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Producing Salad Locally And Year-Round In The Kuwaiti Desert: The GreenLife Experience
When COVID took the world by surprise in 2020, Adel Al Shamali and Tareq Almazeedi (both Chairman of the now GreenLife Company) realized that food dependency was a serious issue in Kuwait and GCC region.
It wasn’t possible to grow lettuce locally year-round until they heard about the Swiss company CleanGreens Solutions, creators of a modern farming system called GREENOVA, which can be installed and operated in any climate, enabling high-quality leafy greens to be grown year-round inside a greenhouse—while saving a critically valuable resource: water.
So they decided to invest in the system (already tested and operating in other countries), initially installing 7,500 m²—now followed by news of an expansion that will more than triple its current size which will be the World’s Largest Aeroponic Greenhouse.
“We have been using CleanGreens technology for nearly 3 years, 2 years in operations, we have got very positive, even impressive experience, we learned and developed a lot, confirmed the business model and we have decided to expand our project to supply exceptional quality greens to our customers across the region. And this technology is the future! Looking forward do more together with CleanGreens!” said one of the GreenLife Chairman.
What was your first impression?
We’ve heard about HYDROponics but we’ve never heard about AEROponics systems. So I said, “sounds interesting”, and it didn’t take long. Only in a matter of 2 days I was in Molondin, the R&D, to see what’s going on there.
I was shocked to see such standard, which we are proud of. We realized during the Covid the importance of the food security. Then we decided to put the challenge and said: this is the time for it. Although it was very critical timing to process anything, we really work harder thanks to CleanGreens team.
Where did the idea of building this greenhouse came from?
When I visited the R&D Center I was impressed with the system, how it works. It’s a modular system, less manpower, continuation of the production it’s on daily basis. It has impressed us a lot. I mean, comparing to other systems like vertical farming, normal farming, field farming, etc…weather conditions in Kuwait. So, climate control, production cycle, all these things has gave us confidence that this could be really a future. We decided: let’s go for it.
Kuwait and Switzerland, very different countries. Was that a challenge?
We have a very strong relation, we’re celebrating this year with the Embassy the 60 years of relation between Kuwait and Switzerland.
Swiss are known for their precise systems and their quality and job. The CleanGreens System was made from the cold weather, here is the other way around. The system is now made to protect it from the hot weather. There is severe cold there, and there is a severe hot here. And that was the thing that we needed to adapt to.
The system succeeded and going in adapting to the severe heat conditions, and gave us the flexibility of going 365 days a year of production, in a land which is a non landable farm. In Switzerland there is soil, can be used easily for farming and all this things. Kuwait soil is a non farmable, even in our area where the soil is good. But the weather, the minerals, the water… So, this system, apart of being a very good technological system It’s a good system that can fit the needs of a non-environmental friendly situation, which is the weather, and the soil here.
Do you feel supported? What would you change?
The support of CleanGreens is very important and we are proud of their production, on their continuous research, development and improvement. I believe that the CleanGreens system is also another jewel of the Swiss and it’s accuracy, and detail and the working, and the programming, and production. So far, CleanGreens stood up, they arose to the level of any challenge.
If I want to build another new territory of GCC (and we started the expansion!), it will take us at least between 12 to 14 months, maximum, from scratch to the end.
What did you grow at first and what are you growing now? Are you happy?
At first we tried all type of lettuce and almost all type of herbs. Well, a good demand is the Lollo Bionda, Lollo Rosso and Iceberg.
And yes! The beauty about the CleanGreens System is: adaptable, you can control so many things… You monitor the water, nutrients, you monitor the effect of the lights, the humidity, all the factors that can affect the growth of this product, it is under control of the system and control of the management of this system. And that’s the beauty of it. And this is how this has encouraged us, now to go to phase 2, and in the future also to expand more in the GCC.
So, the quality, shelf life time, crunchiness, number of waste of the product, these are all manageable and controllable which is very important. And the customer satisfaction. The impression of the people that visited the farm whether from Kuwait or outside Kuwait, they are shocked. Non-pesticides. Healthy, fresh, excellent roots that people can see the cleanliness of the roots, that’s major effect. When they see dirty root, or soaked in the water, in the AQCUAponics is all black… has a different feeling!. They were really impressed about.
And the production compared per square meter. On the normal land field agriculture towards 24 times of production on the system of CleanGreens. That’s something to be proud of.
What do GreenLife agronomists and engineers think?
“With CleanGreens system, with AEROponics system we can produce without any problem, year-round production. And also the main thing, until all process, from seed to harvest, we are not using any pesticides. If we talk about the quantities per day, so here we are producing, if you take the “Lollo”, you will take around 800 to 900 kg per day, and if you take the “Iceberg” now we are producing 600 to 700kg per day.” said their agronomist.
“The maintenance is low here, minimum, and that’s amazing! If you do the prevenive maintenance, you will never have any problem. Wherever we needed assistance, CleanGreens were always there for helping us. Because of this CleanGreens system we are able to grow this plants here. Otherwise in summer we would not get this things…It’s always fresh and green like if you were in an European country!” said their engineer.
Something else you want to add?
Invest in GREENOVA.
