Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
Large ‘Tesla Ships’ All-Electric Container Barges Are Launching This Autumn
The first 6 barges are expected to remove 23,000 trucks from the roads annually in the Netherlands and replace them with zero-emission transport.
The Dutch company Port-Liner is building two giant all-electric barges dubbed the ‘Tesla ships‘. The company announced that the vessels will be ready by this autumn and will be inaugurated by sailing the Wilhelmina canal in the Netherlands.
The 100 million-euro project supported by a €7m subsidy from the European Union is expected to have a significant impact on local transport between the ports of Amsterdam, Antwerp, and Rotterdam.
Chief executive of Port-Liner Ton van Meegen told The Loadstar:
“There are some 7,300 inland vessels across Europe and more than 5,000 of those are owned by entrepreneurs in Belgium and the Netherlands. We can build upwards of 500 a year, but at that rate it would take some 50 years to get the industry operating on green energy.”
The battery-powered barges – pictured above – are capable of carrying 280 containers.
The first 6 barges are expected to remove 23,000 trucks from the roads annually in the Netherlands and replace them with zero-emission transport.
Port-Liner is developing its own vessels, but they developed a battery pack technology that houses the batteries inside a container.
Meegen says that it could allow them to retrofit existing barges:
“This allows us to retrofit barges already in operation, which is a big boost for the industry’s green energy credentials.The containers are charged onshore by carbon-free energy provider Eneco, which sources solar power, windmills and renewables.”
The first vessels will complete their maiden voyage later this year. As we have often discussed in the past, all modes of transportation are gradually being converted to electric propulsion and that includes maritime transport.
It’s also an important mode of transportation to convert since it produces a lot of pollution. Some of the world’s largest cargo ships emit pollution comparable to millions of passenger cars put together.
I think it’s an exciting time on that front because we have seen several major projects like this one in the past few months. A new all-electric cargo ship with a massive 2.4 MWh battery pack in China and two massive all-electric ferries in Sweden and Denmark come to mind.
Publication date : 11/28/2018
Agriculture Is Broken; AgTech Can Fix It
Nov 28, 2018
Erik Kobayashi-Solomon Contributor
Chimneys are seen releasing vapour at the ammonia processing area at the OAO Phosagro plant in Cherepovets, Russia, on Friday, Feb. 21, 2014. OAO Phosagro, Europe's largest phosphate-fertilizer maker, is posting back-to-back weekly gains, pushing the stock above levels it traded at before the collapse of the world's biggest potash venture roiled the industry. Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/BloombergBLOOMBERG NEWS
Imagine that you need to break a $10 bill. You hand the cashier the $10 note and, rather than a $5 bill and five $1 bills, he hands back a single $1 bill.
Certainly, you would be upset. And if you couldn’t extract another $9 from the cashier on that occasion, chances are next to nil that you would ever try to get that shop to make change for you again.
Believe it or not, this transaction – where a consumer offers 10 units and receives only one unit in return – happens literally every second of the day in developed countries. It is not dollars we are exchanging, though, it is calories.
According to a research paper published in 2009, it takes 10 calories of petroleum-based energy to create a single consumable food calorie. The reason for the imbalance is twofold: production methods and distribution networks.
Regarding production methods, the synthetic fertilizers used in crop production are manufactured through the Haber-Bosch process, which relies upon a petroleum resource – natural gas – as a primary input. Natural gas is needed to manufacture the ammonia that forms a crucial building block for synthetic fertilizers.
Grains are used to feed meat animals, so in a real sense, we are feeding natural gas to our chickens, hogs, and cattle as well. Energy is also used in the irrigation, sowing, and reaping processes. Altogether, scientists estimate that it takes a little over eight calories of petroleum-based energy to “manufacture” one food calorie.
The remaining two or so energy calories necessary for us to consume a single food calorie come in the transportation process. I live in Chicago and can drive to my local supermarket to buy a tomato any time of the year – even during the dead of winter. Those winter tomatoes must be shipped in from somewhere!
This photo was taken by author during a blizzard in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago, IL. Watsonville, CA, where these tomatoes were farmed, is over 2,200 miles from the author's grocery store.ERIK KOBAYASHI-SOLOMON
As an investor, if you showed me a company whose revenue increases were tied to gradual population rise but which was paying $10 in costs to produce a profit of $1, I would show you the best short idea in the world!
Believe it or not, this is the equation on which our modern system of agriculture is based.
AgTech – an industry about which I have written before – is focused on changing this upside-down energy cost equation and rationalizing the process of producing food. It is hard for me to imagine a better area in which to invest.
While my previous AgTech article highlighted mainly American firms, the best example of the advances in this industry is not to be found in the US – the leading agricultural exporter globally – but in the Netherlands – the second largest.
According to this article in National Geographic (which contains some striking photographs and videos of Dutch farms), the Netherlands boasts only 1/270th the land mass of the U.S. located at roughly the same latitude as Saskatchewan, Canada, but exports a comparable amount of food.
Commercial glass greenhouses in Westland. Westland is a region in of the Netherlands. It lies in the western part of the country. High tech industrial production of vegetables and flowers. GETTY
One potato farmer highlighted in the Nat Geo article has reduced his water use by 90% but generates crop yields more than twice as high as the global average; his results are not atypical of the Dutch industry at large. Chemical pesticide use has dropped to nearly nothing and livestock antibiotic use has dropped by around 60%.
Fertilizer use is higher than that in the US per hectare of cultivated crop, but because Dutch farms produce so much more per hectare than American ones, the fertilizer use per food item is much lower. In addition, fertilizer use in the Netherlands has been falling since 2002, rather than rising, as in the US.
Figure 1. Source: World Bank (data), Framework Investing Analysis FRAMEWORKINVESTING.COM
These incredible efficiency improvements have come about because the Dutch government set clear policy objectives, supported by tax and development incentives, then let the free market do what it does best – develop innovative solutions. These policies have allowed the Netherlands to move beyond the technology paradigms of the last two centuries and create intellectual property and jobs suited for the present one.
While Dutch farms have already embraced a new paradigm and are moving forward to take the innovations even further, opportunities exist now in the United States as well. Over the past several weeks, I have been talking to the founders of several innovative AgTech start-ups focused on the local production and packaging of greens and vegetables.
Smart money is pouring into these types of businesses – in 2017, Plenty, a high-efficiency, IoT-enabled vertical farming start-up received a $200 million round B investment from the Softbank Vision Fund and an investment vehicle for Jeff Bezos’s billions.
Matt Barnard, co-founder and chief executive officer of Plenty Inc., speaks at the SoftBank World 2018 event in Tokyo, Japan, on Friday, July 20, 2018. SoftBank World, the company’s annual two-day event for customers and suppliers, ends Friday. Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg© 2018 BLOOMBERG FINANCE LP
If you think back to Whole Foods Markets in the early 1980s, it qualified as a niche business. Thanks to the vision of its founders and its niche status, it sported nearly a 40-year run with huge revenue growth rates and profit margins 10 times higher than that of other grocery chains. I believe vertical farming firms will experience a trajectory similar to the organic food market, though probably the uptake will be much more rapid.
Elimination of pesticide use, reduction of water wastage, greater efficiency of fertilizer use, much greater food safety and traceability, and hugely decreased petroleum product usage in transportation are all features of vertical farming that will be good for the environment and the society.
The fact that vertical farms’ cost structures mean that, for at least a few years, they will be wildly more profitable than conventional farms will be good for intelligent investors. No wonder the smart money is pouring in.
I am the Director of Training and Research at Framework Investing, a company that teaches institutional and individual investors to close the gap between their investing skills and their investing responsibilities. My expertise in valuing private and publicly-traded companies...
Inspired Greens Producing To Meet Frantic Demand For Clean, Safe, Local Lettuce
Innovative Alberta greenhouse offers lettuce grown in pristine conditions
COALDALE – A $60 million investment into the world’s most innovative greenhouse technology was based on a fundamental premise: clean means clean.
With North American retailers and consumers paying heightened attention to food safety – specifically related to romaine lettuce – Inspired Greens offers greenhouse-grown lettuce varieties grown with triple-filtrated water in a closed, environmentally safe and secure environment.
“Retailers and consumers have a heightened awareness of food safety, quality and taste,” said David Karwacki, Chief Executive Officer of The Star Group of Companies, which built the Inspired Greens greenhouses. “We invested this cutting-edge clean technology to ensure we can unequivocally deliver clean, fresh, healthy lettuce with no concerns about contamination.”
The Inspired Greens greenhouses opened in Coaldale, AB, in June 2017 and can produce up to 12 million heads annually. It is the first North American greenhouse to use this advanced technology, with plants untouched by human hands from seed to harvest. In April 2018, Inspired Greens announced plans to double its production capacity based on strong industry and consumer demand.
Inspired Greens and Inspired Leaves are available in grocery stores across Western Canada and in select markets in the western United States
Prince Edward Officially Opens New Hydroponics Unit
20th November 2018
By Lauren Jones Multimedia Reporter
A state-of-the-art hydroponics unit in Ellesmere Port has been officially opened by the Earl of Wessex.
The Bridge Community Wellness Gardens and Farm welcomed Prince Edward on Monday, November 19 to officially open the 'The Earl of Chester Hydroponics Unit.'
First of its kind in Cheshire, the new hydroponics unit will grow plants without soil by using mineral nutrient solutions in water solvent.
Plants can be grown with only their roots exposed to the solution and the farm's staff are growing fruit,vegetables and exotic micro greens for restaurants in Cheshire.
Farm and wellness gardens manager Clair Johnson said: “It was fantastic to have a visit from Prince Edward and to show him the amazing work we do here.
“The hydroponics unit is an exciting addition for us because it allows us to grow plants indoors without soil, gives us faster growth all year round and saves on water usage.
“We love to encourage our wellness clients to overcome their mental health and learning difficulties and find new skills.
"And they do every day. It’s so inspiring!”
During his visit, Prince Edward was given a tour of the farm where he met staff and volunteers working in the routing shed, the bee friendly Mandala Garden, the seeding tunnel, solar dome and polytunnel.
He also unveiled a plaque on the site marking the official Royal visit.
Chairman of Bridge Community Wellness Gardens and Farm Francis Ball said: “I’m incredibly proud of what Clair and her team of staff and volunteers have achieved here.
“Pretty well every day we are reduced to tears by the gratitude of a client, or client’s parent or carer, who gain so much benefit from spending just a few hours with us.
"It’s inspiring and it drives us on to Grow Better Lives.”
Prince Edward also paid a visit to pupils at Neston High School on Monday.
GroSouth 2018 Held on 1st November at Roundstone-Newey Nursery in Chichester Was An Important Day For Intelligent Horticultural Solutions (IHS)
It was their official launch into the fast-growing horticultural market and the first showcase of their new Florence product range. The “Ready to Grow” LED lights were the talk of the show this year. So much so, that the GroSouth judges announced the IHS to be the winner of the Award for Best Innovation 2018. Managing Director of Newey Nurseries Chris Hall presented a glass plaque and a bottle of champagne.
IGS Group Managing Director Richard Williams accepted the award on behalf of the IHS team. Richard said ‘IHS are absolutely delighted to have won the award at the premier Horticultural Show for the South and East of England’.
The IHS stand was lit up with hues of blue and red light, showing off the eight standard versions of the Florence Grow Light, all of which are designed and manufactured in the UK at the IGS Group facilities. Visitors from various Horticultural backgrounds including nurseries, universities, commercial and urban growers, were very interested in the LED lighting being exhibited.
There are currently eight different standard Florence LED recipes to choose from including “Biomass, Seeding, Flowering, and Fruiting” (available with or without supplementary lighting). There are also three different lens options per recipe – narrow, wide and oval to direct the lighting onto the correct areas. These recipes were devised in conjunction with experts from LED manufacturer Osram Opto Semiconductors, who are the market leader in the supply of quality LEDs for the horticultural lighting sector. These lights enable a longer growing season and also increase the speed of growth for plants, when under the correct recipe. LED lighting is now cost-effective, thus making it viable for both the backyard gardeners and the large commercial growers alike. Ideal markets for these grow lights include polytunnels, environmental chambers, propagators, vertical farms and indoor farms, as well as schools, universities and research institutes.
IHS has a full range of customisable PYO (pick your own) LED lighting products so that growers can develop their own LED recipes specific to their application. IHS also have controllers available to make this easier to do.
If you are interested in any of IHS products or would like to discuss your requirements with IHS, please contact Ann Kelleher or the rest of the Horticultural team on 01635 294606 or email on info@i-hled.co.uk
IHS is a LED Light for You (LLFY) Partner, who draws on world leading quality LEDs from Osram Opto Semiconductors and combine them with other quality components, materials and services to provide the LED solution you want.
IHS will be attending Workshop Iberia in Spain, hosted by LLFY on the 26th, 28th, and 30th November. Where LLFY and their partners will provide a vision of the growing market and present the latest developments in LED technologies for the horticultural field.
New Seven Storey Sustainable Residential Project Approved For Brunswick
Sustainable features include a solar PV system for power generation, rainwater harvesting, rooftop composting, vegetable gardens, electric vehicle charging stations and bicycle amenities.
A new multi-storeyed medium density residential project has been launched by Melbourne-based boutique developer Antipodean Land in Brunswick.
The sustainable project, which won approval earlier this year, will offer a total of 77 units comprising of apartments and townhouses across seven storeys.
Balfe Park Lane is designed by Kerstin Thompson Architects and sits on a 2250sqm site with a 66-metre park frontage. Located at 77-83 Nicholson Street, Brunswick, the property was acquired by Antipodean in 2016 for $7 million.
The project will offer nine townhouses and a collection of two, three and four bedroom apartments. The ground level will be allocated for retail and hospitality, along with a public laneway linking directly through to Balfe Park. A communal courtyard and rooftop garden are the other highlights of the project.
Sustainable features include a solar PV system for power generation, rainwater harvesting, rooftop composting, vegetable gardens, electric vehicle charging stations and bicycle amenities.
Elaborating on the design concept, architect Kerstin Thompson says Balfe Park was designed as an ensemble of buildings of varying shape and orientation rather than a large, singular building.
This would help achieve a stronger sense of neighbourhood. Each dwelling also benefits from windows that welcome in light, ventilation and views, Thompson added.
No Tractors Required! Britain's First 'Vertical Farm' Is About To Produce Its First Crop With The Help Of A Robot Named Frank Working In A Warehouse In Scunthorpe
And It Could Change Agriculture Forever
A 'vertical farm' in Scunthorpe has the potential to change agriculture forever
Only four human beings work at the vast warehouse, bathed in eerie pink light
It is designed to produce 500 tonnes of plants annually starting with fresh herbs
A single robot — called Frank — is responsible for gathering trays of plants
By GUY WALTERS FOR THE DAILY MAIL
PUBLISHED: 18 November 2018
Normally, November is not the month for the herb harvest in the British Isles, nor is an industrial estate in Scunthorpe the type of place you’d expect to find people gathering in crops.
Yet that is exactly what will be happening next Monday at a radically new farm — and it may just herald a sea-change in the way we grow our food.
Forget all those traditional images you have of agriculture: rolling fields, combine harvesters and lumbering tractors, even greenhouses and polytunnels.
Instead, picture something straight off a sci-fi movie set — a vast warehouse bathed in an eerie pinkish glow, filled with racks of plants stacked 40ft high and tended by a robot that glides about the floor.
It looks like a scene from a sci-fi movie. In fact, this Scunthorpe warehouse is the world’s most advanced ‘vertical farm’ — and its first harvest could change agriculture for ever
The few humans present on this farm look nothing like farmers. Instead of sporting favourite old pullovers or check shirts, they wear overalls, high-vis jackets and hairnets.
In short, this is less the Darling Buds Of May, more a laboratory from the distant future. Welcome, then, to the world’s most advanced commercial ‘vertical farm’.
It’s run by a new firm called Jones Food Company, and is designed to produce 500 tonnes of plants annually starting with coriander, basil, dill and chives to feed the growing appetite for fresh herbs all year.
The first crop was sown as recently as the middle of last month, and by next week, the initial batch will already have been harvested. Everything here is geared towards growing plants as quickly and efficiently as possible. And all without a single handful of soil.
At the heart of the operation is a technique known as hydroponics, whereby plants are grown under artificial light with their roots resting in a ‘hydroponic solution’ made up of water and essential nutrients such as potassium, calcium, nitrogen, nitrate and magnesium, instead of soil.
In the pink: Hydroponic herbs being grown under artificial light at the country's first vertical farm
During the growing process, the water is also periodically drained away ensuring the plants’ roots are able to ‘breathe in’ enough oxygen.
Almost the entire procedure is automated. A single robot — called Frank — is responsible for gathering up the trays of plants and taking them around the various parts of the farm, including the seeding and germination areas, and ultimately, the harvesting room.
In fact, only four human beings work in the vast warehouse. In order to avoid the plants being contaminated by micro-organisms that can cause diseases such as blight, they have to follow a strict handwashing procedure, after which they must don protective overalls. They then have to pass through an ‘air shower’ which blows off any remaining rogue particles.
All this is despite the fact that at no stage do any humans actually touch the plants themselves.
Pure carbon dioxide is pumped into the room, which enables the plants to absorb 50 per cent more than they would in a traditional greenhouse, causing them to grow faster than normal.
All the air that enters passes through medical-grade filters, and the pressure inside the warehouse is kept higher than the air pressure outdoors to stop insects getting in.
Rather than a brand new concept, Scunthorpe’s vertical farm is the latest step in the long-running attempt to find a way of factory farming plants indoors.
There are already a number of hydroponic farms in Britain. Thanet Earth, for example, south of Gatwick, has been operating for nearly a decade. In 2013, this facility alone produced 225 million tomatoes — around 12 per cent of the UK’s total crop.
In Clapham, South London, hydroponics and artificial lights are used to grow salad crops in former air raid shelters — an indicator of how valuable this technique could be in cities.
What makes the project in Scunthorpe so revolutionary — and so exciting — is the use of so many layers of plants and the high levels of automation which make managing them possible. The other great development from which the vertical farm has benefited has been the source of the artificial light.
At the heart of the operation is a technique known as hydroponics, whereby plants are grown under artificial light with their roots resting in a ‘hydroponic solution' made up of water and essential nutrients such as potassium, calcium, nitrogen, nitrate and magnesium, instead of soil.
Previously, sodium bulbs have been used which require enormous amounts of energy. This didn’t just negate many of the environmental benefits but also made operating the farms hugely expensive.
Back in 2010, one estimate put the electricity bill for growing the amount of wheat required for a just single loaf of bread via hydroponics at around £12.
All that has changed thanks to the widespread adoption of LED lights, which use far less power.
The farm in Scunthorpe boasts no less than 7.6 miles of LED lights, the equivalent of 38 Eiffel Towers laid end-to-end. Their pink glow illuminates a total growing surface area of 5,120 square metres — the size of 26 tennis courts.
The company’s co-founder and chief technology officer, Dr Paul Challinor, who has a doctorate in hydroponics and who did much of the testing of the lights at his own home, explains why his warehouse is lit in that eerie shade of pink.
‘The reason is because the plants grow best under red-and-blue light,’ he says, ‘although we also have white lights so that we can see what we are doing.’
The different-coloured lights have different roles to play during the plants’ life cycles. Red light helps to promote leaf coverage, whereas blue light promotes plant structure and leaf mass.
Dr Challinor says an order for his plants has already been placed by a customer who wants a ‘fresh product’, although he is tight-lipped about who it is. The plants are reputedly just as flavoursome as those grown in traditional soil, and it seems unlikely that any commercial customer would order several tonnes of herbs from the farm if they tasted bland.
Forget all those traditional images you have of agriculture (stock image)
In 1999, an American former professor of microbiology called Dickson Despommier claimed that a 30-floor skyscraper farm could one day feed 50,000 people.
By 2050 it is estimated around 86 per cent of people in the developed world will be living in cities and the world’s population is projected to have swollen from 7.7 billion today, to nearly ten billion.
Proponents of vertical farms have argued that as the food could be grown in the heart of cities, food miles — the distance it travels from traditional farms to consumers — could be all but eliminated, cutting greenhouse gas emissions and leaving us with fresher, tastier food.
The use of vertical farms also slashes the amount of land required to feed a growing population and saves us from having to use damaging pesticides and fertiliser.
Even better, because the inside of the warehouse is so closely controlled, vertical farms can grow crops all year, rather than following seasonal cycles. This also protects the crops from the frosts or droughts that can lay waste to traditional farms.
All this hinges on whether new technology has solved the problem of cheap and reliable artificial light.
It is too early to say whether the use of LEDs is, as the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board claims, a ‘seismic shift that is set to change fundamentally how we grow plants’. For his part, Dr Challinor is nothing if not ambitious. ‘We have already looked at other sites in the Midlands and the South and hope to be running a number of units,’ he says, and claims the farm is taking ‘British horticulture to another level’.
At present, it is growing herbs because of their high retail value, and plans to diversify into growing salad leaves as well as high-value plants needed by cosmetic and pharmaceutical companies (that principle at least has been proved to work: many illegal cannabis operations grow the drug using hydroponics and artificial lights).
In future, it is hoped that other crops such as wheat and barley could be grown in warehouses rather than in open fields.
If Dr Challinor can manage that, then the sky really is the limit.
45 Proven Insect Repelling Plants With Insane Benefits
by Chris
Bad bugs can be annoying and sometimes utterly disgusting. However, insect repelling plants can save you a lot of trouble having to use harsh chemicals.
These plants can be used in companion planting, households, sustainable garden, patios, and biological pest control in agribusinesses.
Check out these;
45 Proven Insect Repelling Plants
1. Citronella plant
Citronella is also called mosquito plant geranium and largely resembles the lemongrass. You’ll love and appreciate growing this plant because of its rare citrus-like scent.
Especially when you touch it.
The scent is thought to repel a variety of insects including mosquitoes. Some people believe that the plant works well when you crush and apply onto the skin.
Although not as effective in repelling mosquitoes as you would think, it surely helps in deterring adult whiteflies and won’t hurt growing it both indoors and outdoors.
If you need a safe and effective remedy against the yellow fever mosquito, sawyer premium insect repellent with 20% picaridin is a great solution.
2. Lemongrass
Lemongrass is a herb which is widely used in most Asian cuisines as well as for medicinal purpose. This plant has a strong scent that resembles that of lemons, thus the name lemongrass.
The plant contains the ability to repel some insects, such as mosquitoes and its oil is used to attract honey bees.
3. Summer savory (Satureja hortensis)
Summer savory is a fast growing plant that you can use in companion planting of beans and onions. In ancient times, summer savory used to be added to cakes and pies for a touch of spiciness.
In addition to its culinary and medicinal properties, this plant when intercropped with beans, helps protect them from the Mexican bean beetle.
4. Lemon thyme
Lemon thyme is a lemon-scented evergreen mat-forming perennial that tastes and smells like Citrus limon.
Other than its smell and taste, it looks and grows just like the English thyme. This herb isn’t only popular due to its culinary uses but for its attractive foliage as well.
Lemon thyme is a great groundcover that is effective in repelling mosquitoes and its tiny flowers attract bees like a magnet!
5. Ageratum ‘artist purple’
Ageratums belong to Asteraceae family and are among 40 to 60 tropical and warm temperate flowering annuals and perennials. You can use them as bedding plants.
These plants secret coumarin which are used popular mosquito repellent sprays. The mosquitoes loathe the smell of ageratums and as such, they are proven insect repelling plants.
6. Catnip (Nepeta cataria)
Catnip is a grey-green perennial with square stems and terminal flower spikes resembling that of the mint in Lamiaceae family.
Its essential oils are used as a fragrance in perfumes, culinary flavoring, and insect repellent.
Catnips are known to repel aphids, cockroaches, squash bugs, Colorado potato beetles, ants, and the cabbage looper.
Read: Hibiscus Plant Care: 5 Actionable Tips (Check out tip #5)
7. Artemisias
Artemisia can be shrubs, perennials, or annuals, evergreen or deciduous, with gray, aromatic, often divided foliage. This beautiful plant is useful as a spreading border for the flower bed.
Other than that, artemisia is excellent in repelling unwanted bugs such as whiteflies, false codling moth (FCM), flea beetles, cabbage looper, and carrot fly.
8. Basil
Basil is the ‘king of herbs’
It’s a versatile and widely used aromatic herb. Different species have different scents reminiscent of lemon, pineapple, cinnamon or even cloves.
Use basil to control and repel mosquitoes, whiteflies, asparagus beetle, and the carrot fly.
9. Lavender
Lavender is one the most effective insect repelling plants.
It’s a shrubby perennial grown for its flowers and fragrance, but it also serves as a landscape item for its beauty and ability to stand heat and drought.
You can grow lavenders successfully and easily in containers and they are ideal for repelling mosquitoes, flies, fleas, and moths. With lavender in your garden, you can be sure you’ll defeat those nasty pests.
10. Tansy (Tenacetum vulgare)
Tansy is a herbaceous perennial that is sometimes confused with ‘tansy ragwort (Senecio jacobea).’
The flowers are button-like, golden, and appear in flat-topped clusters. Grow tansy to help you repel flies and cutworms both in the house, patio or garden.
11. Chives
Chives are a perennial member of the onion family that sports beautiful purple flowers.
Be very careful when planting this herb, as it will take over your garden if the flowers are left to ripen (the flowers scatter the seeds)
Chives will repel aphids, carrot fly, and Japanese beetle from your garden.
12. Coriander
Coriander is a versatile herb popular in Asian cooking including curries, Chinese and Thai dishes. The leaves are called cilantro and the seeds are called coriander but sometimes these names are used interchangeably to mean the same thing.
This culinary plant can be used in the garden to repel spider mites, aphids, and Colorado potato beetle from destroying your crop.
13. Chrysanthemums
Chrysanthemums sometimes called the mums or chrysanths, are flowering plants of the genus Chrysanthemum in the family Asteraceae.
The presence of mums in the garden ensures that you keep root-knot nematodes at bay. Other bugs repelled by chrysanthemum include ants, bedbugs, lice, and fleas.
14. Dahlias
Dahlia is a genus of bushy, tuberous, herbaceous perennial plants native to Mexico. This tropical genus brings the mid–to–late–season garden a never–ending succession of flowers in glorious shades and shapes.
They are invaluable for the summer border, in patio containers or as cut flowers, often flowering until the first frosts. Dahlias are effective in killing and repelling nematodes.
15. Leeks
Leeks, known scientifically as Allium porrum, are related to garlic, onions, shallots, and scallions.
Leeks look like large scallions, having a very small bulb and a long white cylindrical stalk of superimposed layers that flows into green, tightly wrapped, flat leaves.
The edible part of the plant is a bundle of leaf sheaths that is sometimes erroneously called a stem or stalk. This plant repels most insects including the carrot fly.
16. Thyme
Thyme is a perennial herb that has a close resemblance to rosemary.
The thyme herb (Thymus vulgaris) is versatile and is frequently used for both culinary and decorative uses.
The herb is an incredible insect repellent plant responsible for repelling whiteflies, corn earworm, and tomato hornworm.
17. Tobacco
the tobacco plant is part of the genus Nicotiana and of the Solanaceae family. It’s a green, leafy plant that is grown mostly in warm climates.
This plant is known to be a leading cause of preventable illness and deaths in most parts of the world. However, there’s more to tobacco than causing chronic lung diseases.
Yes, tobacco will help you to repel beetles and carrot fly and therefore a good match for companion growing.
18. Myrrh
Myrrh is a resin, or sap-like substance, that comes from a tree called Commiphora myrrha, common in Africa or the Middle East.
It is botanically related to Frankincense, and is one of the most widely used essential oils in the world.
Myrrh and its oil offer a wealth of benefits and uses including repelling several insects.
19. Tomato
Probably the most popular vegetable/fruit in the world.
Tomato plants are vines, initially decumbent, typically growing 180 cm (6 ft) or more above the ground if supported.
They serve a large variety of companion plants such as carrots and asparagus and as such, they are very effective in controlling asparagus beetle.
20. Rosemary
Evergreen rosemary is an attractive evergreen shrub with needle-like leaves and brilliant blue flowers. The flowers of evergreen rosemary persist through spring and summer, filling the air with a nice piney fragrance.
This beautiful herb, mostly used for seasoning dishes, is also commonly used as ornamental plantings in the landscape.
Besides that, rosemary my favorite insect repelling plants. It repels mosquitoes, carrot fly, snails, common flies, and beetles.
21. Nasturtiums
Nasturtium is an easy-to-grow annual whose leaves and flowers are edible. These plants with their bright greenery and vibrant flowers are good for containers.
They are colorful, edible, butterfly-like blossoms that have delighted gardeners and cooks alike for centuries.
Snails don’t pay attention to them and they further repel aphids, beetles, and most bugs.
22. Geraniums
Geranium is a genus of 422 species of flowering annual, biennial, and perennial plants that are commonly known as the cranesbills.
They make popular bedding plants in the garden, but they’re also commonly grown indoors or outside in hanging baskets. They double by efficiently keeping leafhoppers at bay.
23. Stone root (Collinsonia canadensis)
Stone root is a flowering perennial medicinal herb in the mint family. The plant is notable for its unmistaken lemony scent that does an excellent job in deterring mosquitoes.
24. Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)
Lettuce is an annual plant of the daisy family, Asteraceae. It is most often grown as a leaf vegetable, but sometimes for its stem and seeds.
This is one of the insect repelling plants with a high success rate in controlling carrot fly.
25. Rue (Ruta graveolens)
Rue, a hardy, evergreen, somewhat shrubby plant, is a native of Southern Europe.
Fresh rue herb has been used in magic rituals since antiquity. Actually, it’s one of the oldest and garden plants cultivated for its medicinal use
The rue is also valued simply because of its ability to ward off toxins and pests including cucumber beetles.
26. Spiny Amaranth (Amaranthus spinosus)
Also known as spiny amaranth, is one of the most common weeds. It’s a summer annual that is very similar in appearance to other pigweeds but has spines along the stems.
Spiny amaranth is an ideal bug repellent plant especially in controlling cutworms.
27. Four o’clock plant (Mirabilis jalapa)
The four o’clock plant is an annual or tuberous perennial, with paired, ovate leaves and trumpet-shaped flowers in clusters in the leaf axils.
It is the most commonly grown ornamental species of Mirabilis plant and is highly fragrant, in a range of colors, the four o’clock plant sports attractive flowers that attract butterflies, bees, and hummingbirds.
This amazing plant attracts and poisons beetles making it a good push-pull companion plant.
28. Spearmint
Spearmint herb or garden mint or common mint has long been reputed for its characteristic aroma it imparts to the recipes it added to.
Spearmint is pleasantly aromatic herb, packed with numerous health benefiting vitamins, antioxidants, and phytonutrients.
It repels moths, ants, aphids, and several other bugs.
29. Borage
Borage also known as a starflower is an annual herb in the flowering plant family Boraginaceae.
It has a beneficial effect on the heart, adrenal glands, kidneys and the entire digestive system when consumed. It has been used as a cure for jaundice.
That’s not all, it repels cabbage worms and tomato hornworm from your yard.
30. Chamomile
Chamomile or camomile is the common name for several daisy-like plants of the family Asteraceae that are commonly used to make herb infusions.
This edible plant can repel most flying insects.
31. Dill
Dill is a unique plant in that both its leaves and seeds are used as a seasoning.
Dill’s green leaves are wispy and fernlike and have a soft, sweet taste.
Dried dill seeds are light brown in color and oval in shape, featuring one flat side and one convex ridged side. It’s responsible for repelling spider mites, aphids, cabbage looper, and Squash bugs.
32. Onion
Onions are a cold-season crop, easy to grow because of their hardiness. They are also among the most popular culinary in most cuisines.
Apart from that, they help in deterring cabbage looper.
33. Oregano
Oregano, a herb with a robust scent and flavor, loves to grow in pots where it can spill over an edge of a pot or low wall.
Repels several pests.
34. Garlic
Garlic, is a species in the onion genus, Allium. They are easy to grow and produces numerous bulbs after a long growing season.
Garlic repels peach tree borer and Mexican bean beetle.
35. Clovers
Clover or trefoil are common names for plants of the genus Trifolium consisting of about 300 species of plants in the leguminous pea family Fabaceae.
The white clover plant extends itself by sending out root-like stolons at ground level, thus the legume spreads over time to cover and protect more soil from erosion.
It also repels aphids in the fields.
36. Petunias
Petunias are one of the most popular flowers, often grown as annuals. Grandiflora petunias have very large flowers and are best grown in containers or hanging baskets (because they are more susceptible to rain damage).
They are among the best insect repelling plants, dealing with squash bugs, aphids, asparagus beetle, leafhoppers, and tomato hornworm.
37. Parsley (Petroselinum crispum)
Parsley or also called garden parsley is a species of Petroselinum in Apiaceae family. Parsley is a lush plant growing up to a foot high in a beautiful rosette of green foliage.
Closely resembles the dill and is used to repel asparagus beetle.
38. Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
Fennel is a flowering plant species in the carrot family. It is a hardy, perennial herb with yellow flowers and feathery leaves.
Repels aphids and snails.
39. Common lantana
Lantana is a genus of about 150 species of perennial flowering plants in the verbena family.
It has been grown for years as an ornamental plant and is very effective in repelling mosquitoes.
40. French marigold
Marigolds have been a garden staple for decades. If you need a shorter variety, French marigolds are an option. They are colorful and aromatic.
These beauties also kill nematodes and repel whiteflies.
41. Mexican Marigold (Tagetes lucida)
Mexican tarragon/marigold grows all spring and summer before it produces many yellow, single marigold-like blossoms.
They grow very large and ungainly but are good in repelling most insects including thrips as well as aphids from rose gardens.
42. Peppermint
Peppermint is a hybrid mint, a cross between water mint and spearmint.
Peppermint is an old favorite for herb gardening. A delicious culinary herb, they are known to have a scent that is one of the strongest triggers of memory.
Companion planting with peppermint will discourage the cabbage butterfly, aphids, beetles, bugs, and whiteflies.
43. Eucalyptus
Eucalyptus is an attractive evergreen tree grown mainly for its foliage and peeling bark. These trees can grow quite large if left unpruned. Effective repellent of Colorado potato beetles and aphids.
44. Pitcher plants
Botanically referred to as, Sarracenia purpurea, and commonly known as the purple pitcher plant, northern pitcher plant, or side-saddle flower, is a carnivorous plant that traps and ingest most insects.
45. Larkspurs
Delphinium is a genus of about 300 species of perennial flowering plants in the family Ranunculaceae.
The common name”larkspur” is shared between perennial Delphinium species and annual species of the genus Consolida. This plant repels aphids.
However, take great care since this plant is poisonous to humans and livestock.
Conclusion
There you have it,
A whooping 45 proven insect repelling plants to keep all those nasty nagging bugs away. Select a few, grow them, and watch as pest disappear through the thin air.
As always, what are your thoughts?
The Salvation Army Teaches Children How To Grow Indoors
Mark Lindberg, social enterprise ministry specialist at Salvation Army
Photo: Patrick Williams
With help from CropKing, the organization offers educational programs for at-risk youth at its Fresh Face Farm in Akron, Ohio.
November 15, 2018
GIE Media Horticulture Group
Children in and around Akron, Ohio, could help develop systems that could one day be used to grow food on Mars, upload blueprints for “food computers” and grow produce for wholesale and food pantries.
It’s all part of the studies they’re undertaking with the Salvation Army Summit County Area Services (SCAS), which opened Fresh Face Farm, an indoor growing facility, at its Akron Fort Romig location in January 2018.
The indoor farm provides the children learning opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM), culinary arts and other subjects, says Major Kevin Jackson, SCAS coordinator. Jackson says about 90 percent of these students are “at-risk,” which the Journal of General Internal Medicine defines as populations that may have low literacy rates, be economically disadvantaged, face abuse or persecution, or experience other issues. SCAS has partnered with Akron Public Schools (although participation at the farm isn’t limited to children in the district), the University of Akron, NASA and MIT. CropKing provided automated hydroponics systems, sole-source lights and other materials.
“The kids are pretty much involved in every aspect,” Jackson says. “Technology is what drives their world, so the CropKing system was perfect for us in terms of the computer and the sensors, and the automation that came with it.”
The students range in age from 18 months to 18 years, Jackson says. Younger students start out learning about aquaponics and ebb-and-flow systems — which take up about 6,000 square feet of the 18,000-square-foot Fort Romig warehouse. Once the students reach about first or second grade, they begin working in a walled-off 7,000-square-foot commercial grow room in the warehouse that The Salvation Army has outfitted with CropKing’s nutrient film technique (NFT) and Bato bucket hydroponic systems.
In the grow room, lettuce and leafy greens flourish under LEDs, while tomatoes prosper under high-pressure sodium (HPS) lights. Mark Lindberg, social enterprise ministry specialist and the operation’s only full-time employee, says the lights run from about 5 p.m. — after the students have gone home — until the early morning hours. Fresh Face Farms sells most of its produce wholesale, but it sends some to food pantries or home with students.
Basil growing in NFT systems under LED lights at Fresh Face Farm
Photo: Patrick Williams
The idea behind Fresh Face Farms began when Jackson, who has been involved with The Salvation Army his whole life, was given an assignment: to come up with a model to break intergenerational poverty. At the time, he was working throughout the western United States, and he tried growing outdoors in Montana. After weeks of 60-degree temperatures, he planted his crops, then in early June, six inches of snow fell. His wife, Linda, who is now also SCAS coordinator, suggested they try a new approach to farming.
After transferring to Akron, Jackson says he ran an online search for a possible equipment supplier and found CropKing in nearby Lodi, which he calls “sheer luck.” He applauds CropKing’s customer service and expertise, calling the business “not just a vendor.” “You know what's amazing to me?” he asks. “Every once in a while, they’ll just be driving by, and they’ll just stop by [and say] ‘Hey, how's it going? Can we take a look around?’”
Lindberg says he has had similar experiences interacting with CropKing. “Paul calls me on my cell phone,” he says. “It’s like, ‘Hey, Mark, I'm going over that way. You going to be there tomorrow?’ ‘Sure!’”
Growing up in Ashland County — a mostly rural area in Ohio — Lindberg says his parents had a garden, and he was interested in horticulture from a young age. He went on to work in facilities management, but after more than a decade with The Salvation Army, the opportunity presented itself for him to work at Fresh Face Farms. In preparation, he took CropKing’s Grower Workshop to familiarize himself with controlled environment agriculture (CEA).
Lindberg has passed some of the information he learned in the workshop onto the students at Fresh Face Farms. One lesson included how to adjust the alkalinity of water to get it to a desired pH range. On a related note, but one not taken straight from his CropKing Grower Workbook, Lindberg also had students guess the pH of orange juice and milk and then assess the pH of those liquids. “That’s one of the things I love, is this is all hands-on [education],” he says. “This is not just show and tell, but it's experiencing.”
The technology and the hands-on education come together to form a learning experience that shows promising results for inspiring children to explore new avenues of interest and excel in their lives and careers, Jackson says. Some of his former students out west have even gone on to study growing in hopes of making it a career. “When you say, ‘Salvation Army,’ it’s just not what you’re thinking,” he says. “That’s The Salvation Army of the future.”
LEDs HPS Lighting Hydroponics Tomato Indoor agriculture Food nutritionLocal food Education Food security CEA Dutch buckets
Parisian Supermarket Becomes Self-Sufficient With indoor Herb-Farm
We've showed you before that the French like their veggies to be grown nearby. The French supermarket Metro has taken this even further and is now growing herbs in their own supermarket. Chives, basil, coriander, mint, dill and parsley are being grown at the moment in this Parisian Metro store. The products are offered to the hospitality clients.
More than 50 farms
The herb farm is created by Infarm, a German company that is operating more than 50 farms across Berlin in supermarket aisles, restaurant kitchens, and distribution warehouses. Infarm is headquartered in the German capital and was founded in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and brothers Erez and Guy Galonska. Amongst other projects, they have integrated in-store farming into EDEKA and METRO locations, two of Germany’s largest food retailers, where it grows dozens of herbs and leafy greens.
The Parisian farm is the biggest one in a supermarket so far. "Many before have tried to solve the deficiencies in the current supply chain, we wanted to redesign the entire chain from start to finish", the company explains. "Instead of building large-scale farms outside of the city, optimising on a specific yield and then distributing the produce, we decided it would be more effective to distribute the farms themselves and farm directly where people live and eat," explains Erez Galonska, co-founder and CEO of Infarm, in a statement.
A single 2 sqm farm has an output of up to 1,200 plants per month. The 80 square metre “vertical farm” will produce approximately 4 tonnes of premium quality herbs, leafy greens, and microgreens annually, and that means Metro will become completely self-sufficient in its herb production with its own in-store farm.
Each farm is a controlled ecosystem with growing recipes that tailor light, temperature, pH, and nutrients to ensure the maximum natural expression of each plant. Each farm acts as a data pipeline, sending information on plant growth to the Infarm platform 24/7 allowing it to learn, adjust, and optimise.
Expansion
Infarm will launch operations in London, Copenhagen, and other German cities later this year and has set a goal to expand to 1,000 farms in Europe. Expansion to the US is on their list as well, especially after a $25M investment round earlier this year.
Publication date : 11/23/2018
New Hydroponics Project Lets Students Learn As Crops Grow
By Kathy Brown, Gillette News Record (via Wyoming News Exchange)
Gage Terrell prepares to harvest lettuce from a hydroponic plant holder in the hydroponics room at Lakeview Learning Center. Rhianna Gelhart, Gillette News Record
GILLETTE — The Adventurarium in Gillette is growing plants and feeding many of its animals through a new hydroponics room.
The Campbell County School District’s science center is open throughout the school year for Family Science Nights and serves students ranging from pre-school through sixth grade. The new hydroponics room with lights, a top-drip vertical wall system and a floating deep water culture system (now growing tomato plants) are featured in the hydroponics room.
There, Gage Terrell, 17, a senior at Thunder Basin High School, tests the systems for pH levels, harvests the lettuce and herbs growing in the top-drip system and helps science center director Jodi Crago-Wyllie keep up with the planting, harvesting and production from the hydroponics.
It’s Terrell’s second year as a mentor student at the science center. Each morning he feeds the plants and checks their pH levels. He’s become a right-hand man for Crago-Wyllie, who also serves as the elementary level science facilitator for the district.
It is an affordable hydroponics system that uses PVC pipe, painted used aquariums and similar inexpensive parts that grow plants year-round.
The science center staff, including Crago-Wyllie and Terrell, are learning as they grow.
“You really have to be on top of it,” Crago-Wyllie said. “It’s kind of like a pet.”
Everything in the room is grown without soil, she said. Material to start the seedlings is similar to carpet or compost material. Those are then planted in the vertical wall.
“We don’t bring in any plants with soil on the roots,” Crago-Wyllie said, adding that soil can transfer diseases or bugs.
Each week, Terrell and Crago-Wyllie harvest the lettuce and herbs and replant. The system uses overhead lights that can be raised or lowered with another track of lights aimed at the wall system, which can be moved closer or further away from the plants as needed.
That’s where they are continuing some experimentation, along with growing herbs ranging from oregano to parsley. Crago-Wyllie said she hopes to plant some peppers in the deep water system once she has harvested the tomatoes, which are showing dramatic growth each week.
She’ll also have to see how to add stakes to help support the tomato plants, she said.
“It’s become such a big thing now,” Crago-Wyllie said of hydroponics. “So many kids don’t know where their food comes from.”
The hydroponics room is a way to show them. There are three types of lettuce being grown in the eight vertical rows of plants in the top drip system. The room is kept at between 70 to 81 degrees and a fan helps circulate air.
“It’s cool,” Terrell said. “You can see how food is grown and we can feed it to the animals who eat it." (Terrell’s) parents don’t garden, but his grandmother does. And he’d like to show her how this hydroponics room works.
Terrell’s favorite? The tomatoes, he said. “I like these because you can see them grow every day.”
The plants doubled in growth over the past three-day weekend. It won’t be long before he is raising the lights or adding stakes to the aquariums and lightweight, floating rocks (similar to lava).
“I think it’s something we can do in my house,” Terrell said about building his own hydroponic garden.
Among the herbs growing at the science center is cilantro, he said, adding that “hopefully we can make some salsa.”
It is a class Terrell said he loves.
“It’s cool to do different things. I do something different every day,” he said. “I like it in here. It’s like a science experiment.”
Terrell remembers coming to the science center and Adventurarium as a younger student in Campbell County.
“I thought of it as a museum of sorts. If I’d known, I’d have come every day,” he said of the Adventurarium, which each elementary school class visits at least once a year.
The class works well with what he hopes to do in the future. “I thought about being a teacher. A science teacher would be fun,” he said.
He plans to start at Gillette College, attend two years there, then move on to the University of Wyoming, Terrell said.
He repainted the aquariums black to start the deep water culture system. The air pumps from those former fish tanks are very responsive, Crago-Wyllie said.
The baskets they found to hold the rocks and the tomato plants fit perfectly and cost about $10, she said. Overall, the two systems in the room cost about $1,500 and will grow plants year-round.
A daily dose of nutrients helps the plants grow better and faster under the lights, she said. If the plants are less acidic, they absorb more nutrients, which means quicker growth.
“It sounds easy, but you have to keep up with it,” Crago-Wyllie said. “It’s so fun and so much different than I imagined.”
Terrell grows the lettuce to feed the animals in the science center, including his favorite, Cedric, a parrot. He also will sing to the animals when he feeds them.
“Cedric loves him. He loves Gage and he doesn’t love anyone,” Crago-Wyllie said of the formerly abused parrot.
The idea of building a hydroponic garden came to Crago-Wyllie a year ago. Now both she and Terrell are learning as they go.
“Yeah, I still don’t really know how that works,” Terrell said.
“You have to be a bit of everything,” Crago-Wyllie said. “A chemist ... and more, not just a gardener.”
With that, she and Terrell added a new row of lettuce to try Tuesday, including Caesar, Simpson and butter crunch.
Robots, Hydroponics, 'Hands In The Dirt': A Look At Who — Or What — Will Feed Us In The Future
Play
November 19, 2018
This is the first in our series "Lab to Table: The Future of Our Food" exploring the future of food. Stories will publish every Monday from now until Dec. 17. In the spring, the series will continue with another week of stories.
Lettuce grows vertically in a controlled environment using LED lights and a hydroponic growth system in the Freight Farm Leafy Green Machine. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
When you picture a dinner plate 20 or 30 years from now, what do you see? Lab-grown meat? Gene-edited crops? Superfoods? Or, something like Soylent?
Will fresh produce be part of that imagined future, or could agriculture end up forgotten, like in the movie "WALL-E" where a human character in 2805 thinks farmers once grew crops of pizza in the ground?
That scenario might not seem like science fiction if you consider the growing body of research on the threats of climate change. A recent U.N. report predicts temperature increases will cause extreme flooding, fires and drought that would impair our global food systems. Innovators across the food industry, including here in Massachusetts, are working hard on high and low tech solutions for feeding the planet.
Robot Farming
“We are building robots that care for crops and harvest their fruits,” Joshua Lessing, founder of Root AI, explains as he buzzes us through a set of doors at Greentown Labs in Somerville. It’s a “clean tech” incubator — the largest in the U.S. — that supports entrepreneurs focused on solving environmental problems.
“People are predicting CO2 levels are going to rise faster than we ever thought, ice melt is going to happen faster than we ever imagined,” Lessing says, echoing studies and conversations happening across the food industry. “The needs for food are larger than we ever conceived.”
There will be a lot of mouths to feed in the future. The world’s population is expected to reach 9.8 billion by 2050.
“I think a lot about what we can do here in Boston with all the talent we have,” Lessing says, “looking outward into the world: 'Are these problems that I myself can sit in my lab and fix?' ”
He hopes so, and he thinks his robots can help.
Lessing shows me a video of a Root AI prototype “bot” in action. It’s a buzzing, mobile, white metal box with a 3D-mapping camera and a unique arm. It’s got a gripper designed to delicately pluck fruits and veggies — like cherry tomatoes and strawberries — off vines without damaging their delicate flesh. The bot’s robust artificial intelligence can collect and analyze crop data to determine ripeness and reduce waste.
“Its nutrition, its disease, its yield forecasting, its harvesting,” he says. “Instead of having artificial intelligence figure out if there's an adorable cat in your friend's photo, it can see food that you want to eat.”
Lessing foresees robots like his working 24/7 — year-round — rolling along tracks in huge, indoor farms made of glass and polycarbonate. He points to vast greenhouse complexes in the Netherlands as models for the future. Dutch innovators have been wildly successful in carrying forward that country’s commitment to increasing agricultural production with advanced, sustainable growing systems.
Co-founder and CEO of Root AI Joshua Lessing holds his robot’s gripper. (Andrea Shea/WBUR)
Indoor farms are scattered throughout Canada and the U.S., too. Lessing thinks all metro areas should have versions of them.
They're climate-controlled and impervious to weather, AI would make them smarter, and they’d supply regional distribution centers that he says would help reduce CO2 emissions on a massive scale.
But talk of robots raises the inevitable question: Will robots replace humans?
Lessing says no, they'll help alleviate agricultural labor shortages. He cites the worker crisis California farms have been experiencing because of immigration policy. Lessing’s robots have been tested in that state, and he says Root AI will deploy its first wave of full-time AI workers next year.
It’s not the only Boston-area company bringing high tech to farming.
Hydroponic Farming
Two Freight Farms Leafy Green Machines sit stacked in a parking lot near their headquarters in the South End of Boston. (Jesse/CostaWBUR)
As you drive on Route 93 adjacent to Boston's South End you can spot two white and green shipping containers in a parking lot, one stacked on the other. The top box has the words, “THIS IS A FARM,” in capital letters painted on its exterior. Brad McNamara, CEO of Freight Farms, acknowledges it makes a novel, 40-foot-long billboard for his South End operation.
As he pulls open the door we are met with a chilly blast of ventilated air.
“This is a Leafy Green Machine,” McNamara says, “you step through the door and all of a sudden you smell it, you feel it, you taste it — you're in a farm growing acres’ worth of produce.”
The hydroponic farm is filled with rows of vertical columns packed with vibrant, edible greens – kale, arugula, Swiss chard. McNamara and his partner launched Freight Farms in 2010 to connect more people with farming on a micro-level, year-round.
“What we saw was an opportunity to allow more people to grow food locally, and reinvent or recreate the food system for the future,” McNamara recalls.
Everything can be managed within the turn-key farm’s four walls — from seeding to harvesting to feeding.
Leafy greens grow vertically in a controlled environment using LED lights and a hydroponic system in the Freight Farm Leafy Green Machine. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Containers of colorful, liquid nutrients flow through tubes to plants growing in polymer mesh, not soil. Energy-efficient LED light strips hang from the ceiling and water is recirculated through a drip irrigation system that can feed up to 5,000 plants with less than 5 gallons of water a day.
And there are growing “recipes” that Freight Farms COO Jon Friedman says can be custom-designed to perfection.
“Say you wanted a more purple color in your lettuce, you would have the blue lights on for longer. If you wanted them to grow faster you might put the red lights on for longer,” he says. “There's a lot of tuning you can do to get a desired effect.”
Then Friedman opens an app on his phone called “farmhand.” It controls the system remotely.
“Right away you'll see cameras that are placed in certain spots of the farm,” he points out. “So if you wanted to just see a quick view of how the lettuce is doing you could just pop in and see, ‘Do I need to transplant today or could I wait ‘til tomorrow?' ”
The "farmhand" app allows farmers to monitor and manage their farm from their phone. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
So you could monitor crops from, say, the couch on a snowy day. With the app, farmers — be they citizens or professionals — can adjust settings and crunch data. It even offers a Spotify playlist with nature sounds and stimulating music.
The founders say their mission is to educate and get people excited about farming. But it’s also to help small, commercial farmers evolve into the future by adding hydroponic greens to their existing soil-based operations — like Karma Farms did in Maryland.
More than 210 Leafy Green Machines can be found around the world in 14 countries — in places like a farm in Guam that sells its greens to a couple of Wendy’s on the island; a pioneering urban farm in Brooklyn; Google’s campus in California; and at schools in Boston, Salem and elsewhere in Massachusetts. And this year, the company launched a program called "Grown By Freight Farms" that even adds a farmer to help with daily maintenance 20 hours a week.
Watercress seedlings sprout beneath LED lights inside the Leafy Green Machine. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
The cost of the shipping containers, like other farming equipment, is tax-deductible, but you’d need about $85,000 to buy one. Even so, Friedman sees a future where every workplace, urban neighborhood and farm could have one.
“In our earlier phase of agriculture, as a society, we built everything around it, but now we've gotten so distant from it at the same time,” he muses. “It’s going to be interesting to see how technology helps bring it closer to us and make that more of our experience.”
But technology is only part of the solution for Jennifer Hashley.
“To what end are we going to have all this great technology if we don't have people that can afford to start these businesses?” she asks.
Soil Farming
Jennifer Hashley, director of the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, grabs a handful of peppers for farm share orders in Lowell. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Hashley runs the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project at Tufts University where future farmers learn all aspects of the business of local agriculture.
“We still need people to have their hands in the dirt," she says. "As much as we want to rely on technology for advances in productivity and knowledge and data and efficiencies and to save labor — all those things are wonderful — but we're still going to need people to understand natural ecosystems."
Standing in a warehouse on the outskirts of Lowell, some of the students in the program, alongside volunteers, box up all kinds of fresh veggies, from carrots to jalapeños. They were grown on incubator farms the students manage. Some are for CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture farm shares) and others are being packed to go to homes for the elderly and other partner institutions.
Daniela Marzuca, left, and Dalia Rosas of Whitemars Farm in Dracut weigh 1 lb bags of carrots at the New Entry Sustainable Farming Project in Lowell. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
The 20-year-old New Entry program teaches students — many of them immigrants — about the realities of a career in sustainable farming. They also learn about soil management and being stewards of the earth’s fragile ecosystem.
Hashley says there's a long list of barriers to getting into farming – everything from high estate taxes that prevent farming families from passing down land, to over-development, to a lack of agricultural policy. She points to the stat that about 1 percent of workers in the U.S. are involved in agriculture. Hashley believes people have lost reverence for where our food comes from.
New Entry student Jorge Marzuca feels farming is one of the noblest professions.
“We think the future of farming is small farms, CSAs,” he says, adding that farmers should diversify their crops and rotate their fields.
As Marzuca sorts and weighs peppers, he explains that he and his wife, Daniela, moved to the U.S. from Mexico where they worked on a 200-acre broccoli farm.
“Mexican farmers are used to just doing one crop,” he says, speaking of the practice that’s known as monoculture. “You stick with broccoli, you stick with strawberries. And now we're seeing the side effects of that. More erosion, less products and you have to put more fertilizer in.”
Jorge Marzuca is eligible to lease land on a training farm in Dracut through the New Entry program. (Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Now Marzuca wants to farm differently by growing a wide variety of crops and selling them locally and directly to people in his community. This, he says, will help open more people’s eyes to the benefits of sustainable agriculture. Still, the 34-year-old farmer sees tech in his future.
“We have to combine and find the balance between labor and technology because a lot of people need jobs,” Marzuca says, “but we also need technology to be better farmers.”
Industrial agriculture is one of the world's largest polluters. Everyone interviewed for this story agrees: The more sustainable farming there is — in fields, shipping containers, greenhouses, backyards and even on balconies — the better off we, and the planet, will be.
(Jesse Costa/WBUR)
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the number of Leafy Green Machines that exist in the world. The story has been updated. We regret the error.
This segment aired on November 20, 2018.
Andrea Shea Senior Arts Reporter
Andrea Shea is WBUR's arts reporter.
Romaine Is Back, With High Price And Liability Issues
BY TIM LINDEN | NOVEMBER 28, 2018
With the Nov. 26 Food & Drug Administration advisory recommending consumers can feel safe eating Romaine lettuce grown from districts where there was no production when a spate of E. coli illnesses arose in October, grower-shippers were again in their fields this week harvesting the crop, labeling its point of origin and sending it to market.
The return of Romaine in the marketplace after a week-long, FDA-advised hiatus was met with high prices and liability issues surrounding the destruction of hundreds of thousands of pounds of the lettuce variety during that week.
Along with the FDA advisory recommending specific labeling actions be taken throughout the supply chain, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Perishable Agricultural Committees Act division circulated information outlining what party is liable when product is “unmerchantable” because of a consumer advisory.
With regard to the return to production, Mark McBride of Coastline Family Farm, headquartered in Salinas, CA, told The Produce News Nov. 27 that his firm began harvesting new Romaine lettuce fields in the Imperial Valley of California that morning. He emphasized that they were new fields and the first production of the season from that district. Like many grower-shippers, McBride said Coastline typically has very light production during Thanksgiving week, so it had no need to disc any fields during the halt of harvest. He said production from Salinas had ended prior to the initial FDA advisory on Nov. 20 and production had not yet begun in the Imperial Valley.
McBride said the Romaine market price was in flux this week as production was starting to deliberately move toward its destination. He indicated that there was a wide range in pricing with the expectation that the price would be adjusted after the marketplace has an opportunity to react.
McBride did say that even prior to the Nov. 20 advisory, it appeared that Romaine -- and many of the other lettuces and leafy greens -- would fetch a strong market price this winter as many growers reported a reduction in winter plantings because of the poor markets that have prevailed for most of the last 12 months.
On the other side of the country, Florida growers were also getting ready to harvest their Romaine after sitting out the last week because of the advisory. Robby Carter of Hugh H. Branch Inc. in South Bay, FL, also spoke with The Produce News Nov. 27 and said by Thursday (Nov. 29) the company would begin filling Romaine orders.
“By late in the weekend or early next week, there should be Romaine lettuce up Boston, New York and Philly,” he said.
Carter said it was especially bothersome to Florida farmers that they were lumped in with others when the initial FDA advisory recommended that consumers not eat Romaine regardless of its point of origin.
“It was a tough situation for Florida growers,” said Carter. “All Romaine growers were collectively grouped together even though none of us [in Florida] had any product during the time in question. That’s a shame. It is important now that they figure out the source of concern and announce that. I understand they are pretty close to doing so.”
He agreed that the market price was unsettled but anticipated a very strong market once the romaine begins to flow. “I heard some California shippers were quoting $35-$40 this morning,” he said.
He also noted that all the lettuces were receving a bump as retailers and foodservice operators look for alternatives. “I heard some Iceberg lettuce up in the Northeast sold for $60 to $70 [per carton] last week. That’s amazing.”
McBride of Coastline said that on Nov. 27, Iceberg lettuce from California and Arizona had a price tag of $44 to $48 f.o.b., while the leafy greens were in the low $40s and spinach was in the high $20s. But the veteran California vegetable salesman said he was unwilling to predict where the market will go.
“We are in unchartered territory given the advisory, the new labeling requirements and the fact that we are in transition,” said McBride. “This is an unprecedented situation for the lettuce industry.”
Liability questions
As grower-shippers tried to fill the pipeline, there was also many questions about who was liable for the Romaine that was destroyed because of the FDA advisory that effectively saw virtually all product pulled from the shelves two days before Thanksgiving.
Western Growers Association, based in Irvine, CA, reported that it had received “many calls from shipper on sales contract implications, rights, responsibilities and payment of fulfilled shipments.”
WGA Senior Executive Vice President Matt McInerney said several fundamental areas need to be reviewed and assessed as the parties of a contract work through their own agreement and determine a just outcome.
The PACA has weighed in on this in the past and does have guidelines to follow. Basically, the question of liability depends on terms of sale and the disposition of the load when the advisory was issued making the product “unmerchantable.”
Though each situation can have its own nuances, the most important element is when risk of financial loss shifts from the seller to the buyer. If the product is sold but still has not left the shipper’s warehouse, the liability belongs to the shipper. If it has arrived at the buyer’s location and been accepted, the buyer assumes the risk. If it is in transit, the situation turns on the terms of sale. A “delivered” sale is still in the control of the seller, who still has the risk. An f.o.b. sale is in the control of the buyer, who consequently assumes the risk.
WGA relayed this information to its members, but McInerney cautioned that these simplified set of facts do not articulate every imaginable circumstance and noted that “outcomes will depend on your individual set of facts.”
Western Growers Insurance Services, which is the insurance division of the association, offers so-called “recall insurance” from outside insurance companies to its members. WGIS Senior Vice President Jeff Gullickson said each policy is customized so it is impossible to deliver a blanket statement as to the scope of any shipper’s coverage and how it may work in this situation.
However, Gullickson said that while the policies being written recently are much better than previous iterations and offer broader coverage than those in the past, “what’s available [from insurance companies] is still not where we want it to be. They are better than they were a year and half ago [when WGIS launched the new program], but we expect them to continue to evolve.”
In general, he said these lost product policies do not exist that will make everyone whole. He called this situation “a devastating event for the industry” but hoped it would lead to solutions and better offerings by insurance companies who learn by these situations and can better assess risk and develop policies to cover those risks.
Two Out of The Three Board Members of The Association For Vertical Farming Have Resigned
November 11, 2018
Tom Zoellner and Penny McBride, two out of the three members of the Board of Directors for the Association for Vertical Farming (AVF), have resigned with immediate effect. This leaves Christine Zimmermann-Loessl the single remaining member of the Board of Directors.
The decision to step down has not been taken lightly and is based on irreconcilable differences within the AVF Board regarding financial management, accountability and managing conflicts of interest. After a long and intense period of internal discussion and concerted attempts to resolve the differences in a constructive manner, no meaningful progress has been achieved. As a consequence, Zoellner and McBride cannot fulfil their duties and responsibilities as members of the Board of Directors anymore.
“It is unfortunate, in an organization like the AVF that could be the choice for the growing indoor farming industry, that conflicts of interests and inadequate transparency risks important partnership with the business community and public funding agencies”, Zoellner says. In 2017, the newly elected Board of Directors was tasked to professionalize the organization.
Among other steps, Zoellner and McBride attempted to implement an improved financial reporting and control system, to obtain basic insight into the association’s financials and to resolve concerns over allocation of membership fees. Despite their efforts and being in the majority, no agreement could be reached by the Board.
Zoellner reports, “Regrettably, it has not been possible to implement simple yet important improvements required to professionalize the association. We would like to apologize to all AVF members for this, as this was the agenda that members had been defined for the Board to execute.”
Concerns about the way of working within the AVF have not gone unnoticed. The organization has suffered from a steady erosion of membership over the past years and many more AVF members have terminated their membership recently. McBride adds: “We have done everything we could think of, but could not achieve the progress that is needed within the current organizational structure. Sadly, making it impossible for us to do our jobs according to the statutes.”
Zoellner and McBride see that the indoor farming industry has moved on already and are now considering different venues to serve the industry going forward. They look forward to engage in the continuing value proposition with constructive and transparent ways of working
For further information:
Tom Zoellner, tzollner@gmail.com, +41 79 361 75 20
Penny McBride, pennymori@gmail.com, +1 (307) 413-6797
Hydroponically-Grown Romaine Lettuce Is Safe
A note from Circle A Lettuce
Hydroponically-grown lettuce is safe for consumption.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
The recent reportings nationwide of contaminated romaine lettuce is something to take very serious and should you have any store-bought romaine lettuce, please do heed caution and do not consume regardless of suspicions that it could be ok. This sickness is very severe and can even be fatal.
Although, lettuce grown hydroponically is SAFE. The factors we employ to grow our lettuce virtually eliminate the risk of E.coli contamination. So much so that we even encourage you to not even rinse or wash our lettuces.
We take pride and extreme caution in our lettuce-handling practices and we do this for our consumers. We attempt every day to grow the healthiest and safest product we can. It's part of our mission statement.
Thank you for your continued support and faith in our high-standard in growing the best lettuce, EVER !!
Urban Crop Solutions Presents Its Technology To The Belgian King Filip And the French President Macron
The French president Emmanuel Macron and his wife are making a two-day state visit to Belgium (Europe) on November 19th and 20th .
The delegation visits different cities at the invitation of the Belgian King Filip and Queen Mathilde. In addition to the protocol ceremonies, solemn receptions and the state banquet, there was also an important economic part on this two-day state visit. Urban Crop Solutions was selected to present itself as a Belgian high potential innovative company in the category 'eco technology'. The royal and presidential delegation focused mainly on the past realisations, the technology and target markets of Urban Crop Solutions in the world.
On Monday 19 November 2018, 8 entrepreneurs from 4 leading Belgian companies and 4 promising technology companies were given the opportunity to present their high tech innovations during the state visit of the French president Macron to the city of Ghent. The presentation and the Q&A session was attended by the French President Emmanuel Macron, King Philip of Belgium, the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and the minister-president of Flanders Geert Bourgeois. All selected companies’ mission contributes to 1 of 4 themes: circular economy, financial technology, nanotechnology & artificial intelligence and eco technology.
Urban Crop Solutions was selected alongside with Sioen Industries in the 'eco technology' category. As a specialist in indoor vertical agriculture solutions, this was an excellent opportunity for Urban Crop Solutions to put its vision and innovative technologies in the spotlight.
"We are delighted to see that European leaders and our Belgian Royal family are deeply interested in promising technologies and processes that can contribute in the near future to a better world," says Maarten Vandecruys, CEO of Urban Crop Solutions. "I personally did not expect that the Belgian King and the French President had so much questions about our technology and our target markets. They were very enthusiastic about the international potential of our venture. "
Urban Crop Solutions is a one-stop-shop for turnkey and tailor-made solutions in the field of vertical indoor farming. The Belgian company, with offices in the United States and Japan, offers besides growing infrastructures and consumables for indoor farming such as seeds, substrates and nutrients, also consulting, research, training and after sales services.
The advantages of its vertical farming solutions are endless and offer huge added value in the circular economy of today. Thanks to hydroponics (soilless plant growth on water) and the use of automation and robotics in a completely enclosed environment, the use of pesticides, herbicides or other forms of polluting products are obsolete. On top of that 95% less water is consumed compared to traditional outdoor cultivation methods.
Urban Crop Solutions realized in 2016 the largest automated indoor vertical farming plant in Europe and has since then set up numerous research collaborations all over the world. This thanks to its industry-leading technology. The limited need for land due to the multi-layer cultivation structure, high water efficiency (low consumption and recycling) and local production thereby avoiding (international) transport, are key reasons why the indoor vertical farming solutions of Urban Crop Solutions are driver for a better environment of tomorrow.
What Do GMP And GACP Certifications Mean For The Cannabis Industry?
As the world is rapidly opening up to cannabis, growers interested in cultivating it can choose between the two markets to serve: recreational or medicinal. Recreational market caters to customers interested in consuming cannabis and its derivatives for relaxation, for pleasure, out of curiosity etc. Medicinal market, on the other hand targets treating various diseases which range from chronic pain to alleviating side-effects of chemotherapy for cancer patients. Using cannabis in medicine means its cultivation must abide strict quality standards such as the GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) and the GACP (Good Agricultural and Collection Practices), either already or in the near future.
These outline minimum requirements for growers so that they create high quality, consistent products which will later pass authorization by agencies that are in charge of licensing the manufacture and sale of pharmaceutical products. The requirements of GMP concern handling of the products, cleaning of the machinery used to make it, packaging, quality assurance etc. while the GACP requirements outline guidelines for cultivation practices more specifically. For the end-user of the product, these guarantee that it was produced in a sterile, safe environment, that the product is always the same, regardless of the production batch and that it is essentially safe for consumption.
Is GMP Certification required for the cannabis industry?
It is not yet enforced in all countries where cannabis cultivation is legal but it seems that it will become the norm. This is due to the fact that cannabis is considered a drug and thus must abide the same regulations that govern the pharmaceutical industry, GMP certification being one of them. Even if not yet enforced, it might be the reason for some lost sales i.e. a way to differentiate one’s product offering and position it as superior to the non-GMP produced cannabis and it’s derivatives.
What does GMP mean in technical terms?
Below is a brief summary of the requirements of GMP. For the complete resources please click the link at the end of this document.
Staff
The staff of the cultivation facility should be adequately educated for the jobs they are performing as well as trained in the GMP requirements. The number of people interacting with the product should be reduced to the needed minimum, their performance should be reviewed periodically and a record of training is to be kept outlining that all needed trainings have been covered, especially when it comes to staff that handles toxic, highly active, infectious or sensitizing materials.
Equipment
Equipment used to produce cannabis such as benches, lighting, irrigation systems, HVAC systems, containers for harvested product etc:
should be made of materials that can withstand sterilization by various chemicals
should not have cervices that can easily collect dust, pathogens and other substances which could contaminate the product
should have moving parts such as transmission gears, moving chains and fans enclosed or completely covered
should not be made from materials prone to releasing particles
should be made from non-toxic, corrosion resistant and non-reactive materials, if they come in contact with the product
should ideally be high quality equipment that is not prone to malfunctions. If the equipment needs to be fixed, the use of temporary solutions such as tape should be avoided. Maintenance records are to be kept for all the machinery.
should be designed to facilitate easy cleaning as well as visual inspection for potential problem areas
Sterilization
A sanitation program is to be developed which will be available to all staff members involved in the handling of the product. The sanitation program outlines the frequency and methodology of cleaning and it is part of the grow’s SOPs (standard operating procedures). The cleaning should disinfect the production areas and the equipment. All the residues of the cleaning substances are to be removed thoroughly and a record of sanitation is to be kept which can clearly demonstrate the sanitation practices at the grow.
Cannabis Lighting and GMP Compliance
All the regulation regarding equipment explained above refers to the lighting supplier of a cannabis grow. In essence it means that luminaires need to:
be easily cleanable
made from non-toxic materials
the spectrum must of be of high quality so that yields and cannabinoid profiles are consistent
the luminaires must be of high quality so that their light output does not decay quickly and dramatically, affecting the yields. This also concerns the wavelength distribution of the spectrum i.e. the spectrum must remain without significant changes throughout the luminaires’ life so as to ensure consistent yields and cannabinoid expressions.
This disqualifies HPS lamps from being used in GMP / GACP compliant cannabis grows. Their light loses intensity rapidly creating differences among growth cycles. Overall, HPS lamps create poor light uniformity resulting in varied crop. In the case of the bulb inside the HPS lamp breaking, the entire room would be compromised as the sodium and mercury which constitute the bulb interior would get dispersed all over the canopy.
When it comes to LED technology, things are not any simpler. Most LED luminaires have deep fins which are used as a heat dissipation tool. While good at removing excess heat the lamps produce and directing it upwards and away from the plant, these are very difficult to clean. One would need a special set of tools and a great deal of time to get inside the ridges and remove the dust particles and pathogens from within. Even after that it would be hard to be absolutely sure that these have been properly sterilized. On the other hand, LED luminaires with active cooling such as fans, create other challenges. Naturally, fans cannot be completely enclosed as they need to circulate air. This means having a device that is even more difficult to clean than a passively cooled LED i.e. one with deep fins.
Furthermore, the quality of spectra inside LED luminaires, while better than HPS, vary significantly from manufacturer to manufacturer. With some manufacturers parts of the spectrum will start to diminish already after 10000 hours of operation, starting with the blue peak and other shorter wavelengths resulting in taller plants with less cannabinoid accumulation (similar to HPS grown plants). This is dependent on the quality of the LED chips the manufacturer uses. The best quality chips will sustain the same spectrum quality with minimal variation over its entire lifespan.
Additionally, in multitier grows, LED luminaires are often placed really close to the canopy. While a great strategy to minimize the loss of precious photons, it can easily happen that the plant has contact with the lamp. In that case we have to be sure that the lamp is made from non-toxic materials.
How to Select a Lighting Manufacturer for a GMP Compliant Grow?
Tip 1 – Look at the form factor
If the lamp is mostly smooth and appears to be sealed shut it means you will be able to take a sterilization chemical soaked cloth and sterilize the luminaire in one swipe. If it has fins and other kinds of deep crevices you will need much more time and in some cases it will simply be impossible to do it to the GMP standard.
Tip 2 – Ask the manufacturer which chemicals their luminaires can be cleaned with
Some materials that make up an LED luminaire such as silicone, cannot withstand all cleaning chemicals. Ask the manufacturer if they have awareness of how all the components their product is made from react to typically used cleaning chemicals.
Tip 3 – Ask the manufacturer for a spectrum decay analysis
In an ocean of LED companies which seems to be getting bigger it is hard to make sense of the differences between the companies. Ask your lighting supplier for a quality guarantee of their spectrum outlining the permitted variations in it over time and across production batches. If they do not have it, chances are they have not thought about it. Do no settle for the industry standard ’50 000’ hours of operation claim as this one is typically copied from component suppliers or simply taken as a standard for LED chips without any data to back it up. Depending on the quality of the LED chips they use some will deteriorate faster than others. A good manufacturer conducts ‘light decay’ tests and can show you data on how the spectrum actually looks after 10 000, 20 000 etc hours of operation. Minimal variation over time is inevitable and will still result in consistent yields and cannabinoid profiles. You will however find that most manufacturers simply do not have this data on their luminaires. Choose the ones that do.
Tip 4 – Check if they have sold to other GMP compliant facilities
Ask your lighting manufacturer for references of other GMP compliant grows they have sold to. It does not necessarily need to be a cannabis grow. If your lighting supplier has earlier worked with the pharmaceutical industry or high level academic research, chances are they had to carefully develop their product keeping all GMP requirements in mind.
What About GACP and the Cannabis Industry?
GACP (Good Agricultural and Collection Practices) is a set of guidelines covering areas of cultivation (from seeds and propagation material), collection, harvest, processing, packaging, personnel, equipment, documentation and others for the sake of satisfying the minimum required quality assurance in plant cultivation. Together with GMP these guidelines completely define the entire process from seed to sale of all plants with Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) to which cannabis belongs to.
In simple terms GACP states that the personnel should be adequately trained, that cultivated plants should be grown observing all local regulations on fertilizing, storage, handling, packaging etc and that the whole process should be transparent and documented. The ultimate goal is bringing a product to the market that is consistent and safe for consumption.
Cannabis is considered a medicinal plant regardless whether cultivated for recreational or pharmaceutical use. Because of this growers should abide both the GMP and GACP guidelines even if they are not yet enforced in the territory where they have their operations. Before it becomes enforced it will be a unique selling point for growers who choose to follow all these guidelines and once it does become enforced, those who got an early start will be less prone to mistakes that could render their product useless in the market or even worse result in health complications of the end users and an inevitable PR crisis and brand image deterioration.
To learn more about GMP, please go to: ISPE (International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering) GMP Resources
To learn more about GACP, please go to: WHO (World Health Organization) Guidelines on Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) for Medicinal Plants
For more information:
Valoya Oy, Finland
Tel: +358 10 2350300
sales@valoya.com
www.valoya.com
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"Situations Like This Remind Us Why Traceability And Transparency Are So Important In Our Food System"
Multiple statements were issued in regards to the E. coli outbreak
"Avoid eating romaine lettuce - it may be contaminated with E.coli." This very serious message has been given by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They are advising consumers to avoid eating romaine lettuce until more is learned about the outbreak. It should be noted this outbreak and the consumer advisories are limited to romaine lettuce only.
According to the CDC, currently romaine lettuce may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 and could make people sick. No grower, supplier, distributor or brand has been identified in the current outbreak, in which 32 people across 11 states fell ill.
The advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad.
The FDA is conducting a traceback investigation.
Traceability
For the greenhouse industry, this offers the opportunity to show the traceability of their products. Gotham Greens for example responds quickly. Only recently they've expanded into romaine lettuce. In doing so they wanted to offer a more reliable, transparent and traceable supply chain.
"Situations like this remind us why traceability and transparency are so important in our food system", they respond. "We’ve seen today’s CDC report and while they have issued a blanket warning on all romaine lettuce, our internal environmental testing program shows NO E. coli in any of our greenhouse facilities. All of our lettuces, salad mixes and herbs, including Romaine, are grown, harvested and packed daily in controlled greenhouses in New York and Chicago. We only sell greens that we grow ourselves so we can assure 100% traceability. And through our water monitoring program we can guarantee that the water used to nourish our plants is free of harmful pathogens. Our hydroponic growing methods use municipal water and sterile agricultural inputs, reducing sources of contamination."
"Not from Florida"
There's more groups responding and explaining why their product should be safe. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association for example strongly urges the agency to determine the source of the contamination as quickly as possible. "South Florida’s romaine harvest season starts in early November, so Florida product was not being harvested when people started becoming ill. However, it is unfortunate that anyone has become sick, and we remain concerned for those consumers."
"Safe production and handling of crops is the top priority for growers of Florida produce. They adhere to the highest mandatory food safety standards, testing and safeguards to ensure Florida produce is safe. They also open their operations to FDA representatives periodically for inspections."
How's Canada?
In Canada, Bamford Produce and Freshline Foods also made a statement regarding the E. coli outbreak. The Public Health Agency of Canada is also advising individuals in Ontario and Quebec to avoid eating romaine lettuce and salad mixes containing romaine lettuce until more is known about the outbreak and the cause of contamination. "At this point in time no recall has been issued. We will be advising and updating all our customers as the situation changes and if any further action is required."
"Effective immediately, Bamford Produce/ Freshline foods will cease shipments of ALL romaine products until further information is available." This includes Romaine 24 count, Romaine hearts, chopped romaine & spring mix/Mesculin Blend
Produce industry associations
A group of open field produce industry associations made a statement regarding the E. coli outbreak as well. Arizona Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, Produce Marketing Association, United Fresh Produce Association, Western Growers, Yuma Safe Produce Council & Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association explained in a united statement why they are relying on producers and retail/restaurant customers to support the government health agency advisories and are urging an industry-wide voluntary withdrawal of all romaine currently in marketing channels and held in inventory.
"Food safety is the produce industry's top priority. We must take swift action to protect consumers", they state. "We believe a withdrawal of romaine lettuce is the fastest way to clear up the supply chain of any romaine that could be responsible for illnesses and to make a hard, convincing and clean break from harvesting and shipping romaine lettuce until this outbreak is declared over or the source of the implicated produce can be identified. Additionally, we are calling on handlers to clean and sanitize any equipment that may have been used in recent weeks to prevent cross-contamination of product during future harvest, processing and distribution activities."
Geographic region
They urge a group of food safety experts from the produce industry to come together as quickly as possible to closely examine information that may help pinpoint the specific source of the outbreak utilizing the extensive traceback information maintained by leafy greens producers. "The goal of this effort is to learn any information about the geographic region or specific farms that may be tied to this outbreak. Government agencies have indicated the E. coli isolate involved in this outbreak has been closely related by Whole Genome Sequencing data to two past outbreaks linked to leafy greens in 2016 and 2017. No one wants to get to the bottom of how these outbreaks are occurring faster than the producers of leafy greens. We absolutely must do everything possible to stop recurring outbreaks. We owe this to those whose lives have been tragically impacted by this outbreak and to all our consumers who trust us to grow safe food for their families."
For more information on the consumer advisory, visit the CDC or FDA websites.
Romaine Industry Adopts New Labels, Product To Return To Stores
Chris Koger November 26, 2018
Romaine will be returning to stores and foodservice operators after growers, shippers and processors of the lettuce agreed to put labels alerting customers and consumers where it was grown and when it was packed. ( File photo )
(UPDATED) The Food and Drug Administration says romaine lettuce is now safe to eat following the “purge” of product on the market, and will allow supplies to resume, after grower-shippers agreed to new labeling standards that will include where the lettuce is grown.
The agreement, negotiated by romaine grower-shippers, processors and industry associations, will be the new standard for romaine packed in the U.S. The standards follow an E. coli outbreak linked to 43 illnesses in the U.S. and 22 in Canada, as of Nov. 26.
“A number of produce associations also have agreed to support this initiative and are recommending that all industry members throughout the supply chain follow this same labeling program,” according to the United Fresh Produce Association, in an e-mail alert to members Nov. 26 sent several hours before the FDA released a statement lifting the advisory that virtually banned romaine in the U.S.
According to the FDA statement, the new labels are voluntary, but its updated message to consumers suggests it’s against shippers’ interest to forego the label:
“Based on discussions with major producers and distributors, romaine lettuce entering the market will now be labeled with a harvest location and a harvest date,” according to the FDA. “Romaine lettuce entering the market can also be labeled as being hydroponically or greenhouse grown. If it does not have this information, you should not eat or use it.”
The FDA is advising retailers to display signs about the origin of romaine products when they’re not individually packaged, such as bulk displays of unwrapped heads of romaine.
In their investigation, federal, state and local health agencies focused on Central Coast growing region of Northern and Central California. Since the report of the illnesses, mid-October to early November, harvest has shifted to other areas, including California’s Imperial Valley, the Yuma, Ariz., region and Florida.
The FDA also singled out greenhouse and hydroponically grown romaine in its Nov. 26, growers of which have been critical of the decision to remove all romaine from the market Nov. 20.
“Hydroponically- and greenhouse-grown romaine also does not appear to be related to the current outbreak. There is no recommendation for consumers or retailers to avoid using romaine harvested from these sources,” according to the FDA statement.
United Fresh compiled a list of questions and answers relating to the new labels.
The industry and FDA have agreed to work together to improve tracking romaine through the supply chain, according to the United Fresh alert. The groups that worked on the labeling agreement also include:
Produce Marketing Association;
Western Growers;
Arizona and California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreements;
Grower-Shipper Association of Central California;
Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association;
Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association; and
Yuma Safe Produce Council.
“Our associations are committed to working with FDA in a new effort with experts from within and outside the industry, together with government, to implement improved procedures that enhance the speed and accuracy of investigations,” according to United Fresh. “Moving forward, our efforts to enhance strong traceability systems will be most beneficial for consumers only if coupled with expert epidemiological methodology, accelerated investigations with sufficient resources, and government-industry expert collaboration that allow us all to pinpoint the source of contaminated product resulting in more targeted recalls.”
Post-purge return
Before the FDA released its statement, Commissioner Scott Gottlieb appeared on Fox News’ “The Daily Briefing” to talk with host Dana Perino about a variety of issues, including the E. coli outbreak linked to romaine.
“I understand the impact this has not just on consumers but growers, but we had clear evidence that there was an outbreak and that product that was contaminated was still in the marketplace, so it was important to purge the market of that produce —"
“Has the market been purged now?” Perino asked.
“We think it’s been done now, so we’re going to put out a statement a little later today saying that we think we’ve isolated the problem to produce grown in the coastal regions of California, of Central and Northern California, and that produce that’s grown in other parts of the country … it’s probably safe to put back into commerce now.
“So what we wanted to do was purge the market of the produce that was probably contaminated, which has now been isolated, we think, to California, and now stores can start restocking with produce that’s being harvested from Florida or North Carolina or other parts of the country,” Gottlieb said.
Related Topics: Romaine Outbreak E. coli United Fresh