AeroFarms, a sustainable indoor agriculture company building the biggest vertical farm of its kind in the world, received more than 9,000 job applications for work at the massive desert agriculture research facility in Abu Dhabi, its chief executive said.
The seventeen year-old New Jersey company is part of a group of four agri-tech ventures to share in a $100 million investment from Abu Dhabi Investment Office (Adio), announced in April, to bring cutting-edge research to the capital to improve food security.
"We'll be growing new plants in Abu Dhabi that we aren't growing anywhere else in the world," David Rosenberg told The National.
Food security is a pressing concern for nations around the world amid the coronavirus pandemic as disrupted supply chains have led to food shortages and a groundswell of support for locally sourced agriculture.
The number of additional people suffering from malnutrition once the pandemic subsides may reach 80.3 million depending on the economic contraction, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
Last month, Abu Dhabi said it will offer more than Dh110m in financial incentives to agricultural technology companies looking to set up operations in the emirate in the coming months.
AeroFarms is one of several agri-tech businesses already taking root in the UAE as demand for locally grown food soars on the back of the coronavirus pandemic.
But unlike most of the ventures, AeroFarms’ Abu Dhabi site will not be a commercial-scale operation. Instead, it is dedicating the space to research and the question, “Can we grow better?” Mr Rosenberg said.
AeroFarm’s 8,200-square metre vertical farming centre in Abu Dhabi, on track to plant its first crops by mid-2021, will be the site of research funded in part by a $7.5m grant from the US Department of Agriculture.
As the principle researcher, AeroFarms plans to bring a consortium of growers, genetics companies and equipment manufacturers including BASF, Benson Hill Biosystems, Fluence Bioengineering, Intrexon, Japan Plant Factory Association and Priva, to Abu Dhabi to develop new ways of growing crops indoors.
The aim is to employ more than 60 engineers, horticulturists and scientists and to start with research and growing methods for lettuces, tomatoes and berries.
Agri-tech companies like AeroFarms are developing ways of growing crops to slash energy and water consumption through a combination of data science, automation and advancements in horticulture.
The Abu Dhabi site will have a prototyping workshop to develop tools for automation in seeding, harvesting and optimising levels of light, nutrients and water.
“One automates for two reasons,” Mr Rosenberg said. “To lower costs from a labour standpoint or to improve quality.”
The company said it monitors 130,000 data points for every harvest and uses 5 per cent of the water consumed by a typical field.
The plants aren’t grown in water or soil, but rely on aeroponics, which mists the crops with a balance of water and nutrients without the use of pesticides.
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Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
