The global megatrends of increasing water scarcity, unabated climate change, heightening population and relentless urbanisation are accelerating the international reduction in the stock of arable-grade land per capita.
Such circumstances are seen not only to prospectively undermine the world’s traditional farming model, but also heighten food insecurity for the worst affected countries/regions, whose governments also increasingly recognise their populations’ vulnerability to a potential breakdown of international supply chains, as was recently exemplified during the worldwide Pandemic.
Such looming circumstances alongside opportunities now presented through modern, technological approaches to controlled environment agriculture (‘CEA’), prompted LST’s Board in 2019 to found a new division, Light Science Technologies Limited (‘LSTL’), as a one-stop contract and service supplier to this rapidly developing sector that encompasses activities such as vertical farming, agronomic science and ‘bespoke’ horticultural solutions ranging through product prospective manufacturing, consultancy, project design and commissioning.
This wholly-owned operation sits under the Group holding company umbrella alongside its long-established and cash generative UK-based contract electronics manufacturing (‘CEM’) business, UK Circuits and Electronics Solutions Limited (‘UKCES’). While the two divisions might be expected to generate asymmetrical returns, the complementarity of their respective operations means both remain central to the business plan, with the latter facilitating turnkey product design, manufacturing and system controls as part of the former’s tailored solutions that initially at least will be directed toward rapidly expanding European and APAC target markets.
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