Time for a complete change of subject when it comes to Dubai. You won’t read a word here about palm tree islands and financial dreams gone awry. This is Bokashiworld!
So it turns out that in Dubai there’s a couple of commited women starting up a Bokashi business. Changing the way people see their rubbish and doing something good with their foodwaste so it gets back into the soil. You only need to think about it for a couple of seconds to realise that Dubai is one place that must be screaming out for soil improvement. You don’t get that far trying to grow vegetables or have a nice flower garden when you come up with shovelload after shovelload of sand. It’s probably a very nice antidote to the island’s consumerism too.
Janine Sheard and Jo Marengo are the women behind Bokashi in Dubai. They’re enthusiastic and determined to make a difference . But one thing they didn’t mention in the article in Gulf News which Janine mentioned in a mail was their climate battle — not something you’d think about normally. Dubai temperatures of up around 45 degrees C is more than Bokashi can deal with, so the process has to be handled indoors under air conditioning. But I imagine the in-soil process goes incredibly fast and the transformation must be quite wonderful to see. Anyone out there testing this in a hot sandy place like Dubai please let us know how you get on!
I have to admit it all seems quite surreal to me as I sit here freezing in my office surrounded by a snap-frozen frosty landscape and temperatures down around -9 degrees. Dreaming of sun, sand and palm trees…
Bokashiworld 
Hi. I stumbled across your site and I’m really enjoying it. I’ve made bokashi in the past. I currently live in rural Alaska where goods are hard to come by and need to be imported. I’m trying to find a local product to replace wheat bran. I’ve heard that somewhere in the middle east, bokashi was being made using sand. Is this possible? Do you know of any other substitutes?
Hi! Sounds tough there, makes Sweden seem easy all of a sudden. Hard to imagine sand working but you could always try! What other organic matter do you have access to? Sawdust is used in NZ. Let us know how you get on!
Try newspaper.
http://bokashicomposting.com/?page_id=53
Or try coffee grounds.
There’s a long discussion at
http://www.wildlifegardeners.org/forum/fertilizing-soil-amendments/1292-extreme-bokashi-make-your-own-innoculant.html where some gals have tried coffee grounds and other gals have tried sawdust. Just be sure to let it dry out and in the shade. I’ve tried shredded paper, didn’t let it dry and it went bad (as in very smelly). I’m presently trying cardboard.
Interesting! Thanks for the comments and the links.
/JennyH
Hey there! Im a 16 year old balcony gardener living in Sharjah, a city very close to dubai, and Im planning to buy bokashi from the bokashi company these two women created ^_^ Im very excited to see my family’s kitchen waste become rich soil instead of going to a landfil!