AeroFarms inaugurates world’s largest R&D indoor vertical farm in Abu Dhabi
UAE – AeroFarms, a sustainable indoor agriculture company, has launched the world’s largest vertical farm of its kind for research and development, focused on bringing innovative Research and Development (R&D) to the UAE and the Middle East.
At 65,000 square feet, AeroFarms said this newest cutting-edge indoor vertical farm will lead the way in breakthrough innovations to solve some of the world’s most pressing agriculture challenges.
The facility is supported by the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) as part of its goal to create sustainable investment opportunities to further next-generation agriculture in arid and desert environments.
David Rosenberg, Co-Founder and CEO of AeroFarms said: “AeroFarms has been expanding globally for both our commercial and R&D indoor vertical farms, leveraging our growing expertise and proprietary technology platform that can help solve a broader array of agricultural challenges.”
“We are incredibly proud of the amazing international turnout and support at the highest levels for our Grand Opening of AeroFarms AgX, and our ongoing partnership with ADIO reflects our bigger commitment to help transform agriculture, accelerate innovating cycles, and commercialize new products for the region and the world.”
AeroFarms AgX has already made several key hires locally and will employ over 60 highly skilled engineers, horticulturists, and scientists for its high-tech laboratories conducting organoleptic research and precision phenotyping, and phytochemical analysis.
They will research next-generation machine vision, machine learning, robotics, and automation.
Eng. Abdulla Abdul Aziz AlShamsi, Acting Director General of ADIO, commented that Abu Dhabi has made it a priority to advance technological solutions that further economic progress for the region and beyond, and AgTech falls perfectly into this category.
According to the press release, AeroFarms AgX plays a key role in Abu Dhabi’s AgTech ecosystem by working with local companies and universities on research projects to tackle problems of agriculture within the desert and arid climates.
Meanwhile, ADIO has a mission of helping innovative companies like AeroFarms start, scale, and succeed in Abu Dhabi by providing access to the emirate’s innovation ecosystem and infrastructure.
For his part, Mr. Salmeen Alameri, CEO of Silal, said this collaboration with Aerofarms marks a milestone in developing an ecosystem for AgriTech innovation towards effective long-term agriculture practices in Abu Dhabi.
He added that the partnership aims to support farmers in Abu Dhabi and the UAE more broadly to maximize their potential by deploying advanced technologies to improve the quality of crop varieties.
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