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What Is Driving The UK’s CEA boom?
The main findings of the panel were that the UK has been lucky with its well-established greenhouse industry which offers a great foundation for vertical farmers to understand the CEA space
“In the UK, fruits and vegetables are quite cheap in comparison to other European countries and other parts of the world. In the UK, the market has been squeezed by supermarkets that squeeze out the margins of the supply chain,” said Andrew Lloud, COO at Intelligent Growth Solutions, during a panel at the Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit.
During the session, three UK-supplier panelists elaborated on the topic. Joining were, Andrew Lloud, COO at IGS, Ben Crowther, Co-founder and CTO at LettUs Grow, Jen Bromley, Head of Plant R&D at Vertical Future, and Oscar Brennecke with Rethink Events who led the conversation.
The main findings of the panel were that the UK has been lucky with its well-established greenhouse industry which offers a great foundation for vertical farmers to understand the CEA space.
However, at the same time, it's quite costly to produce indoors given the high electricity and transport costs. This might change over time, due to several renewable energies coming into the market that will allow for cheaper production. Later on, the panelists will elaborate on the differences between the US and Europe, being monocropping whereas EU farmers grow more different varieties at the same time.
What makes the UK CEA space unique?
Andrew noted that UK consumers are willing to pay a certain price for fruits and vegetables. However, indoor ag bring along high electricity costs, whereas UK transport costs are high as well. Next to that, the economic and political dynamic being post-Brexit and currently battling the pandemic has highlighted its challenges. “Technology can economically viable grow a wide variety of crops, forming part of the food mix in the UK and in other parts of the world.”
73% of the surface area available for farming, said Ben Crowther, Co-Founder and CTO at LettUs Grow, a UK-vertical farming supplier, however, the UK still imports half of the produce.” He claimed that there’s an opportunity to make things more sustainable and efficient. Jen Bromley, Head of Plant R&D at Vertical Future, said that it’s not always about growing at a large scale, but that it differs per crop. “It’s always about pushing boundaries to see where the economics can work for the crop.”
Opportunities
More renewables and power generation are coming in, so there’s the opportunity to drop in things like vertical farms according to Andrew. “The real trick is to see if you can get a tariff from the energy provider so that the price per kw/h consumed is optimized to grow plants in the cheapest way.
Jen added that there are some obvious low-hanging fruits that can be taken within the market. Such as leafy greens, herbs, and fruits, given they work really well with the infrastructure. “However, there are also markets we can go deeper into, such as proteins, high-care products that can all be managed very well in the vertical farming space.”
Andrew added that a wide variety of crops will eventually be important, depending on your location. The difference in the US is that it’s a lot about monocropping, but they don’t tend to have the same diversity as seen in the UK or other European countries. I’ve seen it here, but I expect it to come to America as well.”
UK greenhouse- vs vertical farming market
Ben notes that “because of the well-established UK greenhouse industry, we can better understand the vertical farming market.” Berries are a great example, in the UK there has been a 10% market growth. It drives how people are looking for rootstock in these markets, specifically in greenhouses. As well as looking into year-round growing to complement their off-season. The idea translates into more traditional farmers, looking for a more consistent, lower-risk way to make their business more resilient.
Jen said that a traditional farm is a long-term play as they’re handed down by generations. In a vertical farming system, it’s an infrastructure that has to last. Whereas, Andrew claimed that the seasonal variation will be smoothed out by multi-tenant farmers using the same facility for different crops for different points in the year.
Consumer perception
“On the whole, there’s a growing understanding I think,” says Ben. He explains that there are some products available at various retailers already. Jen noted that branding is far more developed in the US, given the produce brands they have. Whereas Andrew affirmed that the elephant in the room in the UK and Europe is the use of the word organic. In the US, vertically farmed produce can be labeled as organic, however, in Europe, we’re still looking at what post-organic looks like. It’s confusing for the consumers, however, we’re at the beginning of educating people, starting with kids.
Other topics discussed were subsidies and barriers in vertical farming in the UK.
For more information:
Intelligent Growth Solutions
www.intelligentgrowthsolutions.com
For more information:
Vertical Future
info@verticalfuture.co.uk
www.verticalfuture.co.uk
For more information:
LettUs Grow
info@lettusgrow.com
lettusgrow.com
For more information:
Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit
www.indooragtechnyc.com
29 Jun 2021
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com
OptimIA Program Analyzes Fruitfulness of US Vertical Farms
In a research fact sheet, a USDA Specialty Crop Initiative team outlines results with a model for calculating profitability potential against various factors that impact the return on investment of CEA operations
In a research fact sheet, a USDA Specialty Crop Initiative team outlines results with a model for calculating profitability potential against various factors that impact the return on investment of CEA operations.
May 21st, 2021
Image created with Adobe Spark using Pixabay free library. Data from OptimIA fact sheet, "Potential Profitability and Economic Success of Indoor Agriculture in the United States."
As we have heard from many industry speakers and reported in horticultural lighting coverage, global urbanization and population growth will continue to put a strain on the food supply. Such wide-scale concerns also breed opportunities for innovative research which will ultimately support technology development that helps improve the food supply.
I recently learned of Optimizing Indoor Agriculture (OptimIA), a Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) supported by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). The larger objective is to extend the knowledge base regarding controlled environment agriculture (CEA) — often referred to as indoor farming, vertical farming, and indoor agriculture — to support long-term goals of:
Increasing uptake of CEA practices
Addressing food supply — quality, quantity, and availability, particularly in areas where food inequities are prevalent
Bringing sustainable, profitable operations and techniques to CEA growers
The initiative draws from team members across education and commercial horticultural/agricultural organizations: Dr. Greenhouse, Inc.; Michigan State University; Ohio State University; Purdue University; University of Arizona; and the USDA Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS). Some of the participants are familiar names from speaking at past LEDs Magazine events, such as Purdue’s Cary Mitchell, MSU’s Erik Runkle, and Dr. Greenhouse president Nadia Sabeh.
Digging into the OptimIA website, I saw the project team had posted a fact sheet of research highlights titled “Potential Profitability and Economic Success of Indoor Agriculture in the United States.” These highlights were collected in preparation for contributing a chapter to the upcoming book Plant Factory Basics, Applications, and Advances. The fact sheet offers a balanced summary regarding challenges to quantification of profitability, benchmarking data, and other factors. Researchers used a Japanese Plant Factory with Artificial Lighting (PFAL), base-case model, to perform their analysis of the profitability of US-based vertical farming.
The most interesting points I have included in the infographic above. But this general conclusion from the highlights comes as no surprise, really: “The changes with the most potential to increase profitability are those that focus on enhancing market price for the quality of product delivered, decreasing capital costs, and improving elements of biomass (plant size, density, and type of crop).” You can download the fact sheet from the OptimIA website.
That’s where the hands-on research will come in and why we continue to refine the program for HortiCann each year. We continue to pursue experts with scientific findings, case studies, and system developments that can decrease the capital costs of horticultural solid-state lighting (SSL) and AgTech systems and enhance grower operations with solid data and monitoring for buildable results. For example, look to last year’s HortiCann presentations on updated research findings on light spectra for various plant characteristics, data-driven automation, and our blog on the grower panel, which centered around end-user experiences in applying LED lighting to greenhouse operations — lessons learned and how they plan to evolve operations with future updates.
Watch the HortiCann Light + Tech website for updates to the program and register to join us for the free virtual event Sept. 28–29, 2021.
Visit the OptimIA website for more information on the project and other published research.
USDA Funds Composition of New CEA Market Characterization Report
. “This is the first such supply chain assessment in CEA. We appreciate these leaders for stepping forward to support this important effort.”
Resource Innovation Institute (RII) has assembled a senior level of its Technical Advisory Council to support its USDA-funded project titled Data-driven Market Transformation for Efficient, Sustainable Controlled Environment Agriculture. The new Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Leadership Committee, composed of a range of subject matter experts in CEA, will advise the development of a Market Characterization Report that will analyze the emerging “controlled environment” horticultural supply chain to determine opportunities to increase energy and water efficiency in cultivation.
“Market characterization is a critical first step in a coordinated effort to transform an economic sector toward efficient production,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute. “This is the first such supply chain assessment in CEA. We appreciate these leaders for stepping forward to support this important effort.”
The Market Characterization Report represents the first publication that RII will deliver as part of its work on a three-year USDA Conservation Innovation Grant designed to advance resource efficiency in CEA, a diverse, expanding market that includes greenhouses and vertical farms growing a range of crops, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries. RII is partnering with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to deploy the grant.
The CEA Leadership Committee is providing input on key market characterization issues such as supply chain: describing key market actors, barriers to energy efficiency and the best leverage points for market interventions; energy use: describing the energy used by producers (including on-site renewable energy, microgrids, and back-up generation); advantages of efficiency; describing the energy and non-energy benefits realized through implementation of efficiency projects; and baseline identification: describing key market baselines to be used in evaluating the impact of the market transformation initiative over time.
The organizations represented on RII’s CEA Leadership Committee include:
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers
CEA Consultancy
Ceres Greenhouses
Energy Solutions
Fifth Season
Fluence by OSRAM
Grodan
Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
Oregon Association of Nurseries
Priva
Resource Innovations
Schneider Electric
Signify
UVM Extension Services
Zartarian Engineering
For a complete roster, see www.ResourceInnovation.org/TAC.
For more information:
Resource Innovation Center
www.resourceinnovation.org
7 June 2021
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) 4.0 - Conference & Exhibition Day 2 - Friday 4th June - Attendee Tickets Still Available - 522 Attendees Registered
By purchasing a ticket for Conference Day 2 you will receive access and instructions on how you can view recording of the below presentations from Conference Day 1
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) 4.0
Day 2 Conference & Exhibition (Virtual)
Friday 4th June 2021
CEA 4.0 Conference & Exhibition Day 2 is this Friday the 4th of June. With 522 industry attendees officially registered, we still have a small number of attendee tickets that have been made available for Conference Day 2 on Friday
Attendee tickets range from £14.99 - £19.99 per attendee.
Day 2 Conference Presenters
Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC) - Derek Stewart, Director
Algal Tech - Armando Leon, Founder & CEO
AmplifiedAg - Don Taylor, CEO & Founder
DAG Facilities - Mark Gemignani, CEO
FarmTech Society (FTS) - Nicole Thorpe, Vice-Chair
GlobalG.A.P. - Kristian Moeller, Managing Director
Greens for Good by Farm Urban - Jens Thomas, Technical Director
GroenLeven - Willem de Vries, Business Innovation Manager
Growfoam - Niels Steenvoorden, Chief Commercial Officer
Intelligent Growth Solutions - David Farquhar, CEO
Jungle - Nicolas Seguy, Managing Director
Mycelium - Eric Dargent, Managing Partner
Mycelium - Yishai Nissan, Managing Partner
Natural Resources Institute Finland - Titta Kotilainen, Senior Scientist
Planet Farms - Daniele Benatoff, Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Red Sea Farms - Ryan Lefers, CEO
SolarPower Europe - Miguel Herrero, Policy Advisor
UK Urban AgriTech (UKUAT) - Katia Zacharaki, Communications Director
Urban-Gro - Mark Doherty, Executive Vice President of Operations
Urban Crop Solutions - Tom Debusschere, CEO
Urban Harvest - Alexandre Van Deun, Co-Founder
Urban Harvest - Olivier Paulus, Engineering & Co-Founder
Valoya - Mika Linden, VP Sales
Valoya - Satu Karjalainen, Research Coordinator
Vertical Farm Institute - Daniel Podmirseg, Director
Vertical Future - Jen Bromley, Head of Plant Research & Development
Vertical Harvest - Nona Yehia, Co-Founder & CEO
Würth Elektronik eiSos - Johann Waldherr, Business Development Manager
Day 1 Conference Presenters
By purchasing a ticket for Conference Day 2 you will receive access and instructions on how you can view the recording of the below presentations from Conference Day 1.
AeroFarms - Roger Buelow, Chief Technology Officer
BrightFarms - Paul Lightfoot, President & Founder
CEA Food Safety Coalition - Marni Karlin, Executive Director
Certhon - Martin Veenstra, Consulting Engineer Indoor Farming Systems
Cultinova - Jim Thorpe, Chief Technology Officer (CTO)
Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) - Caroline Povey, Team Leader – Agri-Innovation Policy
Finnish Glasshouse Growers' Association - Jyrki Jalkanen, CEO
GE Current - Dr. Hans Spalholz, Senior Plant Scientist
Graines Voltz - Solène Voltz, Vertical Farm Sales
Graines Voltz - Wolfgang Fishcer, International Product & Sales Specialist
Heliospectra - Fei Jia, Technical Solutions Manager
HerbanLeaf Farms - Myrianthi Oxtoby, Founder & CEO
Jones Food Company - James Lloyd-Jones, Founder & CEO
LEAF (Linking Environment & Farming) - Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive
Netled - Niko Kurumaa, COO
North Carolina State University - Dr. Ricardo Hernández, Professor
ONO Exponential Farming - Thomas Ambrosi, Director
Planet Farms - Daniele Benatoff, Co-Founder & Co-CEO
Real Leaf Farms - Karen Hennessy, CEO
Signify - Tom Könisser, Business Development Manager City Farming
Singapore Food Agency (SFA) - Poh Bee Ling, Director, Horticulture Technology Department Agri-Food
UK Research & Innovation – Innovate UK - Ian Cox, Innovation Lead
UK Research & Innovation – Innovate UK - Tom Jenkins, Deputy Challenge Director – Transforming Food Production
Urban Crop Solutions - Tom Debusschere, CEO
VEK Adviesgroep - Reinier Donkersloot, Director Business Consultancy
Vertical Future - Jen Bromley, Head of Plant Research & Development
Vitabeam - James Millichap-Merrick, CEO
Wageningen University & Research - Luuk Graamans, Scientist Vertical Farming
CLICK HERE TO BOOK YOUR ATTENDEE TICKET
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Polygreens Podcast Episode 28 Jake Emling
Beginning in July 2018 he joined CropKing, Inc. based out of Lodi, Ohio. His experience with hydroponics, aquaculture, and aquaponics was instrumental to his desire to start Root 42 Harvests with his wife Katie
Jake attended Michigan State University where he earned both undergraduate and graduate degrees in horticulture. He has nine years of experience across a variety of specialties including agriculture, agronomy, entomology, and viticulture.
During his early career in Michigan, he worked for Michigan State University, AgroLiquid, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Beginning in July 2018 he joined CropKing, Inc. based out of Lodi, Ohio. His experience with hydroponics, aquaculture, and aquaponics was instrumental to his desire to start Root 42 Harvests with his wife Katie.
Latest Episode
Widespread Investment In CEA Is An Important Piece of The Food Security Puzzle
It has become increasingly clear that traditional agriculture is simply not meeting the food demands of the future
Sky Kurtz, CEO, and Co-Founder, Pure Harvest Smart Farms
There is a commonly quoted statistic estimating that by 2050, we will have nearly 10 billion people on the planet and, in turn, 10 billion hungry mouths to feed. Aside from population factors, the world’s climate is changing in ways human beings have never seen before. Across the globe, our water sources are being diminished and arable landmasses are shrinking. Food security and sustainability is becoming an ever-more pressing issue. There are a number of pioneering companies worldwide working hard to address these critical issues.
The Problem with Traditional Agriculture
It has become increasingly clear that traditional agriculture is simply not meeting the food demands of the future. Food production is heavily driven by significant freshwater consumption and can be both labour intensive and inefficient. Alongside this, changes in climate are negatively impacting yields. This is being witnessed across the board by the food production industry, investors, and governments alike.
The Power of the Consumer
Increased awareness of these issues has led to changes in consumer demands. Consumers have become more discerning about the quality of the products they buy, specifically when it comes to pesticide use, sustainability, freshness, food safety, variety, and brands. They are ever more interested in having knowledge of and creating a relationship with the foods they consume. This is evidenced by the huge organic growth rates of organics over the past 10 years. People care about quality and are voting strongly with their wallets.
Cultural and socio-economic demographics heavily influence what can and should be grown. Some crops such as premium quality leafy greens tend to target more affluent demographics and palates, whereas tomatoes, cucumbers, and a number of other greenhouse vegetables are staples of many diets and can be produced affordably in most places in the world.
The Promise of Controlled-Environment Agriculture
Controlled-Environment Agriculture (CEA) facilitates the growth of sustainable, high-quality produce but not at the expense of the consumer. CEA allows for consistent, high quality production by eliminating the environmental impacts on food production, allowing for more localized production, and reducing, or even eliminating, the use of pesticides.
Reducing Risk
Since early 2020, COVID-19 has woken the world to the risks and fragility of global fresh fruit and vegetable supply chains. Given perishability, the fruit & vegetable market is uniquely vulnerable vs. other crops e.g. the likes of corn, wheat, rice which can be stored & siloed. Controlled-environment agriculture is a solution that addresses these issues facilitating more localized production and supply, offering high output, resource-efficient production capabilities, while meeting the consumer’s changing demands.
In March, the world’s gaze turned to the Suez Canal where a container ship, the Ever Given, became lodged, blocking the canal. On a daily basis, the Suez Canal carries 12% of global trade, around one million barrels of oil and roughly 8% of liquefied natural gas. The cost of the blockage was reportedly $14m-$15m every day!
The Local Promise
The local unique selling point (USP) is now possible pretty much anywhere. Solutions like ours at Pure Harvest Smart Farms have made it possible to affordably produce year-round, even in the harshest climates in the world for example, the UAE, Kuwait, and Malaysia serving Singapore.
Large-scale solutions are necessary for the food to be economic, due to economies of scale in what is ultimately a manufacturing process. Large-scale greenhouses are particularly suitable for dense urban populations, as just 1 or 2 large production sites within 100 – 500 kilometers of the city or town can serve a large group of people affordably.
Unfortunately for more distributed, rural populations, this becomes more challenging. If you scale-down the solutions to hyper-localize, you often lose efficiency (in terms of both capital expenditure/ m2 and operational expenditure/ m2 for production. With more of the world’s population urbanizing, this is another trend that supports widespread investment in CEA as an important piece of the puzzle to serve future food demands.
The Future
The challenge of feeding nearly 10 billion people by 2050 MUST be solved on both the supply side and demand side. From the supply side, adopting technologies that augment output and resource-efficient growing methods. From the demand side, via changing what we consume, reducing waste, and environmental consciousness. Addressing these issues means we can produce more food with less and less resources.
High-tech agriculture presents a multi-decade investment opportunity to contribute to food security, water conservation, economic diversification, and a more sustainable future for all.
Join Sky at the virtual Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit on June 24 and tune into his live panel discussion on ‘Scaling at Speed: Delivering the Promises of a Mission-Led Industry’ at 16.50 EST.
For more information about Pure Harvest Smart Farms, follow them on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Twitter.
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Indoor AgTech Investment Landscape
Widespread Investment in CEA is an Important Piece of the Food Security Puzzle
Workshop: Food for the Next Frontier
Connecting Retailers, Buyers, and Growers Across Indoor Farming
IGS enters UAE market, signing deal with Madar Farms to enhance food security in the GCC region
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AeroFarms CEO Rosenberg Kicks Off Indoor Ag-Con 2021 Keynote Address
“We are thrilled to have an industry leader like David Rosenberg join us as we kick off our return to the live event format,” says Brian Sullivan, co-owner, Indoor Ag-Con LLC
Rosenberg Headlines Full Roster of Keynotes, Panels, Networking & Expo Floor Innovations For In-Person October 4-5, 2021 Edition In Orlando
MAY 6, 2021 -- AeroFarms CEO David Rosenberg will lead the opening morning keynote address for the 8th annual edition of Indoor Ag-Con, scheduled for October 4-5, 2021 at the Hilton Orlando, Florida.
Themed “Growing Your Business,” the premier trade show and conference for the indoor |vertical farming industry will give attendees the opportunity to explore new resources on the expo floor and hear from Rosenberg, other CEOs, thought leaders and industry experts from today’s cutting-edge farms and other innovative companies.
“We are thrilled to have an industry leader like David Rosenberg join us as we kick off our return to the live event format,” says Brian Sullivan, co-owner, Indoor Ag-Con LLC along with other event industry veterans Nancy Hallberg and Kris Sieradzki. “We look forward to gathering with our industry colleagues again and are working hard to bring the best possible combination of networking, education and exhibition opportunities together in Orlando.”
Scheduled for opening morning, October 4, Rosenberg’s address will be held from 8:30 am – 9:20 am. Rosenberg co-founded and leads AeroFarms. AeroFarms has been leading the way for indoor vertical farming and championing transformational innovation for agriculture overall. On a mission to grow the best plants possible for the betterment of humanity, AeroFarms is a Certified B Corp Company with global headquarters in Newark, New Jersey, United States. Named one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies by Fast Company three years in a row and one of TIME's Best Inventions, AeroFarms patented, award-winning indoor vertical farming technology provides the perfect conditions for healthy plants to thrive, taking agriculture to a new level of precision, food safety, and productivity while using up to 95% less water and no pesticides vs. traditional field farming. Grown for flavor first, AeroFarms enables local production to safely grow flavorful baby greens and microgreens all year round.
ROBUST 2021 CONFERENCE SCHEDULE NOW IN DEVELOPMENT
In addition to Rosenberg’s keynote, look for additional announcements coming soon on other CEO keynote presentations planned for the October event. The 2021 conference will also include a full roster of panel discussions, fireside chats and presentations offering a deep dive into three core tracks – Business & Marketing, Science & Technology and Alternative Crops.
In addition to the extensive educational component, attendees will find more new initiatives and show highlights to explore, including:
NEW LOCATION: HILTON ORLANDO – DISCOUNTED HOTEL RATES, TOO
Indoor Ag-Con’s Hilton Orlando venue makes it the perfect opportunity for a business vacation. Centrally located to all major theme parks and attractions, it is just minutes from the eclectic dining scene and entertainment of International Drive. What’s more, the Hilton Orlando resort sits on more than 26 acres of lush landscaping and tropical inspirations making it a true destination of its own. Indoor Ag-Con has arranged for discounted hotel rates for attendees and exhibitors starting as low as $129/night. Complete details are available on the show website.
NEW ASSOCIATION ALLIANCES
Indoor Ag-Con is also forging new alliances with other events, industry associations/groups that will play an integral role in its marketing outreach and conference programming. Look for partnership announcements coming soon.
EXPANDED EXHIBIT FLOOR & NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
The Indoor Ag-Con team is working to bring even more resources for farmers/growers to explore across all sectors – everything from IT, energy, AI and lighting solutions to substrates, vertical farming solutions, business services and much more. Attendees and exhibitors alike will also have even more networking opportunities with daily luncheon sessions and receptions on the show floor.
QUICK FACTS:
WHEN: Monday, October 4 – Tuesday, October 5
WHERE: Hilton Orlando, 6001 Destination Pkwy, Orlando, FL 32819
INFO: For information on exhibiting or attending visit www.indoor.ag
ABOUT INDOOR AG-CON LLC
Founded in 2013, Indoor Ag-Con has emerged as the premier trade event for vertical farming | indoor agriculture, the practice of growing crops in indoor systems, using hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic techniques. Its events are crop-agnostic and touch all sectors of the business, covering produce, legal cannabis |hemp, alternate protein, and non-food crops. In December 2018, three event industry professionals – Nancy Hallberg, Kris Sieradzki, and Brian Sullivan – acquired Indoor Ag-Con LLC, setting the stage for further expansion of the events globally. More information: https://indoor.ag
Can Vertical Farming Be A Viable Method Of Controlled Environment Production?
Fifth Season is using its fully integrated, automated operating system to crack the economics code for vertical farming with the potential to integrate with greenhouse operations.
Fifth Season is using its fully integrated, automated operating system to crack the economics code for vertical farming with the potential to integrate with greenhouse operations.
To say that controlled environment agriculture is drawing a lot of interest and dollars from the investment world would be an understatement. Austin Webb, co-founder, and CEO at Fifth Season, a vertical farm operation in Pittsburgh, Pa., estimates that over $3 billion has been invested in the CEA industry during the last four years alone, excluding debt and merger and accusations activities for greenhouse operations.
“For indoor ag overall, including both vertical farming and greenhouse, about half that equity investment has been for vertical farming,” Webb said. “There were a lot of dollars that came into this space early on. The unfortunate piece to that is there was a lot of overhype and false promises made in this space. A lot of those dollars came in too early for some of these companies and overall were wasted.
“There has been an industry-wide struggle to make the economics of vertical farming work. All of these companies talk about what they are going to do in the future, but the issue is they have negative unit economics. They lose money for every pound of produce they sell. In many cases, they will say that they will make the economics work in the future, but only after they build more production facilities.”
Webb said negative economics has had a major impact on the vertical farm industry.
“The false promises and the negative economics have held the industry back, overshadowed companies that are building substantial vertical farming solutions that work and pushed additional dollars to incremental greenhouse solutions,” he said. “Moving forward we will continue to see more dollars come into CEA and into vertical farming specifically. This will include public markets and SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) activity.
“Overall, there will be more money invested in CEA. This will include investments that are mediocre. The important element will be investments made into tech platforms designed for scalability and repeatability. This is the only way that volume requirements for wholesale buyers can be met to unlock indoor ag as a material participant in overall market share.”
Need for a mindset change
Even with additional investment dollars coming into the CEA industry, Webb doesn’t expect it to be enough to make traditional vertical farming companies a success.
“Unfortunately, even though significant dollars have been invested in vertical farming, much of it has been wasted,” he said. “The incremental mindset a lot of people in this industry have had is to simply convert farming from outdoors to indoors. In doing so, all they inevitably did was bring people from outdoors and put them indoors. The mindset was to create a growing platform to produce leafy greens and then sprinkle on some technology. The technology was sort of an afterthought.
“There were a lot of companies throwing out buzz words without having actual practicality in regards to robotics, artificial intelligence, and automation. All the money that has been invested has been going toward continued R&D, but at a level which has companies creating technical debt.”
The thing that has helped Fifth Season avoid the technology issues other vertical farms have encountered is the way the company developed and designed its operating system.
Fifth Season has created a manufacturing platform that is fully automated from end-to-end including growing, processing, and packaging.
“We had a completely different mindset,” Webb said. “We took a blank slate to really design this holistically from beginning to end. We think of this as manufacturing a living organism. As a result, we’ve created an IoT–connected smart manufacturing platform that is an industry-first, industry-only, fully end-to-end automated platform—not just growing, but also processing and packaging. There are other operations that have automation here or there, but nothing else truly automated from beginning to end.
“More importantly, we have integrated the system so it is completely run by our proprietary software platform. We don’t have a bunch of automated equipment that runs on its own controls. Instead, we have a combination of our own proprietary tech and some off-the-shelf equipment such as conveyors. All of the electromechanical systems sit within our software skin and are run by our in-house built firmware and software brain. We have a pathfinding algorithm where when we receive an order from a customer, our system is sequencing out the schedule completely on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.”
Fifth Season worked with Hort Americas and GE Current, a Daintree company, to develop its automated grow room.
“Partnering together on our solution helped us validate that there was a path for our vertical farm to have favorable economics,” Webb said. “Being able to bounce ideas and technologies off of the Hort Americas team allowed us to push the boundaries of innovative thinking in terms of our approach and how we wanted to use technology to solve the complex issues that are limiting vertical farming. We were able to think differently, knowing we had the Hort Americas team as both a check and enabler, which ultimately created a successful collaboration.”
Partnering with Hort Americas also gave Fifth Season the opportunity to incorporate Current’s LED technology into its unique growing platform.
“We did a lot of things differently with our proprietary design and in so doing there were certain things that we couldn’t necessarily handle ourselves,” Webb said. “Working with Hort Americas and Current enabled us to move very quickly while making smart, capital-efficient decisions, as opposed to designing the LEDs ourselves or over-paying for unnecessary functionality.
“We worked with Current in key areas that made big differences related to the integration of our design. We leveraged Current’s significant expertise in regards to light spectrum strategy and the corresponding impact on plant science and quality.”
Creating an economic advantage
Webb said Fifth Season’s unique platform has allowed the company to unlock positive unit economics where it can offer a market price that works for wholesalers and consumers.
“We have been able to make money per pound and make vertical farming economically sustainable,” he said. “Our platform has enabled us to make a stepwise function change in labor costs and efficiency and in energy costs. For labor, we have 2x+ less labor costs than other companies in this space. We also measure and track energy down to every individual bot. We have over 60 bots that are all integrated into one robotics system. We measure and track how to optimize energy utilization to all of those bots.
Fifth Season’s unique operating platform has allowed the company to unlock positive unit economics enabling it to offer a market price that works for wholesalers and consumers.
“Finally we have made a stepwise function change in pounds to fixed costs ratio. That’s because we have been able to remove large aisle ways and manual inefficient storage and retrieval. We have created a patent-pending solution around our automated storage retrieval, which ties to the rest of our system. In the end, we are able to remove all human involvement from the grow room and are able to achieve 2x+ the growing capacity.”
Another advantage of the platform Fifth Season has created is the need for raising additional capital compared to some other vertical farms.
“We have raised just over $40 million to date,” Webb said. “There are multiple vertical farm companies that have raised $200 to $400 million+. The reason we haven’t had to raise that much capital is because of our mindset about engineering, grow science, and operations in the same R&D pipeline. It has allowed us to catch up and to surpass the rest of the industry in a fraction of the time with a fraction of the capital.
“As we move forward and look at raising additional capital, what’s different is we don’t have to use our equity capital to build more farms for all the hard costs associated with real estate, equipment and building facilities. We can if we want to and if it makes sense for our equity partners, but it is not required. We have been able to unlock positive unit economics which means we have been able to unlock non-dilutive capital to build additional facilities more capital efficiently. Overall, we have built a scalable, repeatable platform, which is what investors need to see.”
What’s ahead for vertical farming?
Webb said there will be a few select companies that have approached indoor ag and vertical farming with a solution that works and will thrive. There will also be a number of companies that are large and excessive that will eventually disappear.
“There will be some consolidation in this industry,” he said. “Some companies won’t be consolidated because they don’t have a tech platform that is investable in terms of the synergies of wanting to acquire that footprint. Consolidation will be selective in some cases.
“There is a lot of production regardless of footprint and money going into leafy greens. There are companies in this space that have no intention of doing anything different than that. I think that focus will run them into a leafy greens race to the bottom. It all comes down to no sustainable competitive advantage.”
Webb also sees the potential for synergy between vertical farms and greenhouses.
“We have built a scalable system that allows us to do a number of crops and then do asset management across different applications,” he said. “We also have the technology that is applicable from an asset management production operations standpoint that works for greenhouses as well.
“We will be able to unlock with this technology what many others won’t necessarily be able to do. Fifth Season will not only be a company that has vertical farm and greenhouse footprints but also is one that uses those footprints in a collaborative way for specific crops. For example, a crop could be in a vertical farm environment for part of its life and in a greenhouse for another part of its life. This will create cross-category and cross footprint combinations.”
For more: Fifth Season, (412) 899-2268; hello@fifthseasonfresh.com; https://www.fifthseasonfresh.com/
Lead photo: Austin Webb, co-founder, and CEO at Fifth Season, said even though significant dollars have been invested in vertical farming, much of it has been wasted. Photos courtesy of Fifth Season
This article is property of Urban Ag News and was written by David Kuack, a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas.
Oishii Sees Itself As ‘The Tesla of Vertical Farming.’ Here’s How It’s Cracking CEA Strawberries
“Strawberries are the hardest crop to grow in a vertical system and it’s been every vertical farmer’s dream to grow them. Conquering strawberries allows us to grow into other crops very quickly.”
March 31, 2021
Indoor farming is best known for leafy greens and micro-herbs. But New York’s Oishii is hoping to blaze a new trail and sweeten up the segment.
“A lot of people call strawberries the holy grail of vertical farming,” Oishii founder Hiroki Koga tells AFN. “Strawberries are the hardest crop to grow in a vertical system and it’s been every vertical farmer’s dream to grow them. Conquering strawberries allows us to grow into other crops very quickly.”
The startup announced a $50 million funding round this month led by Mirai Creation Fund, part of Tokyo-based SPARX Group. Additional investors included Sony Innovation Fund — the corporate venture arm of Japanese tech giant Sony — Tokyo-based AI company PKSHA Technology, and San Francisco-based VC Social Starts.
“We’ve had multiple offers from different funds but we ultimately decided to go with SPARX because they have a very strategically aligned mandate. They’re backed by Toyota, one of the largest manufacturing companies in the world [and] vertical farming is the intersection of agriculture and manufacturing,” Koga says.
Although it may seem odd for Toyota to be interested in agrifood tech, the carmaker is working on its Woven City project located at the base of Japan’s Mount Fuji. It’s a so-called “living laboratory” where researchers live and work full-time to imagine what future cities may look like through technological innovation.
Koga is no stranger to controlled environment ag (CEA). Six years ago, he was working as a CEA consultant in Japan, helping large corporations enter the space. While Koga views Japan as the birthplace of vertical farming, he moved to the US in 2015 – around the time that the method was becoming popular in the country.
Alongside the allure of being the first to crack indoor strawberry cultivation, Koga sees the fruit as a way to address what he calls the “unit economics problem” in indoor farming. He sees strawberries as providing a very strong revenue and profit model, as well as a crop that can further “democratize” vertical farming.
“In order to democratize it, I wanted to start with something that’s truly impactful — not products that people will buy because they are sustainable — [but] something that is superior compared to what is on the market, and that would completely change people’s experience,” Koga says.
He leveraged his personal network in Japan to collaborate with farmers and research institutions on the details of indoor strawberry cultivation – from seeding all the way to harvesting. It took “countless” iterations to get the formula right, he says.
“There’s probably 20 or 30 different things that you can tweak in a given cycle of the plant. So, let’s say there are five or six different stages of the plant life cycle – if you multiply all of those, there are millions of different combinations,” he explains.
“It’s a matter of tweaking those on a daily basis to figure out what the perfect mix is.”
However, this know-how isn’t what Koga considers to be Oishii’s “secret sauce.” Rather, that’s the bees that the startup’s using handle pollination.
While Koga won’t spill the ‘bees’ about how all this works in Oishii’s context, he claims to have found a way to replicate a natural environment within an indoor vertical farm that convinces the critters they’re outside.
“They live in harmony with our farmers and robots,” is all Koga will add.
The Tesla of vertical farming
With the initial R&D under its belt, Oishii is now turning its focus to consistency and quality of the product. Its current New Jersey facility spans a few tennis courts, Koga says; but its next one will be the size of an American football field. It currently sells direct-to-consumer through its website, and through traditional retail channels like supermarkets.
But its strawberries may be out of some consumers’ grocery budgets, retailing between $15 and $50 per pack depending on the size and the number of fruits. This price point puts Oishii’s berries in the luxury food category – for now, at least.
“If you think about how Tesla started with a Roadster or Nissan started with the LEAF, we like to think we are in the Roadster camp,” Koga says.
“Our current Omakase berry is our Roadster right now, but we already have developed multiple strawberry cultivars that we can produce much more cost-efficiently. Our Model S and Model 3 will be on the market soon,” he says, referring to the latter-day models now being sold by Elon Musk’s company.
Another US vertical farming startup, Plenty, is also trying to solve the strawberry equation. It recently added Driscoll’s to its list of backers and is collaborating with the major berry producer on indoor strawberry cultivation.
Koga welcomes competition in the space, particularly if it means branching beyond leafy greens.
“It’s generally a good thing that people are following in our footsteps and expanding out of the leafy green space. The more berries the better,” he says.
“Ten years ago, we only had Tesla, maybe a few other companies. But Tesla was the one who proved that it can be done, and now there are dozens and dozens of electric car manufacturers. [The electric car] become much more widely available.”
Indoor Agtech: An Evolving Landscape of 1,300+ Startups
Our Indoor AgTech Landscape 2021 provides a snapshot of the technology and innovation ecosystem of the indoor food production value chain
March 17, 2021
Editor’s note: Chris Taylor is a senior consultant on The Mixing Bowl team and has spent more than 20 years on global IT strategy and development innovation in manufacturing, design, and healthcare, focussing most recently on indoor agtech.
Michael Rose is a partner at The Mixing Bowl and Better Food Ventures where he brings more than 25 years immersed in new venture creation and innovation as an operating executive and investor across the internet, mobile, restaurant, food tech and agtech sectors.
The Mixing Bowl released its first Indoor AgTech Landscape in September 2019. This is their first update, which you can download here, and their accompanying commentary.
Since the initial release of our Indoor AgTech Landscape in 2019, the compelling benefits of growing food in a controlled indoor environment have continued to garner tremendous attention and investment.
One of the intriguing aspects of indoor agriculture is that it is a microcosm of our food system. Whether within a greenhouse or a sunless (vertical farm) environment, this method of farming spans production to consumption, with many indoor operators marketing their produce to consumers as branded products. As we explore below, the indoor ag value chain reflects a number of the challenges and opportunities confronting our entire food system today: supply chain, safety, sustainability, and labor. Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic rippled through and impacted each aspect of that system, at times magnifying the challenges, and at others, accelerating change and growth.
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Our Indoor AgTech Landscape 2021 provides a snapshot of the technology and innovation ecosystem of the indoor food production value chain. The landscape spans component technology companies and providers of complete growing systems to actual tech-forward indoor farm operators. As before, the landscape is not meant to be exhaustive. While we track more than 1,300 companies in the sector, this landscape represents a subset and serves to highlight innovative players utilizing digital and information technology to enhance and optimize indoor food production at scale.
Supply chain & safety: Where does my food come from?
The pandemic highlighted the shortcomings of the existing supply chain and heightened consumer desires to know where their food comes from, how safely it was processed and packaged, and how far it has travelled to reach them. A key aspect of indoor farming is its built-in potential to respond to these and other challenges of the current food system.
Indoor farmers can locate their operations near distribution centers and consumers, reduce food miles and touch points, potentially deliver consistently fresher produce and reduce food waste, and claim the coveted “local” distinction. The decentralized system can also add resiliency to supply chains overly dependent on exclusive sources and imports.
Growing local has many forms. Greenhouse growers tend to locate their farms outside the metropolitan area while sunless growers may operate in urban centers, such as Sustenir Agriculture in Singapore and Growing Underground in London. Growers like Square Roots co-locate their indoor farms with their partner’s regional distribution centers, and Babylon deploys its micro-farms solution on site at healthcare and senior living facilities and universities. Recently, Infarm announced it was expanding beyond its growing-in-a-grocery store model, to include decentralized deployments of high-capacity “Growing Centers” across a number of cities. Additionally, the value of “growing local” might take on a much larger meaning if your country imports most of its produce from other countries; a number of the Gulf region countries have announced major indoor growing initiatives and projects with AeroFarms, Pure Harvest, and &ever to address the region’s food dependence on other countries.
Organic produce sales jumped to double digit growth in 2020 as consumers are increasingly mindful of the healthiness of their food. The additional safety concerns due to the pandemic only accelerated this trend. While not typically organic, crops produced in the protection of indoor farms are isolated from external sources of contamination and are often grown with few or no pesticides. Human touch points are reduced as supply chains shorten and production facilities become highly automated. Through the CEA Food Safety Coalition, the industry has recently taken steps to establish production standards with a goal to keep consumers safe from foodborne illness.
Indoor farmers market their products as local, fresh, consistent and clean. This story is resonating with consumers as the growers seem to be selling everything they can produce, with many reporting significant sales growth in 2020. The direct connection to consumer concerns is also a key part of their ability to sell their branded products at a premium, which has been critical to financial viability for some growers. This connection can also enable them to collapse the supply chain further, at least at smaller scales, through direct sales and creative business models, e.g., sunless grower Willo allows subscribers to have their own “personal vertical farm plot” and watch their plants grow online.
Sustainability: Is my food part of the problem or part of the solution?
Farming, as with most industries, has been under increasing pressure to operate more sustainably, and indoor growers, with their efficient use of resources, have rightfully incorporated sustainability prominently into their narratives.
We are well aware of the impacts of climate change, including greater variability in weather patterns and growing seasons. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that over the coming decades climate change will cause a decrease in global crop production through traditional farming practices, causing greater food insecurity. Indoor growing, which provides protection from the elements, consistent high yields per land area, and the ability to produce food year-round in diverse locations, including those unsuitable for traditional agriculture, can help mitigate this trend.
Water scarcity is projected to increase globally, presenting a national security issue and serious quality of life concerns. According to the World Bank, 70% of the global freshwater is used for agriculture. Indoor agriculture’s efficient use of water decreases use by more than 90% for the current crops under production. It is also common practice for greenhouses to capture rainwater and reuse drainage as does Agro Care, the Netherlands’ largest greenhouse tomato grower.
On the flip side, energy use, particularly in sunless facilities, is indoor growing’s sustainability challenge. Efficiency will continue to improve, but as recent analysis on indoor soilless farming from The Markets Institute at WWF indicated, there is an industry-wide opportunity to integrate alternative energy sources. Growers recognize this opportunity to decrease impact and improve bottom-line and are already utilizing alternative approaches such as cogeneration, geothermal sources, and waste heat networks. H2Orto tomatoes are grown in greenhouses heated with biogas generated hot water. Gotham Greens’ produce is grown in 100% renewable electricity-powered greenhouses, and Denmark’s Nordic Harvest will be running Europe’s largest indoor farm solely on wind power.
Labor: We’re still hiring!
There are labor challenges and opportunities throughout the food system value chain, and this couldn’t be more acute than on the farm. Farm operators—both in-field and indoor—find it difficult to attract labor for the physically demanding work. Even before the pandemic, the hardening of borders in Europe and the US created a shortage of farmworkers for both field and greenhouse production. In addition, grower and farm manager-level expertise is in short supply, exacerbated by an aging workforce and the rapid addition of new indoor facilities. While operators would like to see more trained candidates coming from university programs, they are also looking to technology and automation to relieve their labor challenges.
Automation of seedling production and post-harvest activities is already well established for most crops in indoor farming. In addition, the short growth cycle and contained habit of leafy greens lends them to mechanization. For example, the fully automated seed-through-harvest leafy green systems from Green Automation and Viscon have been deployed in major greenhouse operations like Pure Green Farms and Mucci. On the sunless side, Urban Crop Solutions has uniquely implemented automation in shipping containers, and Finland’s NetLed has developed a fully automated complete growing system. Note that many of the larger-scale sunless growers have developed their own technology stacks and have designed labor-saving automation into their systems. For example, Fifth Season has robotics deployed throughout the entire production process.
Despite numerous initiatives, the challenging daily crop care tasks and harvesting for certain crops (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and berries) have not yet been automated at scale. However, planned, near-term commercial deployments of de-leafing and harvesting robots offer the promise of significantly altering labor challenges. Software technologies, like those from Nitea and Hortikey address labor management, crop registration, yield prediction, and workflow/process management for the indoor sector and strive to improve operational efficiencies for a smaller workforce.
Technologies that provide, monitor, and control climate, light, water, and nutrients are already deployed in today’s sophisticated indoor growing facilities and are fundamental to maintaining optimal conditions in these complex environments. They also form the base for the next innovation layer, i.e., crop optimization and even autonomous control of the growing environment based on imaging and sensor platforms (like from Ecoation, iUNU, and 30MHz), data analysis, machine learning, digital twins and artificial intelligence. Recent events like the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge have successfully explored the potential of AI to “drive horticultural productivity while reducing resource use and management complexity”. Emerging commercialized autonomous growing innovations, such as the Blue Radix Crop Controller and Priva’s Plantonomy, promise to extend and enhance the reach of available grower expertise, particularly in large and multi-site operations.
Where do we go from here?
Since we created our initial Indoor AgTech Landscape, there has been positive change and reason to be optimistic about the future. But, as with any evolving market and sector of innovation, it can be a bumpy ride. Some believe CEA is not the answer to our food problems because not everything can be economically grown indoors today. We see indoor ag as just one of the approaches that can help fix our food system and it should be applied when it makes sense. For example, tomatoes sold through retail are already more than likely grown in a greenhouse. Expect more crops to be grown indoors more economically with further advancements.
One aspect of our previous landscape was to increase awareness that, despite the fervor surrounding novel sunless farming, greenhouse growing was already well-established. Dutch greenhouse growers have demonstrated the viability of indoor growing with 50-plus years of experience and more acres “under glass than the size of Manhattan.” The recent public offering and $3 billion market cap of Kentucky-based greenhouse grower AppHarvest also clearly raised awareness! Other high-profile and expanding greenhouse growers, including BrightFarms and Gotham Greens, have also attracted large investments.
The question is often asked, “which is the better growing approach, sunless or greenhouse?”. There is no proverbial “silver bullet” for indoor farming. The answer is dictated by location and the problem you are trying to solve. A solution for the urban centers of Singapore, Hong Kong and Mumbai might not be the same as one deployed on the outskirts of Chicago.
Regardless of approach, starting any type of sizable tech-enabled indoor farm is capital intensive. A recent analysis from Agritecture indicates that it can range from $5 to $11 million dollars to build out a three-acre automated farm. Some of the huge, advanced greenhouse projects being built today can exceed $100 million. Given the capital requirements for these indoor farms, some question the opportunity for venture-level returns in the sector and suggest that it is better suited to investors in real assets. Still, more than $600 million was raised by the top 10 financings in 2020 as existing players vie for leadership and expand to underserved locales while a seemingly endless stream of new companies continue to enter the market.
Looking forward, indoor farming needs to address its energy and labor challenges. In particular, the sunless approach has work to do to bring its operating costs in line and achieve widespread profitability. Additionally, to further accelerate growth and the adoption of new technologies in both greenhouse and sunless environments, the sector needs to implement the sharing of data between systems. Waybeyond is one of the companies promoting open systems and APIs to achieve this goal.
As we stated in the beginning of this piece, the indoor ag value chain reflects some of the challenges and opportunities confronting our entire food system today: supply chain, safety, sustainability, and labor. Indoor agriculture has tremendous opportunity. While it is still early for this market sector overall, it can bring more precision and agility to where and how food is grown and distributed.
US: NORTH CAROLINA: CraftGrown Farms Offers Fresh Microgreens, Lettuce And Herbs
All of the growing is done inside, allowing CraftGrown Farms to produce year-round and the ability to expand its growing capacity
BY JESSICA MAURER
March 10, 2021
CraftGrown Farms involves a hydroponic farm on Castle Street. (Photo courtesy of CraftGrown Farms)
Randall Rhyne’s career has included teaching high school biology and earth science as well as serving in the Army Reserve, with deployments to Iraq and Syria.
After visiting Wilmington last year, he fell in love with the city and decided to relocate from Virginia.
While serving overseas, Rhyne and his unit often had little to no access to fresh food, relying on MREs or snacks like Pop-Tarts. He often longed for fresh produce.
One spring when he was in the Syrian desert, he saw trucks hauling locally grown produce and found himself thinking that if the locals were able to grow their own food in the middle of a civil war, in a desert, there was no reason why he couldn’t do this at home. As soon as he returned to Virginia, Rhyne got to work.
Now, having secured a Castle Street storefront and growing space across from Luna Café on Castle Street last fall, Rhyne has created CraftGrown Farms, an indoor, hydroponic farm selling nutrient-dense microgreens, hydroponic lettuce, and herbs to local restaurants and the public.
All of the growing is done inside, allowing CraftGrown Farms to produce year-round and the ability to expand its growing capacity.
Rhyne said the response so far has been remarkable; in fact, he’s already outgrown his initial vertical grow system.
“It’s a great problem to have,” Rhyne said.
He said new customers are usually so excited about what they’ve tried that they want to take home more than they need.
“I’m an old school believer in the quality of the sale and even though these items have a good shelf life, I try to discourage people from buying too much at once,” Rhyne said.
CraftGrown Farms only harvests what it sells, so the produce is picked right in front of the customer, providing maximum flavor and freshness.
There are currently about a dozen microgreen blends available, as well as leafy greens such as kale, arugula, and tatsoi. The microgreens will keep in a vegetable crisper for two weeks, and all of the lettuce is sold with the root ball intact to preserve flavor and freshness.
“These are not your everyday lettuces,” Rhyne said.
CraftGrown Farms is located at 603 Castle St. and is open from noon to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.
Have a tip for Restaurant Roundup? Email us at: restaurant@wilmingtonbiz.com.
Agritech: Precision Farming With AI, IoT and 5G
For a company that grows and delivers vegetables, Boomgrow Productions Sdn Bhd’s office is nothing like a farm, or even a vertical farm. Where farms are bedecked with wheelbarrows, spades and hoes, Boomgrow’s floor plan is akin to a co-working space with a communal island table, several cubicles, comfortable armchairs, a cosy hanging rattan chair and a glass-walled conference room in the middle
Image from: Photo by Mohd Izwan Mohd Nazam/The Edge
For a company that grows and delivers vegetables, Boomgrow Productions Sdn Bhd’s office is nothing like a farm, or even a vertical farm.
Where farms are bedecked with wheelbarrows, spades and hoes, Boomgrow’s floor plan is akin to a co-working space with a communal island table, several cubicles, comfortable armchairs, a cosy hanging rattan chair and a glass-walled conference room in the middle.
At a corner, propped up along a walkway leading to a rectangular chamber fitted with grow lights, are rows of support stilts with hydroponic planters developed in-house and an agricultural technologist perched on a chair, perusing data. “This is where some of the R&D work happens,” says Jay Dasen, co-founder of the agritech start-up.
But there is a larger farm where most of the work behind this high-tech initiative is executed. Located a stone’s throw from the city centre in Ampang is a 40ft repurposed shipping container outfitted with perception technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that mimic the ideal environment to produce more than 50,000kg of vegetables a year.
Stacked in vertical layers, Boomgrow’s vegetables are grown under artificial lights with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to detect everything from leaf discolouration to nitrate composition. This is coupled with AI and machine learning algorithms.
Boomgrow is the country’s first 5G-connected vertical farm. With the low latency and larger bandwidth technology, the start-up is able to monitor production in real time as well as maintain key parameters, such as temperature and humidity, to ensure optimal growth conditions.
When Jay and her co-founders, K Muralidesan and Shan Palani, embarked on this initiative six years ago, Boomgrow was nowhere near what it is today.
The three founders got together hoping to do their part in building a more sustainable future. “I’ve spent years advising small and large companies on sustainability, environmental and social governance disclosures. I even embarked on a doctorate in sustainability disclosure and governance,” says Jay.
“But I felt a deep sense of disconnect because while I saw companies evolving in terms of policies, processes and procedures towards sustainability, the people in those organisations were not transforming. Sustainability is almost like this white noise in the background. We know it’s important and we know it needs to be done, but we don’t really know how to integrate it into our lives.
“That disconnect really troubled me. When we started Boomgrow, it wasn’t a linear journey. Boomgrow is something that came out of meaningful conversations and many years of research.”
Shan, on the other hand, was an architect who developed a taste for sustainable designs when he was designing modular structures with minimal impact on their surroundings between regular projects. “It was great doing that kind of work. But I was getting very dissatisfied because the projects were customer-driven, which meant I would end up having debates about trivial stuff such as the colour of wall tiles,” he says.
As for Murali, the impetus to start Boomgrow came from having lived overseas — while working in capital markets and financial services — where quality and nutritious produce was easily available.
Ultimately, they concluded that the best way to work towards their shared sustainability goals was to address the imminent problem of food shortage.
“By 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion people, two-thirds of whom will be in Asia-Pacific. Feeding all those people will definitely be a huge challenge,” says Jay.
“The current agricultural practice is not built for resilience, but efficiency. So, when you think of farming, you think of vast tracts of land located far away from where you live or shop.
“The only way we could reimagine or rethink that was to make sure the food is located closer to consumers, with a hyperlocal strategy that is traceable and transparent, and also free of pesticides.”
Having little experience in growing anything, it took them a while to figure out the best mechanism to achieve their goal. “After we started working on prototypes, we realised that the tropics are not designed for certain types of farming,” says Jay.
“And then, there is the problem of harmful chemicals and pesticides everywhere, which has become a necessity for farmers to protect their crops because of the unpredictable climate. We went through many iterations … when we started, we used to farm in little boxes, but that didn’t quite work out.”
They explored different methodologies, from hydroponics to aquaponics, and even started growing outdoors. But they lost a lot of crops when a heat wave struck.
That was when they started exploring more effective ways to farm. “How can we protect the farm from terrible torrential rains, plant 365 days a year and keep prices affordable? It took us five years to answer these questions,” says Jay.
Even though farmers all over the world currently produce more than enough food to feed everyone, 820 million people — roughly 11% of the global population — did not have enough to eat in 2018, according to the World Health Organization. Concurrently, food safety and quality concerns are rising, with more consumers opting for organically produced food as well as safe foods, out of fear of harmful synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.
According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, consumer demand for global organic fruit and vegetables was valued at US$19.16 billion in 2019 and is anticipated to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% by 2026.
Meanwhile, the precision farming market was estimated to be US$7 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach US$12.8 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 12.7% between 2020 and 2025, states MarketsandMarkets Research Pte Ltd.
Malaysia currently imports RM1 billion worth of leafy vegetables from countries such as Australia, China and Japan. Sourcing good and safe food from local suppliers not only benefits the country from a food security standpoint but also improves Malaysia’s competitive advantage, says Jay.
Unlike organic farming — which is still a soil-based method — tech-enabled precision farming has the advantage of catering for increasing demand and optimum crop production with the limited resources available. Moreover, changing weather patterns due to global warming encourage the adoption of advanced farming technologies to enhance farm productivity and crop yield.
Boomgrow’s model does not require the acres of land that traditional farms need, Jay emphasises. With indoor farms, the company promises a year-round harvest, undisturbed by climate and which uses 95% less water, land and fuel to operate.
Traditional farming is back-breaking labour. But with precision technology, farmers can spend less time on the farm and more on doing other things to develop their business, she says.
Boomgrow has secured more than RM300,000 in funding via technology and innovation grants from SME Corporation Malaysia, PlaTCOM Ventures and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, and is on track to build the country’s largest indoor farms.
Image from: Boomgrow
The company got its chance to showcase the strength of its smart technology when Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) approached it to be a part of the telco’s Smart Agriculture cluster in Langkawi last October.
“5G makes it faster for us to process the multiple data streams that we need because we collect data for machine learning, and then AI helps us to make decisions faster,” Jay explains.
“We manage the farm using machines to study inputs like water and electricity and even measure humidity. All the farm’s produce is lab-tested and we can keep our promise that there are no pesticides, herbicides or any preserving chemicals. We follow the food safety standards set by the EU, where nitrate accumulation in plant tissues is a big issue.”
With TM’s 5G technology and Boomgrow’s patent-pending technology, the latter is able to grow vegetables like the staple Asian greens and highland crops such as butterhead and romaine lettuce as well as kale and mint. While the company is able to grow more than 30 varieties of leafy greens, it has decided to stick to a selection of crops that is most in demand to reduce waste, says Jay.
As it stands, shipping containers are the best fit for the company’s current endeavour as containerised modular farms are the simplest means of bringing better food to local communities. However, it is also developing a blueprint to house farms in buildings, she says.
Since the showcase, Boomgrow has started to supply its crops to various hotels in Langkawi. It rolled out its e-commerce platform last year after the Movement Control Order was imposed.
“On our website, we promise to deliver the greens within six hours of harvest. But actually, you could get them way earlier. We harvest the morning after the orders come in and the vegetables are delivered on the same day,” says Jay.
Being mindful of Boomgrow’s carbon footprint, orders are organised and scheduled according to consumers’ localities, she points out. “We don’t want our delivery partners zipping everywhere, so we stagger the orders based on where consumers live.
“For example, all deliveries to Petaling Jaya happen on Thursdays, but the vegetables are harvested that morning. They are not harvested a week before, three days before or the night before. This is what it means to be hyperlocal. We want to deliver produce at its freshest and most nutritious state.”
Plans to expand regionally are also underway, once Boomgrow’s fundraising exercise is complete, says Jay. “Most probably, this will only happen when the Covid-19 pandemic ends.”
To gain the knowledge they have today, the team had to “unlearn” everything they knew and take up new skills to figure what would work best for their business, says Jay. “All this wouldn’t have been possible if we had not experimented with smart cameras to monitor the condition of our produce,” she laughs.
These Buildings Combine Affordable Housing And Vertical Farming
Inside each building, the ground level will offer community access, while the greenhouse fills the second, third, and fourth floors, covering 70,000 square feet and growing around a million pounds of produce a year
A Million Pounds of Produce A Year, Along With Housing And Jobs.
[Image: Harriman/Gyde/courtesy Vertical Harvest]
02-18-21
Some vertical farms grow greens in old warehouses, former steel mills, or other sites set apart from the heart of cities. But a new series of projects will build multistory greenhouses directly inside affordable housing developments.
“Bringing the farm back to the city center can have a lot of benefits,” says Nona Yehia, CEO of Vertical Harvest, a company that will soon break ground on a new building in Westbrook, Maine, that combines a vertical farm with affordable housing. Similar developments will follow in Chicago and in Philadelphia, where a farm-plus-housing will be built in the Tioga District, an opportunity zone.
[Image: Harriman/Gyde/courtesy Vertical Harvest]
“I think what we’ve truly understood in the past year and a half—although we’ve been rooted in it all along—is that we have in this country converging economic, climate, and health crises that are rooted in people’s access to healthy food, resilient, nourishing jobs, and fair housing,” Yehia says. “And we saw this as an urban redevelopment tool that has the potential to address all three.”
Nona Yehia [Image: Harriman/Gyde/courtesy Vertical Harvest]
The company launched in 2015 on a vacant lot in Jackson, Wyoming, aiming in part to create jobs for people with physical and developmental disabilities in the area. In 2019, it got a contract from Fannie Mae to explore how its greenhouses could help with the challenge of food security and nutrition, studying how a farm could be integrated into an existing affordable housing development in Chicago as a model for new projects.
Now, as it moves forward with the Chicago project and expands to other cities, it will also create new jobs for people who might have otherwise had difficulty finding work, working with local stakeholders to identify underserved populations. “Part of this is providing healthy, nutritious food,” Yehia says, “but also jobs at livable wages. We’re positioning all of our firms to address the new minimum wage level of $15 an hour with a path towards career development.”
[Image: Harriman/Gyde/courtesy Vertical Harvest]
Inside each building, the ground level will offer community access, while the greenhouse fills the second, third, and fourth floors, covering 70,000 square feet and growing around a million pounds of produce a year. (The amount of housing varies by site; in Maine, the plan includes 50 unites of housing, and the project will also create 50 new jobs.) In Chicago, there may be a community kitchen on the first level. In each location, residents will be able to buy fresh produce on-site; Vertical Harvest also plans to let others in the neighborhood buy greens directly from the farm. While it will sell to supermarkets, restaurants, hospitals, and other large customers, it also plans to subsidize 10-15% of its harvest for local food pantries and other community organizations. “By creating a large-scale farm in a food desert we are creating a large source of healthy, locally grown food 365 days a year,” she says.
Correction: We’ve updated this article to note that the project in Maine has 50 units of housing, not 15, and the company received a contract—not a grant—from Fannie Mae.
ADELE PETERS
ADELE PETERS IS A STAFF WRITER AT FAST COMPANY WHO FOCUSES ON SOLUTIONS TO SOME OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST PROBLEMS, FROM CLIMATE CHANGE TO HOMELESSNESS. PREVIOUSLY, SHE WORKED WITH GOOD, BIOLITE, AND THE SUSTAINABLE PRODUCTS AND SOLUTIONS PROGRAM AT UC BERKELEY, AND CONTRIBUTED TO THE SECOND EDITION OF THE BESTSELLING BOOK "WORLDCHANGING: A USER'S GUIDE FOR THE 21ST CENTURY."
Bringing The Future To life In Abu Dhabi
A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture
Amid the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators are sowing the seeds of a more sustainable future.
Image from: Wired
A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture.
Madar Farms is one of a number of agtech startups benefitting from a package of incentives from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) aimed at spurring the development of innovative solutions for sustainable desert farming. The partnership is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Programme dedicated to supporting companies in high-growth areas.
“Abu Dhabi is pressing ahead with our mission to ‘turn the desert green’,” explained H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, in November 2020. “We have created an environment where innovative ideas can flourish and the companies we partnered with earlier this year are already propelling the growth of Abu Dhabi’s 24,000 farms.”
The pandemic has made food supply a critical concern across the entire world, combined with the effects of population growth and climate change, which are stretching the capacity of less efficient traditional farming methods. Abu Dhabi’s pioneering efforts to drive agricultural innovation have been gathering pace and look set to produce cutting-edge solutions addressing food security challenges.
Beyond work supporting the application of novel agricultural technologies, Abu Dhabi is also investing in foundational research and development to tackle this growing problem.
In December, the emirate’s recently created Advanced Technology Research Council [ATRC], responsible for defining Abu Dhabi’s R&D strategy and establishing the emirate and the wider UAE as a desired home for advanced technology talent, announced a four-year competition with a $15 million prize for food security research. Launched through ATRC’s project management arm, ASPIRE, in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the award will support the development of environmentally-friendly protein alternatives with the aim to "feed the next billion".
Image from: Madar Farms
Global Challenges, Local Solutions
Food security is far from the only global challenge on the emirate’s R&D menu. In November 2020, the ATRC announced the launch of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), created to support applied research on the key priorities of quantum research, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy and secure systems.
“The technologies under development at TII are not randomly selected,” explains the centre’s secretary general Faisal Al Bannai. “This research will complement fields that are of national importance. Quantum technologies and cryptography are crucial for protecting critical infrastructure, for example, while directed energy research has use-cases in healthcare. But beyond this, the technologies and research of TII will have global impact.”
Future research directions will be developed by the ATRC’s ASPIRE pillar, in collaboration with stakeholders from across a diverse range of industry sectors.
“ASPIRE defines the problem, sets milestones, and monitors the progress of the projects,” Al Bannai says. “It will also make impactful decisions related to the selection of research partners and the allocation of funding, to ensure that their R&D priorities align with Abu Dhabi and the UAE's broader development goals.”
Image from: Agritecture
Nurturing Next-Generation Talent
To address these challenges, ATRC’s first initiative is a talent development programme, NexTech, which has begun the recruitment of 125 local researchers, who will work across 31 projects in collaboration with 23 world-leading research centres.
Alongside universities and research institutes from across the US, the UK, Europe and South America, these partners include Abu Dhabi’s own Khalifa University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first graduate-level institute focused on artificial intelligence.
“Our aim is to up skill the researchers by allowing them to work across various disciplines in collaboration with world-renowned experts,” Al Bannai says.
Beyond academic collaborators, TII is also working with a number of industry partners, such as hyperloop technology company, Virgin Hyperloop. Such industry collaborations, Al Bannai points out, are essential to ensuring that TII research directly tackles relevant problems and has a smooth path to commercial impact in order to fuel job creation across the UAE.
“By engaging with top global talent, universities and research institutions and industry players, TII connects an intellectual community,” he says. “This reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge-based economy.”
US - OHIO: Thinking And Growing Inside The Box
A brother-sister team has taken the mechanics of farming out of the field and into a freight container. “We are growing beautiful plants without the sun; there’s no soil, and so it’s all a closed-loop water system,” Britt Decker, co-owner of Fifth Season FARM, said
A brother-sister team has taken the mechanics of farming out of the field and into a freight container.
“We are growing beautiful plants without the sun; there’s no soil, and so it’s all a closed-loop water system,” Britt Decker, co-owner of Fifth Season FARM, said. “We use non-GMO seeds, completely free of herbicides and pesticides, so the product is really, really clean. In fact, we recommend people don’t even wash it, because there’s no reason to.”
Fifth Season FARM is unique in many ways; the 3-acre hydroponic farm is contained in a 320-square-foot freight container that sits along 120 S. Main St. in Piqua, with everything from varying varities of lettuce, to radishes, to kale and even flowers in a climate-controlled smart farm that allows Decker and his sister, Laura Jackson, to turn crops in a six- to eight-week cycle. The crops spend 18 hours in “daytime” every day, and the farm uses 90% less water than traditional farming.
“It’s tricky because we’re completely controlling the environment in here. It’s kind of a laboratory more than a farm,” Decker said. “I think there’s about 50 of them around the world right now. These are really international, and they’re perfect for places that are food deserts where they can’t grow food because of climate or other reasons. It gives them a way to grow food in the middle of nowhere.”
Image from: Sidney Daily News
Decker and Jackson, along with their brother Bill Decker, also do traditional farming and grow corn, wheat and soybeans, but Decker said they were looking for a new venture that would help lead them to a healthier lifestyle and learn something new.
“Just with the whole local food movement becoming more and more important and food traceability, we just thought it would be a great thing to bring to our community to help everyone have a healthier lifestyle,” Decker said. “People love food that’s grown right in their hometown and the shelf-life on it, when you get it home, is remarkable. It’ll keep for two weeks.”
Image from: AgFunder News
Currently, Decker and Jackson are growing a half-dozen variety of specialty lettuces that include arugula, butterhead and romaine, as well as specialty greens like kale and Swiss chard, and even radishes and flowers. They received their freight container at the end of July and set up their indoor farm over two weeks; while the farm has been in operation for less than six months, Decker says that they’re growing beautiful product.
They have also started growing micro-greens, said Decker. Micro-greens are immature plants which are 1 to 3 inches tall and are in a 5-inch by 5-inch container.
“People will use them as garnishments and in smoothies,” said Decker. “Since they are immature plants, they have an intense flavor.”
Decker said they are growing wheat germ, broccoli and spicy salad mixes.
They’ve also started moving forward with sales and marketing. Fifth Season FARM has partnered with the Miami County Locally Grown Virtual Market to sell their products to the community. They also take orders through their website, customers can opt to pick up their orders between 4 and 6 p.m. on Wednesdays, or Decker and Jackson will deliver products up to five miles from the farm. Decker said that Fifth Season FARM is also in discussions with three restaurants in the area about including their specialty greens on their menus.
Decker said they also plan to attend the Sidney Farmers Market when it opens for the spring/summer season.
“We’re really just getting going,” Decker said. “While we were learning to grow products, we didn’t want to overcommit to a restaurant or grocery store before we knew we could really grow beautiful product, so we’ve been donating product every week to the food pantry at the Presbyterian Church. It feels good to plant the seeds and watch them grow, and it feels good to make sure that people who aren’t getting the proper nutrition are getting some.”
The Business Of Vertical Farming: What It Is And What It Isn’t
It’s definitely the future of agriculture but it’s also an opportunity for people to choose where they fit in and where they can make their most meaningful and important contribution
“Vertical farming is a tremendous opportunity,” says Glenn Behrman, founder and President of CEA Advisors, consultants and advisors to the global vertical farming industry and a 50-year veteran of the horticulture industry. It’s definitely the future of agriculture but it’s also an opportunity for people to choose where they fit in and where they can make their most meaningful and important contribution”.
Over the years, CEA Advisors has provided services for the development of indoor farming projects locally and internationally. They’ve worked on projects for growers, investors, universities, schools, food processors, vertical farm developers, pharmaceutical manufacturers and government agencies.
Fundraising business model
According to Glenn, many people enter the market without really doing their homework. They want to be in vertical farming, but they don’t know that there are many different industry entry points that are available that can really satisfy their interests. No questions are asked, no networking is done, and they do not drill down to a deeper level to see where their interest really is.
“Today, I see that many are only motivated with raising money but funding is not a business model. If money is your main motivation, you’re probably going to fail. There’s too much of a focus on raising money and not enough focus on making money. I believe a business should be cash flow positive, but we also need to be innovating and improving, not marketing concept systems to investors. New growers should first consider where they can make a difference in the market," says Glenn.
‘Go out there and start networking’
This highlights another big issue with vertical farming. According to Glenn, people don’t realize the relationship between the start-up vertical farmer and end-user, which is unbelievably important but fragile at the same time. A new farm cannot expect for institutional buyers to place orders just because they exist. When wanting to sell to retailers, Glenn says that it’s very unlikely for them to switch suppliers after being in business with them for many years. “Many growers overestimate their marketing capabilities because they don’t think the whole operational process out. The same problem with receivables, make sure you put away enough money to finance your receivables."
Glenn Behrmann
Glenn advises starting growers to first get involved with vertical farming by doing a lot of research. “Meaning, not only on the internet but go out there and talk to growers, visit farms, talk to produce buyers, restaurants and other end-users and get to know the industry. Get out in the field, visit trade shows, they’re thought-provoking, get active and do some networking. I also advise people to become a part of farming, grow things at home and get a better idea of what it’s all about. Then start focusing on the systems, machinery and equipment. But remember all growers need to look at the end result: the product.
Finding a balance
Every component, says Glenn, from seeds to sales involves many different processes. Every single process, every single link in the chain has room for improvement. “There are discussions about achieving a maximum yield in a sustainable manner. What isn’t realized is that maximum yield doesn’t only mean how much basil is grown in a specific time period, but it also dictates how less input should generate more output. Costs that are not controlled can render the most innovative system completely unsustainable.
It’s like an Excel spreadsheet, says Glenn. “Take every variable that goes into growing a crop, then continue to tweak, improve and change. At some point growers need to come up with the optimum result.” Glenn says that some might have the right component but not be in balance. Therefore, growers need to be always aware of all processes and keep them in balance. Too much light, too little light, wrong PH, bad air circulation, wrong fertilizer mix, high labor costs, wrong crop, humidity too high or too low? All need to be in balance to achieve success.
Don’t be afraid to ask
Glenn has more than 50 years of industry experience with a broad view of the market. “I don’t let myself get stuck in a corner, because I’m not afraid to ask when I don’t know or I’m not sure. During my early career in the foliage business, I asked a million questions, I watched how things were done, I took advice, I was like a sponge soaking up knowledge from those that came before me. Although I’ve been laser-focused on Vertical Farming for the past ten years, my attitude about acquiring knowledge hasn’t changed. Be curious and ask a lot of questions!"
“Nowadays, I see a lack of curiosity and a lot of over-confidence. Vertical farming needs to be taken one step at a time, meaning you cannot graduate college on the first day of high school, it’s a journey. Going into business is a risk and then there are more risks every day. Growers need to evaluate where they want to be in this equation. Nobody today promotes their vertical farming project as an R&D opportunity, but rather as the game-changing food supply of the future. The truth is with a technology that is constantly evolving, every single vertical farm operating today is still a work in progress."
Inside the Growtainer®
In addition to consulting and advising vertical farming CEA Advisors designs and builds custom Growtainers. “Each build is always interesting and challenging as they’re always built for a specific unique use and objective,” Glenn states. “I don’t believe that one size fits all in container farming and I don’t believe that plants were meant to grow sideways.
However, it is obvious that technology is constantly evolving and improving and each Growtainer must always provide what the end-user needs, whether it is for research or food production etc. Every unit must always be optimized. But Growtainers are technology-based and the end-user is always the most important part of the equation. And whether production takes place in a Growtainer or a Vertical Farm, it is always about balance.
For more information:
CEA Advisors LLC
Glenn Behrman, Founder and President
gb@cea-advisors.com
www.cea-advisors.com
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
Join Us For Global G.A.P. World Consultation Tour - Focused On Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA)
Join the upcoming virtual meeting on January 25, 2021 13:00-14:30 EST
The GLOBAL G.A.P. World Consultation Tour goes into its second round! Join the upcoming virtual meeting on January 25, 2021 13:00-14:30 EST in collaboration with the Farm Tech Society. Together, we aim to deliver an impactful standard in line with producers’ practices. The unique challenges presented by vertical farming or produce grown in controlled environments will be addressed to ensure an appropriate user experience.
High-tech monitoring and control systems in commercial controlled environment agriculture farms and their supply chains enable the opportunity to capture automated measurements, support assessment and analyze a wide range of variables including water to energy to inputs, reducing costs and adding value for individual farms and across the industry. The ultimate goal of the partnership is the development and implementation of an impactful standard and certification process.
Participants will meet the expert working group behind the standard revision, and will have the opportunity to join the ongoing discussion and process.
About FTS:
The Farm Tech Society (FTS) is an international non-profit industry association that unites and supports the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry, seeking to strengthen the sector through the development and implementation of resilient and future proof methods and technologies for indoor growing. The FarmTech Society is enlisted in the EU Transparency Register with #469686733585-87
About GLOBAL G.A.P.:
GLOBAL G.A.P. is a leading global certification program whose mission is to bring farmers and retailers together to produce and market safe food, to protect scarce resources, and to build a sustainable future.
Join the FarmTech Society in 2021
The Farm Tech Society (FTS) is an international non-profit industry association that unites and supports the Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) industry, seeking to strengthen the sector through the development and implementation of resilient and future proof methods and technologies for indoor growing. We look forward to continuing to grow and drive #CEA4CriticalChallenges with members like you.
RII And ACEEE Awarded USDA Grant To Transform Controlled Environment Agriculture Toward Resource Conservation And Efficiency
“As an industry-leading indoor vertical farming company with two farms and over 126,000 sq. ft. of growing space which can produce over 500,000 lbs. of fresh food each year, Fifth Season is committed to this exciting project,” said Grant Vandenbussche, Chief Category Officer, Fifth Season
Washington, D.C. (November 9, 2020) – Resource Innovation Institute (RII) and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) will receive nearly $600,000 over three years from the Conservation Innovation Grants (CIG) program at the United States Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service. The project was one of 24 projects selected for the 2020 program. RII and ACEEE will jointly implement the project through 2023.
Authorized by the 2002 Farm Bill, the CIG program helps develop the tools, technologies, and strategies to support next-generation conservation efforts on working lands and develop market-based solutions to resource challenges.
The awarded proposal, titled Data-Driven Market Transformation for Controlled Environment Agriculture, will characterize key performance indicators, baseline data, and facility-level benchmarking for controlled environmental agriculture facilities. The project will develop a comprehensive suite of data tools, coupled with a market intervention strategy to address barriers to energy conservation, adoption of energy-efficient technologies, access to energy use data, and best practices.
“We’ve been assessing energy and water use in the energy-intensive cannabis cultivation sector for years and have built a set of vetted tools and resources that will now be extended to the broader controlled environment agriculture marketplace,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute. “We appreciate the support of the USDA as well as leading producers, supply chain actors, universities, utilities, governments, standards organizations, and other project partners.”
“Market transformation is a proven strategy for creating and sustaining energy efficiency improvements in energy-intensive market sectors,” said Jennifer Amann, ACEEE’s Buildings Program Director. “With USDA’s support, we’ll engage leading CEA market actors, utilities, and policymakers to demonstrate market transformation’s potential to drive resource efficiency in the fast-growing and innovative CEA market.”
“Agricultural innovation has long played a key role in Oregon’s rural economy, and has made countless contributions to our state for generations,” said Oregon’s U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley, who serves as the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds the USDA. “I’m pleased that this funding will help Oregonians keep us at the cutting edge of the newest technology in sustainable agriculture, and I will continue to partner with our state’s researchers and farmers to make sure Oregon agriculture continues to thrive.”
“The world’s population is increasing, but available agricultural land is decreasing. Through science and innovation, we can help farmers improve the health of their operations and productivity on their lands while protecting the natural resources we all depend on,” said Natural Resources Conservation Service Acting Chief Kevin Norton. “The new systems, tools, and technologies being developed through CIG are helping us ensure the longevity of American agriculture.”
Additional support includes:
Fifth Season
“As an industry-leading indoor vertical farming company with two farms and over 126,000 sq. ft. of growing space which can produce over 500,000 lbs. of fresh food each year, Fifth Season is committed to this exciting project,” said Grant Vandenbussche, Chief Category Officer, Fifth Season. “We will benchmark the resource efficiency performance of our facilities, evaluate potential efficiency upgrades, and be featured in case studies demonstrating the financial and environmental results of our projects.”
Fluence by OSRAM
Fluence is a leading global provider of energy-efficient LED lighting solutions for commercial agriculture production. Fluence regularly contributes to RII’s cultivation guidance and serves as an industry-leading voice for RII on efficient energy consumption for LED lighting in CEA facilities. “We are increasingly observing global growers commit to more energy-efficient cultivation solutions at their facilities,” said Corinne Wilder, Vice President of Global Business Operations for Fluence. “This grant underscores the important work RII has already done for growers and we will enthusiastically recruit cultivators to engage with this project to not only help improve the efficiency of their own operations but those of the entire CEA industry.”
Grodan
“For more than 50 years, Grodan has developed Precision Growing methods proven to reduce water and nutrient use while maximizing crop quality and yield. Vertical farms and greenhouses are critical to the future of global food and medicine production as well as minimizing resource usage with technologies such as recirculation,” said Gonneke Gerkema, North American Business Director, Grodan. “This project collaboration brings together several key companies who share the same vision of industry benchmarking combined with Data-Driven decision making to generate water-use efficiencies that will benefit the cultivators, the industry, and indeed the environment.”
Northwest Power & Conservation Council
“Indoor agriculture is a significant part of the driving force behind forecast growing electric loads in agriculture,'' said Ben Kujala, Director of Power Planning, Northwest Power & Conservation Council. “The Council supports looking for opportunities for cost-effective energy efficiency and demand management within the growing indoor agriculture sector as part of its power planning and conservation responsibilities. As project advisor, Council staff commit to engage and educate stakeholders.”
For more information, go to ResourceInnovation.org/CEA. To schedule an interview with an RII representative, please contact Ellie Malone at ellie@themaverickpr.com or 262-337-3312.
About Resource Innovation Institute: Advancing Resource Efficiency to Cultivate a Better Agricultural Future
Resource Innovation Institute (RII) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to advance resource efficiency to cultivate a better agricultural future. Founded in 2016 to address the resource impacts of cannabis cultivation, RII is extending its services to other energy-intensive horticultural sectors. Its PowerScore benchmarking platform represents the world’s largest dataset on indoor agriculture energy use. RII’s Technical Advisory Council, which includes a Policy Working Group and a Utility Working Group, is the leading multi-disciplinary body assessing the environmental impacts and best practices associated with cultivation resource issues. RII’s Board of Directors includes the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (ACEEE) and a former board member of the US Green Building Council. RII is funded by utilities, foundations, governments and industry leaders. Visit our website at ResourceInnovation.org. Follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
# # #
FREE WEBINAR: Food Safety Opportunities & Challenges Unique To Controlled Environment Agriculture - September 9, 2020
Join the CEA Food Safety Coalition and its panel of food safety experts from Bowery Farming, BrightFarms, Plenty & Planted Detroit - for our next Indoor Ag-Conversation
Join the CEA Food Safety Coalition and its panel of food
Safety Experts From
Bowery Farming, BrightFarms, Plenty & Planted Detroit
for our next Indoor Ag-Conversation:
RESERVE YOUR FREE SPOT!
MODERATOR:
Marni Karlin, CEA Food Safety Coalition Executive Director
PANELISTS:
Chris Livingston, General Counsel, Bowery Farming
Jackie Hawkins, Senior Manager of Food Safety, BrightFarms
Isabel Chamberlain, Senior Manager of Food Safety, Plenty
Simon Yevzelman, Director of Operations, Planted Detroit
DURING THIS 60-MINUTE SESSION, YOU'LL:
Learn about food safety opportunities and challenges specific to CEA leafy greens production - including areas such as system design and recirculating water
Hear from food safety experts from CEA leafy greens producers representing a variety of production practices, sizes, and geographies
Gain an understanding into the role of technology in CEA food safety
Learn why consumers and retailers should care - and the work the Coalition is doing to develop a CEA-specific food safety addendum
LEARN MORE
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR INDOOR AG-CON 2020
EXHIBITORS, SPONSORS, MEDIA ALLIES &
INDUSTRY PARTNERS
Indoor Ag-Con, 950 Scales Road, Building #200, Suwanee, GA 30024, United States
Federal Grant Bolsters Higher Education In AgTech
Cornell University has reported that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), has endowed the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Integrative Plant Science with a $496,000 grant
Growers have indicated the need for highly skilled workforce is becoming more urgent as technology restructures the future of farming.
Today’s blog notes a bright spot amongst many past reports of reduced government-backed financial support in research & development (R&D) and education programs that aim to improve living conditions, reduce environmental impact, and manage the growing population’s resources via technology.
Cornell University has reported that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), has endowed the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Integrative Plant Science with a $496,000 grant. The federal funding will be used to develop new controlled environment agriculture (CEA) training programs for a skilled workforce that is sorely needed.
Cornell’s associate professor of horticulture Neil Mattson, well-known to us as the keynote speaker at our 2019 HortiCann Light + Tech conference, will collaborate with Cornell Small Farms program director Anu Rangarajan, Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute, and SUNY Broome Community College to create a technical training certificate in CEA production. The partners also expect to develop a two-year associate’s degree program for students at these institutions and other community colleges to provide solid education in CEA.
Mattson said in the Cornell Chronicle, “Growers consistently state that finding well-trained personnel to operate their facilities is among the largest barriers to expansion.”
Why do we need this educational support? The global population is growing, and supply needs to ramp up to deliver healthy foods to all economic strata. Many food crops are currently unavailable close to home for many, which places a burden on transportation and increases carbon footprint, as well as impacting shelf life. CEA can bring many food-growing resources closer to consumers, especially in urban areas or regions that would prove inhospitable to sensitive crops in a traditional farming operation.
CEA gives growers the means to apply physical systems of growth media, environmental controls, horticultural lighting, and water supply systems along with evidence-backed research in pest management, food safety processes, light customization, and more to produce food sources in a manner designed to balance economic viability, food demand, and sustainability.
Technologies available to modern CEA growers would naturally require a more advanced skillset. Indeed, said Rangarajan, “Our efforts have laid the groundwork for what I hope will be a dynamic training program that will build the workforce and elevate the industry as a whole.”
It’s an exciting time in the horticultural and agricultural space, and learning opportunities abound. Bookmark our HortiCann Light + Tech conference homepage for updates on our upcoming October program, now virtual for 2020. Moving beyond horticultural lighting fundamentals, the program will also delve into agribusiness and the return on investment in advanced systems and controls, AgTech systems integration, and topics related to legalized cannabis growing operations.
Photo credit: Image by iamereri via Pixabay; used under free license for commercial or non-commercial purposes.
Author: Carrie Meadows | LEDsMagazine | Jul 10, 2020
