Raised on a farm in South Dakota, Dr. Lefers quickly became passionate about the nexus in sustainable agriculture systems of using two of the world’s most abundant natural resources: salt water and sunlight. At KAUST and Red Sea Farms, his team has developed groundbreaking technology for salt tolerant agriculture and salt water cooling technologies connected to Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA). This includes using seawater to use grow salt-tolerant crops, such as newly identified varieties of tomatoes and green vegetables.