As spring turns into summer, the Khalifa fund’s investment in Abu Dhabi hydroponic agriculture is beginning to pay off.
The Khalifa fund for enterprise development was Launched in 2007 to help local enterprise in Abu Dhabi. At the beginning of 2015, Ahmad Kalfan Al Romaithi revealed that Dh 130 million (approximately 35 million US dollars) had been approved for the funding of up to 130 hydroponic farms.
(Related: flux technology makes it easy for anyone to grow using hydroponics).
Ten farms were initially funded by this project and this number quickly grew to 40.
By mid-June, three of these farms had already begun supplying locally grown fruit and vegetables to union co-op markets in Dubai and Ajman. The co-op’s production of about 60 tonnes of tomatoes per month is expected to double when the remaining farms begin producing by the end of this year.
Hydroponics is an agriculture technology which doesn’t require soil. This technology can allow locally grown crops near cities and in other regions which are unsuitable for traditional farming. It’s space age science that promises to feed a hungry world, especially in dry climates.
Author: Brian Nitz
Brian remembers when a single tear dredged up a nation's guilt. The tear belonged to an Italian-American actor known as Iron-Eyes Cody, the guilt was displaced from centuries of Native American mistreatment and redirected into a new environmental awareness. A 10-year-old Brian wondered, 'What are they... No, what are we doing to this country?' From a family of engineers, farmers and tinkerers Brian's father was a physics teacher. He remembers the day his father drove up to watch a coal power plant's new scrubbers turn smoke from dirty grey-back to steamy white. Surely technology would solve every problem. But then he noticed that breathing was difficult when the wind blew a certain way. While sailing, he often saw a yellow-brown line on the horizon. The stars were beginning to disappear. Gas mileage peaked when Reagan was still president. Solar panels installed in the 1970s were torn from roofs as they were no longer cost-effective to maintain. Racism, public policy and low oil prices transformed suburban life and cities began to sprawl out and absorb farmland. Brian only began to understand the root causes of "doughnut cities" when he moved to Ireland in 2001 and watched history repeat itself. Brian doesn't...
I am very interested in knowing more about hydroponics. This summer I’m going to try to DYI my own units.