This greenhouse keeps crops cool. It could prove valuable as our planet bakes

In a world where the climate is increasingly hot and volatile, farmers are having trouble keeping their crops cool. A startup founded in the desert of Saudi Arabia thinks it might have a solution.

In a world where the climate is increasingly hot and volatile, farmers are having trouble keeping their crops cool. A startup founded in the desert of Saudi Arabia thinks it might have a solution.

Its technology reduces temperatures inside greenhouses by up to seven degrees Celsius, without losing any light, by using nanotechnology embedded within plastic polymer sheeting to cut out near infrared solar radiation. By reducing heat inside greenhouses, the company claims crops can be grown with as much as 30 per cent less water, and less energy required in a greenhouse with mechanical cooling.

Called SecondSky, it was developed by Derya Baran, an associate professor in material science and engineering at the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

The prize-winning design was quickly commercialized and now boasts buyers in 15 countries, via Iyris (formerly RedSea), a company spun out of the research efforts at KAUST.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates were among the earliest countries to adopt the technology, Iyris executive chairperson John Keppler told CNN – hot, dry, resource-scarce countries looking to curb their reliance on imports for fresh produce.

But since then, farmers in parts of the US, Latin America, Mexico, Europe, South Africa and Morocco have started installing SecondSky coverings. These are, said Keppler, countries that historically have benefited from a robust set of environmental attributes that are changing rapidly: “It’s not even just future-proofing, it’s current-proofing; it’s writing an insurance policy,” he said.

Following the hottest summer globally on record, this year is all but certain to be the warmest in history, per Europe’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, with many extreme heat events felt across the world – events becoming more possible due to human-induced climate change.