Pure Harvest, a greenhouse farming company in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has raised a $4.5 million seed round to build climate-controlled, tech-enabled greenhouses in the UAE and beyond. Investors in the round include a UAE government-backed innovation fund, a list of angel investors and some of Pure Harvest’s technology partners.
The need for this growing method stems from the lack of food security in the UAE and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries more broadly, according to Pure Harvest founder Sky Kurtz. The UAE alone imports more than 80% of its food and recent bans on imports of regional produce due to high levels of pesticide residue, highlight the necessity for an improved local food supply. Kurtz says that in an arid climate with limited water supply, this necessitates controlled environment agriculture (CEA). Pure Harvest plans to eventually deploy a portfolio of CEA technologies such as vertical farms and container-based growing solutions to deliver a wide variety of fresh produce.
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