In many areas of the world, environmental conditions are not conducive to traditional farming. As a result, these countries are food dependent. They rely on imported food, which is subject to supply chain issues and nutrient loss during transportation. A company in the United Arab Emirates called Smart Acres is looking to change all that through hydroponic vertical farming.

“Living in a region with a lot of non-arable land and in arid conditions, we're not able to produce a lot of the crops needed for consumption for the nation. The UAE actually imports 90% of the food for consumption,” says Aphisith Phongsavanh, lead project manager of Smart Acres.

Smart Acres is an indoor vertical hydroponic farm that grows pesticide-free leafy greens using 1/10 of the land and 90% less water than traditional farming. The Abu Dhabi-based farm grows 13 cycles of lettuce a year, yielding 20 times more food than traditional farming would on the same square meters of land.

The Smart Acres farm consists of eight shipping containers equipped with modules that use internet of things technology to monitor for humidity, temperature, and the nutrients inside the plants. It’s all in the name of creating an environment that’s optimized for plant growth and high nutritional value. “When we come in, we have air showers built into our facilities. We make sure that our controlled environment is as sterile as possible to protect the plants from external factors,” says Phongsavanh.

Having fine-tuned the process for leafy greens, the team is preparing to expand its crop. First up: strawberries, a local favorite. “There’s no leading vertical farm in the UAE right now that is commercializing strawberries. So, in fact, we would love to be the first one to test it and get it right,” says Phongsavanh.

Potatoes are also a priority. “A lot of the countries in the MENA region, Middle East, North Africa, get their potato seeds and their potatoes imported from around the globe, such as Europe and North America. We would really like to reduce and curb that dependence on that system, so if we were to grow the Middle East potato seed, it would do wonders for the local ecosystem in terms of Middle East and North Africa.”

The company also has plans to develop the Smart Acres Institute of Food Security and Agriculture, a localized food security program. “Our long-term goal is actually to be a pioneer within the region to facilitate the research and development of plant propagation,” says Phongsavanh. “We'd really love to look into growing new crops and plants that can be grown efficiently within this harsh environment.”

The future looks promising, as Smart Acres works to increase food production from 11 tons to 155 tons annually.

This episode of Business Lab is produced in association with the UAE Pavilion Expo 2020 Dubai.