A new collaboration between the Saudi agricultural technology company Red Sea Farms and the national carrier SAUDIA is putting sustainably produced food on the plates of the airline’s passengers.

Ryan Lefers, Mark Tester and Derya Baran founded Red Sea Farms in 2018 to grow produce in harsh climates using technology they developed at KAUST to reduce water and energy use. These innovations include solar technology in fan systems and for night-chilling crops, salt water for evaporative cooling in greenhouses and salt-tolerant crops.

Red Sea Farms CEO, Ryan Lefers, says they were all motivated to do something about the huge amount of fresh water and energy that is required to grow food in hot environments like Saudi Arabia. 

“We wanted to break the food-water-energy nexus and enable long-term sustainability to help feed the world. We want to create real and lasting impact on feeding people and protecting the planet,” he says.

Click here to read the full story. ​​