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Norwegian Company Turns Desert Into Farmland.
Future food production will surpass the total of the past 500 years in just 3–4 decades. A Norwegian innovation is transforming deserts into farmland, which is currently thriving in parks in the U.S. and the Middle East and will soon be part of the UN World Food Programme.
— Nearly 2,000 soccer fields disappear every hour. Twelve million hectares of farmland are turning into desert at a rate of 210 kilometers per hour. That’s equivalent to the distance between Stavanger and Kristiansand, says Tor Mæhlum Karlsen, Chief Technology Officer at Desert Control.
He explains that the top layer of soil—the one we walk and stand on, the one where we grow grain—is getting thinner and thinner. It’s disappearing from below.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” says Karlsen.
But this can’t go on. The world’s population is growing, and we need more food. To produce more food, we need more water. Seventy percent of water consumption is accounted for by agriculture, and according to Desert Control, this share is rising.
The Garage Lab
The solution exists. It is liquid clay, known as LNC (Liquid Natural Clay), produced by the Norwegian company Desert Control. After a phase of developing and digitizing the product and the process, the technology is now ready for scaling.
The idea for LNC was conceived in the mid-2000s and developed in a garage in Stavanger by Kristian P. Olesen and his son Ole Morten Olesen, who still work for the company. In 2019, the two brought in an outside executive and raised the initial capital to build a prototype.
Since then, the company has been steadily moving closer to its goal.
The special clay produced by Desert Control works by being added to the topsoil, transforming desert sand into farmland. It can also be added to already cultivated land, reducing the need for irrigation.
This has now been tested on various soil types under different conditions.
“We’ve conducted many pilot projects. It seemed too good to be true, so we needed academic validation,” says Karlsen.
The pilot projects were successful. Both the clay mixture and the mobile units used to produce clay on-site, as well as the distribution of LNC over large areas, were thoroughly tested, and Desert Control is now ready to expand its business.
To succeed in this, more than just advanced laboratory work is required; high-tech solutions are also necessary.
“Alongside all the practical work being done, a lot is happening digitally. We’re collecting data from various sensors in the ground as well as from the production units that manufacture LNC,” he explains further.
The data is used to monitor the effects of the floating clay and to control LNC production at the local production units.
— “With Siemens systems, we can process the data we collect,” adds CTO Karlsen.
Scaling Up with Technology
The clay formula was developed in a laboratory in Sandnes. It is produced and shipped in one-metric-ton bags to the areas where the clay is added to the soil. There are mobile production units that mix dry clay with water before it is distributed.
This entire process has been tested time and time again. The warehouse, the production units, and the distribution of clay over large areas are now at the level required for scaling up. We and Desert Control are in the process of doing just that.
We provide data collection and automation solutions for the company that won the special award for Norway’s smartest industrial company in 2022.
— For Desert Control to become a data-driven organization, it is crucial that data and automation systems are closely integrated. That’s where we at Siemens come in, says Ståle Våga.
He is the account manager for Desert Control at Siemens and was involved in providing the technology that enables Desert Control to use IT-based tools and work processes, develop its own software, and benefit from Siemens’ extensive product and software portfolio.
In the future, it will be possible to use technology to control production anywhere in the world from the office in Norway.
“With a single keystroke, you can commission new equipment or send updates to multiple production units simultaneously,” says Våga.
The goal is to be able to control most of the process in this way, with just one operator on site. The operator does not need to have any special knowledge of machines, data, or programming, but must be able to operate the machine.
— The operator brings a tablet and receives instructions for the various steps via a user-friendly interface. The machine then carries out the tasks sent from the office in Norway, he explains further.
It’s been four years since the collaboration began, and Våga finds it exciting and meaningful to be part of something that has the potential to save the world.
— It’s always nice to come here. You can see that they’re making progress; everyone believes in the project, he says as he enters the courtyard between Desert Control’s offices in the FOMO office community in Sandnes and the lab.
Save the World
In the lab, four people are deeply focused. All around them are tubes and bottles filled with sand, soil, and green plants.
— It’s a far cry from the garage where it all began, says Karlsen, greeting Rosalia Garcia Teijeiro, the company’s head of research and development.
Teijeiro gives a tour of the lab and explains how the researchers here are currently studying how plants absorb nutrients with the help of LNC.
— With LNC, the nutrients stay in the soil longer, giving the roots more time to absorb them. That makes the plants stronger.
She is also in the process of setting up a lab in the U.S., where much of the work takes place. The company also has many clients and projects in the Middle East. They use LNC to keep parks, resorts, and golf courses green, but the real reward for their efforts is coming soon.
The product is being used in the Iraqi desert by the United Nations World Food Programme.
The UN organization is working to combat hunger and improve global food security, and there is no doubt that this is also Desert Control’s vision: to save the world. But it must be funded, and development is made possible by selling the product to those who can afford it and who, without LNC, would consume even greater amounts of water.
Freshwater is a limited resource, Karlsen reminds us, adding that the Earth has a finite amount of stable freshwater resources. To ensure they last, we cannot use more than is available.
But that’s exactly what we’re doing right now.
— How is that possible, you’re probably wondering? It’s because we’re living on credit!
This is a huge problem that Karlsen and his colleagues want to solve.
We’re pumping more groundwater than is being replenished. We’re doing this, among other things, to feed the growing global population.
— Over the next 30 to 40 years, we’ll have to grow more food than we have in the last 500 years.
Source:
https://www.siemens.com/de-de/company/insights/desert-control-software-defined-automation/
