Strawberries, vacuum cleaners and British style - how Dyson turned a farm into a laboratory of the future
There are some things that don't need explanation: why tea with milk, why the British wear rubber boots, and how Dyson vacuum cleaners destroyed the concept of bin bags. But to explain why James Dyson decided to grow strawberries is a task of the level of "scientific stand-up with elements of surrealism".
Yes, it's true. Dyson now grows and sells strawberries. And this is not some kind of situational whim or an attempt to cash in on farming trends. This is a capital project with serious ambitions and even more serious investments. While you were choosing between the Supersonic hairdryer and the V15 Detect vacuum cleaner, Dyson was buying up hectares of land...
Dyson Farming
Dyson Farming has 36,000 acres of land (almost the size of Kyiv and its suburbs), over £140 million of investment in agricultural technology, and a greenhouse the size of 15 football fields with 1.2 million strawberry bushes. This is no ordinary greenhouse. It's a 760-metre-long hybrid engineering and botanical facility stuffed with sensors, cameras, AI and robots.
But it doesn't stop with strawberries. Dyson Farming is a full-fledged agricultural empire. They grow wheat for flour and feed, barley for brewers and livestock, potatoes for supermarkets and processing, and the highest quality green peas. They also grow corn, which is not turned into popcorn but into fuel for biogas plants.
Dyson Farming grows wheat for flour and feed, barley for brewers and livestock, potatoes for supermarkets and processing, and top quality green peas. Illustration: Dyson Farming
And that's not all. Dyson also breeds sheep and cattle. A special greeting to the stabilised breeds - the brand new herd of Stabiliser Breeding Cattle is already pinching British grass. This is where the lamb and beef are born, which is promised to be raised to the highest animal welfare standards.
Cattle. Illustration: Dyson Farming
Neural networks monitor every bush, every calf, and every hectare. Who needs to be warmed, who needs to be watered, who needs to be illuminated with ultraviolet light - everything is decided by data and algorithms. There are even robotic berry pickers that carefully cut off the stalks and put the berries in a container. However, British restraint is also inherent in them - they work, let's say, without haste.
Neural networks monitor every bush, every calf, and every hectare. Illustration: Dyson Farming
The greenhouse and farm operate on a complete closed loop. Biogas from corn and rapeseed residues is converted into electricity and heat. And the waste CO2 is fed back into the greenhouse to enhance photosynthesis. In essence, it is a symbiosis of farm, factory and laboratory.
Biogas from corn and rapeseed residues is converted into electricity and heat. Illustration: Dyson Farming
Why is Dyson involved in farming?
The reason is as British as it gets: we're tired of eating tasteless, odourless imports. In Sir James's own words, "Britain should grow its own food". But this is only part of the story. The farm is also a giant testing ground for sensors, robots, and AI that could eventually become part of future Dyson devices.
The financial part of the project is less romantic. Half of the profit comes not from berries, but from the sale of electricity generated by biogas plants. Strawberries themselves are more of an image and experimental project. With a profitability of about 1%, no one here is obviously chasing quick money. It's a long-term strategy, and it's a very engineering one.
What are we seeing here?
This is more than a berry business. This is a new way of looking at food, where a farmer is an engineer, and a plantation is a cloud-based platform with firmware updates for each bush. A world where food is already the result of programming, microclimate and accurate data.
If you think about it, it's quite possible that the next Dyson vacuum cleaner will be partially made from biopolymers grown in the same greenhouse. After all, they now have all the ingredients for it - from the sun to strawberry leaves... well, or from peas to sheep's wool.