Commercial Evaluation Installation at a Gulf Cryo Referred U TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / April 22, 2020 / Toronto based CO2 GRO Inc. ("GROW") (TSXV:GROW)(OTCQB:BLONF)(Frankfurt:4021) is pleased to announce the installation of a CO2 Delivery Solutions™ Commercial Evaluation system and the completion of a first grow cycle at a Dubai, UAE based lettuce greenhouse. The Commercial Evaluation is being performed in a portion of the 75,000 square foot lettuce greenhouse. The first of a minimum three grow cycles has been completed on seven lettuce varieties to evaluate the CO2 Delivery Solutions™ impact on accelerating grow cycle time and biomass production.
This is the first potential Middle East customer that Gulf Cryo ("GC") has brought to GROW under the Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") announced previously on November 21st, 2019. The Commercial Evaluation system was installed in collaboration with GROW management, GC technicians and the customer's greenhouse personnel in early March 2020. GC and GROW also met with additional greenhouse prospects in the UAE who grow a variety of vegetables in both greenhouse and indoor vertical facilities.
According to GC's Elie Adaimy, Group Head Business Development and Innovation, "We are pleased with the Commercial Evaluation installation and yield results from the first grow cycle. The customer is a major opportunity for us to begin establishing CO2 Delivery Solutions™ in the Region and we are looking forward to completing the remaining grow cycles. The Middle East is a rapidly growing market for greenhouse food production and we expect CO2 Delivery Solutions™ to become the go-to technology for providing CO2 to greenhouse plants."
According to John Archibald, GROW's CEO, "Shortly after announcing our partnership with Gulf Cryo, we began working with this major greenhouse grower. Gulf Cryo's reputation and reach in the Middle East is extensive. We look forward to working with them to expand the demand for our CO2 Delivery Solutions™ in the Arab Gulf region."
UAE Greenhouse Market Potential
Only a small fraction of the UAE's 15,000 greenhouses can economically apply CO2 atmospheric enrichment by gassing due to rapid CO2 gas losses from excessive heat venting. GROW's CO2 Delivery Solutions™ enable these greenhouses to supplement their crops with CO2 via misting an aqueous CO2 solution directly on to plant leaves. For strengthening its resilience and sustainability, UAE authorities are strongly addressing food security. The Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) has committed 250 million euros to its AgTech incentive accelerator program.According to this article, "Due to the Covid-19 crisis and the necessity to attempt food self-sufficiency, the UAE Cabinet has established the Emirate Council for Food Security (ECFS) to stimulate food security activities in the country. The aim is to develop new projects in line with the National UAE Food Security Strategy looking to creating 16,000 job opportunities and increasing agricultural production by over 100,000 tonnes, achieving economic returns of some 5 billion euros and aligning the government's efforts with the water security strategy."
Consequently, the UAE is becoming a rapidly growing market for greenhouse food production attracting large investments from foreign and domestic companies. A recent example is Pure Harvest Smart Farms that raised $100M for greenhouse expansions in the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait (click this article).
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