PIF, The Public Investment Fund, signed a joint venture agreement with AeroFarms, a US-based commercial vertical farming company, to establish a company in Riyadh to build and operate indoor vertical farms in Saudi Arabia and the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.

The joint venture plans to build and operate several farms across the region in the next few years. The first farm in Saudi Arabia, which is expected to be the largest indoor vertical farm of its kind in the MENA region, will have an annual production capacity of up to 1.1 million kgs of agricultural crops.

The agreement will optimize the utilization of natural resources, including water and agricultural lands, through the implementation of indoor vertical farming, with no need for arable land, resulting in significantly higher yields and using up to 95% less water versus traditional field farming.

The partnership is expected to enable sustainable, local sourcing of high-quality crops all year round, grown using AeroFarms’ proprietary smart agriculture technology (AgTech) platform, which helps solve broader supply chain needs in the industry.

“Our mission is to grow the best plants possible for the betterment of humanity, and we created AeroFarms to help solve the greatest agriculture challenges and increase food resiliency around the world. We are excited to partner with PIF to build our first large-scale commercial farm in Saudi Arabia, where the growing conditions are challenging with limited access to fresh water and arable land, and we envision building together smart indoor vertical farms throughout the broader MENA region,” David Rosenberg, Co-Founder, and CEO of AeroFarms, said.