Vertical farming is an agricultural process designed for sustainable food production. It prevents deforestation, promoting recycling, limiting spillage, and avoiding chemical use. In addition, vertical farming machinery and land transport generate very low emissions compared with traditional farming.
One of the key stumbling blocks with vertical farming is energy consumption. Today, scientists all over the world are scrambling to bring down LED consumption and costs. If they can achieve this, vertical farming will be more sustainable and profitable, providing a reliable means of feeding the global population, which is predicted to reach 9 billion by 2050.
Lower energy costs
Compared with the rest of the world, Middle Eastern nations benefit from drastically lower energy costs. Nevertheless, vertical farmers across the region are still looking to renewable energy technologies to help mitigate the challenge of high energy consumption.
In the Middle East, the region’s arid climate and low rainfall present huge challenges for farmers. In this part of the world, climate change poses a particular threat, with crops already much harder to grow outside. Take for example the UAE, which imports 80% of its fresh produce from overseas due to the lack of arable land, water scarcity, and harsh climate. While there have been a slew of high-profile failures in the vertical farming market in other countries, players across the Middle East are faring better, largely through necessity.
With conditions more tightly controlled in vertical farming, it becomes more difficult for pests to take hold. Associated with hydroponic systems, where the plant is grown in a nutrient solution rather than soil, vertical farming reduces water use by as much as 90% as compared with traditional growing. Since it can be used in virtually any location year-round, vertical farming also helps to eliminate seasonal crop shortages.
Minimizes water use
In addition to reliable year-round crop production, vertical farming minimizes water use. Across the Middle East today, vertical farmers like Pure Harvest Smart Farms are seeking to leverage renewable energy sources to mitigate the challenge of high energy consumption. As Pure Harvest CEO and founder Sky Kurtz explains, energy is a key element. Pure Harvest Smart Farms and other vertical farmers are constantly innovating to achieve increased output per unit of photonic energy.
Globally today, the farming industry accounts for almost a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions. With the global population on course to reach 9 billion by 2050, scientists warn that relying on current farming methods to feed all of those people will leave the planet in ruins. Vertical farming could pose the potential to combat environmental breakdown, making large-scale food production more sustainable.
World’s largest vertical farm
Several Middle Eastern countries, including the UAE, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, have already embraced vertical farming. In 2022, the world’s largest vertical farm was launched in Dubai. Covering a colossal 330,000 square feet, Bustanica’s indoor facility has the capacity to produce more than a million kilos of salad crops per year.
The facility is the first vertical farm of Emirates Crop One, a joint venture between Crop One, an industry leader in tech-driven indoor virtual farming, and Emirates Flight Catering, one of the biggest catering operations in the world, a company that serves more than 100 airlines. The farm’s closed-loop system circulates water through the plants, maximizing water efficiency and use. As the water vaporizes, it is captured, recycled, and pumped back into the system, saving 250 million liters of water from being wasted each year compared with traditional outdoor farming for the same output.
Significant growth
The Middle Eastern vertical farming market has seen significant growth in recent years, driven by the region’s rising population, urbanization, and ever-increasing need for sustainable food production. Compared with traditional agriculture, vertical farming offers numerous advantages, including increased crop yields, reduced water consumption, minimal pesticide use, and year-round crop production.
At the current time, vertical farming and other controlled environment systems are predominantly used to produce a narrow range of crops, including leafy vegetables, herbs, fruits like strawberries, and mushrooms. However, multiple crops can be produced per year, offsetting the high running costs. As the technology advances, the vertical farming industry is becoming increasingly commercially viable, with experts predicting that vertical farmers will soon be capable of producing a much wider range of crops. According to one study, the industry could top $3 billion in value by the end of 2024.
In countries across Europe, vertical farming is unable to compete with other forms of agriculture due to the high energy costs involved. As Professor Carl-Otto Ottosen of Aarhus University in Denmark explains, in his region, small crops can be grown equally well in a greenhouse, where environmental conditions can be controlled. Nevertheless, in the Middle East—where extreme temperatures, a lack of arable land, and water stress all pose significant challenges for farmers—vertical farming could have a revolutionary impact on farming and food production. As the region’s population increases and climate change impacts worsen, many experts cite vertical farming as the key to food security for many Middle Eastern nations.