Kolon Global to build smart farm in Saudi Arabia with Ollefarm

▷ 3-party collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s Faidh and Korean smart farm company, Ollefarm

     - “To locally cultivate strawberries in the desert” – for nationwide supply including Neom City

▷ To seek participation in water treatment and new and renewable energy (wind power) projects for Neom City

Kolon Global (CEO, Kim Jung-Il) announced that it signed an MOU with Faidh International Food, a food producing, trading and distributing company of Saudi Arabia, for building smart farm infrastructure and production maximization on November 17 at the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry together with Ollefarm, a Korean smart farm company in which it made equity investment.

Based on the MOU, Kolon Global plans to utilize its cumulated global business knowhow in conducting market analysis and feasibility study with its local partner, Faidh, for the smart farm business. Ollefarm will provide its modular smart farm technology and the technology required to cultivate, produce and distribute Korean strawberry seeds in Saudi Arabia. Faidh will be responsible for securing funding, business sites and operational licenses in Saudi Arabia.

Khaled Al Aboodi, CEO of Faidh, served as the CEO of Islamic Development Bank previously and is currently a member of the board of directors of Agricultural Development Bank.

Saudi Arabia has been experiencing difficulty in cultivating and supplying fresh strawberries due to the combination of desert climate and insufficient agricultural land and water. It is also one of the toughest countries for the smart farm business because of the difficulty of overcoming the high temperature and high humidity in the summer. Numerous global smart farm companies are in Saudi Arabia, but none of them has yet succeeded in commercial strawberry production. Saudi Arabia is heavily dependent on import for agricultural products and its investment of approximately USD 500 million in 2020 to develop agricultural infrastructure is expected to accelerate the implementation of the 3-party MOU.

Outside this MOU, Kolon Global is seeking to take part in Saudi Arabia’s Neom City Project that is designed to build a KRW 660 trillion, hyper-scale smart city, with its strength in water treatment and wind energy.