Erik Smidt

Netherlands Agricultural Counsellor to GCC at Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Erik Smidt has been working as agriculture counselor for the Dutch agrifood sector in the Gulfregion since September 2018. He is accredited to all the States in the gulfregion and stationed at the Dutch embassy in Riyadh.

Erik has a lot of experience with the agricultural sector in over 25 countries, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Russia and China.

Between 2012 and 2017 he was agricultural attaché in Moscow. He then set to work as the coordinator of the Dutch Risk Reduction Team. This team is active worldwide in areas where there are (potential) water disasters, such as floods and droughts.

To be short: agriculture and water are the fields of his expertise. With Dutch companies continuously developing innovations and new technologies, not only in the Netherlands, but across the world in different environmental contexts this makes a perfect combination. In the Gulf region recently a new campaign was launched ‘Dutch Connection in the Gulf - Uniting Water, Energy, Food’, that offers exciting new opportunities for our cooperation with the UAE. We have been partners with the UAE for many years, and are here to stay.