USA: FLORIDA - The Villages Grown Passes On Expertise

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By Michael Salerno

Daily Sun Senior Writer

April 20, 2021

The intersection of agriculture and wellness is now expanding. The Villages Grown, the community’s farm-to-table initiative, is building on its relationship with the University of Florida through its agricultural, health, and culinary programs. Villages Grown Executive Director Jennifer Waxman recently announced The Villages Grown became the local produce supplier for UF’s campus in Gainesville. Both The Villages Grown and UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences

(UF/IFAS) are working together on research concerning controlled-environment agriculture, which involves crops growing in climate-controlled settings for the best possible growing conditions. Waxman described The Villages Grown as a leader in this practice.

She also revealed plans are in the works to train master gardener volunteers from UF/IFAS’s extension office, who would pass on expertise to residents on how to use hydroponic gardening to cultivate nutrient-dense produce.

“This is really going to help us grow the most nutrient-dense crops you can have access to, to strengthen the food as medicine approach,” Waxman said. “The partnership with UF will help extend our educational offerings with health and gardening to fulfill that thirst for knowledge that we don’t have the bandwidth for.”

Fresh and Local on Campus

The Villages Grown’s produce is now a part of the menu offerings of UF’s on-campus dining through a partnership with the university’s Gator Dining Services.

Diners may expect the full line of produce including microgreens, lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, and cucumbers, Waxman said.

“It’s really bridging agriculture, culinary, and health together, which is what The Villages Grown’s model was built after,” she said.

Gator Dining’s partnership with The Villages Grown builds on a food service program that already was Florida-centric.

Its other Florida suppliers include the Hilliard aquaponics facility Traders Hill Farm, Orlando milk factory T.G. Lee Dairy, Ormond Beach plant-based food producer PAOW! and Lake Mary sausage maker Nettles Sausage.

Agriculture Industry Research

The Villages Grown’s position as a leader in controlled-environment agriculture, also known by its acronym CEA, allows it to be at the forefront of research on the subject.

And that’s what’s happening now, as UF/IFAS researchers seek to learn more about the processes involved and whether it’s economically viable for large farms.

There’s a great interest in controlled-environment agriculture in the private sector, said Jeanna Mastrodicasa, UF/IFAS associate vice president of operations. That interest translates to abundant research opportunities with The Villages Grown and other CEA agribusinesses.

“I’d like to see how well it works,” she said. “We simply don’t know well enough about it, most of agriculture in Florida has been in open fields.”

The Villages Grown depends on controlled-environment greenhouses utilizing vertical hydroponics — a process that uses vertically stacked towers to plant and grow more crops on less land — to grow its line of crops.

It also operates a nutrient tank system that sends a recipe of nutrients from a tank in a utility room through a drip irrigation system, said Adam Wright, The Villages Grown’s director of operations.

Waxman described The Villages Grown as the Southeast’s largest controlled-environment agriculture operation of its kind, made possible by the diversification of its crop offerings.

“There’s a lot of large CEAs that only grow lettuce,” she said.

Expanding Education

But people don’t need large greenhouses to grow vegetables and herbs hydroponically.

That’s something Waxman thinks master gardeners could teach residents. She said she’s working with UF/IFAS on training master gardener volunteers about concepts such as hydroponic growing to cultivate nutritious food.

The commercial needs of The Villages Grown don’t allow its staff much time to teach residents about hydroponic gardening. That’s where trained volunteers would come in, Waxman said.

“We want them to be an extension of The Villages Grown and help them get info out to them on their behalf,” she said.

It’s a philosophy echoed by local UF/IFAS staff, who see trained master gardeners as an extension of themselves, on a mission of helping their communities.

“Having volunteers associated, that will be a great part of it,” said Jim Davis, extension director with the UF/IFAS Sumter County Extension Office.

It helps that involvement in the master gardener program historically has been very strong in The Villages, Mastrodicasa said.

“New people to Florida want to learn about what they can grow in Florida,” she said. “There’s so much opportunity. Just the idea you can have more than one growing season in a year is different. Most places in the country have one.”

Building a Healthier Community

The ultimate goal of The Villages Grown and UF’s expanding relationship is simple: building a healthier community.

That may mean supplying the freshest and most nutrient-rich vegetables possible, or teaching people how they can grow them themselves.

It also explains why The Villages Grown develops blends of microgreens for hospitals, for example, to help those suffering from cardiovascular issues, Waxman said.

For The Villages Grown’s staff, relationships like those with UF make it possible to cultivate nutrient-dense produce in an affordable and accessible way, Waxman said.

“You can’t be a lone ranger,” she said. “Or you’ll be out of business.”

Senior writer Michael Salerno can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5369, or michael.salerno@thevillagesmedia.com.

Lead photo: The Villages Grown assistant director of production, Rachel Skiles, checks the tomato plants to make sure everything is on track inside a greenhouse at the facility. Michael Johnson, Daily Sun

Climate Corps America: The Urban Farms Transforming How America’s Most Vulnerable Communities Eat

Louise Boyle

The microwave plays a significantly more important role to urban farming in Baltimore than you might first imagine.

“Our butternut squash comes from a seed which makes it little and easily microwaveable,” Gwen Kokes, food and farm programme director at Civic Works, told The Independent. “For our [customers] this is really important as it might be too expensive to turn on the gas to cook or the oven might not be working.”

The squash, along with a range of produce, is grown at Real Food Farm, one branch of Civic Works urban service corps program in Maryland’s largest city.

The farm started about a decade ago and spans eight acres in northeast Baltimore with four fields, more than 100 fruit trees, a greenhouse for seedlings, and eight “hoop houses” which, for the uninitiated, are a sort of passive greenhouse with crops planted directly in the soil but sheltered by heavy-duty plastic sheets stretched over frames.

The farm produces 5,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables each year to be sold for reduced cost at farmers’ markets in low-income neighbourhoods across Baltimore. A mobile market, operating out of a box truck, also visits all 12 senior centres in the city.

“In total, we distribute about 100,000 pounds of food every year,” says Ms Kokes. “We buy from other urban farms in a 50-mile radius, prioritising Black-owned farms. Sometimes we have donations from Hungry Harvest, a programme to reduce food waste from grocery stores, and we’ve been adding pantry and hygiene items so that it’s more of a one-stop shop.”

Civic Works is part of AmeriCorps, the federal agency for service and volunteering programmes in the US. To tackle the climate crisis, President Biden has called for “reinvigorating and repurposing” the agency into a so-called “Civilian Climate Corps” to provide jobs while ramping up clean energy and sustainability to “heal our public lands and make us less vulnerable to wildfires and floods”.

“Biden’s plan could be huge for us,” Ms Kokes said. “I think it can grow exponentially. There’s plenty of demand for these jobs.”

The non-profit also runs programmes to mentor students, fix up abandoned houses and makes homes safer for seniors by doing minor DIY like adding handrails and ramps.

AmeriCorps estimates that its existing network –  25,000 participants in about 130 programmes – could be scaled up to 500,000 young people and veterans over the next five years.

Around 19 million people in the US live in “food deserts”. The term is believed to have been coined in Scotland in the early 1990s by a public housing resident, referring to areas where healthy, fresh options are scarce and packaged and fast food has proliferated.

The term is now seen as having negative connotations, implying that “low healthy food access is a naturally occurring phenomenon, rather than the result of underlying structural inequities”, according to a 2018 study by John Hopkins. (Baltimore residents told researchers they preferred the term “Healthy Food Priority Areas”.)

Researchers also point to the systemic racism at the heart of Americans’ access to food. It’s difficult to improve diet and health, for example, if prices for nutritious food are far beyond your budget, and there’s no public transport to take you stores.

“The fact that predominantly black neighbourhoods, on average, have fewer stores and poorer quality [food] compared to their white counterparts means something,” Ashanté M. Reese, professor of sociology and anthropology at Spelman College who studies race and food inequity, told HuffPost .

Baltimore is one of America’s poorest cities. In 22 of the city’s 668 Census tracts, at least 40 per cent of residents live below the poverty line. Even before Covid, the unemployment rate in the poorest neighbourhoods hovered above 15 per cent, triple that of wealthier areas.

Lack of access to healthy food in Baltimore is one layer of racial inequality that has plagued the city since the early 20th century, when deliberate policies were put in place to separate the city’s white and Black residents.

In the city’s Greenmount East neighbourhood the average life expectancy is around 66 years while four miles away in the wealthier Roland Park, the average life expectancy is 84 years, according to Kaiser Health News.

That’s where organisations like Real Food Farm step in. Those who are unemployed or on low-incomes and using government nutrition assistance programmes get double the value for their dollar if it’s spent at the farmers’ market, for example.

Urban farms not only promote healthy eating but have the ability to transform industrial cities.

“Motor City” Detroit, once the backbone of the car industry, has suffered a well-documented decline since its mid-20th century heyday. But its industrial wastelands have been transformed by urban farming with at least 1,400 farms and gardens in the city. In Pittsburgh, Hilltop Urban Farm is set to become the largest urban farm in the country. Baltimore has around 17 urban farms and upwards of 75 community gardens that grow food, according to Baltimore magazine.

Civic Works’ role on the frontline of food insecurity meant that its teams were well-positioned to adapt during the Covid pandemic, delivering boxes of fresh produce and basic necessities to the most vulnerable at no cost. They also worked with public bodies and local charities to deliver donations.

“During lockdown, Baltimore City public school system had to get rid of those little cartons of milk really fast. We have thousands of customers so we focused on getting those out to them,” Ms Kokes said.

From March through the end of July, the programme’s teams ran a free programme delivering boxes of produce, meals and hygiene kits to about 1,000 households a week. They went on to launch a discounted local produce programme, delivering boxes with about $15-$20 of food for $5 with free delivery, mostly to seniors.

Urban farms will play a role in mitigating how climate change impacts urban areas. Cities are often several degrees hotter than rural areas due to the “urban heat island effect” caused by dark-coloured roads and buildings. Increasing vegetation cover can help curb rising temperatures.

Urban farms can also lower the risk of flooding during heavy downpours and help retain water in dry areas, according to a paper in the journal Earth’s Future.

Research in 2018 from Arizona State University and Google found that urban agriculture could save the energy equivalent of 9 million home air conditioning units and produce up to 180m tonnes of food globally. Along with supplying almost the entire recommended consumption of vegetables for city dwellers, it would cut food waste and reduce emissions from transportation of produce, the study found.

Maryland is among the states most vulnerable to climate change, facing both rising sea levels and heightened storm intensity. Government data predicts that Maryland’s sizeable farming community could suffer costly losses during extreme droughts and heat waves.

Ms Kokes says that more extreme and unpredictable weather has impacted their operations in recent years.

“With day-to-day farming, we have to get ‘swamp ready’,” she said. “2018 was the worst for Maryland farmers as the rain was astronomical. We took a huge hit. It was very humbling because we had to reckon with our limitations, and partner with others to be a reliable source of food.

“Irregular weather patterns especially in the spring make it really difficult to know when to plant. We’ve [also] had early frost in October. Our farmer Stewart is a very smart, science-oriented guy and thankfully, there’s resources that we can lean on to translate this unpredictability into clear language.”

Around 3,000 students from kindergarten to high school have visited Real Food Farm over the years to learn about agriculture. Separately, programmes like Future Harvest are preparing the farmers of the future. But it’s important that Real Food Farm’s mission stays relevant to the communities they are in, Ms Kokes said.

“Environmentalism, from our perspective and our work, has to be people-focused,” she said. “We’re not talking about weather patterns when people are hungry and just want affordable produce in their neighbourhood.”

Vertical Farming ‘At a Crossroads’

Building the right business model to balance resource usage with socio-economic conditions is crucial to capturing new markets, say speakers ahead of Agri-TechE event

Image from: Fruitnet

Although growing crops all year round with Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) has been proposed as a method to localize food production and increase resilience against extreme climate events, the efficiency and limitations of this strategy need to be evaluated for each location. 

That is the conclusion of research by Luuk Graamans of Wageningen University & Research, a speaker at the upcoming Agri-TechE event on CEA, which takes place on 25 February.

His research shows that integration with urban energy infrastructure can make vertical farms more viable. Graamans’ research around the modelling of vertical farms shows that these systems are able to achieve higher resource use efficiencies, compared to more traditional food production, except when it comes to electricity. 

Vertical farms, therefore, need to offer additional benefits to offset this increased energy use, Graamans said. One example his team has investigated is whether vertical farms could also provide heat.

“We investigated if vertical farms could provide not just food for people living in densely populated areas and also heat their homes using waste heat. We found that CEA can contribute to stabilizing the increasingly complex energy grid.”

Diversification

This balance between complex factors both within the growing environment and wider socio-economic conditions means that the rapidly growing CEA industry is beginning to diversify with different business models emerging.

Jack Farmer is CSO at vertical producer LettUs Grow, which recently launched its Drop & Grow growing units, offering a complete farming solution in a shipping container. 

He believes everyone in the vertical farming space is going to hit a crossroads. “Vertical farming, with its focus on higher value and higher density crops, is effectively a subset of the broader horticultural sector,” he said. 

"All the players in the vertical farming space are facing a choice – to scale vertically and try to capture as much value in that specific space, or to diversify and take their technology expertise broader.”

LettUs Grow is focussed on being the leading technology provider in containerised farming, and its smaller ‘Drop & Grow: 24’ container is mainly focussed on people entering the horticultural space.

Opportunities in retail

“This year is looking really exciting,” he said. “Supermarkets are investing to ensure a sustainable source of food production in the UK, which is what CEA provides. We’re also seeing a growth in ‘experiential’ food and retail and that’s also where we see our Drop & Grow container farm fitting in.”

Kate Hofman, CEO, GrowUp agrees. The company launched the UK’s first commercial-scale vertical farm in 2014.

“It will be really interesting to see how the foodservice world recovers after lockdown – the rough numbers are that supermarket trade was up at least 11 per cent in the last year – so retail still looks like a really good direction to go in. 

“If we want to have an impact on the food system in the UK and change it for the better, we’re committed to partnering with those big retailers to help them deliver on their sustainability and values-driven goals.

“Our focus is very much as a salad grower that grows a fantastic product that everyone will want to buy. And we’re focussed on bringing down the cost of sustainable food, which means doing it at a big enough scale to gain the economies of production that are needed to be able to sell at everyday prices.”

Making the Numbers Add Up

The economics are an important part of the discussion. Recent investment in the sector has come from the Middle East, and other locations, where abundant solar power and scarce resources are driving interest in CEA. Graamans’ research has revealed a number of scenarios where CEA has a strong business case.

For the UK, CEA should be seen as a continuum from glasshouses to vertical farming, he believes. “Greenhouses can incorporate the technologies from vertical farms to increase climate control and to enhance their performance under specific climates."

It is this aspect that is grabbing the attention of conventional fresh produce growers in open field and covered crop production.  

A Blended Approach

James Green, director of agriculture at G’s, thinks combining different growing methods is the way forward. “There’s a balance in all of these systems between energy costs for lighting, energy costs for cooling, costs of nutrient supply, and then transportation and the supply and demand. At the end of the day, sunshine is pretty cheap and it comes up every day.

“I think a blended approach, where you’re getting as much benefit as you can from nature but you’re supplementing it and controlling the growth conditions, is what we are aiming for, rather than the fully artificially lit ‘vertical farming’.”

Graamans, Farmer and Hofman will join a discussion with conventional vegetable producers, vertical farmers and technology providers at the Agri-TechE event ‘Controlled Environment Agriculture is growing up’ on 25 February 2021.

In Malahide, Two Friends Raise A Vertical Farm

Image from: Dublin Inquirer

When salesman Jack Hussey finishes his work day, he closes the laptop, leaves his home in Malahide and walks 10 minutes down the road. At the bottom of his friend’s farm sits an outhouse with a coldroom which now hosts his side business, Upfarm. A farm that goes upwards.

Imagine a shelf rack, says Hussey. “We’ve kitted the roofs of each shelf with an LED grow light. It’s to replicate the sunlight basically.”

A photo of the farm shows purple light beaming down on thick heads of lemongrass and basil, stacked on shelves. Yields from vertical farming are far more efficient than in-the-ground farming, Hussey said, on the phone last Friday.

He likens it to real estate. “You can have houses that are populated side by side or you can start going upwards with apartments.”

From Podcast to Table

Hussey always had an interest in food, he says. Last year he and a school friend, Bill Abbott, began to look into urban farming.

“But we were saying, is farming in the ground actually the best route to go?” Hussey says.

It’s labour intensive, which didn’t suit the two guys, who work other full-time jobs. Then, in March 2020, Hussey heard a podcast with American urban farmer Curtis Stone. He had an urban farm where he was using a spin-farming method, says Hussey. “It’s what they call it. You rotate crops out of the ground in a much more efficient way.”

“Essentially he was able to capitalise on a third acre of land. He was able to take in 80k a year,” he says.

Hussey was inspired by that, by somebody making the most of a small bit of land. So in June last year, in the middle of a pandemic and juggling working from home, Hussey and Abbot set about doing the same, albeit with a different model, and launched their vertical farm.

Image from: Farmony

How It Works

Farmony, which specialises in tech for vertical farming, sold Upfarm with the tools to get up and running – shelves, special LED lighting, a watering system and humidifiers. It is the ideal conditions for growing produce, says Framony co-founder John Paul Prior. Nutrients, hours of light, humidity and temperature are controlled in vertical farming, Prior says.

But Farmony is also a data company, Prior says. “So we capture data at all stages of the growing cycle. And we feed that back to the grower.”

This helps the grower to establish the optimum conditions, he says. “That’s not just in terms of plant growth, that’s in terms of workflow management.”

The size of an operation can be the small coldroom in Malahide that uses one Farmony module, and produces microgreens and wheatgrass for sale. Or it can be like a farm in Tipperary with 60 modules, he says. A module is 1 metre wide, 1.3 metres long and 2.5 metres tall, Prior says. Hussey says it is labour-intensive looking after a vertical farm module.

After work last Thursday, he and his dad replanted his microgreen crops into 30 different trays. “It took about two hours,” he says.

What Is the Benefit?

“So as long as you can control your temperature, your humidity, and your nutrient levels in the water, you can basically grow all year round,” says Prior. Vertical farming also means better conditions for workers, Prior says.

“If you’re working in a controlled environment, like a vertical farm, you’re working in a clean environment,” Prior says.

“You work between 18 to 22 degrees. There’s no harsh frost. There’s no extreme cold winters, equally there’s no burning-hot summers.,” says Prior.

The crop is consistent too, says Prior, thanks to the controlled environment.

“Let’s say I’m someone who loves basil and who makes a lot of pesto at home,” he says.

Getting basil of consistent quality from the supermarket can be difficult when it comes from different countries, or may have been sitting on a shelf for days after travelling thousands of miles, he says.

Image from: Farmony

Why Is this Important?

Soil quality is dropping, Hussey says. “What does that mean for outdoor growing?”

The answer, Hussey says, is vertical farming. It uses mineral-rich water so it doesn’t rely on nutrients from the ground, Hussey says.

Says Prior: “Vertical farming uses about 10 percent of the water of traditional farming.”

Prior says it takes less energy to get food from a nearby vertical farm than to ship it from afar. It was not always the case until a breakthrough in another industry, he says.

“Billions of dollars have been invested in the cannabis industry globally. It’s meant that the investment in grow-lighting technology has been huge,” he says.

“As a result, the price, the efficiency and most importantly, the energy efficiency of the lighting is really amazing” he says.

Says Hussey: “It’s not easy work but it is nice work. It’s good work.”

London Food Bank Is Going Greener With Greenhouse

Nick Paparella CTV News London Reporter

@NPaparellaCTV Contact

Inside the London Food Bank's greenhouse in London, Ont. on Friday, Jan. 29, 2021. (Nick Paparella / CTV News)

LONDON, ONT. -- The outdoors may be covered in a blanket of white in January, but at the London Food Bank these days everything seems to be coming up green.

After a year of planning and with donations from the community, the new greenhouse is bearing fruit - or in this case vegetables.

“This is what Londoners a few years ago wanted more than anything else, to donate funds towards fresh fruits, fresh produce and that's what they have done,” says Glen Pearson from the London Food Bank. “So we've just taken it to a different level so we can grow our own as well.”

The man with the green thumb here is horticulturalist Luis Reyes.

“A couple of weeks ago we received the heaters and since then you can see the growth in only a couple of weeks,” says Reyes.

Like many from the food bank, Reyes is passionate about helping those in need.

“I am a grower and that's what I like to do and now to do it directly to people makes me proud,” he says.

The greenhouse is expected to grow about 15,000 plants a year which amounts to about four tons of food.

“You're not going to get anything fresher than this in a supermarket,“ says Reyes. “So probably you're going to harvest today here and the people or clients are going to receive it tomorrow or the same day.”

In the winter months, they are growing cold-weather plants like lettuce, spinach and even kale, but once summer arrives they will switch to tomatoes, cucumbers and fruit-bearing plants.

Adds Pearson, “It just expands the nutrition we're able to give to other people.”

Advice For New Vertical Farmers: Grower Spotlight on Andrew Worrall

Last week we spoke about running a farm at LettUs Grow. What excites you about vertical farming? 

It’s the future of the industry. Also, the amount of salad that these farms can produce for their local community. We want to be able to eat salad all year round and we import to make that happen. However, just a small farm can easily provide for its local community, very efficiently and all year round. The sustainability element is also exciting: with our salad there’s no food miles, it’s very minimalistic. You could use an electric van or bike to distribute this crop if you wanted to. It’s a step forward in terms of what we need to do to take care of our planet. 

What do you think are the biggest downsides to vertical farming?

It’s still a new technology and it can be expensive. The biggest roadblock facing the industry is that we need more people and companies to collaborate together to make sure we can build these farms at a sensible rate, so we can provide farms to anyone. We want to be able to provide farms to people, communities and countries that don’t have a lot of money, so that they can provide affordable fresh produce to local people. 

How has vertical farming impacted your life?

Massively!  I wanted to find my passion, a job that I loved - that was very important to me. It’s satisfying to be in a position now where I’m very happy to be doing what I do and I look forward to going into work. I was happy to make the move from London to Bristol. I would have moved even further if it meant being able to continue working within this industry.

Image from: LettUs Grow

How do you see vertical farming playing a part in the future? 

When indoor farming first came about, it had a reputation of being competition for outdoor farming, which just isn’t the case. There’s so much we can’t grow that outdoor farming can provide, such as cereal crops. I’m glad we’re at a stage where indoor and outdoor farms can start to work together to optimise both methods. With these new relationships, there should be a good increase in the amount of indoor farms you’ll be seeing. What LettUs Grow offers with DROP & GROW™ is an exciting project because that’s a 40ft shipping container which can be placed pretty much anywhere. It’s not that big - it could go in a car park or behind a restaurant, but actually provide quite a lot of salad to that area. 

How much of our food should be grown this way? 

Good question. If you had asked me a while back I would have just said salad, but now I’ve changed my mind. Indoor farming can have a massive impact on propagation, especially aeroponics, because of how we aerate and nourish our roots. We could start lettuce for greenhouse projects and we can also propagate tomatoes, strawberries and tree whips. Propagating trees in this way could potentially be hugely beneficial and it’s something we want to do more of. 

We can also quickly grow large amounts of microgreens, baby leafs, herbs and we can grow fruiting crops like strawberries. We are slowly chipping away and it’s really exciting. I’m waiting to see if I can ever say I’ve grown or propagated every crop that can be grown in these farms! 

What do you think are the biggest benefits of vertical farming? 

How fast these crops can grow! The turnover can be as short as 5 days from seed, depending on the crop. Also how clean it can be - I’m very dedicated to making sure these farms are built to ensure they are easy to be maintained and clean. The most exciting part is the crop growth rate though - it’s incredible how fast our crop grows from seed to plate. In a very well maintained growing calendar, which Ostara® is great for supporting, you can optimise your beds so that the day you harvest can also be the day you germinate onto that same bed. Your farms can be forever providing salad at very fast rates. 

Image from: LettUs Grow

What was the biggest change you encountered during your years indoor farming?

Moving from being a production grower to an R&D grower. It has been a great change! As a production grower I knew what I needed to know about growing the plant safely and getting it onto a plate so it was good for the consumer. Now I’m fully optimising, learning and understanding the plants completely, so that I can help the grower that I used to be. We spend a lot of time on crop recipes to make sure that whoever we sell our farms to can start up very quickly and they won’t have to spend months developing their crops. If they have the customers and clients behind them, they can buy DROP & GROW and start producing salad as soon as it's been commissioned. 

What was the biggest change you encountered in the industry?

More and more people are speaking about what’s going on in the industry and getting involved. I get so many messages on LinkedIn with people who want to get into this career. It’s exciting to see that indoor growing is a career people can access now. When I was developing my skills I didn’t know I would end up in indoor farming. There are more opportunities than ever before. For example, our Crop Technician is doing a placement here for 2 years. The aim is that they can gain the skill sets and knowledge they need to then go off and do the same practice in any farm they want. 

What advice do you have for people who are looking to start a career in growing? 

Reach out to companies who are already out there. You could start off part-time or as an assistant. If you are patient and dedicated then it’s a journey I promise you won’t regret. It takes a lot of work, but the outcome is amazing - you’ll be learning so much about this new technology. You’ll also build great relationships: there are so many amazing people in this industry who are so interesting, with different backgrounds, who are willing to share their knowledge. You can always learn more and other people are a great source of that. 

What about for those looking to start a vertical farming business?

Do your homework.  There are people out there who you can reach out to and it’s very easy to get information. It’s very easy to get excited about the idea and jump straight into it, because it is exciting and can be very rewarding, but it’s really important to do it step by step. Know how to scale properly, learning the differences between a small and larger farm. Understand how many people you’ll need and the logistics. I’d also advise people to get some practical work experience before you buy. You want to start the company knowing the tricks of the trade. 

Image from: LettUs Grow

LettUs Grow Blog: www.lettusgrow.com/blog/advice-for-vertical-farmers

Hydroponic Indoor Farm Plans To Be Among First Tenants In Downtown Piqua's Zolo Building

Fifth Season Farm, founded by a local brother-sister duo, has launched a hydroponic indoor farm inside a shipping container along Main Street in downtown Piqua.

By John Bush – Senior Reporter, Dayton Business Journal

A unique farming business has set up shop in downtown Piqua, and if all goes to plan the concept will be among the first tenants in an historic building being redeveloped in the city core.

Fifth Season Farm, founded by brother-sister duo Britt Decker and Laura Jackson, launched a hydroponic indoor farm inside a shipping container along Main Street. It was strategically placed in front of the Zollinger's building, a 40,000-square-foot former grocery warehouse planned as a mixed-use development with 16 loft-style residential units, a roof deck, community market/kitchen incubator and co-working space.

While the farm has been operating there for months, the long-term intention is to occupy space inside the the century-old building, which will be renamed the "Zolo." Chris Schmiesing, Piqua's community and economic development director, said the community market concept fits well with Fifth Season's business, and would be a welcome addition to the building.

"Part of the Zolo concept is the community market space, where local growers and producers can come and put their product on the shelves and begin to grow their business," Schmiesing said. "We're really excited to have Fifth Season Farm in there because we think it really represents the kind of innovative, entrepreneurial activity we want to see more of."

Unlike some traditional farms, Fifth Season does not use pesticides or herbicides, and utilizes non-GMO seeds. Powerful LEDs create a specific light recipe for each plant, allowing control over size and shape. There is no dirt, meaning the crops are free of bugs. The hydroponic system uses 90% less water by recycling the nutrient rich infused water in a loop system. Since it is weather controlled, temperature, relative humidity and CO2 levels remain constant all year.

"It is a complete, self-contained unit," Decker said. "The products also have a much longer shelf life because they are harvested to order."

Fifth Season currently grows about half-a-dozen varieties of lettuce, as well as specialty greens such as Swiss chard and kale. Decker said they are also growing small root vegetables such as radishes.

Currently, Fifth Season offers delivery through its website. Orders can be delivered up to five miles from its farm location, where customers can also come to pick up their products. Fifth Season produce can also be found on the Miami County Locally Grown Virtual Market. Decker said they are in discussions with local grocery stores, restaurants and gyms to carry their product as well.

When their space in the Zolo building is ready, Decker said they plan to open a marketplace and pickup location inside. He added the entire reason they placed the farm in that location was to be ready for when the redevelopment project is complete.

In June 2020, the Piqua Planning Commission unanimously approved a zoning change that allows for residential use within the building. The rezoning was a big administrative hurdle the project needed to cross, but the project still needs to be fully financed. The project missed out on the latest round of Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credits, though Schmiesing said additional funding sources are being finalized.

Gamble Associates, a Massachusetts-based urban design and planning firm, is taking the lead on the Zolo project. Gamble Associates Principal David Gamble previously said the interior build-out will take between nine and 10 months to complete once it gets started.

Assuming everything aligns, Gamble said this project will create a "critical mass" that could have ripple effects throughout the city of Piqua.

"Piqua, in my mind, has reached an inflection point," he said in July 2020. "While there may not be a lot of transformation to date, there's been a lot of good planning and the city has very good leadership. Piqua is due for that next phase of growth. We like working here, and we're excited about this opportunity and what it can do for the city."

‘Farm of The Future’ To Unlock Potential of Horticulture

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Special report: EMILY BRADFIELD, Rural Weekly

February 19, 2020

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THE Darling Downs is at the forefront of agricultural innovation and is now home to Australia’s first educational modular farm.

This month, TAFE Toowoomba welcomed its first cohort of students to the new Rural Centre of Excellence.

The $2.7 million facility includes a groundbreaking indoor vertical farm, allowing farmers of the future to get their hands on new technology and help shape the future of Australia’s food supply chain.

The vertical farm is the first educational facility of its kind in Australia and one of just two modular farms in the country.

Modular Farms Australia director James Pateras said the training farm would help unlock potential in the Australian farming landscape.

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The LED growing lights inside the pod were designed specifically for the system to promote maximum growth .

INSIDE THE FARM

Mr. Pateras describes the farm as a “complete growing system” where plants are grown from seed to harvest inside the controlled growing environment.

The process of growing inside the pod starts with seeds planted in a host plug made from peat moss and allowed to germinate and grow into a seedling, which usually takes about two and a half weeks in most crops.

Plants are grown from seed, rather than seedling, to prevent pathogens or disease entering the pod.

From there the seedling is moved into a vertical tower on the growing wall, where it remains until ready for harvest.

Modular Farms pods are generally used to grow herbs and small leafy greens or even strawberries and blueberries.

The growing lights inside the pod were designed specifically for the system to promote maximum growth and are placed at an ideal distance from the plant canopy.

The farm is also much more water-efficient, using 95 percent less water than traditional crops, as well as the ability to recapture and recirculate water used inside the farm.

The pod is controlled by four indicators: lighting, climate, fertigation, and irrigation, and can be monitored and controlled remotely using an app.

“With a consistent environment, the plants mature much faster than those in a traditional crop.

“It allows us to create a very solid and clean environment for the plants to live in. There’s no cold one day, hot the next day, it’s a very steady environment inside,” Mr. Pateras said.

“A farm like ours can turn a basil seed into a harvestable crop in about five weeks, which is about half the time you’d see in a traditional greenhouse.”

The yield in the vertical farm is also significantly higher than that of a traditional crop.

Inside the 36sq m container farm, there are four growing walls with a surface area of about 65sq m. That 65sq m is able to produce the equivalent of 1000sq m in traditional crops, which equates to about one tonne of basil per year, or upwards of 45,000 lettuces.

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Plants are grown in the vertical tower from seedling to harvest.

IN THE CLASSROOM

Dubbed by students as the “farm of the future”, Mr. Pateras said the farm would give students the opportunity to learn about indoor growing technology as the way of the future.

“To be able to do what we do and use as little water as we use is a great opportunity for the kids to realize how we can save on the environment and still consume and grow food,” he said.

The Modular Farms installation at the TAFE campus is one farm with two growing environments, allowing students to experience two different nutrient programs side by side.

“It’s got a dual irrigation system which allows (students) to run experiments side by side but then really focus on the plant biology as well. They can run tests a lot quicker and faster from that set-up,” Mr Pateras said.

Mr Pateras hopes hands-on experience in the growing pod will get the students thinking about the future of food production.

“What I think it will do is create a huge awareness about where plants are going and also allows the kids to learn a lot more about growing plants indoors, which is not new but growing plants on a commercial scale indoors is obviously becoming a bigger factor in the agricultural landscape.

“So it will definitely teach them a lot about what the future may hold about growing food in Australia,” he said.

“The idea of getting in a tractor and plowing up a paddock will maybe one day be a thing of the past, time will tell.

“The technology right now isn’t going to replace the farmer tomorrow but the farm of the future is here now.

“It’s just a matter of more and more people realizing the benefits of what this type of farming can bring to the environment, the community and the people consuming the food.”

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A Modular Farms vertical farming operation.

THE FUTURE

Mr. Pateras believes the future of indoor farming is bright, with the potential to completely change the food supply chain and provide fresher, locally sourced produce to communities.

“I definitely think the indoor agriculture space is growing in steam,” he said.

“With the technology improvements over the course of the last few years, we’re seeing reduced entry costs in that controlled system’s space.

“We’re even seeing a lot of the traditional farmers supplementing their traditional greenhouses with growing lights to try to fast-track the speed of growth of their normal traditional greenhouse.”

The container farm has huge potential for isolated communities and city landscapes in delivering clean, fresh produce and eliminating food miles.

“As our cities begin to grow … the opportunity to grow in those areas is huge,” he said.

“It’s probably just scratching the surface in terms of where these types of systems can live, how they can change the food supply chain and improve the quality of food.

“We’re a very lucky country in Australia, where we can grow a lot of our food year-round. What our system allows people to do is create that micro­economy and sense of community farming.

“These things can live anywhere, so the ability to grow fresh leafy greens in Mt Isa or Birdsville is quite powerful in itself.”

The farms also have the potential to eliminate any unnecessary food miles. Australia’s first modular farm is located at Brisbane’s Eat Street Northshore, supplying vendors with fresh produce.

“We harvest our crop on a Thursday, we walk it down 50m to the vendors who buy our crops and by the next night, the produce is on the plate.

“You won’t be able to get in any fresher than that, and in terms of food miles we’re talking 50m,” Mr Pateras said.

“If you can grow food locally with one of our farms, I think it will be a far better injection into the local economy than bringing food in from interstate or overseas.”

Partnership Bringing Vertical Farming Opportunity To U.S. Colleges

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By AGDAILY Reporters 

January 29, 2020

Many colleges and universities are getting access to some of the most advanced hydroponic vertical farming technology around, thanks to a partnership between vertical-farming innovator Freight Farms and food/facilities management company Sodexo. The collaboration will usher in the implementation of Freight Farms’ 320-square-foot Greenery containers on campuses, enabling the onsite growth of fresh, traceable produce year-round.

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The hope is that having food that would travel zero food miles will help reduce these schools’ environmental impacts. In a news release, the companies said the benefits include:

Food miles and waste reduction

• Food is harvested steps from the plate, eliminating food miles

• Harvested onsite, food lasts significantly longer, reducing spoilage waste

• The Greenery uses 99.8 percent less water than traditional agriculture, and in some humid areas, operations can be water-positive

Peak freshness and nutrition, year-round

• Unlike food that has to travel great distances between harvest and plate, freshness and nutrient density does not degrade during transit

• Pesticides won’t be used

• The farms grow at commercial scale and maintain the perfect environmental conditions every day of the year

Safety, transparency, and data-driven traceability

• The hydroponic container farms are soil-free and are decentralized from the mass supply chain

• Campus communities can get to know their own farmers and witness every growing stage of their food

• Proprietary IoT technology, farmhand, tracks produce from seed to plate, even down to the hour

Student and employee engagement

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• Schools can choose to integrate their farms into interactive curricula across disciplines like science and technology, agriculture, nutrition, business, and social impact

• Corporate businesses can integrate their onsite farms into employee wellness and benefit programs

Freight Farms’ customers are located in 25 countries and 44 U.S. states and range from small business farmers to corporate, hospitality, retail, education, and nonprofit sectors. To date, 35 educational and corporate campuses use Freight Farms’ technology, and together with Sodexo, implementation will rapidly expand across the U.S.

Images courtesy of Freight Farms

Video: A Look Inside The Vertical Farming Industry In Paris

Paris is not a place where you'd expect to find rows of neatly planted fruit and vegetables, but urban farming is flourishing in the French capital. The Down to Earth team takes a closer look in this video.

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Publication date: Tue, 08 Oct 2019

Meet The Farm-Based Neighborhoods Changing The Face of Master-Planned Communities

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September 12, 2019

Aly J. Yale Senior Contributor Real Estate

I cover mortgage, housing and real estate.

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Farmers at the Willowsford community farm in Aldie, Virginia, harvest fall greens for the neighborhoods CSA program and public farm stand. PHOTO BY DEBORAH DRAMBY

Forget the pristine landscaping, five-star golf courses and resort-style amenities that master-planned communities have become known for. Thanks to a handful of developers and their more sustainable approach to planning, a new vision of the American neighborhood has emerged—and it’s called the “agrihood.” 

Rather than lap pools and community centers, these neighborhoods boast organic farms, herb gardens and edible nature trails. They have weekend farmer’s markets, cooking classes and employ full-time farm directors and artists-in-residence. Some even have camps and children’s programs to help foster healthy, sustainable living in the next generation.

According to the Urban Land Institute, “Agrihoods offer proven financial, health, and environmental benefits—to the stakeholders involved in their implementation, to surrounding communities and to the planet.” 

One of the foremost examples of this trend? That’d be Serenbe. The Georgia agrihood offers residents a 25-acre organic farm, regular farmer’s markets and an annual plant sale. Blueberry bushes are planted along all the community’s crosswalks for “seasonal snacking,” according to the neighborhood’s VP of Marketing Monica Olsen.

The neighborhood also conserves water via landscaping and uses naturally treated wastewater for irrigation.

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The Serenbe community outside of Atlanta boasts edible landscaping throughout its trails. Blueberry bushes line this bridge that leads to the neighborhood farm. PHOTO BY ALI HARPER PHOTOGRAPHY

There’s also Willowsford, a Virginia community boasting a public farm stand and weekly produce subscriptions, and Arden, an agrihood located in Palm Beach County, Fla. 

Arden is home to a five-acre farm, run by a pair of full-time farm directors. Residents can take their pick of fruits, vegetables and herbs all grown right in the neighborhood. There’s also a general store and plenty of opportunities to help out around the farm. 

Brenda Helman and her husband were the 15th buyers to secure their spot in the Arden community. 

“It provides a lifestyle that seems to have been left behind in bygone times,” Helman said. “The homes have front porches, you know your neighbors here, and there are children always playing in the fresh outdoors. This community brings hometown values, fresh-grown vegetables and neighbors knowing neighbors back to us.”

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Arden, an agrihood in Palm Beach County, Florida boasts a five-acre community garden and two full-time farm directors. COURTESY OF FREEHOLD COMMUNITIES

There’s currently an agrihood in at least 27 of the country’s 50 states, but a report from the Urban Land Institute says the trend is growing. 

It’s no wonder why, either. The communities don’t just benefit those who live there. According to ULI, there are big benefits for developers, too.

“By including a working farm as a central project feature, developers can unlock special advantages, ranging from reduced amenity costs, increased project marketability and faster sales for residential properties to opportunities for enhanced community social ties and access to land for current and would-be farmers,” ULI reported.

There’s a price premium, too. According to Brad Leibov, homes in the agrihood he helped develop in Grayslake, Illinois, are going for 30% more than homes in comparable neighborhoods.

Throw in that agrihoods are also typically clustered, with homes located on densely concentrated, smaller lots, and developers can often make more with less in these communities. In Serenbe, for example, founder Steven Nygren was able to use clustering to add 20% more residential units than traditional planning would allow. 

Still, profitability isn’t the only thing to be gained from this new practice. Developers also have the chance to make a difference—both on the world and those who inhabit it.

As ULI explains, “By building agrihoods, real estate decision-makers—including developers, investors, owners and property managers—can leverage a focus on food production in development to create value, promote equitable economic development, enhance environmental sustainability and improve public health.”

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

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Aly J. Yale

I'm a freelance writer and journalist from Houston, covering real estate, mortgage and finance topics. See my current work in Forbes, The Mortgage Reports, The Balance, Bankrate and The Simple Dollar. Past gigs: The Dallas Morning News, NBC, Radio Disney and PBS.