When bird droppings from Abu Dhabi greened the farms and gardens of England's pleasant land

Before oil and gas and after pearls, there was another export trade from these parts - British red tape permitting

From the middle of the 19th century, guano fertiliser was in great demand among farmers in Europe and the United States. Getty Images

Abu Dhabi has always been rich in natural resources. Until the 1930s it was pearls that brought wealth, an industry that declined with the introduction of cheaper Japanese cultured pearls.

From the 1960s, oil and gas transformed the economy of Abu Dhabi and the UAE, creating the prosperous modern country of today,

What, though, of the intervening period, when work was scarce, and many in the seven emirates were among the poorest people in the world? The answer, some thought, might be guano, the polite way of describing seabird excrement.

Thanks to the birds' fishy diet, guano is rich in phosphate, nitrogen and potassium, and makes a superb fertiliser. On the islands on which the birds nest it can accumulate over centuries until it is many metres deep.

Growing demand

From the middle of the 19th century, guano fertiliser was in great demand among farmers in Europe and the United States, as economies grew and a hungry population demanded ever more intensive agriculture and larger crop yields.

So precious was guano that the US passed a law in 1858 allowing it to take possession of guano-rich islands anywhere in the world if they were uninhabited. The UK obtained copious supplies from the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. In 1949, the UK imported nearly 88,000 tonnes of guano from the Seychelles, worth nearly £5 million (Dh25m) in today’s money.

That year is important because it was when an enterprising London export-import company, JC Gilbert Ltd, believed it had discovered a new, potentially valuable source of guano to spread on the fields of Britain’s farms: the offshore islands of Abu Dhabi.

Many of the islands in the Arabian Gulf were already a local source of seabird fertiliser. A survey of the seabed in 1954 reported that prisoners from Bahrain’s jails were employed to dig guano from the Baina Islands to use on government gardens.

Waste from seabirds in the UAE was used to help make fertiliser in the UK. Chris Whiteoak / The National

Reaching out

An advert placed in the UK journal Farming in 1949 by JC Gilbert offered “screened genuine bird guano” with “guaranteed 8-10 per cent ammonia, 20-30 per cent phosphates”.

There was “no government restriction on the amount that can be applied per acre or the crop for which it can be used”. Another advert from the same year in the Gardeners’ Chronicle promises “Bird Guano – quick-acting fertiliser. Ready for use." The price for a 50kg bag was 40 old shillings, or £2, the equivalent of £90 (Dh436) in today's money. “Share it with your neighbours,” the company urged.

JC Gilbert’s plan, however, had one formidable obstacle to overcome. British civil service bureaucracy.

There was no sign of problems at first. A headed letter on Crown notepaper from the British political agency in Bahrain noted a request from August 1949 “on the subject of the import of guano in the United Kingdom from Abu Dhabi”, and the response that “as far as we can see the procedure proposed is unobjectionable”.

Not so fast, came the response from London. How could it be certain that this was 100 per cent genuine Abu Dhabi guano? Could the necessary paperwork confirm it? This was important because some islands in the Arabian Gulf were subject to differing territorial claims. If some of the Abu Dhabi guano turned out to come from an island another Gulf country had its eye on, the British Foreign Office feared a diplomatic incident could occur.

London proposed a special import form. “This guano is declared by (insert name) to have been collected on (name) island. (Name) Island is regarded by His Majesty’s Government as belonging to (name of emirate), a territory under the protection of His Majesty.”

Here was a difficulty though. How could London be sure the guano really had been collected from an island that really belonged to Abu Dhabi. After all, there were a lot of islands and a lot of competing claims. “I assume the British importer will eventually appoint a responsible agent in Abu Dhabi to handle the consignment and who will keep me informed as to the shipments they are making,” an official in Bahrain replied.

Exporting guano

A list of guano exporters from the Gulf was also supplied, including 7,350 bags to the UK, 840 bags to Italy, nearly 10,000 bags to India and 2,800 bags to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka).

This didn’t really address the central question of what was authentic Abu Dhabi guano. The correspondence dragged on for months, into the spring of 1950. Eventually a compromise was reached. London was satisfied the unnamed island was not the subject of territorial claims from either Qatar or Saudi Arabia.

In addition to the proposed form, the certificate of origin would be signed both by the supplier and the British local agent as being a genuine product of Abu Dhabi. Finally exports could begin. Unfortunately the records do not show how much Abu Dhabi guano was sent to green England’s fields and gardens, nor for how long.

Today, artificial fertilisers have replaced guano, the collection of which is regarded as damaging to the environment and a risk to seabird colonies are risk.

Abu Dhabi, though, is a significant global player in fertilisers, with Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc) holding a majority stake in Fertglobe, the region’s largest producer of nitrogen fertilisers.