Improving Egypt’s food security and building a more environmentally friendly economy are two top priorities for the government, even if they sometimes conflict. According to Hannah Ritchie, science outreach lead at data curator Our World in Data, agriculture’s harmful impacts begin with “requiring large amounts of freshwater, which can cause significant environmental pressures in regions with water stress.”

The second issue is that most conventional farming activity is a “crucial driver of climate change, responsible for around one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions,” noted Ritchie. Meanwhile, EBSCO, a think tank, pointed out in a 2024 research paper that “cattle contribute nearly 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, predominantly through methane produced during digestion and waste.” 

Thirdly, traditional agriculture requires “enormous land use,” said Ritchie. “Half of the world’s habitable land is used for agriculture.” However, that percentage is decreasing as rising sea levels from global warming cause coastal flooding, soil salinization, and land fertility loss. The result is farmers and governments have less physical space to increase agricultural output.

One solution gaining popularity in cities overlooking large bodies of water, especially seas and oceans, is “floating farms” built from the ground up as self-sufficient, sustainable farming and livestock units. 

Farms on water

The idea of creating a self-sufficient farm on water is relatively new. The first working example was in the Netherlands in 2019. “The idea … to produce fresh food in a climate-adaptive way on the water, [is similar to] floating housing projects on the [U.S.] Hudson River,” said Peter  Van Wingerden, the engineer who developed the concept in 2012. He added that placing a facility on water helps protect it from floods.

What made the project financially feasible was that “with increasing demand for healthy food, fast-growing urbanization and climate change, we can’t rely on the food production systems of the past anymore,” he told the BBC in 2018. 

The idea also might offer an alternative to diminishing arable land, according to Minke Van Wingerden, the farm’s co-founder. “We had to look at new opportunities,” she told Inside Edition in 2022. “This is why we started farming on the water.” 

The 1,200 square meter (about a third of an acre) Van Wingerden floating farm has three levels. The first is submerged, benefiting from the surrounding water’s noticeably cooler temperatures relative to ambient air, which is used for storage of perishable items,” Peter Van Wingerden explained to Freethink, an online platform, in 2020. 

One layer above (sitting above water), Peter said, is used as a processing area for dairy products from the livestock that graze and reside on the third (top) level. The roof covering that last level is designed to collect rainwater, sending it to the farm’s purifiers and storage units. 

A solar farm adjacent to the floating farm facility supplies it with power and feeds the national power grid under the Netherlands’ feed-in tariff system. 

In addition to producing 800 liters (211 gallons) of dairy products daily from the 40 cows living on the floating farm as of October, the facility transforms manure into fertilizer, selling it to inland farmers and growing crops on the facility, such as “duckweed as an animal feed,” Minke told the BBC in 2018. “It is high in protein, fast-growing, and can be nurtured [naturally].

Meanwhile, additional cow food needs come from inland businesses. “At least 80% of what our cows eat will be waste products from Rotterdam’s food industry,” the farm’s general manager, Albert Boersen, told the BBC in 2018. That supply comes from neighbouring shops and retail buyers of the farm’s dairy products. 

As of September, the farm was producing yogurt, buttermilk, butter, and artisanal Dutch cheeses aged on board in its underwater level. The facility also recently expanded to growing vegetables on the second floor (just above water) under solar lamps.

Meanwhile, to address the environmentally damaging methane emissions from the grazing cattle, the facility uses industrial robotic vacuuming units to collect cows’ manure quickly for further processing onboard or sent to inland buyers. “Doing this, we have about 60% [fewer] emissions,” said Minke Van Wingerden. 

Attractive model

The benefit of floating farms in Egypt is that residents and businesses in seaside towns, especially those along the relatively calm Red Sea 1,250-km shoreline, significantly reduce their dependence on metropolises along the Nile Valley or Delta to meet their fresh produce needs.

A case in point is that the distance between Hurghada, the Red Sea’s largest city, and Luxor, the nearest major city overlooking the Nile, is approximately 300 kilometers. According to Google Maps estimates, it takes four hours to cross the Eastern Desert. Having a floating farm that connects to Hurghada’s port would significantly reduce the cost of fresh food transportation to the city’s residents and businesses.

 For inland businesses, having such a facility would lower food storage costs and almost guarantee a timely supply of fresh produce, as retailers would no longer rely solely on cross-governorate supply chains. 

Farms on water could further raise the profile of Egypt’s tourist-dependent cities, such as Hurghada, with international travelers. “Floating farm … leverage methods that increase productivity and exhibit innovative and novel food systems are attractive to tourists,” noted research from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

Challenges

Along with those benefits, Wharton’s research noted challenges. The first is “high financial barriers to entry in the design and installation of these technologies,” it said. VyunZ Research, a think tank, noted the “initial high infrastructural cost to build [a] floating farm [structure] on the sea.” That cost increases based on the structure’s size and, therefore, capacity. 

Another challenge is that “[floating farms] are perceived as research spaces as opposed to profitable corporations, requiring increases in scale to support a viable business model.” That is a significant limiting factor. “The [Van Wingerden] project is meant to be for cities like Singapore,” Minke Van Wingerden told The World, a news platform, in September. In 2024, Singapore’s population exceeded 6 million.

 Another concern VyunZ Research highlighted is the potential for environmental damage.  “Industrial offshore floating farming puts additional strain on the marine environment due to factors like pollution from waste discharged/wasted water, disease control, dissolved oxygen in the water, an imbalance in the amount of nutrients in the sea, exhaust air and gases, noises, and vibrations.” 

VynZ Research also highlighted the “lack of information regarding indoor environmental monitoring, alternative farming techniques, and technologies like temperature automation and artificial intelligence.” 

Niche to common sight

According to EBSCO, attempts to replicate the Van Wingerden floating farm have been rare. “The floating farm movement is still in its relative infancy,” the think tank said. “Attempts have been made to implement some simplified forms of floating farms.”

The examples EBSCO noted are “near Vancouver [where there] is a collection of floating greenhouses, while an engineering company [The Science Barge] in New York City has been experimenting with using human-made islands to grow crops.” However, it noted, “as of 2023, Asia Pacific dominated the global floating farm market, largely because of a large population and a need for high-yield crops.”  

Ultimately, government support is critical to such projects. “Only when the government prioritizes the creation of a sustainable food system might we [see] more floating farms,” the Wharton University paper said. “Until monetary policy reflects these values, the future of food, while floating, is also unattainable for the everyday consumer.”