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These Vertical Hydroponics Systems Are Growing Fresh Lettuce Anywhere With An Outlet
Tyink was an opera singer then and like the arias he performed onstage, the process of growing food captivated him. So Tyink started doing it, too — growing food in the middle of the city for friends and family. Any extra went to a food pantry
Sarah Hauer Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
November 29, 2019
Alex Tyink, a partner in Fork Farms, is shown looking down at a vertical hydroponics unit on Tuesday, November 26, 2019 at Butte des Morts Elementary School in Menasha, Wis. Fork Farms LLC has expanded a lot in the last year going from just selling in Wisconsin to 18 states. Three of these goods are harvested each week, producing about 60 pounds of fresh Romaine lettuce, which is used by the food service at Menasha High School. MARK HOFFMAN/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL
Mark Hoffman/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Years ago, Alex Tyink met a guy who was farming on a rooftop in New York City.
Tyink was an opera singer then and like the arias he performed onstage, the process of growing food captivated him. So Tyink started doing it, too — growing food in the middle of the city for friends and family. Any extra went to a food pantry.
Tyink helped start more rooftop gardens around New York. But he found the farms difficult to scale.
Five years, 30 prototypes and a move back to Wisconsin later, Tyink is the founder of Appleton-based Fork Farms LLC. With his product, dubbed a Flex Farm, food can be grown nearly anywhere with an outlet. The company produces a vertical hydroponics system for indoor agriculture, requiring lower energy and labor resources than other systems Tyink used.
The Flex Farm is catching on and growth is ramping up. Fork Farms is set to double its revenue this year, Tyink said. Fork Farms' systems are now in schools, restaurants, private clubs and in health care systems in nearly 20 states.
"Everyone is tired of paying for food to go bad," he said.
The Flex Farms are best for highly perishable foods like lettuces and tomatoes. One four-foot-tall system can grow more than 150 pounds of leafy greens a year, according to the company. The Flex Farm starts at $2,995.
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants that deliver nutrients through water, rather than soil. The Flex Farm system requires water and electricity to run, light is reflected throughout the system so the plants will grow.
"Sometimes people think about it as being unnatural and I don’t think about it that way," said Neil Mattson, associate professor of plant science at Cornell University. "Roots take up nitrogen in the same molecular form if it's in soil or a water solution and photosynthesis takes the same form if its sunlight or another beam."
Hydroponics takes up less space and uses less water than traditional agriculture. It can be done indoors, allowing for year-round food production. Highly perishable crops are among the most common to grow using hydroponics, Mattson said.
While Tyink's initial vision was to sell to schools, all sorts of would-be hydroponics farmers are buying the units. Fork Farms has installed its system in almost 300 locations, Tyink said. Some of those installations are one Flex Farm while others have a dozen or more.
The Marshfield Clinic's community health center purchased 17 farms to be placed in Rusk County to see if the increase in fresh food available affects public health, he said. Medinah Country Club outside Chicago is using Flex Farms to ensure fresh produce year-round.
The Oak Creek-Franklin Joint School District has four Flex Farms kept in the 9th Grade Center's cafeteria at Oak Creek High School. The farms supply fresh lettuces and herbs daily to around 2,000 students a day who eat lunch served by the district.
"I don't have a green thumb," said Jill Fehler who serves as the district's hydroponic farmer. " I had a fear of failure, but it's not hard to grow the lettuce and things. Cucumbers and strawberries are a little harder."
Fehler said she spends less than 15 minutes a day on the farm. The ph levels need to be checked and water added to the tanks, said Fehler, a food service director for Teher Inc., the school district's food management company.
"I also sing to them," she said. "They like Sinatra."
It takes about four weeks for the plant to grow from a seed to something to harvest. She's looking to start growing jalapenos next.
Six full-time employees comprise Fork Farms' core team. Nearly every component that goes into one of the units is produced within 50 miles of Fork Farms headquarters in Appleton. All of the plastics work, gasketing, and metal fabrication is done in Wisconsin.
It's the social mission that keeps the team going, Tyink said. Fork Farms developed a curriculum with FIRST Educational Resources LLC in Oshkosh for kindergarten through grade 12 students to accompany the hydroponics system, covering science, arts, health and other disciplines.
"We have to keep selling stuff to stay alive but that’s not really why we’re here," Tyink said.
Sarah Hauer can be reached at shauer@journalsentinel.com or on Instagram @HauerSarah and Twitter @SarahHauer. Subscribe to her weekly newsletter Be MKE at jsonline.com/bemke.
QFCs In Bellevue And Kirkland To Begin Growing Produce In-Store
QFCs in Kirkland and Bellevue appear to be taking the whole farm to table concept to a new level, since the grocer will now be growing some of their own food as well. It’ll probably require a new aisle
BY MYNORTHWEST STAFF
DECEMBER 1, 2019
QFCs in Kirkland and Bellevue appear to be taking the whole farm to table concept to a new level, since the grocer will now be growing some of their own food as well. It’ll probably require a new aisle.
The Kroger Company has teamed up with urban farming network Infarm that would bring modular living produce farms to a few of their stores. This doesn’t mean there will be vast fields in the QFC parking lot; rather, they will allow some of their produce to grow onsite using hydroponic technology, potentially producing items like kale, cilantro, and lettuce, among others.
QFC’s new self-checkout cameras may send you back to human checkouts
“Kroger believes that everyone deserves to have access to fresh, affordable and delicious food, no matter who you are, how you shop or what you like to eat,” said Suzy Monford, Kroger’s group vice president of fresh. “Our partnership with Infarm allows us to innovate by combining ground-breaking in-store farming technology with our passion for fresh, local produce and ecological sourcing. Kroger is excited to be first to market and offer the best of the season, and we’re proud to lead the U.S. on this journey.”
Infarms are stackable and controlled through a cloud-based farming platform that adjusts lighting and temperature remotely. In addition to freshness, the idea is also intended to eliminate unnecessary transportation and storage.
Believe it or not, some people actually call QFC ‘The Q’
The two QFCs in Kirkland and Bellevue will be the first in the county to undertake such a partnership with Infarm, with the company planning to expand to 15 QFCs in Washington and Oregon by April, reports The Seattle Times. The new greens are expected to be ready within weeks at the two Washington locations.
Watch: 5 Acres of Greens In 55m²? No Imports…Hyper-Local Food
Two re-purposed shipping containers, fitted with a ‘Farmony’ – 55m² in size, can produce 55,000 heads of lettuce per year or 408 trays of micro greens per week
November 20, 2019
Two re-purposed shipping containers, fitted with a ‘Farmony’ – 55m² in size, can produce 55,000 heads of lettuce per year or 408 trays of microgreens per week.
John Paul Prior sees these “5ac farms” as a way to compliment an existing farming enterprise.
His vision is to have as many Farmony models across the country as possible, complementing an existing beef enterprise for example and providing another income, all while replacing food imports into this country.
These salads, herbs and microgreens will be grown using hydroponic technology – no soil involved – and will be highly nutritious and free of pesticides.
That IT input into the farm provides a controlled environment.
Anyone who owns a Farmony solution can control it from anywhere in the world with a mobile device. The controlled environment means no pesticides are used and growth cycles are efficient.
Salads and microgreens are grown inside this controlled environment
“The growing season in Ireland is obviously from May to September. In a Farmony, a producer can grow all year round – 365 days a year,” John Paul explained.
This provides a whole new window of opportunity for Irish growers to have a continuous supply of fresh and local produce.
The business model allows for crops to be grown in small spaces. Restaurants could have their own source of salads and herbs all year round for example.
A restaurant’s beef supplier could provide the beef, the herbs to season it and the salad to accompany it.
“With microgreens your grow cycle is just six-to-seven days, so in terms of output one module can grow 24 trays of micro-greens per week and multiply that by 17 and you’re at 408 trays of micro-greens every week, so it’s an impressive output.”
Replacing Imports
At present, Ireland is heavily dependent on imports in this sector, which can be clearly seen on the supermarket shelves.
“We’re encouraging people to apply for the horticultural grant in 2020,” John Paul noted.
“The country imports about €300 million worth of produce, so we’re trying to basically offer a solution for producers to replace those imports.
You’re talking about hyper-local produce. These farms could be placed in urban centres or farmyards.
John Paul noted that while there are some farming sectors struggling at the minute, one of his company’s solutions could fit into a current farm business.
John Paul estimates a total workload of 25-30 hours/week and noted that there is a 40% grant available to set up the farm.
The system can also be used in an existing farm building. Mushroom houses, which are no longer in use for example, are ideal for these modules.
How Does It Work?
John Paul explained a small bit about how the farm works. The modules – which from the outside look like shelves – are basically flat-packs and can each be assembled in 45 minutes.
Water and nutrients flow through these modules feeding the plants. The gallery below shows the root structures of some of the plants and the water in the trays which is filled with artificial fertilisers.
“We use hydroponic technology so there’s a constant water flow throughout the module.
First of all the process is you seed sow. Then you transplant and the roots take the nutrients from the water solution that’s ebbing and flowing throughout the module.
Once the initial work of sowing and transplanting is carried out, the remainder of the work can be completed from a mobile device until harvest.
Lighting and temperature, as well as electrical conductivity and pH levels in the water, are all monitored and used to decide on the different “plant recipes”. The information is all sent to the master controller and sends nutrients to the plants accordingly.
Lights go on and off automatically, nutrients go in and out.
The irrigation system and lighting can all be changed from anywhere in the world. The amount of light hours can be changed for example, depending on the different plants.
Some plants like basil might require more white lights, while mustard or chard will have more blue lights.
As well as plant recipes, John Paul thinks he has the recipe to “supplement and compliment” current farming businesses, which he thinks can be made more sustainable and profitable by building a Farmony on site.
The Future of Food: Why Farming Is Moving Indoors
Ten shipping containers dominate a corner of the Brooklyn parking area, each full of climate control tech, growing herbs that are distributed to local stores on bicycles. This is urban farming at its most literal
November 27, 2019 Staff Writer
A car park opposite the infamous New York City housing estate where rapper Jay-Z grew up seems an unlikely place for an agricultural revolution.
Ten shipping containers dominate a corner of the Brooklyn parking area, each full of climate control tech, growing herbs that are distributed to local stores on bicycles. This is urban farming at its most literal.
The containers are owned by Square Roots, part of America‘s fast-expanding vertical farming industry, a sector run by many tech entrepreneurs who believe food production is ripe for disruption.
The world‘s best basil reputedly comes from Genoa, Italy. Square Roots grows Genovese seeds in a container that recreates the city‘s daylight hours, humidity, Co2 levels – and all fed hydroponically in nutrient-rich water.
“Rather than ship food across the world, we ship the climate data and feed it into our operating system,” says co-founder Tobias Peggs.
High costs
An artificial intelligence expert, Mr. Peggs founded Square Roots with investor Kimball Musk (Elon‘s brother) two years ago. They‘ve signed a deal with one of America‘s big distribution companies, Gordon Food Service, to locate herb-growing containers at some its 200 warehouses.
He says the deal represents everything about indoor farming‘s potential: locally grown, quick-to-market, fresh produce that can be harvested year-round and is free of pesticides and harsh weather.
“Indoor farming can answer many of the questions being asked by today‘s consumers about the provenance, sustainability and health of the food they eat,” he says.
Jeffery Landau, director of business development at estimates the global value of the vertical farming market will rise to about $6.4bn by 2023, from $403m in 2013, with almost half that attributed to growth in the US.
Despite the sector‘s high costs and limited food range, the potential is not lost on investors. Recently, AeroFarms, a producer of lettuce and other leafy greens, raised $100m, including from Ingka Group, Ikea‘s parent company. Bowery Farming raised $90m in a funding round backed by Google Ventures and Uber boss Dara Khosrowshahi.
Plenty, another major US player, raised funds from Softbank chief executive Masayoshi Son and former Google head Eric Schmidt. The company has ambitions to build hundreds of vertical farms in China. In the UK, food delivery and robotics company Ocado is investing in indoor farming.
But there have also been failures. “Vertical farms are a highly intensive capital expenditure,” says Mr. Landau. “Your lighting system will be one of your highest capital costs.” And then there‘s ventilation, air conditioning, irrigation, and harvesting. “Make a mistake and you will have one costly upgrade on the horizon,” he adds.
Mr. Peggs chose a modular system based around shipping containers because he says it is quickly scalable according to demand. “We can put a herb farm in a new city for less than $500,000 and be growing within two months. We just press the ‘basil button‘ – or mint, or tarragon – and the box configures itself to grow in optimum climate conditions.”
In neighboring New Jersey, however, Bowery Farming takes a different approach. The five-year-old company runs industrial-sized farms. Outside one huge, grey windowless warehouse a heat haze shimmers off the concrete. It‘s a sharp contrast to the chilly interior where an aroma of fresh farm produce hits you immediately.
Robots
Produce is grown on trays stacked ceiling-high to maximize acreage. Everything from the automatic seeding machine to harvesting is run by Bowery‘s proprietary operating system (OS) which controls light, adjusts water nutrients and takes camera images of each plant to monitor its health.
“The OS is our central nervous system. There are millions of data points,” says founder Irving Fain. “The artificial intelligence is constantly learning and predicting how to produce the best quality product.”
Running the farm manually would be difficult, he says. Staff operates things from computer screens and iPads. In the cavernous farm room itself, the only sound is robots moving the shelves.
Growing food indoors has been around for decades, but the industry got a kick-start from advances in the performance of lower-cost LED lighting. Combine that with robotics, innovations, and AI, and you have an industry that Mr. Fain says is both viable and scalable.
“The big question was, how can we grow in large volumes at a consistently high quality? Suddenly, the economics changed,” he says. “We can grow 365 days a year – a major departure from thousands of years of agriculture. Unlike outdoor farming, our yield is virtually 100% guaranteed.”
Vertical farmers talk with a zeal you‘d expect of entrepreneurs with tech world backgrounds. With population growth and climate change putting pressure on food production, they think they may have answers.
But this highlights one of the industry‘s limitations. You can‘t feed the world on leafy greens. That said, for Mr. Fain, if Bowery only ever grew lettuce or kale, “it‘s still a win”. But his ambitions are greater. Bowery is growing radishes and turnips that he expects to come to market with two years.
Square Roots hopes to soon start commercial production of beetroots and strawberries and is experimenting with so-called heirloom produce from rare and long-forgotten seeds.
Carbon footprint
Mr. Peggs says: “It makes sense to grow perishable produce in the same neighborhood as the consumer – stuff that doesn‘t travel well. A lot of produce – tomatoes, strawberries – are grown for travel, not for taste. It doesn‘t make sense to vertically farm food with a long shelf life.”
But different produce presents different challenges, says Mr. Landau. Where plants are concerned, not all light is created equal. Fruiting and flowering crops such as tomatoes, strawberries, and peppers have different needs.
“Lights for these types of crops will generally be more expensive, require more electricity, and produce more heat, meaning additional cooling,” says Mr. Landau. “Harvesting these crops can be a significant operational cost.”
But it is being done. In the US, Oishii vertically farms the much-prized Japanese Omakase strawberry year-round. And Farm One produces more than 200 products, including 34 edible flowers. Plenty is experimenting with watermelons. As technology costs fall and R&D intensifies, the crop variety will expand.
That may also ease criticism of the industry‘s carbon footprint. In the artificial light versus sunlight debate, the latter often has the upper hand. But, then, indoor farmers point to the transportation costs and waste in traditional agriculture.
For the moment, Mr. Landau says, the carbon footprint concerns are valid, although he expects indoor farms to increasingly draw on renewable energy.
“And when you look at markets located in extreme climate environments or island nations where they import a majority of food, indoor farming could be a viable option,” he says.
Mr. Peggs stresses that the industry is still young and is trying to work out the right business models and direction. The entrepreneurs don‘t agree on everything, though they certainly agree on this: vertical farming has the potential to transform global food production as we know it.
AmericanHort Adds Two To Its Staff
Holly Scoggins is the new director of educational programming, and Nicolas Leas is the digital web manager
Holly Scoggins (left) and Nicolas Leas (right) Photos courtesy of AmericanHort
Holly Scoggins is the new director of educational programming, and Nicolas Leas is the digital web manager.
November 23, 2019
AmericanHort has added two new staff members: Holly Scoggins, the new Director of Educational Programming, and Nicolas Leas, the Digital Web Manager.
Scoggins has her Ph.D. in Horticultural Science from North Carolina State University and has been a professor in the Department of Horticulture at Virginia Tech since 1999. She has deep experience in areas that include undergraduate and graduate education, research and extension/outreach. She has also led research and education programs in a variety of industry areas.
Scoggins will be based out of Blacksburg, Virginia. She will be combining her expertise with Meagan Nace and help us grow the capacity of the AmericanHort Education Team. She is the president-elect of the Perennial Plant Association and enjoys gardening, beekeeping and saltwater sports like snorkeling and fishing.
Leas was born in Belgium, lived in Switzerland for 11 years and grew up primarily in Dublin, Ohio. He graduated from Ohio State with a degree in international relations and diplomacy and has more than 15 years of experience working in website design and development. His most recent role was with a company in Korea where he designed, managed and developed e-commerce websites in the beauty and pet product industries.
Leas will be the hands-on, digital web expert on our AmericanHort marketing team. He'll be responsible for helping AmericanHort grow and manage our digital content and services including websites, SEO, SEM, email campaigns and more.
He loves to travel, is a fitness buff and is active with Pilot Dogs where he raises and trains future seeing-eye dogs.
UAE: DUBAI - Regions’s First Instore Hydroponic Farms Open in Carrefour
The region’s first hydroponic in-store farms were inaugurated at Carrefour, operated by Majid Al Futtaim, in the capital on Sunday. Located at the hypermarket’s stores in Abu Dhabi’s My City Centre Masdar and Yas Mall, the hydroponic farms are part of the company’s Net Positive strategy that aims to overcompensate its water and carbon footprint by 2040
25kg of Fresh Herbs, Microgreens To be Produced Everyday
Published: November 24, 2019, Staff Report
Dubai: The region’s first hydroponic in-store farms were inaugurated at Carrefour, operated by Majid Al Futtaim, in the capital on Sunday.
Located at the hypermarket’s stores in Abu Dhabi’s My City Centre Masdar and Yas Mall, the hydroponic farms are part of the company’s Net Positive strategy that aims to overcompensate its water and carbon footprint by 2040. The farms were inaugurated by Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment.
Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Al Zeyoudi said: “The UAE spares no effort in leveraging new technologies and innovative solutions to reach high levels of sustainability across the board. In this context, MOCCAE supports technological development and innovative techniques in the agricultural sector, including vertical and hydroponic farming that reduces water consumption by at least 90% and increases the productivity of multiple agricultural products.”
Carrefour’s hydroponic farms are the result of a recently renewed memorandum of understanding (MoU) between MOCCAE and Majid Al Futtaim Retail to sell locally grown agricultural products across all Carrefour stores in the UAE and enhance the use of innovative farming methods. The two farms are the first of their kind to be installed in the region. They use 90 percent less water and less space than traditional farms to deliver around 25kg of fresh herbs and microgreens a day.
The isolated and temperature-controlled glass farming chambers were designed in line with the highest standards of hydroponics. While not accessible, the farms are visible to consumers at the stores, significantly enhancing their shopping experience. With virtually no food miles involved, customers are free to choose from a select range of herbs and microgreens, once fully grown, at the store.
Liberty Produce And Partners Are Transforming The Vertical Farming Landscape
Liberty Produce and Partners have launched their ambitious programme to coordinate the development of the technology needed to make Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) more effective, efficient and sustainable
2nd December 2019
London, UK
Liberty Produce and Partners have launched their ambitious programme to coordinate the development of the technology needed to make Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) more effective, efficient and sustainable.
The joint venture, co-funded by Innovate UK (the UK’s innovation agency), is supporting the creation of an integrated technology system focussed on reducing operational costs by 25%, improving crop yield by 30% and reducing necessary grower intervention through improved decision support and automation in lighting, nutrient and environmental control technologies.
The project involves several partners and experts in CEA, including Crop Health and Protection (CHAP). In work being carried out at CHAP’s Fine Phenotyping Lab, based at Rothamsted Research, experts are assessing ways in which plants react to light throughout the day, determining how to activate and make them most receptive to light, particularly through the manipulation of wavelength and light intensity. They have already found evidence that plants photosynthetic response to light levels off and reaches saturation. Within CEA systems, avoiding the unnecessary application of light is crucial in reducing operational cost and making systems more sustainable.
The data collected on how different crops respond to artificial LED lighting systems will inform the development of further technologies around sensing and automation - work packages being led by FOTENIX and Iceni Labs.
As the new technologies are developed, they will be evaluated at the IHCEA facilty, a vertical farming commercial demonstrator established by Liberty Produce in partnership with Crop Health and Protection (CHAP) and located at the James Hutton Institute, in Dundee, Scotland.
Zeina Chapman, Director of Liberty Produce commented, “Vertical farming is not yet sustainable - the capital and operational costs limit the adoption of these systems. This vital research and development will enable the build of innovative new technologies that will ensure CEA becomes an essential and sustainable element of crop production as the global population grows.”
Dr Ruth Bastow, Innovation Director of CHAP said, “CEA has great potential to be part of a global solution to produce food in more efficient, resilient and sustainable ways. However, there are still bottlenecks to be overcome for large-scale adoption, and this project will help accelerate the development of new technologies and approaches to improve the overall efficiency of CEA utilising capabilities across the CHAP network.”
Crops growing in the IHCEA facility. Credit: Liberty Produce 2019.
***Ends***
About Liberty Produce
Liberty Produce is a farming technology company, enabling the growth of local produce year-round, using a fully-controlled, industry-leading, indoor vertical farming system. With expertise in lighting and nutrient delivery technology, Liberty develops and builds systems that reduce operational costs and improve yields of crops grown in controlled-environment farms. Their vision is to drive innovations that will enable the UK to meet our crop requirements over the next century, without harming the planet.
https://www.liberty-produce.com/
For further information contact:
Benita Rajania
+44 20 3290 8801
About CHAP
Crop Health and Protection (CHAP), funded by Innovate UK, is one of four UK Agri-Tech Centres. CHAP’s vision is for the UK to be a global leader in the development of applied agri-technologies, to help secure our future by nourishing a growing population sustainably while delivering economic, environmental and health benefits to society.
CHAP acts as a unique, independent nexus between UK government, researchers and industry, building innovation networks to identify and accelerate the development of cutting-edge solutions to drive incremental, transformative and disruptive changes in sustainable crop productivity and to establish controlled environment agriculture (CEA) as a core competency.
www.chap-solutions.co.uk/
For further information contact:
Darren Hassall
Darren.hassall@chap-solutions.co.uk
+44 (0)1904 462062
About Innovate UK
Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation.
Urban Crop Solutions Makes Indoor Farming Technology For Mars Biosphere
Will the first people to bake and eat bread on Mars do it due to a Belgian breakthrough? This is the challenge facing the SpaceBakery project, a unique consortium composed of seven Belgian organisations using technology provided by Urban Crop Solutions
Will the first people to bake and eat bread on Mars do it due to a Belgian breakthrough? This is the challenge facing the SpaceBakery project, a unique consortium composed of seven Belgian organisations using technology provided by Urban Crop Solutions. However, before they use their research to help feed the first people on the red planet later this century, the project aims to have a clear impact on Earth today. The project will focus on how we can produce food more sustainably and will help provide a nutritional staple food for many regions across the globe. The consortium has just been awarded a subsidy of 4.5 million euros by the Flemish Community (VLAIO, Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship), contributing to a total of over 6.3 million euros in funding.
Together with Puratos group, Urban Crop Solutions started a journey of R&D for plant growth on the planet Mars in 2018. Now, almost 2 years later, both companies gathered the top of the Belgian scientific community to put their ideas in to practice and create added value for the planet earth as well.
Four large inter-connected containers will soon be installed at Puratos’ headquarters near Brussels, Belgium. From the outside they may seem ordinary, but on 1 January 2020 researchers will start work in the enclosed ecological plant cultivation system and bakery that could have a huge impact on our food production on Earth, as well as on Mars once humans launch their space exploration efforts.
“This project allows us to take our technology again one step further. By implementing AI, plant production will be maximized while further minimizing use of electricity and water. This is essential for plant production on Mars, but just as important here on planet Earth.” explains Maarten Vandecruys, co-founder and CTO of Urban Crop Solutions.The environment on Mars is very different from ours on Earth. The lack of atmosphere, cold temperatures, high radiation and dust storms don’t provide the right conditions to grow crops. It is for this reason that the research will take place in the containers, a completely sealed and self-sustainable environment, for which the climate can be adapted to make it suitable for both crop growth and for human life.
To obtain this knowledge, 5 separate research rooms will be dedicated for the coming 2.5 years in which over 50 different variables related to plant growth will constantly be monitored, which will result in individual plant growth models and algorithms.
Dr. Oscar Navarrete, Chief Plant Scientist at Urban Crop Solutions: “During this research, the challenge lies in the number of biological variables and parameters that will be tested to measure plant responses and their quality. This will deliver insights which helps us to unlock the full potential of plants in a controlled environment.
”In parallel to the research on crops, the consortium will also study many other aspects involved in the entire food production cycle, such as the use and recycling of resources, the monitoring of microbial climate, influence of radiation, and pollination through automated drones.
Urban Crop Solutions is a Belgium based pioneer in the fast-emerging technology of ‘Indoor Vertical Farming’. Throughout 5 years of research more than 220 plant growth recipes were developed. All drivers for healthy plant growth, such as optimal LED spectrum and intensity, nutrient mix, irrigation strategy, climate settings are tested and validated daily in its Indoor Farming Research Lab in Beveren-Leie (Belgium). To date, Urban Crop Solutions has manufactured 24 Container Farms and 1 Plant Factory for clients throughout Europe and North America. Urban Crop Solutions’ commercial farms are being operated for vegetables, herbs, micro-greens for food retail, food service and industrial use. Research institutions operate grow infrastructure of Urban Crop Solutions for scientific research on banana seedlings, flowers and hemp.
For more information on this press release, on Urban Crop Solutions or on the products and services of Urban Crop Solutions you can contact Tom Debusschere, Managing Director (tode@urbancropsolutions.com), or Maarten Vandecruys, Co-founder and CTO (mava@urbancropsolutions.com ) or visit our website (www.urbancropsolutions.com):
Company headquarters: Regional headquarters:
Grote Heerweg 67 800 Brickell Avenue, 1100 Suite
8791 Beveren-Leie (Waregem) Miami (FL 33131)
Belgium Florida
Europe USA
Facebook: www.facebook.com/urbancropsolutions
Twitter: www.twitter.com/U_C_Solutions
LinkedIn: bit.ly/UrbanCropSolutionsLinkedIn
YouTube channel: bit.ly/UrbanCropSolutionsYouTube
Modular Micro Farms: A New Approach To Urban Food Production?
One key tenet of the “urban resilience” idea is local food production. If fruits, veggies, and herbs are grown in cities, they’ll reduce the runoff, emissions, perishability and transport costs of produce
November 25, 2019
Nov 25, 2019,
Scott Beyer Contributor
A micro-farm installation creates farm-to-salad-bar food. BABYLON MICROFARMS
One key tenet of the “urban resilience” idea is local food production. If fruits, veggies, and herbs are grown in cities, they’ll reduce the runoff, emissions, perishability and transport costs of produce. They’ll also make cities more self-sustaining, rather than having to fully rely on food grown elsewhere.
The problem is that urban agriculture doesn’t always seem like a practical concept. Urban land is expensive, and the prospect of making it farmland - even in distressed cities - could present long-term opportunity costs if these cities later revive. Furthermore, the vertical farming idea - where structures are built to grow produce at large scales - seems premature, since this brick-and-mortar infrastructure must compete with cheap, horizontal farmland. As fellow Forbes contributor Erik Kobayashi-Solomon writes, vertical farming is still a largely untested concept that receives limited capital compared to standard farming.
An urban agriculture technique that seems more practical, though, is micro-farming, which involves fitting small farms into tight spaces, sometimes ad hoc. The website Lexicon of Food defines micro-farming as “small-scale farming that takes place in urban or suburban areas, usually on less than 5 acres of land.”
Modular micro-farming is a subset within this niche, using small, automated modular food-growing equipment, often contained within a few square feet. Modular farms are easier to use and possibly more scalable, since they can fit into almost any home or apartment.
One example of this modular approach is Babylon Micro-Farms, a startup based in my hometown of Charlottesville, VA. The company sells 32” x 66” x 96” tall machines that use controlled environment hydroponics to grow leafy greens, herbs, and edible flowers. The farms don’t have soil, sunlight or standard seeds. Instead, Babylon places seed pods onto its trays. Depending on the seed variety (Babylon has 227 of them), the machines use remotely-managed equipment to cast the appropriate water and light. This causes produce to generate significantly more per-acre yield than standard farms. Babylon’s 15sqft micro-farms are capable of producing as much produce as 2000 sqft of outdoor farmland.
Babylon's latest modular micro-farm model. BABYLON MICROFARMS
These modular farms can be connected together to create indoor farms of different scales that can work within existing buildings. Their operations are remotely managed via the cloud with real-time data collection on all aspects of the growing environment. This is an exciting development in a space that has remained out of reach for businesses and consumers due to high capital costs and complex technology with a steep learning curve.
Babylon sells these machines the way some green energy companies sell solar panels. Customers agree to a minimum 2-year lease, paying a fixed monthly fee. Babylon installs the machines, provides a subscription of growing supplies, and remotely manages the crop growth via the cloud using a proprietary software platform. This lets customers enjoy the produce without needing a “green thumb or any real expertise,” says Alexander Olesen.
Olesen co-founded the company with Graham Smith, when they were at the University of Virginia and participating in the iLab Accelerator at Darden School of Business. They incorporated in 2017, and now work in a small warehouse-style space near downtown Charlottesville. Babylon has 14 employees and $3 million in seed funding, including a grant from the National Science Foundation, and venture capital from Virginia, Washington, DC and Silicon Valley. They have dedicated these first couple years to building and testing the product, landing a few early clients for feedback. These include UVA, Dominion Energy, and some local restaurants, schools and country clubs.
But their ambitions go well beyond central Virginia. Olesen said the first major act of scaling is currently underway, with Babylon installing their farms in major corporate restaurants, cafeterias, resort hotels, and grocery stores. Because such institutions thrive on b-to-c relations, they would benefit from the experiential component of a modular farm. Rather than just saying they use organic food, they can show customers where and how it’s being grown.
“This has the additional value of being able to show your customers that you care about those things,” said Smith. “If it’s growing 10 feet from the table, that’s pretty clear.”
Babylon believes that their technology can increase the biodiversity of produce available to consumers in urban areas, so they place a lot of emphasis on the underlying plant science required to grow crops using their machines.
“One of the most exciting things about hydroponics is the amount of blue ocean space, it’s theoretically possible to grow any plant this way, yet only a handful of crops have successfully been commercialized,” said Olesen.
Babylon has a controlled environment test facility in Charlottesville where plant scientists run trials on seed varieties from around the world, dialing in tailored growth recipes to produce higher yields and consistent flavors. Their technology consists of an array of sensors and utilizes camera vision to create an automated feedback loop that analyzes the data to increase the rate at which growth recipes can be developed. In doing so, they plan to learn how to grow heirloom crop varieties and reintroduce them to the supply chain, leading to more options for chefs and consumers alike.
In the long run, Babylon plans to use their modular vertical farming platform to build larger farms capable of growing the majority of fresh produce for their clients. They envision micro-farming becoming an amenity in urban areas located in, or adjacent to, all grocery stores, foodservice operations, and food distribution hubs. These companies now get their supply from different farms nationwide, then process, package and sell it to consumers. The benefit to them of growing it onsite would be to significantly reduce perishability, which now wipes out 50% of food, much of it during the transport process, which can be over 1500 miles from farm to fork in the U.S. Not to mention the emissions generated by such a long supply chain.
Users scan crops into the farm, and Babylon remotely manages the growth cycle for them through... [+]
“Initially, we’re focused strictly on the b-to-b market, and utilizing these farms to grow food for companies with a known means of consumption or distribution,” said Olesen, while walking me through the facilities. “The next step…is creating these farms as a means for people to sell.”
This latter vision makes modular micro-farming seem like a viable future urban food source. Land owners in dense cities struggle to find the right surface lots to convert into vertical or horizontal farms. But Babylon’s 15sqft machine provides an adaptable solution that can work with existing infrastructure by slotting into unused space throughout urban areas.
Other companies have, for this reason, embraced small modular micro-farming. Ones like Cityblooms and Zipgrow focus on slightly larger, more commercialized modular units. However, small scale urban farms have faced a scalability issue; the technology that is commercially available only allows for basic automation, but lacks any feedback that would enable these farms to learn how to operate more efficiently. The most direct competitor to Babylon is InFarm, a Berlin-based startup that operates in Europe. They have created a system similar to Babylon’s, which has gathered momentum with installations in grocery stores across Europe. It’s an exciting prospect to think of indoor farms in grocery stores here in the U.S.
If any or all of these companies can make modular micro-farms a standard provider of fresh produce, it has the potential to disrupt the current supply chain - from manufacturers down to individual households. It would be an environmentally-friendly way to increase crop yields, reduce emissions, and feed people in the future. If it becomes a city phenomenon, in particular, it could be key to improving urban resilience across the U.S.
I am the owner of a media company called The Market Urbanism Report. It is meant to advance free-market policy ideas in cities. The Report features multiple articles daily, along with a video series that explains urban issues from street level. I’m also a roving urban affairs journalist who writes columns for Forbes, Governing Magazine and HousingOnline.com. For three years, I'm circling America to live for a month each in 30 cities, starting from Miami and ending in New York City. The point is to write a book about revitalizing cities through this Market Urbanism concept. But my articles cover other city subjects too. I have also written for the Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, American Interest and National Review. You can find my work at MarketUrbanismReport.com.
Aquaponics Food Safety Statement November 2019
Aquaponics is a food production method integrating fish and plants in a closed, soil-less system. This symbiotic relationship mimics the biological cycles found in nature. Aquaponics has been used as a farming technique for thousands of years and is now seeing large-scale viability to feed a growing global population
Click here: Click here: Sign the Aquaponics Food Safety Statement
November 15, 2019
Aquaponics Food Safety Statement
Established Science Confirms That
Aquaponic Fish and Produce Are Food Safe
Aquaponics is a food production method integrating fish and plants in a closed, soil-less system. This symbiotic relationship mimics the biological cycles found in nature. Aquaponics has been used as a farming technique for thousands of years and is now seeing large-scale viability to feed a growing global population.
Benefits of aquaponics include dramatically less water use; no toxic chemical fertilizers or pesticides; no agriculture discharge to air, water or soil; and less food miles when systems are located near consumers where there is no arable soil.
Aquaponics has consistently proven to be a safe method to grow fresh, healthy fish, fruits, and vegetables in any environment. Governments and food safety certifiers must utilize the most current, accurate information to make food safety decisions about aquaponics at this time when our food systems adapt to a growing population and environmental concerns.
Food Safety Certification for Aquaponics
For years, commercial aquaponic farms have obtained food safety certification from certifying bodies such as Global GAP, USDA Harmonized GAP, Primus GFS, and the SQF Food Safety Program. Many aquaponic farms are also certified USDA Organic. These certifying bodies have found aquaponics to be a food-safe method for fish, fruits, and vegetables. As far back as 2003, researchers found aquaponic fish and produce to be consistently food-safe (Rakocy, 2003; Chalmers, 2004). Aquaponic fish and produce continue to be sold commercially across North America following all appropriate food safety guidelines.
Recent Certification Changes Based on Unfounded Concerns
Recently Canada GAP, a food safety certifier, announced that it will phase out certification of aquaponic operations in 2020, citing concerns about the potential for leafy greens to uptake contaminants found in aquaponic water.
Correspondence with Canada GAP leadership revealed that the decision to revoke aquaponics certification eligibility was based on research and literature surveys related to the uptake of pharmaceutical and pathogenic contaminants in hydroponic systems. However, these concerns are unfounded based on established evidence.
First, the Canada GAP decision assumes that aquaponic growers use pharmaceuticals to treat fish and that these pharmaceuticals would be taken up by plants causing a food safety risk.
In fact, pharmaceuticals are not compatible with aquaponics. Aquaponics represents an ecosystem heavily dependent on a healthy microorganism community (Rinehart, 2019; Aquaponics Association, 2018). The pharmaceuticals and antibiotics referenced by Canada GAP would damage the beneficial microorganisms required for aquaponics to function properly.
Second, the CanadaGAP decision misrepresents the risk of pathogenic contamination. Aquaponic produce – like all produce – is not immune to pathogenic contamination. However, aquaponics is, in fact, one of the safest agriculture methods against pathogenic risk. Most pathogenic contamination in our modern agriculture system stems from bird droppings, animal infestation, and agriculture ditch or contaminated water sources. In contrast, commercial aquaponic systems are “closed-loop” and usually operated in controlled environments like greenhouses. Almost all operations use filtered municipal or well water and monitor everything that enters and leaves the system.
Aquaponics and Food Safety
If practiced appropriately, aquaponics can be one of the safest methods of food production. The healthy microbes required for aquaponics serve as biological control agents against pathogenic bacteria. (Fox, 2012) The healthy biological activity of an aquaponic system competitively inhibits human pathogens, making their chances for survival minimal. This is, in effect, nature’s immune system working to keep our food safe, rather than synthetic chemicals.
The Government of Alberta, Canada, ran extensive food safety tests in aquaponics from 2002 to 2010 at the Crop Diversification Centre South (CDC South) and observed no human pathogens during this entire eight-year period (Savidov, 2019, Results available upon request). As a result of this study, the pilot-scale aquaponic operation at CDC South was certified as a food-safe operation in compliance with CanadaGAP standards in May 2011 (GFTC OFFS Certification, May 26, 2011). Similar studies conducted by the University of Hawaii in 2012 in a commercial aquaponic farm also revealed no human pathogens. (Tamaru, 2012)
Current aquaponic farms must be able to continuously prove their food safety. The U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act requires farms to be able to demonstrate appropriate mitigation of potential sources of pathogenic contamination as well as water testing that validates waters shared with plants that are free from contamination by zoonotic organisms. So, if there is a food safety concern in aquaponics, food safety certifiers will find and document it.
Conclusion
The recent certification decision from CanadaGAP has already set back commercial aquaponic operations in Canada and has the potential to influence other food safety certifiers or create unfounded consumer concerns. At a time when we need more sustainable methods to grow our food, it is essential to work on greater commercial-government collaboration and scientific validation to ensure fact-based food safety standards.
In order to expand the benefits of aquaponics, we need a vibrant commercial sector. And for commercial aquaponics to succeed, we need reliable food safety certification standards based on established science.
Consumers can feel secure knowing that when they purchase aquaponic fish and produce, they are getting fresh food grown in one of the safest, most sustainable methods possible.
Sincerely,
The Aquaponics Association
[ Click here: Sign the Aquaponics Food Safety Statement]
References
Chalmers, 2004. Aquaponics and Food Safety. Retrieved from http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/Travis/Aquaponics-andFood-Safety.pdf
Filipowich, Schramm, Pyle, Savage, Delanoy, Hager, Beuerlein. 2018. Aquaponic Systems Utilize the Soil Food Web to Grow Healthy Crops. Aquaponics Association. https://aaasociation.wpengine.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/soil-food-web-aug-2018.pdf
Fox, Tamaru, Hollyer, Castro, Fonseca, Jay-Russell, Low. A Preliminary Study of Microbial Water Quality-Related to Food Safety in Recirculating Aquaponic Fish and Vegetable Production Systems. Publication of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, University of Hawaii, February 1, 2012.
Rakocy, J.E., Shultz, R.C., Bailey, D.S. and Thoman, E.S. (2003). Aquaponic production of tilapia and basil: comparing a batch and staggered cropping system. South Pacific Soilless Culture Conference. Palmerston North, New Zealand.
Rinehart, Lee. Aquaponics – Multitrophic Systems, 2019. ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture. National Center for Appropriate Technology.
Tamaru, Fox, Hollyer, Castro, Low, 2012. Testing for Water Borne Pathogens at an Aquaponic Farm. Publication of the College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources, the Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, University of Hawaii, February 1, 2012.
7 Smart City Urban Planning Ideas Using IoT
Square Roots, another high-tech vertical farming startup that has raised $6.5 million for its shipping container farms. At the helm is a somewhat familiar name, Kimbal Musk, the brother of a more familiar CEO who favors Twitter and flame throwers
One of the things that you learn after being a digital nomad for a while is that some cities are much better designed than others. There is a certain aesthetic quality to a well-laid out urban center like New York City compared to, say, Boston, which one article on the topic of city grids said appears as if “a group of city planners decided to lay out the roads one day by taking turns pissing blindfolded onto a scroll of parchment – during an earthquake.” The idea of urban planning dates back to Egypt and its contemporaries, as archaeologists have found evidence of paved streets laid out at right angles in a grid pattern, all leading to the same slave brothel. Today, we have internet porn. And we have the Internet of Things (IoT), which is becoming increasingly integral to smart city urban planning.
The whole idea behind using IoT infrastructure – sensors, big data, and analytics that help manage everything from traffic and parking to buildings and baseball stadiums – is to make cities more efficient. The more efficient the city, the theory goes, the more sustainable it will be in a future where we’re harvesting methane-munching bacteria or growing bugs to feed 10 billion or more people by mid-century. Earlier this year, the big brains at data research firm CB Insights produced one of their iconic market maps on companies developing smart city solutions:
Credit: CB Insights
You’ll notice there’s a whole category devoted to smart city urban planning startups, which can tell us something about the possible breadth of this emerging industry to shape the way a city is developed – and how far an analyst can stretch the definition of urban planning to complete a market map.
For example, one of the startups on the list, Berlin-based Infarm, is one of many vertical farming startups that we’ve covered in the past. Infarm has since raised an additional $100 million since we profiled the company. CB Insights also lists Square Roots, another high-tech vertical farming startup that has raised $6.5 million for its shipping container farms. At the helm is a somewhat familiar name, Kimbal Musk, the brother of a more familiar CEO who favors Twitter and flame throwers. A QR code on the back of the Brooklyn-based company’s products will give you background info on how the herb was grown. While many of these vertical farms use sensors, big data, and analytics to optimize yield, it’s unclear how exactly Infarm, Square Roots or its cohort are directly involved in the activity of smart city urban planning. Maybe the smart city of tomorrow grows all its own food?
Smart City Urban Planning Acquisitions
In addition, a couple of companies have dropped off the startup scene through acquisitions. San Francisco-based PlanGrid had raised $69.1 million before being bought last year for $875 million by Autodesk (ADSK), the company behind the drafting and design software AutoCAD. PlanGrid provides a variety of products around cloud-based construction software.
Another San Francisco startup called Civic Insight helps cities make their data on buildings and homes – think permits and other zoning or construction information – easily accessible to the public. It’s sort of like Zillow for nosy neighbors. Yet another San Francisco company, Accela, took possession of Civic Insights more than four years ago. Accela offers various solutions for cities to digitize and automate processes like building permits and cannabis licensing. The 20-year-old company, which had raised about $215 million and absorbed 10 startups over that time, was itself acquired by Berkshire Partners in 2017. That now leaves us seven companies still to cover.
Street-Level Mapping
The most well-funded of the bunch is a Swedish startup called Mapillary that was founded in 2013 and has raised $24.5 million, including a $15 million Series B last year led by BMW and involved high-profile venture capital firms like Sequoia Capital and Atomico. Mapillary is one of a growing number of companies putting together high-definition maps for applications like self-driving cars and smart city traffic management. Its platform builds street-level map imagery using computer vision to automatically detect objects like bicycles and trash cans, while also automating the privacy aspect by blurring faces and license plates. It draws on a database of more than 900 million images along millions of miles of roads. Here’s the big-picture view of how the tech works:
Credit: Mapillary
In the case of a small town that needed to inventory its street signs, Mapillary’s cameras and machine vision system identified 5,000 traffic signs. The data could then be used to address repairs and fix obstructions, like your nosy neighbor’s unruly azalea bushes.
Sim City for Smart City Urban Planning
You know you have an urban planning problem if $100,000 qualifies you as low income. That’s the story in San Francisco, where housing costs can make a six-figure income nearly as worthless as Monopoly money. Enter UrbanFootprint, based in nearby Berkeley, that was founded in 2014 and has raised $6.5 million to date for its cloud-based software that helps cities “create sustainable, resilient communities.” That’s according to its founder, a well-known architect named Peter Calthorpe who is one of the leading figures behind New Urbanism, which promotes dense, mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods. In an interview last year, Calthorpe likened UrbanFootprint to Sim City because “it allows non-experts to model the impacts of different urban planning scenarios, such as zoning changes and road reconfigurations” in just a few minutes by leveraging an extensive database on environmental, social, and economic conditions.
An UrbanFootprint analysis of greenhouse gas emissions per household in Merced, California, helped planners understand the impact of land management use and smart city growth. Areas shaded in deep red indicate higher levels of emissions emitted. Credit: UrbanFootprint
The company has partnered with California to bring the smart city urban planning tool to more than 500 cities and government agencies free of charge.
Digital Bulletin Boards
For those who can’t get enough posts about lost cats in their neighborhood from Next Door, there’s Soofa, a Boston area startup that has raised $3.2 million for what amounts to a digital bulletin board that anyone with an app and an agenda a cause can post to. The 42-inch displays are solar-powered. There goes a million jobs in the flyposting industry.
Getting the Public Involved in Smart City Urban Planning
Another startup that is trying to get the public involved in smart city urban planning is Boulder-based Neighborland. And like Soofa, Neighborland is putting a digital spin on re-inventing the wheel. The company basically builds webpages and mobile platforms to support civic engagement on various projects. It claims to have worked with more than 200 city agencies, universities, foundations, and nonprofits across the United States, delivering more than $3 billion in social and economic impact.
For instance, it helped Mesa, Arizona build support for a $300 million bond to improve city facilities and services last year.
Automating Analysis for Smart City Urban Planning
Founded in 2016, UrbanLogiq is a British Columbia, Canada startup that has pulled together $150,000 in disclosed funding. The company offers two smart city urban planning solutions. The first is for traffic management, where the platform aggregates all historic and real-time data about traffic speed, accidents, etc., and then turns the machine-learning algorithms loose to predict traffic patterns days in advance and with a “high level of certainty.” The company also claims it can do the same for a city to forecast economic development using everything but the kitchen sink, from business licensing and building permits to employment and unemployment rates and housing statistics to less structured data like weather and public policy. It’s business intelligence for the public sector.
Geospatial Solutions for Smart City Urban Planning
We’ve written quite a bit over the last few years about the value that companies are getting from satellite imagery. Geospatial intelligence startups like San Francisco-based Planet apply machine-learning algorithms to space-based pictures to help farmers grow better crops or insurance companies spot fraud. In fact, there’s a long list of companies doing this sort of geospatial analytics. Philadelphia-based Azavea has been in the business since 2000 apparently, specializing in urban planning projects, especially in the hometown of Rocky Balboa.
One of the many products that use geospatial tools to help with smart city urban planning. Credit: Azavea
For instance, the company built an application (above) where non-residential building owners can sketch out ideas using up to five different stormwater tools such as green roofs or permeable basins that show how such improvements can help reduce monthly stormwater bills.
Location, Location, Location
Finally, Paris-based Cityzia, founded in 2017, is the Zillow version of online dating in that it helps people find their perfect home through an online Q&A that matches your preferences – quiet neighborhood or party central – against a database of properties. It’s French-centric and seems to imply that the cities of tomorrow will become a small collection of tribes, where each lifestyle flourishes among its own type. The bigger cities get, the more important it is for people to get along. A great example of this can be found in Hong Kong at the local dog park where you’ll see a dozen dogs playing together with hardly a bark to be heard. When you live in small cramped spaces where you can hear your neighbors cough, even the pets learn how to play well with others.
Conclusion
Speaking of CB Insights: The firm projects that within the next five years, the smart city market will be worth $1.4 trillion. You’ll notice that the market map is tilted heavily toward transportation. That’s not surprising, given that traffic congestion hit the U.S. economy for about $87 billion in losses last year, according to the World Economic Forum. Meanwhile, the digital road is being laid for the eventual arrival of self-driving cars and trucks. Smart city urban planning will be a key technology to integrate smart mobility with other smart infrastructure, especially as the 5G revolution helps connect it all together.
US: Texas - Vertical Farming Technique Growing At A&M
TAMU Urban Farm United is a concept organization with the intent of introducing vertical farming to A&M’s campus and the local community
By Luis Sanchez @LuisSanchezBatt
November 12, 2019
TAMU Urban Farm United is a concept organization with the intent of introducing vertical farming to A&M’s campus and the local community.
An Aggie Green Fund major grant project, TUFU is overseen by capstone students from various majors who grow the crops to provide food for locals. The group will be hosting an open house on Friday at 530 Floriculture Rd. from noon to 7 p.m.
TUFU was co-founded by Broch Saxton, plant and environmental soil science senior, and Lisette Templin, instructional assistant professor in health and kinesiology. Saxton, who serves as a student coordinator, said that it only made sense for A&M to develop methods of vertical farming, with such a historical background in agriculture; although originally Saxton envisioned using a hydroponic system, where the roots of plants would sit in water.
“In my interest, I see that it is not here, hydroponics isn’t here,” Saxton said. “So I was thinking to myself, ‘Why is it that this huge agriculture monster of an entity isn’t taking a step towards this specific agriculture field of interest?’”
Saxton said he and Templin both wanted to bring their respective expertise in order to help others in this innovative manner. It wasn’t until the two put their ideas together that they were able to commence with the building of the vertical farming towers.
“[Templin] had the tower garden idea,” Saxton said. “I came there thinking, ‘I want to get some help launching some sort of hydroponic system,’ and it turned into, ‘Okay, she has a similar idea that I do.’”
Saxton said he and Templi applied for a grant from the Aggie Green Fund. The application was submitted in 2018, but it wasn’t until the summer of 2019 that they could start working. According to the Aggie Green Fund website, the TUFU project was awarded $59,566 in the spring of 2019.
Templin said the project worked with The 12th Can, a food pantry for A&M students, faculty and staff, to provide a fresh and local food source with the first harvest on Nov. 7.
“This is the first time that The 12th Can has received fresh, locally grown, living food, that [has] not been sprayed with a chemical product,” Templin said.
Templin said the towers used for the vertical farming are based on an aeroponic system, an environment of air rather than soil for the plants. She said the tower system feeds the plants via mimic rain, and since each tower is isolated, contamination does not spread among them.
“The aeroponic system means that the roots are in a [cylindrical] tower base, where the roots are exposed to air,” Templin said. “There’s a pump that pumps the [mineral] water upward, and then the water trickles down like rain. And [that] feeds the roots with minerals and nutrients.”
Templin said the shape of the tower not only conserves space but is able to cycle the water as needed. Templin said the system also brings a 30 percent higher yield when compared to traditional alternatives.
“It uses 90 percent less water because there’s no evaporation,” Templin said “The only loss of water is through root absorption. It uses 90 percent less land because, per tower, we can grow forty-four heads of lettuce in about four square feet of space. [And] we don’t get earth-borne pests.”
Stephon Warren, plant breeding graduate student, is a member of TUFU and said the organization is trying to expand in any way possible. Warren said alongside forming business relationships, TUFU is looking to educate more students about the project.
Saxton said although he would be graduating soon, he was confident the project will grow and make connections in the academic and market settings. Saxton said too much effort has already been put into the project, and he only sees it growing in the future.
“We already have too much university involvement, student involvement and time invested from partners that we have accumulated,” Saxton said. “The interest is there and this is going to keep going when I’m gone.”
VIDEO: Talking Fresh Summit And Indoor Farming Companies
Carlson, a 30-year veteran of PMA expos, said one thing that caught his eye was the growth of indoor farming companies at the show
by Tom Karst
October 28, 2019
The Packer’s Tom Karst visits with Craig Carlson of Carlson Produce Consulting Oct. 25 about the just-concluded 2019 Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit.
Carlson, a 30-year veteran of PMA expos, said one thing that caught his eye was the growth of indoor farming companies at the show. Those firms are capitalizing on the appeal of local produce relative to metropolitan regions, and emphasizing the operations use less water, less land and less fuel than traditional farming operations. What does the future hold for indoor farming companies?
“They are really checking a lot of boxes that I think is exciting,” Carlson said. “My concern about this is that most everybody is throwing money at the same idea,” he said, noting that indoor companies may need to expand their range beyond leafy greens.
Packer Interview - Craig Carlson Oct 25
Plenty’s Plans To Shelve Its Seattle-Area Operation Raises More Questions About Vertical Farming
Indoor ag-tech startup Plenty is shelving its plans for a Seattle-area vertical farming operation, according to an article published over the weekend on GeekWire
Indoor ag-tech startup Plenty is shelving its plans for a Seattle-area vertical farming operation, according to an article published over the weekend on GeekWire.
Plenty, who also runs a facility in the San Francisco Bay Area, announced plans for a 100,000-square-foot vertical farm in Kent, Washington in 2017 — the same year the company nabbed a $200 million investment that included contributions from Softbank and Jeff Bezos. The Kent facility was supposed to grow 4.5 million pounds of greens annually using a combination of LEDs, sensors, and cameras inside a completely climate-controlled environment.
However, Christina Ra, Plenty’s senior director of integrated marketing, told GeekWire that the company’s farming facility, Tigris, was too tall to fit inside the Kent location and that Plenty had “ceased operations” there one year ago: “As a relatively lean company, we had to just make a decision about where we were going to put our focus and we felt like building Tigris, while also focusing on Seattle as a new and really important market, was something that we couldn’t do well,” Ra said.
Meanwhile, seven former Plenty employees recently spoke with Business Insider and highlighted problems inside the company that allegedly range from unsafe working conditions to the fact that “Plenty’s leadership had exaggerated the company’s capabilities on more than one occasion.”
Plenty will carry on with its planned location in the middle of Los Angeles, which the company recently announced, and it still operates a facility in the SF Bay Area. But as this news about the Seattle operation indicates, what Plenty (or any vertical farm startup) promises versus what it actually produces aren’t necessarily aligning right now.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, that refrain around expectation versus reality in vertical farming is one we’re going to hear more in the near future. As an industry, vertical farming has yet to prove itself as an environmentally and economically efficient piece of the agriculture system, and along with the hype are more and more stories about complications or outright closures of vertical farms. Already, a company called FarmedHere shut down in 2017, Plantagon went bankrupt in March of 2019, and just recently, MIT halted work on its controversial Open Agriculture Initiative project after reportedly exaggerating results of its vertical farming experiments.
While it’s bad news pretty much anytime a company goes under, for vertical farming, it’s also good information to have. As Paul P.G. Gauthier, who started the now-shelved Princeton Vertical Farming Project, told The Spoon this year, we need the stories about what isn’t working (e.g., operational costs, failure to break even, etc.) as much as we need the success stories.
And we need those stories not just to give lessons on how to employ vertical farming more effectively but how much effort (and money) we should even be investing in it as the agricultural industry continues to look for alternative forms of farming.
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Indoor Farming: How Can You Ensure Success?
Any business can fail for any number of reasons, but indoor farming is an incredibly delicate organism that depends on many disparate factors being perfectly aligned and in balance
Any business can fail for any number of reasons, but indoor farming is an incredibly delicate organism that depends on many disparate factors being perfectly aligned and in balance. This increases the risk of failure for those unaware of the number of plates that need to be kept spinning in perfect time. This list is not definitive but gives you a good idea of the most common mistakes to avoid.
1. Avoid a Trial and Error Approach to Design
There are multitudes of factors that are naturally managed and balanced with indoor farming. The sun cannot be changed, irrigation to every plant is different as weather patterns can change from moment to moment and even the nutrition in the soil can vary across the area of the field. Planning your farm, therefore, gives you the ultimate control but also dramatically increases the variables that you can and must consider.
These variables start with the facility’s very layout, such as the size of growing space, plant distribution, airflow and more. Additionally, without having the right models in place to determine the exact light recipe and combination of CO₂, nutrients, and water required to grow a successful crop, growers can find themselves wasting time and money on testing phases to try to maximize yield and revenue. Once you have developed a model for your vertical farm, you should then put it through a testing phase on a smaller scale to ensure it is viable.
2. Pick the Right Crop
It’s far easier to develop a profitable and scalable facility if you know the needs of your crop inside and out. That ideally means specializing in one type of crop that you can design your facility around, electing the right growth spectrum and studying that particular plant’s biology to better understand how to optimize irrigation, nutrition, airflow, CO₂ concentration and propagation in order to maximize elements such as taste, nutritional content, visual appeal, potency or shelf life.
Too many growers have tried to hedge against perceived risk by trying to grow multiple crops. By default, it is extremely difficult to have one installation that is optimized for a wide variety of plants, and therefore the returns from each crop are lower than they could have been. The facility then may have to suffer through downtime as the technology is tweaked and optimized for the next crop-eating into profitability and adding unnecessary costs.
3. Location, Location, Location
The old adage that location is half the battle has never been more relevant than in vertical farming today. Vertical farms have a key advantage in their ability to be located close to their customers, whether they are selling to food processors, supermarkets or local shops. Removing the vast transport logistics associated with today’s food supply chain slashes costs and helps appeal to an increasingly conscientious customer. The lack of transport costs also helps counter the higher production costs resulting from higher energy and labor inputs.
At the city planning level, there are also many advantages of co-locating a vertical farm with other facilities such as office buildings, shops or residences — which could draw the vertical farm’s excess heat to reduce demands on other sources of energy.
4. Simplify Your Business Model
Proximity to customers and the ability to produce crops year-round at a sustainable rate is a strong advantage in the market, whether you’re growing for the food or pharmaceutical sectors. Therefore, consider the opportunities available through establishing exclusive contracts with customers at a fixed rate that will offer more financial security as you build your business.
5. Be Realistic About Operational Cost
Setup and fit-out costs represent a high initial outlay for any indoor farming entrepreneur, but the ongoing operational costs (energy, labor, inputs, maintenance, etc.) are also significant. Businesses not only need to find creative ways to mitigate these risks (e.g. growing through the night when energy tariffs are lower and the outdoor climate is cooler to assist HVAC systems’ efficiency), but also consider the cost-benefits of different configurations and process flow.
6. Set Prices Based on What Consumers Will Pay
At the 2017 inaugural AgLanta Conference11, PodPonics’ CEO admitted that the company missed out on higher potential margins as it priced its crops to compete with conventional growers, ignoring the price premium that food traceability, pesticide-free growing, and local production can increasingly attract from consumers in some markets.
7. The Skills Gap
In many cases, those who have embraced the promise of indoor farming have not been traditional growers but rather tech entrepreneurs, engineers or hobbyists. Vertical farming requires a unique mix of skills to be successful: big data scientists, systems integrators, project managers, engineers, growers and plant scientists all have a role to play in addition to the core functions that any business needs to be successful (financial strategists, marketing and business development, etc.). From the leadership perspective, experience at replicating and scaling a business is critical. Ignoring any one of these functions leaves a serious gap in business capability that could undermine the overall success of the operation.
8. Remember What You’re Selling
In a bid to capitalize on the new technology and growth models offered by vertical farming, some growers have forgotten that their primary focus should be on growing and selling the highest quality food. Instead, they have tried to recoup their investment by trying to commercialize their vertical farm’s technology, process, and methodology. Unfortunately, as we have seen, every vertical farm is different with potentially very different needs. The trick is not to try and do many different things at once, but instead, keep a clear focus on doing one thing as well as possible.
Source: www.currentbyge.com/ideas
UAE Minister Opens Carrefour’s Hydroponic Farms In Abu Dhabi
The UAE’s state-held news agency, Wam said that the farms are a part of the multi-billion dollar conglomerate’s Net Positive strategy that aims to ‘overcompensate’ its water and carbon footprint by 2040.
Two Farms Opened at Carrefour Stores In My City Centre Masdar, Yas
Mall, And Support Majid Al Futtaim's Net Positive Strategy
The farms were opened by UAE’s minister of climate change and environment (MOCCAE), Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi. [image: Wam]
25 Nov 2019
The UAE’s minister of climate change and environment (MOCCAE), Dr. Thani bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi opened the region’s first hydroponic in-store farms at Majid Al Futtaim’s Carrefour stores in Abu Dhabi’s My City Centre Masdar and Yas Mall.
The UAE’s state-held news agency, Wam said that the farms are a part of the multi-billion dollar conglomerate’s Net Positive strategy that aims to ‘overcompensate’ its water and carbon footprint by 2040.
Careefour’s isolated and temperature-controlled glass farming chambers have been designed in line with the highest standards of hydroponics. Customers can choose from a select range of herbs and microgreens, once they are fully grown within the facility. The two farms, which are the first-of-their-kind to be installed in the region, use 90% less water and less space than traditional farms to deliver around 25kg of fresh herbs and microgreens each day.
The farms use 90% less water than traditional farms [image: Wam]
Speaking on the inauguration, Dr. Al Zeyoudi said: "MOCCAE supports technological development and innovative techniques in the agricultural sector, including vertical and hydroponic farming that reduces water consumption by at least 90% and increases the productivity of multiple agricultural products.
Meanwhile, chief operating officer of Carrefour UAE and head of operational excellence at Majid Al Futtaim Retail, Miguel Povedano, said: "As leaders in the retail industry, we should always be the pioneers in coming up with outstanding sustainable initiatives that leave a positive impact on our environment, economy, and society.
“As well as supplying our customers with fresh quality produce, the hydroponic farms will allow them to learn about the role of technology and innovation in the development of local agricultural production."
Indoor Farming Looks Like It Could Be The Answer To Feeding A Hot And Hungry Planet. It’s Not That Easy.
Viraj Puri, co-founder of one of the nation’s largest indoor farm companies, walks through the construction site, and even without the luminous frills of thousands of butter lettuces, it’s easy to see that the building going up where Bethlehem Steel once stood is something ambitious in the world of food
Viraj Puri, co-founder, and CEO of Gotham Greens, in the company's facility in Hollis, N.Y. Gotham Greens builds and operates ecologically sustainable greenhouses in cities across America. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
By Laura Reiley
November 19, 2019
BALTIMORE — The next big thing is here, all girders and concrete pads, glass roofing and gravelly dirt. Viraj Puri, the co-founder of one of the nation’s largest indoor farm companies, walks through the construction site, and even without the luminous frills of thousands of butter lettuces, it’s easy to see that the building going up where Bethlehem Steel once stood is something ambitious in the world of food.
The Sparrows Point steelworks in Baltimore, once the largest steel-producing facility in the world, was shuttered in 2012, leaving no trace of what once supported 30,000 families with Bethlehem Steel wages. Now the vacated land is dominated by a FedEx distribution center, an Amazon fulfillment center, an Under Armour warehouse.
And by the beginning of December, Puri’s Gotham Greens farm will join them, part of a global craze for decentralized indoor food production.
Food and agriculture innovation have sucked up remarkable amounts of investor capital in recent years and could become a $700 billion market by 2030, according to a Union Bank of Switzerland report.
Millions are being invested globally in indoor urban farms because of their promise to produce more food with less impact, with two dozen large-scale projects launching in Dubai, Israel, the Netherlands, and other countries.
Gotham Greens' under-construction Baltimore facility in August. The company is transforming the old Bethlehem Steel site into a 100,000-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse, the largest it has built. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Still, the next big thing may be stymied in the United States by high start-up costs, high urban rents and lack of a safety net in a food system that is highly dependent on subsidies and bailouts for a few commodity crops. (An American Farm Bureau Federation report last month found that almost 40 percent of conventional farm income in 2019 will be provided by trade bailouts, disaster insurance, the farm bill, and insurance indemnities.)
And for indoor urban farms, especially those that rely solely on artificial light, there’s another concern: lightbulbs.
In September, the Trump administration announced it would roll back Obama-era energy efficiency standards that would have effectively phased out the standard pear-shaped incandescent variety. The step is expected to slow the demand for LED bulbs, which last longer and use less electricity than many other types but are more expensive.
The rollback, slated to take effect in January, is being fought by 15 states and a coalition of environmental and consumer groups that claim the changes will speed climate change and raise consumers’ energy bills.
For indoor urban agriculture, especially indoor vertical farms, the reversal represents a threat to an already narrow path to scalability and profitability, according to Irving Fain, chief executive of Bowery Farming. The indoor vertical farming company has raised $122.5 million from celebrity chefs Tom Colicchio, José Andrés and Carla Hall, Amazon worldwide consumer chief executive Jeff Wilke and Uber chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi.
“The Department of Energy recognized a lot of our energy was going to lights and that LEDs were a more efficient form of lighting, so they pushed from incandescent to LED in industrial spaces,” Fain said in a phone interview. “Those were the trends that got us here, and we were hoping cost could drop another 50 percent with more innovation and more volume."
Will indoor, vertical farming help us feed the planet — or hurt it?
Some indoor farms stack plants vertically nearly to the ceiling in repurposed shipping containers or enormous warehouses, all of the plants’ photosynthesis achieved via high-tech light-emitting diode (LED) bulbs. Others, such as Gotham Greens, are vast, glass-topped greenhouses, pulling their plants’ needs from the sun and giving a lightbulb assist in low-light times.
In addition to Gotham Greens, the Washington-Baltimore area will become home to an outpost of Bowery Farming in November. In the second half of 2020, a $100 million greenhouse tomato-and-cucumber project with the world’s largest LED installation for a single building will debut in Morehead, Ky., funded in part by “Hillbilly Elegy” writer J.D. Vance. And around the same time, California-based Plenty, with investors such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, will debut a Southern California indoor vertical farm about the size of a soccer field. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
But the U.S. Department of Energy’s proposed reversal of energy efficiency standards could hamper this emerging agricultural sector, according to Fain.
Indoor vertical farming became economically viable when LEDs became plentiful, cheap and efficient. Before that, indoor growing lights produced enormous amounts of heat — heat mapping was frequently how police identified illegal marijuana growing houses — and thus cooling costs and electricity bills were astronomical.
Young greens are seen at the Gotham Greens facility in Hollis, N.Y. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
With the passage of energy legislation in 2007, the Department of Energy required that most general-service lightbulbs emit at a minimum efficiency of 45 lumens per watt by the beginning of 2020. Halogen and incandescent bulbs don’t generally meet that efficiency standard. LEDs, which use a semiconductor to convert electricity into light, do.
Within just a few years, LEDs doubled inefficiency and prices fell 85 percent. Widespread adoption caused energy companies to throw money at research and development. Indoor urban farmers, especially those farming vertically, have built their profitability models on projections that LEDs will continue to get exponentially brighter and less expensive, will run cooler and will become more efficient.
Chris Granda, senior researcher/advocate at the Appliance Standards Awareness Project, says rolling back the efficiency standards will hamper the expansion of LEDs and their continued march toward greater efficiency.
“I think what the efficiency standards rollback will do is slow the rate of consumer uptake,” Granda said. “There’s a cohort of people who just don’t like to try new things. The standards would have nudged them along into LEDs. Even if it delays the adoption of LEDs for five years, that’s a huge loss of energy.”
Efficient bulbs are not the only challenge to indoor urban agriculture, Fain says. To take a small indoor farm and make it a big one requires innovations in robotics and artificial intelligence. There, too, prices have come down substantially for sensors, processing and data storage. Altogether, these make indoor farming viable but not easy.
Fain talks about Bowery’s operating system, “the brains and central nervous system of our farm, with a plant-monitoring system and proprietary deep-learning algorithms” that help predict what will happen to each crop. He says the operating system, one of the most expensive components of Bowery, runs everything at each farm, with real-time data to improve outcomes over a network of farms. The cost of that operating system has to be amortized over that network.
And because profitability is so elusive, some of the early promises of indoor agriculture are slow to be realized. Steep start-up costs mean farmers must grow crops that generate major cash: specialty items, such as flowers, or crops that have quick growth cycles, such as leafy greens. The five main indoor crops are leafy greens, microgreens, herbs, flowers and tomatoes, items that are a pull for those of high socioeconomic status but aren’t go-to products for low-income people.
There’s inherent elitism that is hard to avoid, even with school tours, food bank donations and other efforts toward democratizing access to good food.
Indoor urban farming is frequently touted as a mechanism for urban renewal and job creation in low-income neighborhoods. But farms kitted out with sensors and robots often require highly specialized and educated workers. They typically are not huge employers. Bethlehem Steel employed 30,000 at its peak; Gotham Greens’ largest farm yet will have only about 60 full-time employees.
Butterhead lettuce grows in Gotham Greens' facility in Hollis, N.Y. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
For Puri, Fain, and others, the necessity to succeed with indoor urban agriculture is self-evident. More than 95 percent of head lettuce in the United States comes from two drought-prone states, California and Arizona, and according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, traditional agriculture accounts for 80 percent of the country’s water consumption, as high as 90 percent in many Western states.
In 2018 alone, three food-borne illness outbreaks on traditional romaine farms killed six people, hospitalized 128 and infected 300, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The safety challenges of outdoor farming are becoming more acute with climate change and unexpected shifts in pests and bird migrations.
After Hurricane Sandy in 2012, news stories reported that local Gotham Greens lettuces were some of the only leafy greens available in grocery stores in New Jersey and New York. Indoor farming gives cities “urban resiliency,” something planners are increasingly concerned about.
Cities are where most of us live, says Sabine O’Hara, dean of the College of Agriculture, Urban Sustainability and Environmental Sciences at the University of the District of Columbia. The conversation now, she says, is how to shrink the food footprint of cities, how to make cities more sustainable and their food systems robust when disaster strikes.
2018 saw the most multistate outbreaks of foodborne illness in more than a decade, CDC says
By the end of the year, Gotham will operate 500,000 square feet of greenhouses across five states.
Gotham Greens’ first indoor greenhouse farm debuted in 2011 in Brooklyn on the rooftop of an old bowling alley. The second was on the roof of a Whole Foods, also in Brooklyn, and the third was in Queens atop what once housed the Ideal Toy Co., which made the Betsy Wetsy doll after World War II and had its last big hit with the Rubik’s Cube. Another, in Chicago, sits on the second floor of an eco-friendly cleaning products company.
The fifth farm, in Baltimore, will be Gotham Greens’ biggest to date and has raised $45 million in equity capital.
A worker walks the construction site of Gotham Greens' new Baltimore facility. The farm’s first stage will be 100,000 square feet, but there’s space to go up to 400,000. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
At Sparrows Point, Puri walks past what will be the packaging room, the break room, and the computer control room. He lists off some stats. One indoor acre at Gotham is as productive as 40 acres of conventional soil. Gotham Greens’ Baltimore farm will require 95 percent less water and 97 percent less land than a traditional dirt farm, and only about an eighth of the energy consumption of an indoor vertical farm.
Almost nothing will go to the landfill, the majority of its waste being compostable or recyclable. Gotham Greens lettuce can go from seed to full head in 35 days, about half the time it takes outdoors.
The farm’s first stage is 100,000 square feet, but there’s space to go up to 400,000. Puri talks about eliminating food waste, passing shelf life along to consumers, millennials’ desire to know where their food is from. He says Gotham’s first farm became profitable within the first year of operation.
“As the largest urban agriculture company in North America,” Puri said, “we’ve demonstrated that urban greenhouse agriculture can be a viable agribusiness that addresses a real need in the commercial supply chain of fresh produce.”
But with almost none of the agricultural subsidies and safety nets of traditional row crop agriculture, and with high operating costs and the trajectory of lightbulb research uncertain, some sectors of indoor urban agriculture may be on shaky ground.
Young greens sprout at the Gotham Greens facility in Hollis, N.Y. (Salwan Georges/The Washington Post)
Laura Reiley is the business of food reporter. She was previously a food critic at the Tampa Bay Times, San Francisco Chronicle and Baltimore Sun. She has authored four books, has cooked professionally and is a graduate of the California Culinary Academy. She is a two-time James Beard finalist and in 2017 was a Pulitzer finalist. Follow
Agritecture & Autogrow Release 2019 CEA Census Report
Agritecture and Autogrow have released their first-ever Global CEA Census Report. This is the most in-depth global survey of indoor and controlled-environment farmers to date, with 316 total respondents across 54 countries.
Despite rapid growth, data is notoriously difficult to come by in the CEA industry. According to the two companies, farm operators see the potential for improvement and are optimistic about the future, but often express frustration at not knowing where to turn to for help. Confounding this is the sentiment from farmers that many consumers, and particularly local governments, lack clarity around the benefits of local & controlled environment farming. In the report, Autogrow and Agritecture paint a clearer picture of the global CEA industry by identifying important trends and contextualizing them for a wider audience.
The Global CEA Census ran from June 4 to July 22, 2019, asking growers around the world a total of 45 questions.
Click Here For Full Report
Agritech Business IGS Wins Innovating Scotland Award At Environment Business Awards
Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS), the Scottish-based indoor AgriTech and Commercial Lighting business, was one of 12 companies rewarded for a commitment to sustainability at the 20th VIBES Scottish Environment Business Awards, held in Glasgow on 14th November 2019
IGS wins Innovating Scotland award at Environment Business Awards
Agritech business shows sustainability commitment through vertical farming innovation
Edinburgh, Scotland – 20 November 2019 - Intelligent Growth Solutions Ltd (IGS), the Scottish-based indoor AgriTech and Commercial Lighting business, was one of 12 companies rewarded for a commitment to sustainability at the 20th VIBES Scottish Environment Business Awards, held in Glasgow on 14th November 2019.
Intelligent Growth Solutions was named winner in the Innovating Scotland Award category, sponsored by ScottishPower, for the way the business has combined and patented technologies to deliver total controlled environment agriculture and address challenges facing food sustainability and supply.
Innovating Scotland Award sponsor Barry Carruthers from ScottishPower with VIBES winner David Farquhar from Intelligent Growth Solutions.
David Farquhar, Chief Executive of IGS, commented: “We are so pleased to be recognized with the Innovating Scotland Award. Our commitment to delivering a sustainable future is at the heart of everything we do at IGS and has been integral to our development. We need solutions that are sustainable, economically viable and provide food security. Our systems will play a part in providing these solutions to a truly worldwide market.
“Our success is testament to the hard work and dedication of our team who work tirelessly to deliver solutions to the challenges facing global food security in an efficient and environmentally friendly way.”
At the event over 400 business figures came together to celebrate the achievements of innovative Scottish businesses which are demonstrating vision in implementing environmental best practice.
Twelve awards were presented on the day recognising the focus and efforts of a range of companies including Intelligent Growth Solutions, Diageo, and Findra in helping to meet Scotland’s ambition to be a world leader on tackling climate change and inspiring others to follow their lead.
The 2019 event marked twenty years of VIBES, which over the years has recognized 220 businesses for their commitment to sustainability within their sector. The announcement of the winners follows a rigorous judging process which included a written application, three rounds of judging panels and a site visit for each of the 36 shortlisted businesses, to assess their environmental processes.
Commenting, Bob Downes, chair of SEPA and head of the VIBES judging panel, said: “The scale of the environmental challenge facing humanity, from climate change to plastics in our oceans, is enormous, with a real urgency to act. The most successful businesses in the future will be those that are not just compliant, but which are also low carbon, low material use, low water use, and low waste, and which see environmental excellence as an opportunity. This is at the core of SEPA’s One Planet Prosperity regulatory strategy.
“It is very encouraging to see the diverse range of businesses, small and large, which are taking important steps to reduce their impact on the environment and which understand how environmental excellence can also benefit their bottom line. I would like to congratulate each of this year’s winning businesses and organizations, and hope that others will be inspired to follow in their footsteps.”
The variety of businesses awarded show that operating sustainably is an option for all, regardless of size, scale or sector. There are many benefits to be enjoyed from embracing the economic opportunity of sustainability, with winners enjoying a range of associated positives including increased resource efficiency, resilience, competitiveness as well as a stronger working culture and implemented best practice in their daily activities.
Each of the 2019 VIBES - Scottish Environment Business Awards winners is now eligible to enter the next European Business Awards for the Environment (EBAE) which is open to winners and runners up of RSA Accredited award schemes. VIBES is the only Scottish based RSA Accredited award scheme.
For more information on VIBES - Scottish Environment Business Awards please visit www.vibes.org.uk
- Ends -
About IGS: IGS was formed in 2013. Its purpose was to bring indoor horticulture to commercial reality by combining efficient internet-enabled smart lighting with automation and power management. The founders’ experience combined extensive knowledge of horticulture, industrial automation and big data.
IGS launched its first vertical demonstration facility in August 2018 and is now selling a revolutionary controlled-environment growth system. The location of IGS’ facility at the James Hutton Institute, a world-leading crop research facility, was deliberately chosen to enhance collaboration opportunities for the benefit of customers. Scientists and researchers at the Institute are working with the team at IGS to better understand how growing indoors can impact different varieties of crop growth, as well as driving increased productivity.
For more information visit www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com or connect with us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
VIBES - Scottish Environment Business Awards is a strategic partnership between Scottish Environment Protection Agency, Scottish Government, Scottish Water, Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, Zero Waste Scotland, and Energy Saving Trust.
The Awards are further supported by CBI Scotland, the Institute of Directors, the Federation of Small Businesses, Bright Green Business, Quality Scotland and Scottish Council for Development and Industry.
The Awards are accredited by the RSA Environment Awards Accreditation Scheme (www.rsaaccreditation.org).
The full list of winners:
Adapting Scotland Award, sponsored by Adaptation Scotland:
Biomatrix Water Solutions Ltd
Circular Scotland Award, sponsored by Scottish Leather Group:
Renewable Parts Ltd– Refurbishment Centre
Engaging Scotland Award, sponsored by Wave Utilities:
Aberdeen Performing Arts
Hydro Nation Scotland Award, sponsored by Scottish Government:
Diageo- Leven
Innovating Scotland Award, sponsored by Scottish Power:
Intelligent Growth Solutions
Leadership Scotland Award, sponsored by SEPA:
ACS Clothing Ltd
Moving Scotland Award, sponsored by TravelKnowHow
TechnipFMC
Partnership Scotland Award, sponsored by The Glenmorangie Group
Outer Hebrides Local Energy Hub (OHLEH)
Product Scotland Award, sponsored by Devro:
IES
Service Scotland Award, sponsored by Bright Green Business
Vegware
Small Business Scotland Award, sponsored by University of Stirling Management School:
FINDRA
Kroger Brings Farming To Its Stores In Push To Get Greener (And Sell More Kale)
Visitors to Seattle-area Kroger supermarkets next week will be able to walk out with fresh parsley, cilantro and other greens grown in the store, the latest example of grocers bringing the farm right to their aisles
The grocery-store giant makes a bet on farm-to-aisle, trying to win back shoppers.
By Deena Shanker and Matthew Boyle
November 19, 2019
Visitors to Seattle-area Kroger supermarkets next week will be able to walk out with fresh parsley, cilantro and other greens grown in the store, the latest example of grocers bringing the farm right to their aisles.
Kroger’s deal with German startup Infarm includes two stores with plans for 13 more to come online by March of next year. It’s part of a broader push by the nation’s biggest traditional supermarket chain to improve sluggish sales by amping up it’s fresh-food offering, while also enhancing its environmental cred. The greens—including crystal lettuce and Nero Di Toscana kale—only need tending once or twice a week and will sell for no more than Kroger’s existing store-brand organic produce, according to Suzy Monford, Kroger’s group vice president of fresh.
“We’re removing touches in the supply chain, which is more economical and allows us to pass those savings along to customers,” Monford said in an interview. “We know that fresh food drives shopping trips and it’s a real differentiator.”
Infarm offerings grown right in the store. | Photographer: Infarm
The industry could no doubt use some buzz. Consumers have been dialing back on traditional grocery shopping for years, sparking a slew of bankruptcies and consolidation. Blame meal kits and the ease of restaurant-ordering apps. A flood of retailers, like pharmacy chains and dollar stores, have expanded into food. And when many Americans do buy groceries, it’s often via online delivery. The industry needs to win back a cohort that has largely moved on from the grocery-store trip, and offering the farm could help.
While this is Infarm’s first stateside venture, the Berlin-based company is already well established, with more than 500 farms dispersed through partnerships at more than 25 major food retailers internationally, including Edeka and Amazon Fresh in Germany, Marks & Spencer in the U.K., and Metro in France. Its farms grow a variety of herbs and leafy greens including stalwarts like parsley and kale, as well as more specialized options like green mizuna and Peruvian mint.
Kroger’s tie-up with Infarm comes during a period of robust growth for this kind of produce. In the U.S., sales of fresh herbs and spices are up 6% for the year, and leafy greens are up 9%, according to data from Nielsen. That coincides with surging investments in innovative farming methods, too. In 2013, vertical farming startups received $4.5 million in venture funding, according to AgFunder, an investor in food and ag-tech companies with an active media and research arm. In just the first half of 2019, they raised $140 million. Infarm, for its part, raised $100 million in a Series B round in June.
As these new forms of farming gain steam, the companies behind them are looking for ways to appeal to major customers and, ultimately, the consumer at the store. Brooklyn-based Square Roots builds farms inside of refurbished shipping containers, and recently announced a new partnership in Grand Rapids, Michigan, putting the containers at the headquarters for food distributor Gordon Food Service. Gotham Greens, a Brooklyn-based greenhouse grower, has six locations in New York and Chicago, including on the rooftop of a Whole Foods. Indoor vertical farming company Plenty, which raised $200 million in a Series B round in 2017 from the likes of Jeff Bezos, recently announced a soccer-field sized farm planned for Compton, California.
While farming models differ, the basic pitch remains the same: Growing food closer to the urban shopper, in computer-controlled micro-climates, means less transport, less water usage and less pesticides, fertilizer or food safety concerns, if any at all, all while delivering more shelf life, more flavor, and overall, a better eating experience.
Infarm uses a “distributed farming” format, growing its plants in centralized nursery hubs for a few days, before placing the days-old seedlings in its hydroponic modular farms in stores in the nearby area. Once Infarm’s initial partnership in a given city is well settled, it spreads out, adding customers that can all be serviced from the same hub.
Smallhold, a Brooklyn-based mushroom farm company, uses a similar model in the New York area that includes the Standard Hotel in the East Village, the trendy Lower East Side’s Mission Chinese eatery and two Whole Foods locations, with more on the way.
Smallhold’s mushroom farm at a Whole Foods in New Jersey | Source: Whole Foods Market
“It’s about finding places where you can fill a niche,” says Chris Manca, a purchasing manager for Whole Foods in the northeast region, adding that he might expand beyond oyster mushrooms to rarer varieties like lion’s mane—popular in meat-replacement dishes—in the coming months.
Retailers pay Infarm for “farming as a service,” as co-founder Osnat Michaeli describes it, which includes not just the produce itself, but also its planting and preparation for sale. Consumers can see their food growing right before their very eyes, and then take their Italian Basil or green mint home, roots still intact, to allow for the most flavorful food. “The real harvest,” Michaeli says, “happens just before eating.”
“It’s about a ‘wow factor,’” says Henry Gordon-Smith, founder and managing director of Agritecture Consulting, a global adviser to vertical farming entrepreneurs. “This is a new way to think about herbs and cooking,” Gordon-Smith says, calling the model “compelling.”
But while consumers are likely to be excited about the environmentally-positive, foodie-friendly marketing around vertical farming, the reality is not that simple. Though the aforementioned benefits, like lower water use and pesticides, are real, the energy required to power these farms can counteract some of that.
“If you had a balance sheet, the carbon footprint from energy would be a significant dirty part of vertical farming overall,” Gordon-Smith says, depending on the energy source.
Renewable energy options are sometimes available—Infarm’s Berlin hub uses 100% green energy, for example—but the requirements are about 10 times that of conventional agriculture. Infarm's model uses similar amounts of energy to produce a pound of lettuce as other indoor farming methods, like using shipping containers or large-scale plant factories, according to calculations by Agritecture, which periodically benchmarks operators to each other to analyze the environmental impacts. But there are still enough other variables to consider—plant transport, for example—that it could actually be significantly higher.
Kroger’s Monford admits that the company still has “a lot to learn” about in-store farming, but says the venture’s environmental footprint is pretty minimal. “It’s just water and light.”