Inside the vertical farming revolution that’s taking root in the Middle East

If you have flown into Dubai in recent months, you would likely have consumed some of the vegetables grown by Bustanica, the biggest vertical farm in the world.

Its products form part of the menu on Emirates flights and the companies that the airline’s flight catering arm caters for. Bustanica’s vegetables can also be found in UAE supermarkets.Its 10,000 square metre facility in Dubai produces three tonnes of mostly leafy vegetables daily in an environment where temperature, humidity, waterflow and nutrients are controlled. The farm uses a fraction of the water and land required by a conventional farm.

“If you want to produce the same amount of leafy greens, you would require almost 470,000 square metres of land, about twice the size of Dubai International Airport,” said Mr Feras Al Soufi, the general manager of Emirates Crop One, which operates the project.

The farm, which has been operating for less than a year, uses 95 per cent less water compared to conventional farming. In water-scarce United Arab Emirates, which derives most of its supply from energy-intensive desalination, less water means reduced power generation and lower carbon emissions.

“To produce one kilogramme of lettuce normally, you might require 370 litres of water. Whereas in Bustanica we require between 15 to 17 litres of water,” said Mr Al Soufi. He estimates that Bustanica is saving the equivalent of 250 million litres a year.

The company is not the only one making headway in indoor farming in the UAE. 

Agricultural technology firm Alesca Life builds turnkey vertical farms that streamline and automate leafy green vegetable production, and provides farm management solutions. 

Its farms, powered with LED lighting and equipped with custom monitoring and irrigation features, resemble shipping containers and are mobile and modular by design.

With its parent company located in Singapore, Alesca Life also has operations in China, Japan and the UAE. Over the past decade, it has provided its technology to clients in those countries, as well in Saudi Arabia.

“Maybe the greatest aspiration is that 5 to 10 per cent of food in the future — by 2050 or 2100 — is going to be grown indoors. So any of the food deserts that exist, we want to find ways where we can localise food production,” said founder Stuart Oda, a former investment banker.

Another company, Dubai-based Food Tech Valley signed an agreement at the COP28 climate conference to develop a 900,000 square foot (83,613 sqm) “GigaFarm” that will grow 3 million kilogrammes of food per year — the equivalent of 2 billion plants.

Its proposed “closed-loop circular waste-to-value system” aims to eliminate food waste and plans to be so water-efficient it will not be connected to mains or groundwater.

FOOD SYSTEMS TAKE CENTRE STAGE

Both food security and sustainability are major considerations for the Gulf nation, which imports 85 per cent of its food.

The country’s National Food Security Strategy 2051 aims to enable “sustainable food production by using modern technologies and enhancing local production”. It wants to be ranked number one in the world for food security by mid-century, in what would be a major jump from its current 23rd position on the Global Food Security Index.

It shares some goals and challenges of Singapore, which imports about 90 per cent of its food but has also turned to high-tech farming and agricultural methods to boost local production, with the aim of producing 30 per cent of its nutritional needs by 2030.

Climate change is adding obstacles to achieving the UAE’s goal but is also fast tracking investments in facilities like Bustanica, Mr Al Soufi said.

More than 150 nations signed the COP28 UAE Declaration on Agriculture, Food Systems and Climate Action, launched by Indonesia President Joko Widodo on Dec 1, which pledges to strengthen food systems, build resilience to climate change, reduce global emissions and contribute to the global fight against hunger.More than US$7.1 billion was raised for “climate positive action in the food system sector”, timely given that food production is responsible for about a third of greenhouse gas emissions, while increasingly being threatened by worsening droughts and unpredictable weather patterns."Even if you were able to fix the just energy transition and go completely renewable, you still wouldn't be able to reach the 1.5 degrees if you don't solve the food systems issue. That's how big of a cause this is. Food systems will now be centre stage in all future COPs,” Ms Mariam Almheiri, the UAE minister for climate change and the environment said at the summit. She was referring to the 1.5 degrees Celsius cap on global warming that scientists say would help the world avoid the worst effects of climate change. 

‘FARMING ON MARS’

The rise of agri-tech in the Middle East goes beyond new infrastructure.

Other entrepreneurs have their eye on climate adaptation, changing the types of food that is grown and consumed, and developing strains more resilient to extreme weather conditions.Emirates Bio Farm, which started in the 1980s building greenhouses and irrigation systems, has become the UAE’s largest agri-tourism business with a special focus on promoting sustainable agricultural products.The farm’s deputy general manager, Mr Yazen Al Kodmani, explained that the trend towards international diets has threatened local agriculture systems. Changing consumer mindsets along with farming practices could have windfalls, even amid worsening climate conditions, he said.

“How can we promote our dates, our camel milk, some of our fishery products, and maybe  switch over to desert plants? Or take learnings from other farmers that grow … crops like quinoa, which are more productive in terms of water use, heat resistant, salt tolerant and more nutritious,” said Mr Al Kodmani, who is also a senior consultant at the World Bank.

He said growing food in the UAE soil was like “basically farming on Mars”, and new ways of thinking were required to overcome food security issues.

At Red Sea Farms, a sustainable agriculture science and technology company originally spun out of a Saudi Arabia university, finding ways to build resilience in crops has become an important climate tool. 

Its Volcano Plant genetics programme is developing salt-, heat- and drought-resistant seeds, seedlings, and rootstocks designed to withstand the toughest of soil and weather conditions.

“With our volcano technology, we've seen yields (more than) double per plant,” said Dr Ryan Lefers, the start-up’s co-founder and chief executive officer. “And it really has to do with the fact that conditions in the field are really challenging and variable. And if you have a more resilient plant, that's going to result in better yields and quality.”

At the same time, the company is expanding globally through its nanoparticle roofs that, when installed over farming operations, absorb heat, reducing leaf temperature and demand for water.

“We see huge opportunities to expand into Asia, especially as we think about some of the fresh produce that's grown there. A lot of it's grown under nets and films and we feel like our (technology) has a huge opportunity … there in terms of resistance to heat and sustainability,” Dr Lefers said.

DON’T FORGET THE FARMERS

With so many technologies and innovations entering markets across different geographies, it is important that farmers benefit, said Mr Dhruv Sawhney, the CEO of Rize.His agri-tech startup, backed by Singapore state investment firm Temasek, aims to develop a rice-focused platform to incubate and scale new solutions and take them directly to smallholder farmers.

Smallholders grow most of the world’s rice and Mr Sawhney said food systems risk failure if they are not thriving and productive.

“Solving farmer resilience and helping these farmers stay in business and improving their bottom line is going to be at the heart of solving food security going forward,” he said.

Globally, about 30 per cent of total fresh groundwater is being used for rice cultivation. And consumption is projected to grow with the world’s population. The crop is also responsible for greenhouse gas emissions greater than the civil aviation sector.

“There's over a billion people whose livelihood depends on rice cultivation. So unless we create a platform that will help transition how rice is cultivated today to how it needs to be grown tomorrow, we're going to run into very rapid, rough waters here,” he said.

Rize’s platform aims to onboard a suite of researchers and innovation companies that can help farmers quickly commercialise good solutions.It is working with about 5,000 farmers in India, Vietnam and Indonesia, and plans to expand as the platform matures.

Mr Sawhney said there was a plethora of innovations already available, but none of them scaled to the level that would be meaningful and able to deliver value to farmers. 

Ideally, farmers can reduce the costs and risks of adapting to a hotter planet, while entrepreneurs have channels to a ready pool of customers.

Getting more finances flowing through the sector is crucial, he said, and COP28 was an encouraging sign that investors and governments were finally taking the food security issue seriously.Like Rize, Alesca Life’s Mr Oda believes it is important to transfer the “smarts” of high-tech farms to “traditional fields”.

“If we can create the right technologies, deploy them in the right locations at the right scale, the opportunity impact is dramatic,” he said.