Scottish GigaFarm Lands in Dubai

Scott Mathias
Aug 29
2 min read

Ai Depiction of Scottish GigaFarm in Dubai

And you thought the Scots were only handy with haggis? Try 200 towers of lettuce in the desert.

Edinburgh-based Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) and Aberdeen’s Modutec signed a deal to build what they’re calling the world’s first “GigaFarm” in Dubai’s Food Tech Valley. The first 20 towers are shipping now, with a full build-out of 200 growth towers projected to crank out more than 3,000 tonnes of fresh produce a year. What's interesting is that volume replaces just one per cent of the UAE’s fruit and veg imports, a glimpse of how much reliance on overseas supply chains the Gulf still carries.

IGS first floated the mega-project at COP28 in 2023, tying it to the Emirates’ decarbonisation pledges. The pitch is a closed-loop system, waste-to-value, water savings, and energy efficiency, all under the controlled glow of LEDs. For Modutec, with two decades of Middle East infrastructure experience, it’s a pivot from marine and defence into food security. For IGS, it’s the highest-stakes test yet of whether vertical farming can move from boutique greens to bulk supply.

Globally, vertical farms produced an estimated 15 million tonnes of crops in 2024, mostly leafy greens, herbs, and berries, with the sector valued at US$6.4 billion and projected to hit US$20 billion by 2030 (MarketsandMarkets). But scale remains the Achilles’ heel. Japan pioneered stacked farms after Fukushima. Singapore aims to meet 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030, with vertical farming as a core pillar. Meanwhile, US giants like Plenty are building in California and Compton, while AeroFarms, out of bankruptcy, is repositioning into Saudi Arabia. The Dubai GigaFarm will be a global test case: can stacked towers in the sand actually dent food import dependency at scale?

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