that captures the humidity from the air. And, alongside the coastline, we have already done on-site studies on this. There’s just enough humidity in the air to capture between four to six thousand liters of water per unit per day.”

Meszaros said SmartKas “already has investors signed on … in all three countries,” and is talking to European investors and European public entities as well.

 

 

“We expect to finish the early-stage development pre-engineering and designs in the next two years, and then afterwards we can talk about construction,” he said. “Definitely not in the next two years. Probably three, four years (from now) is when we will see signs of this project.”

On a final note, Meszaros outlined some steps that he thinks should be put in place if the world is to feed a projected population of 10 billion by 2050.

“The first is to cut the reliance on fertilizers and inefficient farming methods,” he said.

“Not every country needs to have an autonomous AI-run farm. You can start small. You can use drones to better divide the pesticides, then you can use certain foil technologies, polytunnel technologies — what Spain uses, what Morocco uses — to protect the crops and then slowly every single country can transition.

“But, in essence, using technology and innovative solutions is the key towards providing food security in the world.”

 


Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

Updated 4 sec ago
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Israeli settlers hold wedding ceremony inside Al-Aqsa Mosque under police protection

  • The Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move ‘provocative and humiliating’

LONDON: Israeli authorities permitted a wedding engagement ceremony for Jewish settlers within the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the occupied Old City of East Jerusalem on Monday.

The Palestinian Authority’s Jerusalem Governorate deemed the move “provocative and humiliating,” describing it as a transformation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque into what resembles a public hall for celebrations by extremist settlers.

“(This is) a flagrant violation of the sanctity of the mosque, a serious provocation of the feelings of Muslims, and a deliberate attempt to impose a new reality that erases the Islamic identity of the site and paves the way for its division temporally and spatially,” the Jerusalem Governorate said.

On Monday, settlers, accompanied by Israeli police, toured the Al-Aqsa compound. Police prevented Palestinians from approaching the settlers to disrupt the ceremony, according to the Wafa news agency.

The Jerusalem Governorate said that Israeli policies aim to impose sovereignty on Al-Aqsa Mosque, stressing that these repeated provocations contradict international law and the 2016 UNESCO resolution, which recognized Al-Aqsa Mosque as an Islamic heritage site and called for its preservation.

Since 1967, the Jerusalem Endowments Council, which operates under Jordan’s Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs, has been the legal authority responsible for managing and regulating the affairs of Al-Aqsa.

However, this status quo has been challenged in recent years by extremist settlers who regularly tour the site under the protection of Israeli police and are often accompanied by government officials and far-right ministers and activists.


UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

Updated 59 min 17 sec ago
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UK MPs demand Ukraine-style visa route for Gazans

  • Letter to PM: ‘The same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families’
  • Death toll ‘likely to be exponentially higher’ than official figure due to collapse of local govt, health systems

LONDON: MPs in the UK are calling on the government to launch a visa system for Palestinians in Gaza with family already living in Britain.

Sixty-seven politicians have written to Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Home Secretary Yvette Cooper asking for a Gaza Family Scheme mirroring the Ukraine Family Scheme established in 2022 to help refugees escape the war with Russia. It allowed Ukrainians to live and work in the UK for up to three years.

“We believe that the same generosity should be extended to Palestinian families,” said the letter, seen by Sky News.

Signatories include 35 Labour MPs and members of the House of Lords, as well as several people currently suspended from the governing party, including its former leader Jeremy Corbyn and former Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell. 

All four sitting members of the Green Party have also signed, alongside former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron and the Bishop of Chelmsford Dr. Guli Francis-Dehquani.

The letter accuses Israel of “shattering the temporary ceasefire agreement” with Hamas in Gaza, and of conducting a “campaign of bombardment and military assaults, and targeting of people accessing humanitarian aid.”

MP Marsha de Cordova, who helped organize the letter alongside the Gaza Families Reunited campaign, told Sky News that the Ukraine visa scheme “was the right response to a brutal war,” and that establishing one for Gazans “would be an extension of those same principles, showing that this government is steadfast in its commitment to helping families experiencing the worst horrors of war.

“It is time for the government to act now to help British Palestinians get their loved ones to safety, enabling them to rebuild their lives.”

The letter said the proposed scheme would let Palestinians reunite with “people they may never see again unless urgent action is taken,” and many Gazans trying to reach the UK “struggled to navigate the immigration system.”

It added that efforts to secure visas have been made “impossible due to the destruction of the visa application centre in Gaza and blockade of the Rafah crossing.”

The letter said the death toll in Gaza, reported by Palestinian authorities as numbering at least 53,000 people, “is likely to be exponentially higher” due to the collapse of local government and health systems in the enclave.

Ghassan Ghaben, spokesperson for Gaza Families Reunited, told Sky News: “Family unity is an undeniable human right.”

He urged more MPs, including Conservatives, to add their names to efforts to help get Palestinians to the UK, saying: “We are still waiting for the new government to do the right thing. We, as Palestinians in the UK, simply want the opportunity to bring our loved ones from Gaza to safety, until it is safe to return.”

A government spokesperson told Sky News: “The death and destruction in Gaza is intolerable. Since day one, we have been clear that we need to see an immediate ceasefire, the release of all hostages cruelly detained by Hamas, better protection of civilians, significantly more aid consistently entering Gaza, and a path to long-term peace and stability.

“There are a range of routes available for Palestinians who wish to join family members in the UK.”


Israel steps up Gaza bombardment ahead of White House talks on ceasefire

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israel steps up Gaza bombardment ahead of White House talks on ceasefire

  • Israel’s Dermer due in US for talks on Gaza, Iran, wider deals
  • Israeli tanks push into Gaza City suburb, residents say

CAIRO/JERUSALEM: Palestinians in northern Gaza reported one of the worst nights of Israeli bombardment in weeks after the military issued mass evacuation orders on Monday, while Israeli officials were due in Washington for a new ceasefire push by the Trump administration.
A day after US President Donald Trump urged an end to the 20-month-old war, a confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was expected at the White House for talks on a Gaza ceasefire, Iran, and possible wider regional diplomatic deals.
But on the ground in the Palestinian enclave there was no sign of fighting letting up.
“Explosions never stopped; they bombed schools and homes. It felt like earthquakes,” said Salah, 60, a father of five children, from Gaza City. “In the news we hear a ceasefire is near, on the ground we see death and we hear explosions.”
Israeli tanks pushed into the eastern areas of Zeitoun suburb in Gaza City and shelled several areas in the north, while aircraft bombed at least four schools after ordering hundreds of families sheltering inside to leave, residents said.
At least 38 people were killed in Israeli strikes on Monday, health authorities said, including 10 people killed in Zeitoun and at least 13 killed southwest of Gaza City. Medics said most of the 13 were hit by gunfire, but residents also reported an airstrike.
The Israeli military said it struck militant targets in northern Gaza, including command and control centers, after taking steps to mitigate the risk of harming civilians.
There was no immediate word from Israel on the reported casualties southwest of Gaza City.
The heavy bombardment followed new evacuation orders to vast areas in the north, where Israeli forces had operated before and left behind wide-scale destruction. The military ordered people there to head south, saying that it planned to fight Hamas militants operating in northern Gaza, including in the heart of Gaza City.

NEXT STEPS
A day after Trump called to “Make the deal in Gaza, get the hostages back,” Israel’s strategic affairs minister Ron Dermer, a confidant of Netanyahu’s, was expected on Monday at the White House for talks on Iran and Gaza, an Israeli official said.
In Israel, Netanyahu’s security cabinet was expected to convene to discuss the next steps in Gaza.
On Friday, Israel’s military chief said the present ground operation was close to having achieved its goals, and on Sunday, Netanyahu said new opportunities had opened up for recovering the hostages, 20 of whom are believed to still be alive.
Palestinian and Egyptian sources with knowledge of the latest ceasefire efforts said that mediators Qatar and Egypt have stepped up their contacts with the two warring sides, but that no date has been set yet for a new round of truce talks.
A Hamas official said that progress depends on Israel changing its position and agreeing to end the war and withdraw from Gaza. Israel says it can end the war only when Hamas is disarmed and dismantled. Hamas refuses to lay down its arms.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said that Israel has agreed to a US-proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage deal, and put the onus on Hamas.
“Israel is serious in its will to reach a hostage deal and ceasefire in Gaza,” Saar told reporters in Jerusalem.
Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger, speaking in Jerusalem on Monday alongside her Israeli counterpart, told reporters that Vienna was very concerned about the humanitarian situation in Gaza, which she described as “unbearable.”
“Let me be frank, the suffering of civilians is increasingly burdening Israel’s relations with Europe. A ceasefire must be agreed upon,” she said, calling for the unconditional release of hostages by Hamas and for Israel to allow the uninterrupted flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza.
Israel says it continues to allow aid into Gaza and accuses Hamas of stealing it. The group denies that accusation and says Israel uses hunger as a weapon against the Gaza population.
The US has proposed a 60-day ceasefire and the release of half the hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners and the remains of other Palestinians. Hamas would release the remaining hostages as part of a deal that guarantees ending the war.
The war began when Hamas fighters stormed into Israel on October 7 2023, killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, and took 251 hostages back to Gaza in a surprise attack that led to Israel’s single deadliest day.
Israel’s subsequent military assault has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to the Gaza health ministry, displaced almost the whole 2.3 million population and plunged the enclave into a humanitarian crisis.
More than 80 percent of the territory is now an Israeli-militarized zone or under displacement orders, according to the United Nations.


No injuries or pollution after explosion at oil tanker off Libya, says operator

Updated 30 June 2025
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No injuries or pollution after explosion at oil tanker off Libya, says operator

  • The Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Vilamoura had left Libya’s Zuetina port and was en route to Gibraltar

ATHENS: An oil tanker carrying about 1 million barrels of crude oil suffered an explosion off Libya on June 27 but no injuries or pollution were reported, a spokesperson for the operator TMS Tankers said on Monday.

The Marshall Islands-flagged tanker Vilamoura had left Libya’s Zuetina port and was en route to Gibraltar when there was an explosion in the engine room, the operator said.

The vessel is now being towed to Greece where it is expected to arrive by July 2, it added.


Israel FM says Golan to ‘remain part of’ Israel in any Syria peace deal

Updated 30 June 2025
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Israel FM says Golan to ‘remain part of’ Israel in any Syria peace deal

  • Golan Heights “will remain part of” Israel under any potential peace agreement with Syria, Israel's FM says

JERUSALEM: Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Monday that the occupied Golan Heights “will remain part of” Israel under any potential peace agreement with Syria.
“In any peace agreement, the Golan will remain part of the State of Israel,” Saar told a news conference in Jerusalem, referring to the territory Israel seized from Syria in 1967 and later annexed in a move not recognized by the United Nations.