Oman: University students grow crops using vertical farming
As part of its efforts to produce technologically advanced youth, the SQU students are exposed to the latest intriguing crop production technologies, particularly when the country is having limited precious water resources and soil and water salinity is on rise.
Dr. M. Mumtaz Khan, Associate Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences, said that vertical farming is a way of growing various food crops, largely horticultural crops within skyscrapers, abandoned warehouses, shipping containers, vertical and inclined surfaces.
According to Dr. Khan, the increase in global population and shrinking land mass around the planet has forced stakeholders to think quite seriously on the issue of increasing global food supply with less area available. The idea is produce higher yields on a per unit available area. Thus, vertical farming is the idea of exchanging land for value, “skyscrapers and space”.
Read more at the Times of Oman