Kuwaiti man wants to grow indoor farming in the UAE to boost food and water security
▶ Abdulaziz Al Mulla manages Dubai farms that use only a fraction of the water required in traditional agriculture,
Abdulaziz Al Mulla was mindlessly watching YouTube videos when he stumbled across one that inspired him to quit his consulting job in Dubai and start an indoor farm in an old shipping container.
Three and a half years later, that leap of faith has transformed into Madar Farms, an agriculture technology company working to achieve food and water sustainability.
“I believe my life has been a series of ‘mistakes’. What I mean by that is I don’t think I’ve planned out my next step as much as opportunities have come and we’ve taken advantage of it,” said Mr Al Mulla, 30, who is from Kuwait.
“I saw this video of an indoor farm while YouTube jumping and I contacted those people.
“It was a Friday, I quit my job the Sunday after, the Thursday following was my last day and then I hopped on a plane the next Friday.”
Mr Al Mulla spent the next six months travelling the world to research different, more efficient ways to grow food.
He and a friend set up the company in the middle of Warsan, on the outskirts of Dubai.
“There was no electricity and no water because the licence didn’t exist for what we were doing,” he said.
“But it was a great learning opportunity and we spent the whole of the next 12 to 16 months just growing ourselves.”
Now Madar Farms grows hundreds of different fruits and vegetables in vertical indoor hydroponic farms, which use 5 per cent of the water typically needed in standard agriculture.
The water savings of hydroponic farms, where plants grow in nutrient-rich water instead of soil, were a large part of what motivated Mr Al Mulla to experiment with it.
“The food and water security numbers terrified me. If I told you that more than 80 per cent of our water use in this region is for agriculture and irrigation, would you believe that?” he asked.
“And less than 1 per cent of our land is actually arable. The maths doesn’t add up there.
“We’ve lost more than 60 per cent of our natural water reserves over the past 40 years and agriculture has been the main driver of that.”
Despite the need for more water-conscious agriculture, Mr Al Mulla found no examples of others in the region pursuing the same solution.
“There is no gold standard available – we have to localise it and we have to learn what works here,” he said.
“When we started, there was no data on produce or vegetables here so we visited every single supermarket in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and took photographs and price points. We have this massive spreadsheet.
“You wouldn’t believe the number of times I got thrown out of supermarkets.”
Through it all, Mr Al Mulla and his co-founder maintained their sense of humour.
When a shipping container was not delivered and instead was taken from Dubai to India to China, they named it Ibn Battuta after the Silk Road traveller who made a similar journey in the 14th century.
Even more thought went into the name of the company itself.
“The root of madar is midrar, a word from the Quran that means plenty, or lots of green or lots of bounty, and that’s kind of the vision that we have,” Mr Al Mulla said.
“It’s not just about growing things that we haven’t or in places that we haven’t.
“It’s also about accessibility. It’s about making sure everyone feels like they’re a part of this community and this revolution.”
Community engagement and team work is key to the farm’s success, he said.
“One of my most important mentors is my grandfather. I learnt from him that finding the right values and integrating them in yourself will attract the people who have the same values and therefore you’ll build this kind of familial relationship.
“That’s a very important aspect because I would not be able to achieve anything without the team.
“The team wouldn’t be able to achieve anything if they didn’t have the right team members with them.”
Their most recent work involves plans to grow up to a tonne of tomatoes every day in the largest indoor tomato farm in the world.
Despite the success of his business, Mr Al Mulla remains humble.
“I don’t think there’s anything special about my background or experiences. Yes, they’ve all contributed, but I really think it’s just going out there and trying it,” he said.
“If anything, it’s a familiarity and comfort with being outside your comfort zone that is probably the No 1 quality I see in any person who builds a successful business.”
For those who are interested in getting involved in food or water sustainability, Mr Al Mulla suggested their journey began in the same place as his: the internet.
“Industry will not change and there will be no motive to change unless people ask for that change,” said Mr Al Mulla.
“People are not going to ask for it until they know the impact of that action.”