Scope And Hope For Vertical Farming In Middle East

With the pandemic followed by the Ukraine War, some of these countries experienced significant disruptions in their food supply, emptier shelves, and higher prices, highlighting the significance of food security and independence.

Companies like AeroFarms, Crop One Holding, and Infarm, on the global stage, and local leaders like Red Sea Farms and Pure Harvest Smart Farm, on the domestic front, are luring both investors and skilled workers to the area in order to improve the region's food security. Since then, regional governments have established new food security policies to secure independence from outside countries and reduce their reliance on them.

The United Arab Emirates is one country that has contributed to the success of vertical farming in the region by attracting foreign investment and launching large-scale projects. Crop One and Emirates Flight Catering have just completed construction on one of the largest vertical farms in the world, where they plan to cultivate lettuce, spinach, arugula, and mixed greens. Emirates will also give these greens to the city's residents. Two smaller facilities for other vertical farms opened in city's hotels (Radisson and Mariott Hotel).

The AgX research centre, which is part of Aerofarm, will soon be home to a number of new facilities, one of which is a 90,000-square-foot indoor vertical farm, which will be the largest of its kind in the world. Using AeroFarms' knowledge and one-of-a-kind indoor vertical farming technology, which uses up to 95% less water and no pesticides than conventional field farming, the farm will focus on cutting-edge research and development and the commercialization of relevant local crops. More than sixty highly trained professionals, such as engineers, data scientists, and horticulturists, are anticipated to be employed at this brand new research and development centre.

The Safety Of A Country's Population Depends On Its Food Supply

Irving Fain, CEO and Founder of US-based vertical farm company Bowery Farming, has pointed out that there is a direct tie between national security and food security, given the current emphasis on maintaining regular streams of food supply for big populations. As the author puts it, "the Middle East has understood this for many, many decades, long before the whole rest of the globe suddenly realises this. The people in this region truly value what we do," Fain told a media house. Indoors, Bowery Farms arranges crops from the floor to the ceiling and simulates sunlight with LED lighting. Then, the growing is monitored and altered based on the data it collects with a combination of robotics and automation, built in-house.

This system is scalable in any environment or climate. RedSea, on the other hand, cultivates its fruit in greenhouses with carefully managed temperatures and lighting. Mark Tester argued that the structure is more sustainable and profitable than a vertical farm, despite the fact that it requires more land. Tester also works as Professor of Plant Science at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Jeddah (KAUST). His 37 years of experience in the field make him an ideal leader for the institute's team of chemists, plant scientists, and researchers as they work to optimise seed technology and create efficient greenhouses that can help grow plants despite the region's extreme heat and scarcity of water. Tester does not think that widespread implementation of vertical farms is the answer to the problem of hunger in the Middle East, but he does think that they can be of use in highly populated areas on a local basis. There's a place for it, and it's unquestionably a lucrative industry, (vertical farming). To "make a very, very little contribution to global food security," he said, "it is going to take a very, very long period."

Some People Can Only Go Up, However

Prince Khaled bin Alwaleed Al Saud, founder and CEO of KBW Ventures, sees potential in vertical farming as a disruptive technology and has invested in the US-based vertical farm, OnePointOne.

Prince Khaled of Saudi Arabia said in a recent press conference, "There is a need for vertical farming to take place here in the Middle East so that our consumption and our imports may reduce from the upper 90s to hopefully the lower 50s, if not lower than 50 percent."

According to the data provided by the company, the percentage of KBW Venture's portfolio dedicated to food security, agritech, and food tech is somewhere around 20%. In August, the United Arab Emirates inaugurated Bustanica, a vertical hydroponic farm that it claims has the capacity to produce over one thousand tonnes of greens each year. Over 35,000 farms, many of which utilise cutting-edge technology and custom-created habitats like greenhouses and vertical farms, are located in the United Arab Emirates. It helps fulfil the 2018 goal of the Gulf state to diversify its food supply in order to ensure food security. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) has set a goal of being "the world's best in the Global Food Security Index by 2051 and among the top 10 countries by 2021," as stated on the country's official website. The 2022 report placed the country at number 23, which was a considerable jump from previous rankings. In comparison to first-place Finland, Saudi Arabia is placed forty-first.

High-Priced, Non-Sustainable Imports

Up to ninety percent of food consumed in the GCC is imported, a 2021 analysis from Alpen Capital GCC Food Industry found. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, two major economies, are included in the total.

Prince Khaled, speaking at a Milken Institute-hosted event in Abu Dhabi, remarked, "This region escaped a bullet during COVID-19." He was referring to the potential for a severe food crisis.

As a result of the disruption in the global supply chain that was responsible for transporting food into import-dependent countries, GCC member nations instituted an early warning system, strictly monitored consumption and availability, and notified traders to diversify their sources of food, all while assuring citizens that they were prepared to deal with the consequences of their reliance on food imports.

Most GCC states sought out to purchase or invest in enterprises that offer staples after assessing the impact of COVID-19 on food.

Water And The Environment

Even if desalinized water has been used to make farming in the Middle Eastern deserts a possibility, there is still a negative influence on the ecology. UN Environment Program data sheet: "Desalination is the process of eliminating salts from water, and a by-product of the process is poisonous brine that can harm coastal and marine ecosystems unless treated." For every litre of drinkable water that is purified through desalination, around 1.5 litres of liquid contaminated with chlorine and copper are produced. Putting poisonous brine back into the ocean reduces oxygen levels and has consequences for marine life. The 2019 report also noted that desalination provides almost 50% of Saudi Arabia's drinking water. If you consider the alternatives in the Middle East, you'll see that our water consumption is a tiny fraction of that of conventional farming. Bowery Farms' co-founder Fain remarked, "It would take very little of that water to grow a large amount of crops compared to if you were attempting to grow it in a more conventional method."

 "We utilise less than 90 percent of the water compared to traditional agriculture," he remarked, adding, "at some point you need to farm," so reiterating the link between national security and food security. Mark Tester understood there would be problems with farming in desalinated water, but he is still hopeful that the situation may be improved with the help of modern technology.

Tester proposed using less resource-intensive farming practices like irrigating with saltwater instead of freshwater, cooling with evaporation rather than refrigeration, and growing crops in the open air with the help of a greenhouse rather than in an enclosed building that may need nonrenewable energy sources.

The Red Sea Development Company, which has committed to upholding the UN-backed Sustainable Development Goals, has contracted RedSea to provide its future residents with healthy, sustainably sourced food. We got our start on the coast of the Red Sea, and now we harvest over ten tonnes per week. "We're in over a hundred supermarkets in Saudi Arabia," Tester said. But he advocated ending water subsidies in the area. Nowhere in the Kingdom or the region do farmers pay the true cost of water. And that's just a huge blow to farmers' motivation. We can't afford to subsidise water anymore. The promotion of creative thinking is essential. He spoke firmly, "We have to support enterprise, foster competition."