How Indoor Farming Is Shaping The Future of The Agriculture And Curbing Climate Change

View fullsize

October 14, 2020

Irving Fain - Bowery Farming Founder & CEO joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel to discuss how the vertical farming company has expanded into more than 650 U.S. stores as well as break down how consumer demands are changing our food systems.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Farming revolution under the way. Sustainable farming, but the kind of farming that takes place indoors and on rooftops. To talk about this, we bring in Irving Fain. He's Bowery Farming founder and CEO.

Years ago, I got to see an indoor marijuana farm, essentially, where they grew everything in a ground coconut shell, but it was incredibly efficient the way the nutrients and the water were recycled. And I would imagine that's part of what you do.

But what's even cooler about this is, you're already supplying, what, is it 600 plus stores in the tri-state area with your produce. So how does someone who's got their start in software and finance go into farming?

IRVING FAIN: Yeah, it's a good question, Adam. Thanks for having me. I think I've been a believer since I was a young kid that the technology and the innovation economy could be used to solve hard problems and important problems.

And when you look at what's happening with the climate crisis right now, you look at the fires in California, you look at the storms we've been seeing, you look at just the droughts we've been going through for the last decade-plus, there is no greater cause of climate harm than agriculture. It is the largest consumer of resources globally. 70% of the world's water goes to ag every year. And we use about 6 billion pounds of pesticides annually across the world.

And so, in the last 40 years alone, we've lost 30% of all of our arable farmlands. And you look at the fact that the world population is increasing. We need more food to feed that growing population. And we are urbanizing at a faster and faster rate. I just got really obsessed with this question of, how do you get fresh food to urban environments, and how do you do that more efficiently and more sustainably?

JULIE HYMAN: Irving, it's Julie here. Thank you for joining us. You know, this has seemed to be a trend. We spoke with a company recently that was going public through a SPAC that was a big indoor farming company. That person, too, was not necessarily a farmer, right?

As Adam mentioned, you're from a banking and tech background. And so I'm curious, is the farming industry, so to speak, onboard? We have talked a lot on this show about how family farms are dying, in many cases. The economics are really tough there. So I'm wondering how much this new part of the industry is incorporating the old, and how much those people might be on board?

IRVING FAIN: Yeah, you know, I think what's so exciting to see right now, Julie, is just the fact that technology is penetrating all areas of agriculture right now. So you're seeing precision agriculture on the farms. So we can give crops much more precise amounts of water or fertilizers versus just dumping from planes or spreaders like you can see on the photo right now.

You're seeing the use of satellite imagery and drone imagery. So I think when you look at innovation in agriculture, we've got to look at indoor farming as a part of a larger puzzle. We are a piece of this puzzle, a very important piece of it because the fresh produce industry is so critical.

But in order to solve a problem where agriculture is consuming so many of these resources, where our climate is being stretched in the way that it is, we're going to need cooperation from outdoor farmers and indoor farmers alike.

MELODY HAHM: And Irving, I think the company that Julie was mentioning was AppHarvest. Also news today that SoftBank is leading a $140 million funding round for Plenty, of course, your counterpart there. And actually, Driscoll's, the berry company, is going to be an investor.

I want to think about the idea of vertical farming. Speaking with folks who are in very saturated cities or very cosmopolitan areas, as I understand it, vertical farming was another way to provide fresh fruits, fresh veggies to perhaps lower-income students, many of whom depended on their schools for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner sometimes.

How have you been navigating this space, if at all? And what's your vision therein allowing a lot of these fresh produce items to reach the masses and perhaps those who wouldn't be able to afford some fresh things at Whole Foods?

IRVING FAIN: Yeah, no, it's a great question, Melody. And so, you know, at Bowery, we're building the modern farming company. And, you know, we're really proud to be the largest indoor vertical farming company in the United States right now. And we are building smart farms that are close to the cities that we're serving. And we really take the responsibility of the community members seriously.

And so that, for us, means a number of things. We're engaging with nonprofit partners in the mid-Atlantic, where we are, as well as in the tri-state area. We're actually the largest donation partner for fresh produce in the Maryland Food Bank right now.

We're actually selling a wholesale product to the DC Central Kitchen Healthy Corners Program right now. And what they then do is they take that produce and they bring it into corner stores in food deserts across the Baltimore and the DC area. And they sell that at a subsidized price inside coolers to get fresh, healthy produce to consumers who may have a difficult time achieving that.

That's a really critical piece, but also, we have just built Bowery under the belief that we want to democratize access to high-quality fresh food. Everybody should be able to eat great produce. And the produce we're growing is, it is like the produce you remember from your grandparents' garden.

And so you can find Bowery products everywhere from Whole Foods or a Giant, all the way to retailers like Walmart and then online retailers as well. And so we really believe in spreading the access to what we're growing at Bowery.

ADAM SHAPIRO: I am curious because I think a lot of people, there's a passion about what you're doing with this farming revolution. But it's all about yield when you talk about crops. So can you give us a perspective of where the indoor farming market stands with its yield? And potentially, we're talking about feeding, at least this country, with things that are grown in this manner, or is that really a pipe dream?

IRVING FAIN: No it's the right question to ask. I think it's one of the reasons why, at Bowery, we've invested really heavily in the technology side of what we're building. And so, we're building warehouse-scale indoor farms. We stack our crops from the floor to the ceiling. And we grow under lights that mimic the spectrum of the sun.

And so we can grow year-round, independent of weather and seasonality. It is pesticide-free, protected produce. We're 100 times plus more productive than a square foot of farmland. And we use only a fraction of water compared to traditional agriculture. And what really makes that possible is innovation that we've been driving in robotics and automation, as well as innovation around the software side.

So we've built something called the Bowery OS, Adam, which is, it's the brains of our farm. It's a proprietary system, and it uses software, computer vision, machine learning to both monitor and manage our crops to ensure they're getting exactly what they need when they need it. They're as flavorful as possible. And they're harvested at that peak yield and peak freshness.

So it really is where technology marries traditional growing and traditional agriculture, which comes together. And it creates an enormous opportunity. I mean from our view, this is a $100 billion a year opportunity in the US and probably about a trillion dollar a year opportunity globally.

And that's not for every crop. We don't look at staple crops, for instance, corn and wheat and soy, as areas that we're necessarily focused in today. Could you do that eventually? You know, technology has a nice way of surprising us. But that's not something where we're focused or counting on right now. And you don't need that to build a big business.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Look, I tried to grow tomatoes on the 18th floor, the terrace out here. And I refer to them as the toxic tomatoes because it was a disaster. I want to thank you for joining us, Irving Fain, Bowery Farming founder, and CEO.

Plenty Bags $140m In Funding For Its Indoor Farming Tech

View fullsize

by Kelly Earley

10/14/20

View fullsize

Image: Plenty

Californian Indoor Agriculture Business Plenty

Has Raised $140m In Its Latest Funding Round,

Bringing The Total Raised By The Start-Up To $500m

On Wednesday (14 October), San Francisco vertical farming business Plenty announced that it has raised $140m in Series D funding.

The Series D round was led by existing investor, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, with participation from new investor Driscoll’s, a California-based agriculture business that claims to control around one-third of the $6bn berry market in the US.

Plenty, which was previously listed as an urban agriculture start-up to watch on Siliconrepublic.com, plans to use the latest round of funding to fuel growth and execute new commercial collaborations with Driscoll’s and US grocery business Albertsons.

Plenty’s technology

Plenty was co-founded by Matt Barnard, Jack Oslan, Nate Mazonson, and Nate Storey in 2014. The company’s vertical farming technology can grow produce all year round, and Plenty claims that it uses 99pc less land and 95pc less water to grow crops than traditional methods.

Plenty’s San Francisco farm uses 100pc renewable energy and according to the company, the firm can grow 1,500 acres of produce in a building the size of a big-box grocery store.

View fullsize

To date, Plenty has raised more than $500m from investors including Bezos Expeditions, Innovation Endeavors, and DCM Ventures. Plenty is currently developing a new indoor farm in Compton, California, which the start-up believes could become the world’s highest-output vertical farm.

Jeff Housenbold, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said: “In just 30 years’ time, the world will need 70pc more food than we currently produce, requiring more efficient use of land and water. Without innovation in agriculture, this demand will be impossible to meet.

“We believe Plenty is transforming the way food is made and are pleased to continue supporting their mission to build sustainable, intelligent farms that deliver healthy, safe produce with a focus on premium flavour.”

Plenty’s agriculture platform uses data analytics, machine learning, and customized lighting to iterate at high speeds, using 200 years’ worth of growing data. The company said that it has seen a 700pc yield improvement in leafy greens over the last 24 months by using this data.

Barnard, who serves as chief executive of Plenty, said: “The recent disruptions in the global supply chain caused by the west coast wildfires and Covid-19 have highlighted how quickly our access to quality produce can be thwarted.

“Plenty’s controlled and resilient farms and local distribution made it easy for us to scale quickly, even during the pandemic, demonstrating that our indoor, vertical farm flourishes under environmental pressures and delivers delicious greens along with the sales that come with it.”

View fullsize

Kelly Earley is a journalist with Siliconrepublic.com

editorial@siliconrepublic.com

RELATED: ANALYTICS, FOOD, AGRITECH, FUNDING AND INVESTMENT, SAN FRANCISCO, AGRICULTURE

US - ORLANDO, FLORIDA - Tech-Driven Vertical Farming Company Announces Two New VP’s

14-10-2020  |    Global News Wire

The Appointment of These Executives Coincides With

Kalera’s Expansion Into New Markets Nationwide

View fullsize

Mark Gagnon, VP of Sales for Retail Accounts at Kalera, has over three decades of experience in the produce and grocery industries.

View fullsize

Kalera's newly appointed VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings, brings with him over 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry.

On October 13th, technology-driven vertical farming company Kalera (NOTC: KALERA, Bloomberg: KSLLF) announced that it has hired two new executives to fill the positions of Vice President of Foodservice Sales and Vice President of Sales for Retail Accounts.

The newly appointed VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings, brings with him over 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry. Mark Gagnon, VP of Sales for Retail Accounts, has over three decades of experience in the produce and grocery industries.

Prior to joining Kalera as VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings spent his career building networks of strategic partners in the food industry, both domestically and internationally. Most recently, Jennings worked as the Chief Commercial Officer at Martin Preferred Foods, where he worked to expand into new geographies through strategic alliances.

He previously spent four years as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Food Services of America and four years as the Vice President of Foodservice at Cargill, a company with reported revenues of almost $115 billion. Jennings has received recognition as a Leader of Sales & Marketing from the International Food Distribution Association and the International Food Manufacturing Association, where he has held advocacy positions on the industry board.

His primary goal as Kalera’s VP of Foodservice Sales is to build a coalition of strategic partners who share the vision of delivering Kalera’s fresh, locally produced greens to consumers across the planet.

“I’ve always been passionate about finding a sustainable, healthy solution to feeding the world’s growing population, and Kalera does that efficiently and effectively,” said Marc Jennings, new Kalera VP of Foodservice Sales. “I believe my wide range of experience makes me uniquely qualified to establish the diverse network necessary to deliver Kalera’s solution globally.”

Kalera has also named Mark Gagnon as VP of Sales for Retail Accounts. An accomplished executive, Gagnon brings with him over 30 years of sales and leadership experience with three major produce brands, Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte. Before his six-year tenure as the VP of Sales at Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., Inc., he led the East Coast sales team for Chobani, where he focused on account development, retail expansion, increasing market share, creating brand awareness, and developing a new sales team.

He previously worked for nine years as the National Director of Sales for Chiquita, where his main focus was growing market share in both pineapple and banana business, as well as leading the Kroger Team for all Chiquita products. Gagnon was also the National Account Manager for Kroger at The Dole Food Company and held various other sales leadership roles over a 14-year period with Dole.

“Over the last 30 years, I’ve developed strong partnerships and relationships with the top retailers in the country through strategic planning and customer engagement at the top levels of each retail organization,” said Mark Gagnon, Kalera’s new VP of Sales for Retail Accounts. “I’m extremely eager to bring my experience and learnings in the produce industry to Kalera, and join a first class company with an incredibly bright future.”

“Having this strong and unified sales team will be crucial to Kalera’s growth and development as we expand globally,” said Daniel Malechuk, CEO of Kalera. “With Mark’s proven track record of account development with key retailers, and Marc’s international manufacturing and distribution background, I have confidence in their ability to continue Kalera’s momentum in building our network of strategic partners as we grow Kalera’s reach. We’re truly thrilled to have them join the team.”

Quickly becoming a world leading company in indoor vertical farming, Kalera has the ability to deliver fresh, locally grown greens, nationally thanks in large part to its streamlined design process and technological advancements. By the end of 2021, Kalera will have five commercial growing facilities open and operating across the US. The company’s recent major milestones include:

• Its first commercial vertical farm, the HyCube growing center, currently operates on the premises of the Orlando World Center Marriott, bringing fresh, local produce to the hotel’s visitors and customers.

• In March 2020, Kalera opened its second facility in Orlando, providing produce to the area’s top retailers, leading foodservice distributors, resorts, hospitality groups, and theme parks.

• The Atlanta facility is the third farm in Kalera’s portfolio and when it opens early next year, will be the largest vertical farm in the Southeast.

• Its fourth facility is slated to open in Houston in spring 2021 and will be the largest of its kind in Texas.

• In 2021 Kalera will open its fifth and most western location in Colorado, which will serve the greater Denver area.

• As Kalera accelerates its growth over the next few years, it will continue to open additional facilities, expanding production capacity throughout the US and internationally.

With indoor facilities situated right where the demand is, Kalera is able to supply an abundance of produce locally, eliminating the need to travel long distances when shipping perishable products and ensuring the highest quality and freshness. Their cutting-edge technology allows plants to reach their maximum potential, and the facilities produce yields at 300-400 times that of traditional field farming. In addition to maximizing production, Kalera’s growing methods and cleanroom technology eliminates the need for chemical pesticide use, and their plants consume 95% less water than field-farmed plants.

About Kalera

Kalera is a technology-driven vertical farming company with unique growing methods combining optimized nutrients and light recipes, precise environmental controls, and cleanroom standards to produce safe, highly nutritious, pesticide-free, non-GMO vegetables with consistently high quality and longer shelf life year-round. The company’s high-yield, automated, data-driven hydroponic production facilities have been designed for rapid rollout with industry-leading payback times to grow vegetables faster, cleaner, at a lower cost, and with less environmental impact.

Source and Photo Courtesy of Global News Wire

How Vertical Farming Helps Save Water

Generally, vertical farming uses 95% less water than traditional farming. At iFarm we have improved this indicator.

In many places around the world, for example in the Middle East, water resources are limited and their price is high. Reducing water consumption on a vertical farm in such regions can have a very positive economic and environmental impact. iFarm engineers have recently developed and patented a dehumidification system allowing to reuse the water that farm plants evaporate during growth.

How does it work? Let's take a look at a vertical farm with a cultivation area of ​​1000 m2. It produces 2.5 tons of fresh salads and herbs every month. To get such a yield, you need 2020 liters of water daily, most of which — 1400 liters — is used for plant nutrition. However, the daily actual water consumption is almost three times less. 2020 liters are poured into the system once, and then the "engineering magic" begins.

View fullsize

At iFarm vertical farms, we use flow hydroponics, i.e the roots of plants are constantly placed in the nutrient solution and consume it whenever they need, getting all the macro- and microelements in the right ratio and concentration.

View fullsize

From 1400 liters of the water, plants use only 80 liters for weight gain (consumption of nutrients from a larger volume is a prerequisite). The remaining 1 320 liters the plants simply evaporate. In the process of transpiration, a lettuce leaf can evaporate an amount of water that exceeds its own weight many times. We collect this water with air conditioners and dehumidifiers, purify it and reuse it in production, maintaining the optimal humidity inside at 70%.

View fullsize

The second "source" of water on the farm is the water supply system — another 700 liters are collected from it and then run through a special filtration unit, resulting in 560 liters of purified and 140 liters of untreated water. The latter is collected in a special tank for technical needs (washing hands, pallets, floors, etc.).

View fullsize

Thus in order to save water, we started collecting it from air conditioners and dehumidifiers that were originally designed to maintain optimal moisture on the farm. This approach allows the production to use only 700 liters of tap water per day, which is three times less than growing plants in conventional hydroponic greenhouses.

View fullsize

We are currently improving the automation of the nutrient solution replacement. The system will determine what macro- and microelements are missing in the trays at a given time and adjust them. According to the calculations of engineers, this will reduce the number of times the sewerage has to be drained completely and almost halve its consumption — from 360 liters to 150 liters. The amount of tap water required by a vertical farm to produce delicious and reach yields then will be just 440 liters, which is five times less than what a hydroponic greenhouse needs.

16.10.2020

UNITED KINGDOM: Whole Foods Joins List of Infarm Customers

View fullsize

E KNOWLES

@mikefruitne

15th October 2020, London

The Berlin-Based Urban Farming Specialist

Continues Its Meteoric Rise

With The Addition of One of London's Leading Retailers

View fullsize

Whole Foods Market customers in the UK will soon be able to purchase a range of fresh produce grown by Infarm, which claims to be the world’s fastest-growing urban farming network.

As part of its continued UK expansion, the Berlin-based company will install its modular vertical farming units in two of the retailer’s London stores – High Street Kensington and Fulham – so shoppers can buy fresh produce that has been grown in-store.

Infarm produce will also appear in Whole Foods Market stores in the capital at Piccadilly Circus, Stoke Newington, Richmond, Clapham Junction, and Camden at the end of October and during November.

These stores will be supplied with produce from a local Infarm growing centre in Tottenham, the company said, providing flexible supply as and when required.

For Whole Foods Market shoppers, the Infarm range will include herbs such as coriander, parsley, basil, mint, dill, and Thai basil, as well as a number of different fresh lettuce varieties.

“The partnership between Infarm and Whole Foods Market aims to satisfy increasing consumer demand for sustainably grown products with a smaller environmental footprint, helping customers to both make healthy choices and reduce their food waste,” said a spokesperson for Infarm.

Growing and Growing

The company recently raised US$170m in series C funding, further boosting an expansion strategy that has seen it land retail partnerships in the UK, US, Canada, France, and Germany. Fruitnet understands it will soon be making its market debut in Japan.

The expansion comes as retailers look to find innovative ways to combat climate change. “Infarm units use 95 percent less water and 90 percent less transport than traditional agriculture, as well as 75 percent less fertiliser and no pesticides,” the spokesperson added.

The first harvest from Whole Foods Market Kensington is scheduled for 19 November.

Daniel Kats, vice-president of corporate sales at Infarm, commented: “Whole Foods Market felt like a perfect fit for Infarm. Its commitment to providing customers with vibrant, sustainable food aligns with our goal of growing produce locally and, in the process, substantially reducing food waste and the environmental impact of what we consume. We hope that in installing our modular farms in Kensington and Fulham, we can help to educate shoppers about the future of food.”

Jade Hoai, director of purchasing and operations at Whole Foods Market, said: “We are excited to partner with Infarm to offer a truly hyper-local selection of greens and herbs across all of our London stores. Whole Foods Market customers can expect to find fresh, unique herbs from Infarm’s vertical growing units like Boudreaux purple basil, that are grown locally, have no pesticides, and use a fraction of the traditional resources required to grow. We are excited about this relationship for its joint commitment to environmental stewardship and for the delicious, nutritious meals our customers will be crafting at home.”

Super Local

Founded in Berlin in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and the brothers Erez and Guy Galonska, Infarm is dedicated to creating a future where local super fresh produce is available for everyone. The farms are placed in various locations in the city, like supermarkets, restaurants, and distribution centres, so that vegetables grow and are harvested close to the moment of purchase or consumption.

Infarm farmers visit the store after each growth cycle to add new seedlings to the farm. According to the company, the plants retain their roots post-harvest to maintain exceptional flavour and freshness, meaning they’re still alive when harvested.

“These controlled, growing environments are connected to a central cloud-based farm-brain which gathers more than 50,000 data points through a plant’s lifetime, allowing the platform to learn, adapt and improve itself constantly so that every plant grows better than the one before,” it adds.

“This modular, data-driven, and distributed approach — a combination of big data, IoT, and cloud analytics, in addition to rapid growth at a global scale — sets Infarm apart from any other urban, farming solution.”

During last week’s FPJLive conference organised by the Fresh Produce Journal, Infarm’s UK operations director Jeremy Byfleet confirmed the company was investigating the possibility of expanding its product offer beyond leafy salad vegetables and herbs to include a number of other fresh fruit and vegetables.

RELATED ARTICLES

• 1. Infarm could supply more fruit and veg

• 2. Harvest London invests in state-of-the-art vertical farm

• 3. Herb sales surge at Waitrose

• 4. G’s does its bit for bumblebees

• 5. Salad stories

• 6. Microplastics found in fruit and veg

• 7. S teve’s Leaves extends range

• 8. Vitacress scheme is "next level" of sustainability

• 9. G's launch "chip shop curry" flavour beetroot

• 10. Local production in Outer Hebrides

US - AppHarvest Expands Educational Container Farm Program For Eastern Kentucky Students

Rowan County Senior High School Students

To Receive Hands-On, High-Tech Growing Experience

View fullsize

October 13, 2020

Morehead, Ky.  — AppHarvest announced today the expansion of its educational high-tech container farm program for Eastern Kentucky students, unveiling a new container farm unit in Rowan County. The program demonstrates the company’s ongoing commitment to fostering interest in high-tech farming, as it seeks to create America’s AgTech capital from within Appalachia.

View fullsize

The retrofitted shipping container will serve as a hands-on agricultural classroom for students at Rowan County Senior High School, allowing them to grow and provide fresh, nutritious fruits and vegetables to their classmates and those in need in and around Morehead. The county is home to AppHarvest’s first controlled environment agriculture facility, a massive 2.76-million-square-foot farm that opens later this month. The facility will employ more than 300 and grow tomatoes to be sold through the top 25 grocers nationwide.

The educational container farm’s arrival will be formally celebrated at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 13, with live music and refreshments, as acclaimed Kentucky muralists Often Seen Rarely Spoken (OSRS) work with the high school’s art students to paint the container farm’s exterior. Attendees will have the opportunity to tour the container farm and learn about its high-tech tools, as well as see butterhead lettuce starters growing on the container’s vertical columns.

The container farm is 2,880 cubic feet, weighs 7.5 tons, and includes space to grow up to 3,600 seedlings and 4,500 mature plants all at once using 256 vertical crop columns. The container’s unique design utilizes cutting-edge LED lighting and closed-loop irrigation systems to allow students to grow far more than traditional open-field agriculture. For instance, they can grow up to 500 full heads of lettuce, or 1,000 miniature heads, as part of a single crop if they desire.

The Rowan County container farm joins AppHarvest’s inaugural container farm serving Shelby Valley High School students in Pike County. Both are part of AppHarvest’s high school AgTech program, which provides Eastern Kentucky students with knowledge about the importance of eating healthy and hands-on experience growing fruits and vegetables in high-tech environments.

Students at Shelby Valley High School have grown leafy greens, donating them to those in need through a backpack program and food pantry. Guests in attendance will include Rocky Adkins, senior adviser to Gov. Andy Beshear; Rowan County Schools Superintendent John Maxey; Rowan County Judge-Executive Harry Clark; Rowan County High School Principal Brandy Carver; and Morehead Mayor Laura White-Brown. All social distancing protocols will be strictly followed, with all in attendance wearing face masks and remaining at least six feet apart while enjoying festivities.

The Rowan County Senior High School container farm program will be led by agriculture teacher Bradley McKinney. The program’s curriculum combines existing agricultural education with six new units focusing on leading AgTech advancements. McKinney said the container farm will allow students to be competitive in the national Supervised Agricultural Experience Program, which, along with Future Farmers of America (FFA) and traditional classroom instruction, is an integral part of agriculture education.

The program requires students to gain hands-on experience through agriculture-based entrepreneurship, placement programs, or research. “The container farm is the exact type of hands-on tool that excites students and shows first-hand the excitement of modern farming,” McKinney said. “Students can have their own projects and learn all about entrepreneurship, as they make decisions about what to grow and how to distribute it.”

About AppHarvest
AppHarvest is building some of the world’s largest indoor farms, combining conventional agricultural techniques with today’s technology to grow non-GMO, chemical-free fruits and vegetables to be sold to the top 25 U.S. grocers.

The company has developed a unique system to reduce water usage by 90% compared to typical farms, as a 10-acre rainwater retention pond pairs with sophisticated circular irrigation systems. The system also eliminates agricultural runoff entirely.

By locating within Appalachia, AppHarvest benefits from being less than a day’s drive to 70% of the U.S. population. That lowers diesel use in transportation costs by 80%, allowing the company’s fresher produce to compete against low-cost foreign imports.

Ultra-Local Brooklyn-Based Aquaponics Operation Upward Farms Has National Agenda

View fullsize

October 14, 2020   

By Cliff White

View fullsize

Originally founded in 2013 as Edenworks and previously known as Seed & Roe, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.-based Upward Farms takes an ecosystem-based approach to its aquaponics operation, which produces microgreens and “mercury-free, antibiotic-free, and hormone-free” striped bass, rated as a “Best Choice” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program. In an interview with SeafoodSource, Upward Farms CEO Jason Green described the company’s whole ecosystems as “a paradigm shift in productivity and scalability compared to status quo production methods dependent upon synthetic chemicals.”

The company has had success selling its greens into Brooklyn grocery outlets including Whole Foods Market but has not yet sold any fish commercially. Green said the company has a “20-year vision to create a sustainable future for the food system by advancing the importance of the microbiome in both indoor and outdoor agriculture.” Upwards Farms recently closed on more than USD 15 million (EUR 12.8 million) in new funding, led by an investment from Prime Movers Lab.

SeafoodSource: 

Why was striped bass chosen as the complementary species in Upward Farms’ integrated aquaponics system?

Green: 

We’re an aquaponic farm – we grow fish and plants together in a closed ecosystem. It’s important for us to use a freshwater species instead of saltwater so we can directly utilize the waste from the fish as fertilizer for our leafy greens production. The striped bass hybrid that we use is a freshwater fish that retains the quality and character that eaters of striped bass love – clean, firm flesh with just the right amount of richness and skin that crisps up beautifully. Striped bass is also a fish that has a strong local following in the New York area, so there’s a baseline level of consumer awareness.

So while chefs and consumers in New York are already familiar with striped bass as a wild local fish that is available seasonally, we sought to complement that with a sustainably farmed alternative that can be sourced year-round.

SeafoodSource: 

Can you say more about the company’s new facility and your other expansion plans?

Green:

 Our new headquarters facility is based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and will be a fully automated vertical farm with aquaponic production. It will serve as our commercial facility, distributing leafy greens and fish to grocers across the New York City area. Our new headquarters is also where we’ll continue to conduct research and development to advance our technology and develop new products.

Longer-term goals include opening a farm outside every major metropolitan area, near distribution centers that serve the grocers for that area. This will enable us to cut down on how far food travels. This is a key objective of ours, given that 95 percent of U.S. leafy greens are trucked in from California or Arizona, and 90 percent of fish is imported from other countries. All those miles between farm and form compromise quality, safety, and cost. In cutting down food miles, we can create a more transparent, stable, and safe supply chain.

The importance of local production is something that COVID has really underscored. Add on top of that the risks posed by climate change, especially this year with record wildfires in the American West. In agriculture, as we’ve seen in medicine and other industries related to the public health response, the importance of short, stable supply chains is being recognized now more than ever.

SeafoodSource: 

What role will the fish side of things play in the company’s future development?

Green: 

The fish play an important and symbiotic role in our process. The fish are the source of fertilizer for our plants and the fuel for the microbiome that drives our competitive advantage. Our microbiome allows us to deliver higher produce yields, a disease resistance product, and superior food safety by preventing the growth of foodborne bacteria like E. Coli. In the long term, we anticipate our fish being a major source of revenue in and of itself.

Given that fish farming is the largest and fastest-growing food segment globally, and that local fish is the number-one consumer demand, yet 90 percent is imported and 40 percent is mislabeled, we see this as a blue ocean opportunity, pun intended.

SeafoodSource:

 What is the fish-growing capacity at the farm?

Green

 We’d like to pass on this as we’re not currently sharing this information publicly.

SeafoodSource: 

When will they be commercially available?

Green:

 Our fish will be commercially available in New York City by mid-2021.

SeafoodSource:

 Has the company’s Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Best Choice” rating been affected at all by the changes being made to the Seafood Watch Program?

Green:

According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, striped bass continues to be a “Best Choice” when farmed in indoor recirculating tanks with wastewater treatment, like our aquaponic production.

SeafoodSource:

 How will the recent hiring of former RBC Capital Markets Managing Director and Co-Head of Real Estate Investment Banking John Perkins as Upward Farms’ new chief financial officer affect your company’s goals and fundraising efforts?

Green:

 With our purpose of enabling everyone to nourish their body, family, and the planet, we are fortunate to have John join our team and together achieve massive scale and impact. John's unparalleled talent and experience, particularly in capitalizing the real estate and infrastructure that transformed the American food supply chain, will help Upward Farms attract the right capital partners, grow rapidly, and realize the full potential of our vision and technology platform.

Photo courtesy of Upward Farms

View fullsize

Cliff White

Executive Editor

 cwhite@divcom.com

 @CliffWhiteNews

Amazon’s Alexa Fund Invests In At-Home Vertical Farming Company Rise Gardens

View fullsize

View fullsize

by Jennifer Marston

OCTOBER 13, 2020

View fullsize

Rise Gardens announced today it has received an investment from the Amazon Alexa Fund that builds upon a $2.6M seed round Rise closed in May. The amount invested by the Amazon Alexa Fund was not disclosed.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the deal is both a collaboration and a cash investment that will “fuel new products, accessories and further R+D” for Rise Gardens.

The Chicago-based Rise is best known for its standalone console (roughly the size of a standard bookcase) that contains a hydroponic grow system for consumers at home. The system does most of the hard work—calculating nutrition and pH levels, knowing when and how much to water the plants—for the user, whom it notifies via a corresponding app.

Rise’s system is also modular, so it can be added to or subtracted from over time depending on how many greens your household consumes each week. Users can also grow beets and tomatoes in addition to leafy greens and herbs.

Rise raised $2.6 million in seed funding earlier this year; Amazon’s new investment is an extension of this seed funding, according to today’s press release.

Amazon’s investment in Rise sounds promising, not just for the company but for the entire vertical farming sector. To start, Rise CEO and founder Hank Adams hinted today at Alexa functionality for the Rise system: “Collaborating with the Alexa Fund will better enable us to integrate our smart, connected garden with Alexa, making indoor gardening even easier. We are also excited about the opportunity to work with Amazon to evolve and expand how we reach consumers with our device and consumables business concept,” he said. The details of that Alexa integration are scant as of now, but one imagines being able to ask Alexa about your plant’s pH levels or tell the speaker to adjust the light mixture. On the flip, Rise could notify users via Alexa when it’s time to water the plants.

There’s no question that consumer-grade vertical farms are still a pretty niche product right now since many of them cost more than the average person can easily afford. (Rise’s single unit console starts at $549.) But the pandemic and accompanying disruptions to the food supply chain have undoubtedly increased folks’ desire to control more of what they eat, which has led to an influx of new devices. From Gardyn’s stylish take on at-home farming to consumer electronics companies like LG building them into the kitchen, vertical farming is definitely making its way into the home. 

Amazon, of course, wants to control your entire home, including your kitchen, so it’s not surprising the Seattle tech giant would partner making at-home vertical farming products. As well, the company has made forays into the gardening space before, like this patent from 2017. Amazon knowing what types of plants you are growing can fuel its selling machine to recommend recipes and other groceries.

Like it or not, Amazon’s moves in food tech tend to influence others, which means the collaborations and products that come out of the Rise partnership will influence the future of at-home vertical farming for everyone

Filed Under: AG TECH BUSINESS OF FOOD CONNECTED KITCHEN FEATURED FOODTECH FUNDING SMART GARDEN VERTICAL FARMING

Kalera Contemplates Private Placement

Kalera has engaged ABG Sundal Collier ASA and Arctic Securities AS to advise on and effect a contemplated private placement of up to 31,000,000 new shares in the company to raise gross proceeds of up to NOK 930 million (equivalent to approx. USD 100 million).

The completion of the Private Placement would bring the company’s total equity funding in 2020 to around USD 160 million and would be used to maintain and fuel its rapid US and international expansion. Specifically, Kalera intends to use the net proceeds from the private placement to finance the construction of new facilities, in both the US and internationally, as part of the company's rollout plan for 2021, as well as for general corporate purposes.

"In a short time, we have proven that our model allows us to provide produce at industry-leading yields and unit economics that enables rapid facility expansion and provides our end-user customers the opportunity to purchase our premium quality greens at stable, conventional pricing,” said Daniel Malechuk, CEO of Kalera. “This private placement will allow Kalera to take the next step in its rapid US domestic and international expansion and become a true global leader in vertical farming of fresh, clean and nutritious leafy greens in close proximity to urban centers.”

View fullsize

For more information:
Kalera
info@kalera.com
www.kalera.com 

22 Oct 2020

View fullsize

UNITED KINGDOM: Underground Farm Based In Former Clapham Air Raid Shelter To Open New Site In Suburbs

Growing Underground cultivate micro herbs and salad leaves in its 65,000sq urban farm located 33m below the streets of London.

It is now pushing for new investors in a bid to expand its operations and revolutionize Britain’s agriculture

REBECCA SPEARE-COLE 
The Evening Standard

A massive underground farm in Clapham is set to open a new site on London’s outskirts in a bid to ramp up its sustainable agriculture operations.

Growing Underground cultivates micro herbs and salad leaves in a former Second World War air-raid shelter, 33 metres beneath the streets of the capital.

Using LEDs, hydroponics, data analytics, and 100 percent renewable energy, the 65,000sq farm has been delivering fresh produce to hundreds of restaurants and supermarkets since 2015.

Now, it is looking to open a new site, at an undisclosed location in the city suburbs, to grow produce next to distribution centres that supply supermarkets across the UK.

Growing Underground

The farm’s corresponding push for investors comes at a time when the pandemic has exposed systemic problems and vulnerabilities in global supply chains.

It also chimes with David Attenborough’s recent warning about the critical importance of moving away from exhaustive farming practices to innovative solutions, in his new film A Life on Our Planet.

Growing Underground’s COO Richard Ballard told the Standard: “Any business starting today has got to think about its impact on the environment and society, and that is one of the key drivers for us.”

Growing Underground is farm in WW2 air-raid shelters under the streets of Clapham (Growing Underground)The underground farm has become a pioneer in the UK’s controlled environment agriculture industry (CEA) — a technology-based approach towards food production.

Mr. Ballad said: “Technology around LED lights has really evolved so it has become possible to grow an enormous amount of produce in a small space.“

View fullsize

We also recirculate water with a hydroponic system so we reduce our impact on resources. We don’t use pesticides and in terms of transportation we grow very close to the point of consumption, so we reduce food miles and food waste.

We use recycled products for our substrates and the carpets that hold the seeds, so we are working within a circular economy concept,” he added.

The farm also uses only renewable energy from the provider Good Energy, and Mr. Ballad said they plan to become entirely carbon neutral by 2021.

But what distinguishes Growing Underground from other CEA operations is that they chose a redundant underground space, which does not require them to use up resources on air movement and temperatures like a greenhouse would.

“Being underground we get a consistent temperature all year round so we don’t need a lot of electricity and power for controlling the environment,” he said.

The farm is run on operation shifts seven days a week, with at least seven people working a day, harvesting greens like Thai basil, coriander, pea shoots, rocket, and mustard leaf. The produce is also grown to be very high in nutrition.

Clapham underground is home to 'Growing Underground', the UK’s first underground farm. (Getty Images)

Besides selling the produce and (before the pandemic struck) running tours of the underground farm, Growing Underground has also amassed a huge amount of valuable data over the last five years.

The environment is measured with data points around the farm, which is used to find “the perfect temperature, perfect yield, pH of the water, oxygenation of the water and the spectrum of the lights” for growing a product.

View fullsize

For example, in the last five years, Growing Underground has reduced the number of days for cultivating coriander by 50 percent as well as increasing its yields by 25-30 percent.

"The data has meant we can tailor environment recipes for the products, giving us a very efficient method”.

Mr. Ballad also said that technology and innovation behind CAE is making agriculture a more attractive industry for young people in developed economies, citing research that found the average age of farmers across the world is 60-years-old.

He said: “This is a new trained way of agriculture — looking at data, looking at the science of growing and intensifying yields and getting the most of a small space as opposed to traipsing across fields and pulling things out.”

Now, after five years of building and growing under Clapham North, Mr. Ballard said it is the “right place and the right time to take agriculture to the next level”.

Growing Underground is taking a “two-pronged” approach, Mr. Ballard said.

“We already have our first London site and Clapham is big enough to supply a huge amount to the capital’s foodservice market through places like New Covent Garden Market,” he added.“

But we want to get out there to the wider market as well and we feel that building a second site that supplies into the retail markets and the wider foodservice is where we want to be.”

This new second site, which is still in the final stages of negotiations, will be on the outskirts of London in order to easily supply the rest of the country.

The company is also looking at other sites where they can build fully automated production lines with seeds in at one end and products out the other.

View fullsize

Mr. Ballard said: “We have a few potential sites in our sights and we are just in negotiations at the moment.”

“The plan is to use space close to a current distributor of produce so we are building a proximity farm that feeds directly to that customer.“

And we only need a small space within the current infrastructure of a building to grow produce.”

Upscaling will also mean that the farm can start producing a wider range of crops, that are too costly to grow in CEA at the moment, he said.

For Mr. Ballard, Growing Underground is not just about making a profitable and sustainable method of agriculture but it's about building a business that tunes into a changing world.

Growing Underground is looking to expand

(Photo: Paul Marc Mitchell)

“We are facing massive problems with the global food production system and we have seen empty fresh product shelves in supermarkets,” he said.“

We’ve had Brexit, the pandemic, and many more once-in-a-lifetime extreme weather events than we used to see. In the UK, there have been more storms and extreme weather affecting crops as well as hotter summers.

“And all related to this is climate change. Statistics from the UN saying we have got 40 harvests left due to soil degradation and intensive farming practices.“

So this is a really good time to be looking at alternative sustainable agriculture methods to take us into the middle of this century.“

This probably going to be one of the most disruptive things that has happened in Agriculture since the Agricultural Revolution itself,” he said. 

View fullsize

More about: | Growing Underground | Clapham | Controlled Environment Agriculture | farm

Can Vertically-Grown Leafy Greens Make Your Salad Fresher And More Sustainable?

View fullsize

Bridget Shirvell

Martha Stewart Living

October 16, 2020

View fullsize

Courtesy of Forward Greens

A warehouse may seem like an odd place for a farm, but it's one of the places you'll find arugula, kale, and other leafy greens growing in Vancouver, Washington. The 25,000 square foot warehouse is home to Forward Greens, one of several indoor vertical farms attempting to use technology to make our lunch salads taste better and be better for the planet.

"We're trying to grow the cleanest healthiest greens we can while preserving the earth's resources," said Ken Kaneko, the founder of Forward Greens. Even if you haven't yet had greens from an indoor farm, chances are more and more of the greens in your salad are going to come from farms like Forward Greens, Gotham Greens, Bowery Farming, and others.

Related: Young Farmers Need Land and These Organizations Are Helping Them

What Exactly Is a Vertical Farm?

Simply put, it's a farm where rows of produce are stacked. "We grow up instead of out," Kaneko said. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Columbia University professor and microbiologist Dickson Despommier and his graduate students began popularizing the idea of vertical indoor farms as one answer to some of the world's biggest problems: how to feed a growing worldwide population, especially with more and more people, centered around cities, and how to produce that food more efficiently and sustainably.

Today most indoor farms use soilless farming techniques. Some like, New York-based Gotham Greens, one of the early pioneers of indoor farms and whose products you'll find in Safeway, Meijer, and Harris Teeter, among others, use a hydroponics system. Other soilless systems include aeroponics and aquaponics.

Does Arugula Grown on an Indoor Farm Taste Better Than Arugula Grown Outside?

While outdoor farms rely on water, sun, and sometimes luck to produce leafy greens, most vertical indoor farms use technology and constant data monitoring to grow their crops. That data means that indoor farms can tweak everything from how your arugula tastes to how it feels to the nutrients it contains.

But beyond the tech, depending on where you live, leafy greens grown indoors might be fresher. Most of the salad greens you find in the supermarket likely came from Salinas, California, or Yuma, Arizona. According to Kaneko, Forward Greens delivers its products to markets in the Pacific Northwest within 48 hours of harvest. As vertical farms aren't dependent on weather, you can buy the same arugula from the same farm year-round. "We can provide a consistent year-round supply," said Gotham Greens CEO Viraj Puri. And that supply is also fully traceable, possibly making it safer.

Are Leafy Greens from an Indoor Farm More Sustainable?

As indoor farms can control everything from temperature to humidity to airflow and even lighting schedules, their products are often marketed as more sustainable than outdoor agriculture. According to Bowery Farming, whose leafy greens are available in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast at Whole Foods Market, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Walmart, and Weis Markets, their indoor farms are more "productive on the same footprint of land than traditional agriculture."

Similarly, Forward Greens says through its technology; it can use 95 percent less water, 99 percent less land, and 100 percent less pesticides compared to outdoor agriculture. But there's not much data on how vertical farms compare to their conventional counterparts. Researchers from Cornell University are in the middle of a three-year grant looking at not only how controlled-environment agriculture compares to traditional field agriculture in terms of energy, carbon and water footprints, profitability, workforce development, and scalability but what if any educational and psychological benefits local systems can offer by connecting urban people to their food. However, it's not clear if that study will also account for food waste, which has been found to be as high as one-third on traditional farms, and which both Puri and Kaneko say their farms can reduce.

While indoor farming likely isn't going to save the planet it may be one part of the puzzle and will make it easier to get fresh, locally grown salad greens year-round.

­Living Lettuce, Vertical Gardening: This Startup Is Using AI For Organic Farming

View fullsize

13/10/2020

SRISHTI DEORAS

Srishti currently works as Associate Editor at Analytics India Magazine.…

The interest and popularity of organic and sustainable farming are increasing drastically. While the consumers are often skeptical about the food products that they consume, Dubai and New Delhi-based Barton Breeze is growing safe, delicious, and healthy food while relying on analytics and AI. It offers top-quality products that are grown locally in nutrient-rich water without pesticides. The crops are harvested weekly and delivered to sales outlets within a couple of hours. 

Following the principle of ‘living lettuce’, it follows a method where roots are left intact, which makes it last longer. The startup also follows vertical gardening where it uses vertically stacked growing beds, up to five levels high using less than 1% of the space required by the conventional growing, a precious commodity in densely populated urban areas.

Analytics India Magazine got in touch with Shivendra Singh, founder and CEO of Barton Breeze, who believes that in the future the vegetable greens will likely come from the building next to you.

The Journey

After graduating from IIM Ahmedabad, Singh started working on a pilot project around hydroponics and set up two container farms in Dubai. “During this time I thought, a country like India with profound climate changes needs this technology more than anyone else,” he says. 

Soon after, Barton Breeze was established in 2015 in Dubai, UAE, with a mission for technology innovation in agriculture. As Singh recalls, the journey initially was challenging and well expected, but with the right vision, it became unstoppable. In addition to the lack of proper information, availability of funds, market volatility, the task to create consumer confidence was critical. Another challenge was that hydroponics was a new technology to adapt, and the existing unprofessional quality and high prices made it difficult to find the right customer in the market. 

Overcoming these challenges, Barton Breeze is now the market leader in the sector and has expanded operations to India. 

Data Science And AI Is At The Core

View fullsize

Barton Breeze team includes experts from deep data science to engineering, and from marketing to producing. “When we started, people had no idea about this new technology. And whatever talent was available, they had to unlearn. Training and building our staff from the ground up, we are now a team of six core members, supported by 25 field farms,” added Singh. 

Explaining how Barton Breeze uses analytics and AI to increase the farm produce, Singh shares the areas as below: 

• Smart Farms: Each smart farm is backed with the expertise of the chief technology officer, a dedicated R&D team, plant scientists, microbiologists, mechanical engineers, and design engineers.

• Cloud Architecture and Data Center: Barton Breeze collects hundreds of data points at each of its farms to its data center, which allows it to quickly alter its indoor precision control for taste, texture, color, and nutrition. It also helps in adjusting variables like temperature and humidity to optimize its crop yields. Barton also collects all yield and harvest data into the cloud to calculate sales projections and market trends.

• Using Artificial Intelligence and IoT (Internet of things): Barton uses software with a device clipped on the stems and leaves of each plant. It informs the nutrients or mineral needs of the plants. 

Highlighting other venues where AI is used, Singh shares that they have perfected their algorithm for optimal taste, texture, color, and nutrition so one can taste the science of flavor in every delicious bite of leafy greens. “We do this by leveraging plant science, engineering, and lighting to optimize our plants while also using 85% less water, 5x productivity, and zero pesticides,” he added. 

He further shares that Barton Breeze carefully monitors the health and quality of plants daily to optimize taste, texture, color, nutrition, and yield to deliver a better product using AI. “Barton’s growing techniques can be highly customized,” he said. 

The startup has also developed iFarm, a cloud-based data and farm output AI software. It allows the clients to get all their farm and production details on the cloud at home or office. “Our farm dashboard and IoT uses artificial intelligence and data analytics to measure important indicators that help in food/crop planning and hence help connect in the food security ecosystem,” he said. 

Some areas where AI and IoT are used at Barton:

1. SMS alert system 

2. Data logging facility

3. Online monitoring and control

4. Sensor-based control system

5. Environment management system

6. Water temperature management

7. Sunlight monitoring system

8. Crop management system

9. Farm system efficiency dashboard

10. Nutrition management system

Barton team includes members with deep expertise in science, engineering, technology, food safety, crop physiology, microbiology, and more to help deliver rapidly deployable and scalable solutions.

“Being first and one of a kind in the segment of agri-tech, we at Barton Breeze are trying to create and promote healthy lifestyle’ To achieve it, we are working into the whole ecosystem in the form of B-FRESH, B-FARM and B-HOME,” shares Singh. 

Growth Story

With experienced and known names in the team, Barton Breeze has increased team members, post-COVID to increase the outreach. “Currently we are in 10 states, and Barton Breeze is planning to enter five more states in the next couple of months,” shared Singh. The startup takes pride in increased customer query by 200% and increased consumer awareness by 10X post COVID. 

Singh further shares that there has been an increase in the interest level from angel investors and venture capitals for Barton Breeze with VC calls gone up by 150%. The startup is closing 1.5 million USD funding within this year. 

“Our goal is to achieve 360-ton produce marketing per year by the end of March 2021 while adding 25 more clients. We are targeting 50 crores revenue @CAGR 800%. We would also be coming up with ten new commercialized farms apart from doing R&D on 50 crop varieties,” concluded Singh on an ambitious note.

SRISHTI DEORAS   

Srishti currently works as Associate Editor at Analytics India Magazine. When not covering the analytics news, editing, and writing articles, she could be found reading or capturing thoughts into pictures.

Running A For-Profit Business With A Not-For-Profit Mission

View fullsize

Business Exclusives From Urban Ag News

October 14, 2020

David Kuack, UrbanAgNews.Com

View fullsize

Vertical Harvest is using controlled environment agriculture to give people with disabilities the opportunity to improve their livelihoods along with the sustainability and economies of their communities.

Jackson, Wyo., might not be the first place you think of when it comes to innovation in controlled environment agriculture. Vertical Harvest, which began operating in 2016, produces leafy greens, tomatoes, and microgreens in a 13,500-square-foot vertical greenhouse.

“From the beginning, Vertical Harvest set out to create a model that could leverage the greatest impact in communities,” said Nona Yehia, co-founder and CEO. “We are a model that is setting forth to cultivate healthy people, communities, and economies. It is through that understanding that all those things are linked to create sustainable communities. We know that successful communities are sustainable communities.”

Yehia said Vertical Harvest was born out of two critical needs in her community.

View fullsize

Nona Yehia, co-founder and CEO at Vertical Harvest, said her company is a model that aims
to cultivate healthy people, communities, and economies. Photos courtesy of Vertical Harvest

“Number one was that we import the vast majority of food that we eat,” she said. “By the time it arrives, it’s not that great to eat. Number two is that Jackson is a burgeoning local community, but it has never been a place that has been known to build careers. People come here to ski and party and then they leave. Business owners were having a really hard time keeping consistent employees, making it really hard to run a business.”

Creating a diverse, inclusive, and profitable workplace

One of the things most unique and innovative about Vertical Harvest is the workforce it employs.

“What was really important to me and to company co-founder Caroline Croft Estay was that Vertical Harvest would provide a place where underemployed populations could feel that they were contributing in a profitable environment,” Yehia said. “By employing people with physical and intellectual disabilities we were exposing peoples’ abilities rather than focusing on their disabilities. We were creating an employment bank that was actually beneficial to the bottom line. This was a big part of why we wanted to be a for-profit organization as well.”

From the beginning, Vertical Harvest was set up as a L3C or a benefit corporate model.

View fullsize

By employing people with physical and intellectual disabilities, Vertical Harvest has developed a workforce that is beneficial to the company’s bottom line.

“We wanted Vertical Harvest to be a scalable, replicable model that doesn’t have to be supported by a charitable or philanthropic organization,” Yehia said. “We wanted it to be a model that could be a part of the civic infrastructure and could perpetuate its own growth. The scalability and replicability of Vertical Harvest was why we chose the L3C model.”

Croft Estay was an employment facilitator trying to find consistent, meaningful work for her clients with physical and intellectual disabilities.

“These were people who grew up in the community, who wanted to contribute to their community and wanted to find consistent meaningful work,” Yehia said. “This is where we put food and jobs together in this vertical capacity. From the beginning, we were targeting a common problem that businesses undergo in our community.

“Right from the outset, other business owners were saying they were having this problem and they saw that Vertical Harvest was not. They asked us to help them. There is not only support for the individuals with disabilities, but there is support for the whole employee team to create a diverse inclusive workplace. The most valuable thing that we have built out of this commitment is our culture. We all know that businesses live or die on the quality of the culture that they have built. It is one of the most amazing things that we have built through this commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

View fullsize

Vertical Harvest, which initially built a 13,500-square-foot vertical greenhouse (shown) to
produce leafy greens, tomatoes and microgreens, is planning to expand with a 50,000-square-
foot prototype.

Developing a premium brand

Arik Griffin, who is Vertical Harvest’s chief financial officer, said one of the things the company has discovered is that part of the power of Vertical Harvest’s brand is the humanitarian good it is doing.

“People want to support us and buy our products,” Griffin said. “The restaurants and grocery stores like us for our quality and for the humanitarian message that they can get behind as do the consumers in the market place. People love our quality and they love our message. That translates into a brand premium.”

Yehia said it also helps that more people want to know where their food is coming from.

“Everybody has someone they know or a family who has a disability and the struggles that person goes through,” she said. “The reason that I am so passionate about this project is because I have a brother with a disability. At a very young age I realized he wasn’t going to have the same opportunities that I was going to have to create a career. That really resonates with people.

View fullsize

Vertical Harvest has expanded its customer base for its leafy greens, tomatoes and microgreens from Wyoming to include Montana and Idaho.

“We are creating opportunities and we have created an employment model where we bring out the abilities and it changes perceptions of what people are able to do. That creates a foundation of trust and strength with the community that really resonates with people, especially right now. It is what businesses can do. There is a real reward in benefitting people outside of your own stakeholder groups. This is something that is going to become more attractive as we move into 2021 and beyond.”

Unlimited expansion

Yehia has no doubt that the model Vertical Harvest has created can be profitable.

“Our incubator farm in Jackson will achieve profitability next year,” she said. “Vertical Harvest’s position in the industry is unique. There are a lot of these farms that have not succeeded. We have created a group of stakeholders who are committed to seeing Vertical Harvest and its prototype achieve profitability.

“Our two biggest hurdles that we learned are the production facility was too small to start out with and our market is too small. Jackson is a seasonal market. It is a smaller market than what our production system can produce in order to be profitable. We’ve expanded our customer base to include Montana and Idaho.

View fullsize

Arik Griffin, chief financial officer at Vertical Harvest, said part of the power of the company’s brand is the humanitarian good it is doing, which has been supported by its customers and consumers.

“We have worked very hard to understand the right crop mix, the correct market size, and the correct farm size that can create a return that would be attractive to social impact investors. We have created a 50,000-square-foot prototype that when placed in the right markets will succeed and that will occur quickly. We knew that we could take what we’ve learned from our successes as well as our failures to create this model that fits within the objectives of social impact finance.”

Vertical Harvest is looking at building five new greenhouses in the next five years. Its next project will be built in Westbrook, Maine, in 2021 with crop production expected to begin the following year.

“We want to bring this model to every community that we possibly can within the country and internationally,” Griffin said. “We have as our mission providing good food and good jobs to local communities. Another piece of our mission is to spread that out, to bring it to as many people as possible. We’re in the first stage of our Series A capital raise. We are raising funds in order to provide the infrastructure at the corporate level so that we can expand.

“The other thing we need to achieve this is hearing from communities and finding local stakeholders who want to do impact investing and make a difference in their communities. Bringing together the people who want to make a difference. We also need to make sure we are constantly in touch with experts in the CEA industry trying to nurture our relationships with the very best people.”

For more: 

Vertical Harvest, (307) 201 4452; info@verticalharvestfarms.com; https://verticalharvestfarms.com/

• GREENHOUSE VERTICAL FARM BUSINESS TECHNOLOGY CLIMATE HYDROPONICS

• PLANTS EDUCATION ORGANICS

This article is the property of Urban Ag News and was written by David Kuack, a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas.

WEBINAR: CEA Database And Benchmark Tool

Date: October 22, 2020
Time: 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. EDT
Presented by: Erico Mattos (GLASE) and Kyle Clark (EnSave)

Click Here To Register

Technologies used in CEA facilities have been rapidly evolving, providing growers with energy-efficient solutions to reduce energy consumption and maximize production profitability. However, the lack of public information and industry benchmarks represents a challenge to identify and implement new energy-efficient technologies. 

A controlled environment agriculture (CEA) database and benchmark tool would allow growers to identify energy efficiency opportunities, prioritize investments, and make comparisons with other facilities. Utility companies will benefit from the aggregated data to identify industry-standard practices and trends, market projections, and energy load and demand planning.

Government agencies will be able to gain industry insights to foster the adoption of energy-efficient technologies aimed at strengthening the CEA agriculture sector through improved economic, environmental, and social outcomes. Join us to learn more about the new GLASE CEA Database and Benchmark tool and how you can participate. 

Upcoming Webinars

November 19, 2020 02:00 PM
Light Quality
presented by Ricardo Hernandez, North Carolina State University 

Register Here
 

December 10, 2020 02:00 PM
Dehumidification, Ventilation, and Air Flow Control in CEA Systems
presented by Murat Kacira, University of Arizona

Register Here

Special thanks to our Industry partners

View fullsize

Join today

View fullsize

Q & A With Jake Counne, Founder, Wilder Fields

View fullsize

Jake Counne, founder, Wilder Fields shares greens with Calumet City Mayor Michelle Markiewicz Qualkinbush. Pictured announcing Wilder Fields’ commitment to build and operate a full-scale commercial vertical farm in a former Super Target store in Calumet City, Ill.

When Jake Counne established Backyard Fresh Farms as an incubator in 2016, he knew that most large-scale vertical farming operations were large-scale financial disappointments.

So rather than attempting to patch up the prevailing model, he and his team chose to build something new from the ground up. “Other start-ups had tried scaling their operations with antiquated greenhouse practices,” he says. “We realized that to solve the massive labor and energy problems that persist with indoor vertical farming. We needed to look to other industries that had mastered how to scale.”

That vision, and several years of persistent innovation, came to fruition in 2019 when Counne announced he would transplant the successful pilot farm—now renamed Wilder Fields—into a full-scale commercial vertical farm. It is currently under construction in an abandoned Super Target store, with an uninterrupted expanse of three acres under its roof in Calumet City, just outside Chicago.

Wilder Fields is designed to supply supermarkets and restaurants in the Chicago metro trade area,. It is scheduled to sell its first produce in the spring of 2021. It will provide fresh produce to those living in nearby food deserts in Illinois and Northwest Indiana.  In this  Q & A With Jake Counne, Indoor Ag-Con will share more about Jake’s vision and plans for the future.

According to an Artemis survey, only 27 percent of indoor vertical farms are profitable despite attracting $2.23 billion in investments in 2018. Why do you think a small start-up like Wilder Fields can succeed where so many have yet to earn a profit?

We started four years ago by investing our own resources. We were also working on a very limited scale in a small incubator space. I think those constraints pushed us to be more discerning about what we should tackle first. In that time, we developed an array of proprietary software and hardware, many of which have patents pending. And we refined a new paradigm for vertical farming, moving from the greenhouse model to lean manufacturing.

We also had the good fortune of starting up just as many first-wave indoor farms were closing down. So we looked at those case studies to understand what went wrong. And, what they could have done differently—what was needed to succeed. In fact, the founder of one of those first-wave farms now serves on our advisory board and really helped us identify the right blend of automation and labor.

With traditional vertical farming, the bigger you get, the more your labor costs increase. It seemed to us that the first generation of large-scale commercial vertical farms thought they could simply scale-up labor as they grew.

But we realized that operational excellence and efficiencies are essential to marry growth and profitability. It’s very hard to control a wide variety of factors using a 100 percent human workforce; for the most part, our industry has realized we need to recalibrate and find ways to automate.

View fullsize

This 135 thousand square foot former Super Target store in Calumet City, Ill. will soon be transformed into one of the world’s largest vertical farms. This former retail space will house 24 clean rooms with the capacity to produce 25 million leafy green plants each year.

So automation solves the problem? It’s not as simple as that.

Now the problem that the pendulum has swung a little too far in the other direction. The industry is almost hyper-focused on automation—as if automation is the answer to all of the vertical farming’s problems. It’s not. Remember when Elon Musk tried using too much automation to produce the Model 3? I believe he called his big mistake “excessive automation” and concluded that humans are underrated.

We believe well-run vertical farms, and the most profitable ones will achieve the right balance of human labor and automation. And that’s been our laser-focused goal from day one—to bring down labor costs in an intelligent way, in order to make vertical farming economically sustainable.

We also reduced costs by repurposing an existing structure rather than building a new one. We located a vacant, 135,000-square-foot Super Target in the Chicago suburb of Calumet City. What better way to farm sustainably than to build our farm in a sustainable way? Along with City leaders, we think we can help revitalize the depressed retail corridor where it is located.

To my knowledge, converting a big-box space to an indoor vertical farm has never been done before. So we also are creating a blueprint for how to impart new life to empty, expansive buildings.

We also will provide opportunities for upwardly mobile jobs and environmentally sound innovations, and produce food that promotes community health.

Vertical farming is a fairly new development. How does it fit into the history of modern agriculture?

I make an analogy with the automobile industry. Field agriculture is sort of like the combustion engine. It came first and was easy to scale up, making it available to more and more people. There were obvious downsides to it, but soon the whole world was using the combustion engine, so we kept churning them out.

But as the detrimental effects began to accumulate, we started asking ourselves how to reduce the negative impact. That’s when the auto industry came up with hybrid cars—they’re the greenhouses in this analogy—and while they were certainly a less bad solution, they weren’t really the solution.

And now we have the fully electric car and it has started outperforming combustion engines on many different levels—just as indoor vertical farming is now beginning to outperform field agriculture

Today’s business mantra holds that the more you automate, the more efficient you become. So why is vertical farming any different?

There are certain efficiencies that don’t require specialized robotics, especially if these tasks can be accomplished in other ways that sustain quality and reduce costs. For example, instead of our workers going among the plants to tend them, the plants come to the workers in an assembly-line fashion that requires fewer harvesters. So it’s always a balance between the investment in specialized machinery and the cost of the labor that it will eliminate.

And while there’s definitely room for automation, it doesn’t always require new specialized robotics. In our industry, plenty of mature automation already exists that can be used to good effects, such as automated transplanting and automated seeding: both employ proven, decades-old technology.

So when I see some other start-ups trying to reinvent these processes, it’s hard to understand. They design and build new, expensive equipment—something possible with an unlimited budget—but in fact, a more affordable, simple solution already is available.

Start-up costs are notoriously difficult to finance. How were you able to get off the ground? What advice would you have for others in the industry?

There’s no easy way to bootstrap from a small start-up to a large scale without that big infusion of capital. You’ve got to decide early on if you should try to secure venture capital from institutional folks or search out more, smaller checks from friends and family and accredited investors.

As I see it, venture capitalists look to the founders’ background and education more than a business model that needs to be tested. If you don’t have that pedigree out of the gate, it’s an uphill battle.

We chose to take a different path, one that has proven successful for me in the past.  It’s one where  I led a group of investors who acquired overlooked residential properties on Chicago’s South Side.  We brought stability to neighborhoods and now manage a large portfolio of quality rental properties. There was no white paper when we embarked on that venture, but we shared a vision for revitalizing good housing stock.

I also tell people to explore equipment financing, which thanks to the cannabis industry has opened up more and more. It’s definitely possible to finance some of this equipment. That seems to be a good route as well.

How will vertical farming impact the types of the crops you grow?

Wilder Fields grows and will continue to grow a wonderful variety of leafy greens. Many will be new to people because they can’t be efficiently raised in a field. So we are building our product line around flavor and texture as opposed to supply-chain hardiness.

But remember, the indoor vertical farming industry is in its very early days. Soon we will have a whole new frontier of applications and crops to grow. Especially now that certain companies are offering indoor-specific seeds. We’ve seen this movie before. When greenhouse-style vertical farms first came on the scene, they used seeds that were really bred for the field. They were doing okay. But, as soon as seeds were bred specifically for that greenhouse environment, yield and quality shot through the roof.

Now that we’re on the cusp of having specialized seeds bred specifically for our purposes, I think we’re going to see that same leap in yield and quality as well.

Of course, your initial planning could not have factored in a global pandemic and ailing economy. How have the ramifications of COVID-19 affected Wilder Fields, and your industry at large?

This is a time for us to champion the benefits of indoor agriculture because vertical farming is doing really well. Any farms primarily serving restaurants obviously had a problem. Companies that pivoted away from restaurants have been able to reach consumers more than ever. They’re capitalizing on their indoor-grown—and therefore much cleaner—product.

Supermarkets are our primary market. With people cooking more at home and looking for fresher and healthier choices, they’re eating more leafy greens.  This is another positive phenomenon.

The success of your model relies heavily on your proprietary technology. Do you have any plans to eventually license your innovations—to make them available to others, for a fee?

That’s a question we’ve been asked a lot, not only from our industry but also from the cannabis industry. We may revisit that opportunity in the future, but it’s not something we’re immediately considering.

Here’s why. When I first entered the industry in 2016, I noticed there were so many consultants. Many people were licensing technology, but none of them were actually using that technology to grow leafy greens at scale. They’re like the folks who sell the pickaxes and the shovels instead of mining the gold.

My perspective is, “You’ve got to venture into the mine to know what sort of shovel and pickaxe you need”; in other words, that’s how to understand what models to create for logistics and ergonomics and what tools are needed to make them work. I did not want our company to be one of those that are just sort of camping outside the mine and hawking its wares.

I think the only way we can develop a solution that’s worth its weight is by operating our own technology and equipment at scale. And I haven’t seen anybody do that yet. Is it possible that we license our technology somewhere down the road once we’ve actually proven it out at scale? Maybe; but it’s not part of our business model right now.

So, along those lines, when will Wilder Fields deliver your first produce—grown in your first full-scale commercial vertical farm—to grocers in metro Chicago?

We have committed to the end of the first quarter of next year: March 2021.   In addition to this Indoor Ag-Con Q & A with Jake Counne, you can  learn more about Wilder Fields visit the company website

Tags: indoor farming labor leafy greens vertical farming

VIDEO: “Everyone Can Become A City Farmer”: Interview With iFarm’s Co-Founder And CEO Max Chizhov

View fullsize

By Arnaud Terrisse

October 13, 2020

View fullsize

Today’s agricultural models have shown their limits in terms of their impact on the environment, biodiversity, and production. In a bid to reduce pollution, biodiversity loss, and shrinking yields, one solution presented has been ‘vertical farming’, otherwise known as growing crops in vertically stacked layers, and in a controlled environment.

We recently caught up with Max Chizhov, co-founder and CEO of Helsinki-based iFarm, a startup founded in 2017 that are providing ‘plug&play’ automated vertical farms for stores, restaurants, warehouses, and even homes. We asked him a few questions about things that matter when you’re an entrepreneur and leading your company to grow.

If you’re interested in agtech and the future of food but also in having a positive social impact, reducing our carbon footprint, or how to build a solid team in a startup, you’ll find some good advice from Max down below. 

Hello Max, thank you for being with us today. Could you please give us a short overview about how you became an entrepreneur as well as why you founded iFarm? 

In 2017, I was looking for a project that, on the one hand, would be interesting for me from a professional point of view, and on the other, bring tangible benefits to the society. I already had experience in the technological field, that is why I focused on that area. At that time, I also met Alex Lyskovsky, who had just finished a course at a culinary school in France. That experience left him wondering whether it was possible to grow high-quality vegetables all year round, regardless of climate conditions and with the least environmental impact, ideally making profit. His story resonated with me, so I researched the topic thoroughly and realized that that was something I really wanted to do — that’s how iFarm was born.

iFarm is based in Vantaa, Finland. What is your opinion on the environment for creating a tech company there? 

Finland offers a favorable environment for tech startups that care about the social side of business as much as the profits. It has a strong community of tech entrepreneurs, an excellent networking base, and government support. 

iFarm has announced recently an approx. €3.6 million seed investment. What are your future plans with such capital? 

The company will use the funding to develop our iFarm Growtune IT platform that enables operations of multiple varieties of vertical farms and quadrupling the number of plants available to iFarm’s tech. In addition, iFarm will be optimizing its automated production lines to reduce labor costs and complete experiments with growing strawberries, cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers, radish, and other crops. 

We are also currently preparing for Series A round, which will take place in Q4’2020 – Q1’2021. Next year we are planning to expand our presence in Northwest and Central Europe and the Middle East.

This news comes amidst great uncertainties with COVID-19. Has the pandemic impacted your activities and priorities as a company? 

Over the last few years, the overall trend in agriculture has been to localize production. This is due to the high rates of urbanization, growth of population, and in 2020 the additional impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the quarantine following it that made the problems of long supply chains and food security even more obvious.

Such conditions make growing vegetables, berries, and greens in the immediate vicinity of the consumer a necessity. Countries have begun to think strategically about food security issues, which brought us several large customers.

From the point of view of organizing teamwork, we did not face any difficulties. Even before the pandemic, we had been building processes and implementing tools for smooth work of an effective remote team.

Since 2017, your team has grown to over 20 people. What tips would you give to someone who wants to build a solid team? 

Create a welcoming atmosphere and avoid strict hierarchies. At iFarm, every employee has the opportunity to contact the founders, ask any question, or come up with a proposal. This does not require full control over tasks and is based on the trust and professionalism of each team member. Top management is to come to the rescue when necessary and prioritize a large pool of operational issues. This increases the level of employee motivation and loyalty, that is how we manage to achieve our goals and to meet deadlines, while maintaining high quality.

Hire people that share your company’s mission and values, are independent and self-organized. We allow for mistakes to take place, they can happen and it is part of the process. Reflecting on these mistakes, understanding their essence and cause helps employees to become stronger and more confident, and to avoid them in the future.

In your opinion what makes iFarm stand out from the competition? 

iFarm provides a turnkey solution, so our clients do not need to have special knowledge — everyone can become a city farmer and produce crops for sale; traditional agricultural productions will be able to modernize their capacities, and such businesses as HoReCa, retail and food manufacturers will receive a technological solution that ensures uninterrupted supply of ingredients for their dishes and goods.

Another important advantage of iFarm is the range of crops that can be grown using our technology, while most vertical farms in the world produce the same salads and greens, which is often criticized in the market.

What is it like to tackle such an important issue as food and agriculture? 

That is a great challenge and a great responsibility. On the one hand, we want to ensure access to healthy and high-quality food for as many people in the world as possible, on the other hand, we want to conserve the natural resources of our planet and minimize our carbon footprint. Thus, creating iFarm technology, we are always guided by these principles when making decisions that affect this result.

What is your advice to young entrepreneurs looking to kick off their own agtech company? 

Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, set ambitious goals, work in a team, and remember to delegate.

Signify’s LED Lighting Helps GoodLeaf Farms To Increase Food Production All Year Round

October 15, 2020

Eindhoven, The Netherlands – GoodLeaf Community Farms in Canada selected Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, to equip its new state-of-the-art farm with Philips Horticulture LED lighting and increase its food production, enhance flavor and improve nutritional value. As a branded producer, GoodLeaf grows and packs fresh, nutritious, and pesticide-free micro and baby greens year-round. The company operates a 4,000-square-metre indoor vertical farm in Guelph, Ontario, which is now fully operational to supply some of the largest Canadian retail chains. GoodLeaf is backed by McCain Foods as its strategic investor.

The vertical farm is fully automated and equipped with the latest LED lighting technology for growing indoors. The energy-efficient Philips Greenpower LED production modules enable GoodLeaf to shorten production cycles. As it provides a controlled environment it also allows GoodLeaf to produce all year round without any lighting, temperature, and pesticide worries and reducing waste at the same time.

View fullsize

GoodLeaf Farms started working with Philips products in 2013 at the company’s test facility in Truro, Nova Scotia. “Signify has been very advantageous to GoodLeaf. We’ve worked with many vendors and Signify would stand out as one of the most collaborative, if not one of the best partners we’ve had through this project. We will work with them on a go-forward basis and very much look forward to that,” said Jeff McKinnon, Chief Financial Officer and Vice President of GoodLeaf Community Farms and TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture.

View fullsize

Signify has built up a substantial track record in more than 400 projects in the horticultural lighting market since 1995, developing ways to apply lighting technology to crop farming. With cutting-edge LED innovations, the company can custom-build a science-based solution for growers providing data and plant expertise to optimize yields.

View fullsize

This expertise is built on close collaborations with Signify’s horticulture partners and through research at its own vertical farming research facilities in Eindhoven, called GrowWise Center. Vertical farming, or city farming, means that plants can be grown indoors in a controlled environment without sunlight. This is ideal for propagating young plants, cultivating full head crops, and growing healthier, pesticide-free crops. It maximizes production by using LEDs to light multiple layers of crops, achieving a higher yield with a smaller footprint.

View fullsize

“The support from Signify and the folks from GrowWise Center is phenomenal. We meet with them monthly. The data they collect covers the data we collect as well, so sharing that knowledge has been excellent, and the service over their Philips’ products has been exceptional,” said McKinnon.
For more information about this project at GoodLeaf, you can watch the video here.

--- END ---

For further information, please contact:

Global Marcom Manager Horticulture at Signify

Daniela Damoiseaux

Tel: +31 6 31 65 29 69

E-mail: daniela.damoiseaux@signify.com

www.philips.com/horti

Signify Global Media relations - Professional Lighting

Wendy Schellens

Tel: +31 6 51 863 401

Email: wendy.schellens@signify.com

About Signify

Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) is the world leader in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our Philips products, Interact connected lighting systems and data-enabled services, deliver business value, and transform life in homes, buildings, and public spaces. With 2019 sales of EUR 6.2 billion, we have approximately 36,000 employees and are present in over 70 countries. We unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. We have been named Industry Leader in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for three years in a row. News from Signify is located at the Newsroom, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.

The Farm Of The Future Might Be In Compton. Inside A Warehouse. And Run Partly By Robots

View fullsize

BY STEFAN A. SLATER IN FOOD 

OCTOBER 6, 2020

View fullsize

Lettuce grows in a vertical farm at Urban Crop Solutions in Waregem, Belgium, on September 20, 2016. (JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)

From the outside, the gray and white warehouse near the corner of Oris Street and Mona Boulevard seems like a thousand other mundane Southern California buildings. But the interior, once completed, will resemble a sketch from a futurist's daydreams. If all goes well, the 95,000-square-foot Compton facility will house rows of hydroponic towers organized into emerald walls of non-GMO, pesticide-free leafy greens. These plants won't rely on sunlight in order to grow. Gleaming LED lamps will provide all the light the crops could ever want. Robots will transport seedlings while other machines move the towers as part of an orchestrated production process. Picture a grow room in a futuristic Martian colony and you're probably on the right track.

View fullsize

The exterior of Plenty's vertical farming facility in Compton. (Stefan Slater for LAist)

The operation is run by Plenty, a San Francisco-based startup that uses vertical farming to create high-quality, nutritious plants "you'd actually want to eat" (their words). Stated another way, they grow crops, often without natural light or soil, in vertically stacked beds in enclosed and controlled environments.

Plenty wants to build at least 500 of these vertical farms around the planet, especially in densely populated cities of at least 1 million people.

The first Plenty farm, in South San Francisco, went into production in 2018 and was upgraded in the summer of 2019 to increase production. For its agricultural second act, the company chose Compton.

View fullsize

A farm operations associate in front of leafy greens growing in vertical towers at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

Plenty's long-term goals go beyond tasty salad greens. It wants to combat food apartheid by bringing healthy, locally-grown crops to communities that lack access to nutritious produce.

"We want to invest in places where we can serve a large number of people," says Shireen Santosham, the company's head of strategic initiatives. "Compton can help us better serve Los Angeles while also allowing us to invest in a community with a long history of farming."

The goal for Plenty's Compton outpost, once it's running at full capacity, will be to create enough produce to make regular deliveries to hundreds of grocery stores. In early August, the company reached an agreement with Albertsons to provide 430 of its California stores with assorted leafy greens.

Company reps say the Compton site will initially focus on producing kale, arugula, fennel, and bok choy before adding strawberries to its repertoire. They expect prices to be similar to organic leafy greens currently on grocery store shelves.

The company was hoping its Compton farm would be able to bring produce to market by the end of 2020 but the coronavirus pandemic altered that timeline. Plenty now hopes to start its first customer deliveries sometime in 2021.

View fullsize

A view of the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco as seen through the vestibule window. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

WHY COMPTON?

Los Angeles has for centuries been a land of citrus groves, peaches, olives, and even vineyards, and Compton was no exception. In the late 1860s, Reverend Griffith Dickenson Compton led roughly 30 people from Stockton to settle in and cultivate the area. Rough weather and tremendous floods nearly destroyed their dreams, but they persisted, and their agricultural efforts eventually began to thrive.

View fullsize

A drawing of the Compton farm and Star Cheese Dairy of Omri J. Bullis in 1880. It was located on Alameda Street, north of El Segundo Blvd. (Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library Collection)

In 1888, Compton donated his land and the area was incorporated as the city of Compton under the condition that a swath of it be zoned for agriculture. That particular area — a 10-block neighborhood sandwiched between downtown Compton and what's now the 91 Freeway — became Richland Farms, known for a variety of crops including pumpkins, sugar beets, and cauliflower. By the 1940s and '50s, Compton had become a working-class suburb. African American families, many of whom had moved to the West Coast to work in military production during World War II, settled there and were drawn to the Richland Farms neighborhood. With its large lots and agricultural zoning, residents could grow crops and raise livestock to provide for their families and their community.

Richland Farms — home of the Compton Cowboys — remains a living link to Compton's agricultural past. Drawing on that history, Plenty began designing and developing its Compton vertical farm (located a few miles north of Richland) in the summer of 2019.

"There is just a rich tradition of farming in Compton, and to have Plenty come back in an innovative way is exciting for our community," Compton Mayor Aja Brown says.

City officials are working with the company to connect its facility with nearby schools so kids can learn about vertical farming and the technologies associated with it.

View fullsize

A farm operations associate tends to plants in the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

OK, BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS A VERTICAL FARM?

Compared to traditional field agriculture, which humanity first started tinkering with approximately 12,000 years ago, vertical farming is in its infancy.

One of the first vertical farms was a hydroponic system built-in Armenia sometime before the early 1950s, although there's not much information about it.

The modern vertical farm, at least in the way we think of it, was popularized two decades ago by Dickson Despommier, an emeritus professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University.

View fullsize

Baby kale is grown at AeroFarms on February 19, 2019, in Newark, New Jersey. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)

In 1999, he wanted students in his medical ecology class to explore ways they could feed New York's residents on crops grown entirely within the city. They started with rooftop gardens but those barely made a dent in the amount of food they needed. Then, Despommier remembered the city's abandoned buildings. "What if you could fill up those buildings with the grow system that you've instituted on the rooftop and just increase food production?" he says.

The result was a multi-level, urban farm featuring layers of crops stacked on top of one another.

View fullsize

Greens growing at Bowery Farming, a vertical farm in Kearny, New Jersey, on January 28, 2019. (DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images)

Until the 21st century, commercial vertical farming seemed like the stuff of utopias, a grand if impractical dream evangelized by a handful of futurists and agricultural techies. But the last few years have seen a jump in interest — and venture capital. Between 2016 and 2017, investments in vertical farming grew nearly eightfold.

In 2017, Plenty received $200 million from several high-profile investors including Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. One of its East Coast competitors, Bowery Farming, received a $90 million investment from Google Ventures.

View fullsize

The UAE's Badia Farms in Dubai, seen on August 4, 2020, uses hydroponic technology and vertical growing towers to produce fruits and vegetables year-round. (KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)

AeroFarms, which uses aeroponics to grow produce, scored $40 million from IKEA and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid of Dubai. The United Arab Emirates is also hoping vertical farming will boost the country's limited domestic food production. The Abu Dhabi Investment Office sunk $100 million into four ag-tech companies, including Aerofarms, which plans to build a new vertical farm and R&D center in Abu Dhabi.

View fullsize

Two farm operations associates tend to plants in the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

WHY DO WE NEED THEM?

Vertical farming is all about efficiency. The process allows growers to control and monitor light, oxygen, nutrients, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels. In a vertical farm, you don't need to wait for the right season. Growth and harvesting can occur year-round.

Plenty's approach relies on automation, intricate sensors, machine learning and hydroponic grow towers where plants are cultivated in a nutrient-rich water solution instead of soil. With this method, the company claims it can grow 350 times as much produce, per square foot, as a conventional, outdoor farm — all while consuming a fraction of the water.

"[Vertical farms] are much more water-use efficient than field production," Neil Mattson, associate professor of plant science at Cornell University, says.

Santosham claims Plenty's vertical farms will use "about 1% of the land and 5% of the water" required by a comparable traditional farm.

Producing more food with less land is a must if we want to keep humanity fed.

View fullsize

A worker tends to basilicum plants at an indoor vertical farm at Colruyt Group in Halle, Belgium on March 3, 2020. (THIERRY ROGE/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)

By 2050, Earth will have 9.8 billion residents and two-thirds of them will probably live in a city. In places like Los Angeles or New York, where real estate doesn't come cheap, vertical farms could be installed without taking up much space.

Produce from vertical farms would also be less likely to spoil since it would, in theory, only travel a few miles to the nearest grocery store, market or restaurant, instead of sitting on a plane or cargo ship for hundreds or thousands of miles.

Plus, vertical farms could help make our food supply chain more resilient.

Since March, the pandemic has impacted everything from beans to strawberries. When the hospitality industry shut down, some farmers had buyers for only half of their crops, so they had to let them rot or plow them back into the soil. Dairy farmers dumped millions of gallons of milk. Meat plants have had to shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks. Plus, the workers who pick the crops, raise the cows and run the slaughterhouses have been ravaged by the virus. And all of this has been happening while hunger skyrockets. In the last six months, food banks have seen a surge in demand, in some cases by as much as 600% percent.

"I don't think all of our food is going to come from urban production," Mattson says. "It does add diversity to our food supply chain to have some of our produce — the nutrient-dense foods — come from close to where they're consumed."

With COVID-19 exposing the weaknesses in our food supply chain, Mattson believes indoor growing (which includes vertical farming and greenhouses) and more localized production might get their moment in the high-intensity LED spotlight: "We're going to see these trends happen even quicker than if we hadn't encountered COVID."

View fullsize

The central processing area at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

A PEEK INSIDE

The Compton farm is still under construction but the company is using its existing South San Francisco facility as a template.

That facility, which started in 2015 as a container farm, features 50,000 square feet of production space and a roughly 10,000-square foot grow room. It provides produce to approximately 40 grocery stores and runs entirely on solar and wind power.

The Compton farm will feature a similar grow system. Employees, referred to as growers, will oversee the process of cultivating seeds into seedlings. Robotics will transfer the seedlings to large vertical grow towers, arranged to form what looks like a vast, green wall.

The amount of time produce spends in the grow room depends on the crop. Nate Storey, chief science officer and co-founder of Plenty, explains that one leafy green crop might go through the entire process from seedling production to harvesting in two to three weeks. That's significantly less time than if those crops were grown via traditional agriculture.

View fullsize

Laborers harvest romaine lettuce using a machine with heavy plastic dividers that separate them from each other on April 27, 2020, in Greenfield, Monterey County, California. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)

On a large, outdoor farm in the Salinas Valley, baby kale would typically require 35 to 50 days, depending on the time of year, before it was ready for harvest, according to Richard Smith, a University of California Cooperative Extension vegetable advisor for the Central Coast.

"For something like lettuce, where you might be waiting for several weeks in the field, we're carving a significant amount of time off that production schedule," Storey says.

View fullsize

A post-harvest associate inspects produce for packaging at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

Once the plants spend some time in Plenty's grow room, robots pick up the towers and retrieve the produce, which is moved to a processing area where it's packaged. Through it all, human hands never touch the food.

"We're able to create an environment that's so favorable to plants and not pathogens or pests that we can deliver a product without ever applying pesticides, which is a big win," says Nick Kalayjian, senior vice president of engineering at Plenty.

In fact, without bugs or human contact, he claims Plenty's produce doesn't need to be washed. Kalayjian also says the small adjustments in temperature, water, nutrients and light result in produce that's at the peak of flavor.

Plenty sent me samples of their baby kale, baby arugula and Sweet Sunrise mix, a combo of fennel, beet leaves and other greens. Did visions of tree stars seize me and shatter all perception of space and time? No. But they did taste exceptionally fresh. The flavors were strong, clean and... just good. I found myself snacking on the Sunrise mix straight from the package, something I never do with greens.

View fullsize

A farm operations associate tends to plants in the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

WHERE DO WE GROW FROM HERE?

Vertical farms aren't cheap to build. They also require a lot of energy to run, much more than conventional field agriculture or greenhouses. "That, to me, is one of the big sticking points," Mattson says.

In a 2020 study, Mattson and other Cornell University researchers studied the economic and environmental impacts of bringing leaf lettuce to U.S. cities via field-based agriculture vs. CEA (controlled environmental agriculture) supply chains such as greenhouses and vertical farms.

"We had almost the same carbon footprint of growing in a greenhouse in New York City as compared to field growing and shipping 3,000 miles. The vertical farm had about twice the carbon footprint of either of those," Mattson says.

In Plenty's case, making sure their farms operate on sustainable, renewable power is a priority. The South San Francisco facility has a power purchase agreement in place with a renewable provider to supply the farm with sustainable energy. Plenty wants its Compton farm to run entirely on clean energy but that won't happen until some undetermined point in the future. Company reps couldn't offer a more precise timeline on when that might happen.

View fullsize

Various leafy greens grow in vertical towers at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)

Warehouse-sized vertical farms may someday be common sights in major cities but it'll take time to scale up to that level. No one, except maybe the most optimistic futurists, thinks vertical farming is going to overtake field agriculture anytime soon.

"We're an additive technology, not a replacement technology. We simplify the supply chain and allow domestic production in places that don't currently have it," Kalayjian says.

View fullsize

A worker tends to lettuce under artificial lights at the Pink Farms warehouse in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on August 28, 2020. (JONNE RORIZ/AFP via Getty Images)

Although vertical farming is still in its earliest stages, Despommier urges us to imagine how it might work in 50 years. "We're looking at a sort of Stanley Steamer [car], not even a Ford Model T," he says, "We're looking at the early trials and tribulations of an industry that wants to supply all of your food. Look how fast it took America to go from no cars to two cars per person."

Maybe by the time humanity has figured out how to colonize other planets and build Star Trek-style replicators, the urban dwellers of earth will rely on skyscraper-style vertical farms. Maybe thousand-acre fields of fruit and vegetables will someday look as obsolete as rotary phones. Until then, we'll be playing in the dirt, just as we've done for thousands of years.

A New Factory In France Will Mass-Produce Bugs As Food

By Vanessa Bates Ramirez

October 08, 2020

Though the world’s population is no longer predicted to grow as much as we thought by the end of this century, there are still going to be a lot more people on Earth in 30, 50, and 80 years than there are now. And those people are going to need healthy food that comes from a sustainable source. Technologies like cultured meat and fish, vertical farming, and genetic engineering of crops are all working to feed more people while leaving a smaller environmental footprint.

A new facility in northern France aims to help solve the future of food problems in a new, unexpected, and kind of cringe-inducing way: by manufacturing a huge volume of bugs—for eating.

Before you gag and close the page, though, wait; these particular bugs aren’t intended for human consumption, at least not directly.

Our food system and consumption patterns are problematic not just because of the food we eat, but because of the food our food eats. Factory farming uses up a ton of land and resources; a 2018 study found that while meat and dairy provide just 18 percent of the calories people consume, it uses 83 percent of our total farmland and produces 60 percent of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. That farmland is partly taken up by the animals themselves, but it’s also used to grow crops like corn and soy exclusively for animal consumption.

And we’re not just talking cows and pigs. Seafood is part of the problem, too. Farm-raised salmon, for example, are fed not just smaller fish (which depletes ecosystems), but also soy that’s grown on land.

Enter the insects. Or, more appropriately, in this case, enter Ÿnsect, the French company with big ambitions to help change the way the world eats. Ÿnsect raised $125 million in Series C funding in early 2019, and at the time already had $70 million worth of aggregated orders to fill. Now they’re building a bug-farming plant to churn out tiny critters in record numbers.

You’ve probably heard of vertical farms in the context of plants; most existing vertical farms use LED lights and a precise mixture of nutrients and water to grow leafy greens or other produce indoors. They maximize the surface area used for growing by stacking several layers of plants on top of one another; the method may not make for as much space as outdoor fields have but can yield a lot more than you might think.

Ÿnsect’s new plant will use layered trays too, except they’ll be cultivating beetle larvae instead of plants. The ceilings of the facility are 130 feet high—that’s a lot of vertical space to grow bugs in. Those of us who are grossed out by the thought will be glad to know that the whole operation will be highly automated; robots will tend to and harvest the beetles, and AI will be employed to keep tabs on important growing conditions like temperature and humidity.

The plant will initially be able to produce 20,000 tons of insect protein a year, and Ÿnsect is already working with the biggest fish feed company in the world, though production at the new facility isn’t slated to start until 2022.

Besides fish feed, Ÿnsect is also marketing its product for use in fertilizer and pet food. It’s uncertain how realistic the pet food angle is, as I’d imagine most of us love our pets too much to feed them bugs. But who knows—there’s plenty of hypothesizing that insects will be a central source of protein for people in the future, as they’re not only more sustainable than meat, but in some cases more nutritious too.

We’ll just have to come up with some really creative recipes.

Image Credit: Ÿnsect

VANESSA BATES RAMIREZ

View fullsize

Vanessa is the senior editor of Singularity Hub. She's interested in renewable energy, health and medicine, international development, and countless other topics. When she's not reading or writing you can usually find her outdoors, in water, or on a plane.

TAGS Future of Food

View fullsize

How An Indoor Farm Is Redefining Local

View fullsize

Washington D.C. sits at the intersection of some of the best farming areas in the country. According to the 2017 United States Census of Agriculture, there are over 53,000 farms in Pennsylvania plus another 40,000+ farms in Virginia. Yet, for all of the area’s agrarian prowess, you may not have seen a farm quite like this.

View fullsize

Standing in front of Bowery Farming’s newest farm, located just outside of Baltimore in Nottingham, you could easily mistake it for a shipping warehouse. But, like most good things, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.

View fullsize

Bowery is an indoor, vertical farming company. Walking into its Nottingham Farm feels a bit like stepping into the greenest library you could imagine. Rows and rows of fresh lettuces and herbs stretch towards the ceiling, where they’re nourished under LEDs and a constant, carefully controlled amount of filtered water and essential nutrients. 

Bowery’s pesticide-free, Protected Produce is also restoring the Nottingham area to its farming roots. From the 1940s to the late 1970s, this land was largely agricultural. Since then, it has been cleared and developed. But today, Bowery has repurposed an industrial area back into a fully operational farm that employs local Modern Farmers who keep the Mid-Atlantic region nourished with fresh produce year-round.

So why grow indoors anyway? After all, traditional farms have been growing food across the country as long as anyone can remember. Growing produce indoors has a few distinct advantages. 

First, Bowery’s indoor farms use less finite resources like water and land. Filtered water that’s not taken up by the plants is recycled, refiltered, and fed back to the plants. Bowery’s farms also take up less space. Because of their vertically stacked design, they can grow 100x more food on the same square footage as a traditional farm. 

Indoors, crops are also exempt from seasons. Rain, sleet, or snow, Bowery’s greens grow every day, all year long. And, because their farm is located right outside of the cities they serve, their fresh produce reaches local retailers within days of harvest.

View fullsize

Lastly (but to our taste buds, most importantly), Bowery selects non-GMO seeds for flavor attributes, unlike outdoor growers that are usually looking for options that can withstand a range of weather conditions or pests. Bowery removes the uncontrollable variables found in the field, giving plants the seasonal conditions they crave indoors so they can grow up to be the best expression of themselves.

Want to try it for yourself? Support local and find Bowery Farming near you here.

View fullsize