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Our Current Food System Can Feed Only 3.4 Billion People Sustainably
20 January 2020
Our current food system can feed only 3.4 billion people without transgressing key planetary limits, according to an analysis of the global farming system. However, reorganizing what is farmed where – along with some changes in diets – would enable us to feed 10 billion people on a sustainable basis, suggests the analysis.“We should not go any further in the direction of producing food at the cost of the environment,” says Dieter Gerten at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, an author of the study.
In 2009, researchers identified nine so-called planetary boundaries: limits that we shouldn’t exceed if we want to maintain Earth’s life-support systems. Gerten’s team looked at the four boundaries that are relevant to farming: not using too much nitrogen, which causes dead zones in lakes and oceans; not taking too much freshwater from rivers; not cutting down too much forest, and maintaining biodiversity.
The team’s conclusion is that half of food production today violates these limits. However, this analysis is also the first to provide insights into where, geographically, these limits are being transgressed. By changing what is farmed where the team says it would be possible to feed 10 billion people within the four limits.
This would involve rewilding farms in areas where more than 5 percent of species are threatened; reforesting farmland where more than 85 percent of tropical forest has been cut down; reducing water withdrawal for irrigation and other purposes where too much is taken; and decreasing nitrogen fertilization where levels in surface water are too high. Farms could be expanded in areas where these limits are not being exceeded.It could, for example, mean restricting fertilizer use in parts of eastern China and central Europe, and expanding it in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and the western US.
Read more: Planet Earth has 9 safety limits and we’ve already exceeded 4 of them
Such changes would allow the sustainable production of enough food for 7.8 billion people, roughly the current world population. Reductions in food waste and a shift away from eating meat could increase this to 10.2 billion – slightly more than the projected 2050 world population
.One big caveat is that the team assumes that the planet won’t warm by more than 1.5°C. Future studies will look at the effects of warming beyond this, says Gerten. On the flip side, the team assumes that the world relies only on existing technologies, and not on new approaches such as genome editing and using electricity from solar panels to grow food.
Journal reference: Nature Sustainability,
Lead photo: Crop fields in southern Russia
Leonid Eremeychuk/500px/Getty Images
Keeping A Close Eye On Ice Loss
Sea Level Rise
Keeping A Close Eye On Ice Loss
AWI contributes two million euros towards the cost of a new satellite mission
[17. May 2018]
A few months ago, the GRACE mission’s two Earth observation satellites burnt up in the atmosphere. Although this loss was planned, for the experts at the Alfred Wegener Institute it left a considerable gap in monitoring ice loss in the Antarctic and Greenland. Now the follow-up mission will finally be launched, and will play a vital role in predicting future sea level rise.
Without a doubt, one of the greatest threats in connection with climate change is the continuing rise in sea level– and the more intensively the enormous ice sheets in Greenland and the Antarctic melt, the worse it will become. To more accurately gauge the loss in mass of these large ice sheets, scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) permanently evaluate Earth observation data gleaned from satellites. For them, the GRACE satellites were an extremely important pair of spacecraft.
They had been in orbit since 2002, but in 2017, at the ripe old age of 15 they were decommissioned, and early this year they made a controlled re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere, where they burnt up as planned. Ever since then, the AWI experts and the international research community have had to do without an important source of information on the condition of the large ice sheets.
And now, to fill that gap, at 12:47 p.m. PST on 22 May 2018 the successor, GRACE Follow-On (GRACE-FO) will be launched into orbit from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California (USA). “We’re delighted,” says AWI geophysicist Ingo Sasgen.“For 15 years, the GRACE mission provided us with unique and fascinating time sequences on the ice sheets’ mass losses. Since June 2017, this time sequence has been interrupted, which means that we don’t have any data on the last melt season in Greenland. It’s very good news that the measurements are now going to be continued.”
GRACE stands for “Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment”. As the name suggests, the satellites' task is to measure the Earth’s gravitational field on a monthly basis. This gravity data can then be used by various experts for different purposes. It is particularly important for the AWI’s researchers because the changes in ice mass in Greenland and the Antarctic can be clearly seen in the Earth’s gravitational field. If more ice is lost as a result of melting or calving than can be recovered through snowfall, the mass of the ice sheet decreases, and so does the gravitational field in that area. Accordingly, the GRACE measurements can tell us whether or not, where, and by how much the ice sheets shrink or grow.
The two GRACE satellites employ a microwave radar system to permanently measure the distance between them and normally fly approximately 220 kilometers apart. If the first satellite flies over an area with higher gravity, it is slightly attracted and thereby accelerated. This increases its distance from the second satellite, and the discrepancy shows how great the change in gravity is within a radius of circa 400 km. The accuracy of this approach is extraordinary – it can measure the distance between the twin satellites to within a few micrometers.
The new GRACE mission will also rely on microwave radar. “To allow the second mission to launch quickly and not to lose too much time and risk gaps in the data, the choice was made to use tried and trusted technologies,” explains Ingo Sasgen. “However, there is also a laser measuring device on board, which will be tested during the mission. Roughly 25 times more accurate than the microwave radar, we believe it can further improve the gravitational field analysis.”
As with the previous mission, the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ) and NASA are providing the scientific support for the GRACE-FO mission. The German Aerospace Center will carry out the mission on behalf of the GFZ. In turn, the AWI will contribute not only its ice expertise but also two million euros to help cover the cost of the Falcon 9 booster rocket from SpaceX.
The data provided by GRACE-FO will be essential, as it will not only allow Ingo Sasgen and his colleagues to help determine how major ice sheets are responding to the on-going global warming; they will also feed the data into mathematical models known as numerical climate models to predict how ice losses will evolve over time. Further, GRACE-FO will conduct high-precision gravity-field measurements, which experts at the AWI will combine with readings from other satellites, e.g. CryoSat-2, which uses radar to accurately measure the thickness of the sea-ice cover. CryoSat-2can be used e.g. to identify which parts of an ice sheet had the most snowfall. In addition, GRACE-FO will scan 400-kilometer grid sections, which is comparatively coarse. Measuring five-kilometer sections on average, CryoSat-2 offers significantly higher resolution. But CryoSat-2 has limitations of its own: its radar sweep also penetrates into the upper layers of snow and ice, making it difficult to precisely measure their thickness, especially since the exact conditions on-site are unknown.
To compensate for this aspect, the AWI also takes calibration readings with its research aircraft. A further source of uncertainty: over time, snow collapses under its own weight, which can skew measurements of its thickness. According to Ingo Sasgen, “With the CryoSat-2 data alone, it’s impossible to say whether a change in the thickness of ice and snow was produced by the snow compacting, or by melting. That’s why we need GRACE Follow-On; the respective change in the gravitational field shows us whether or not ice and snow are actually being lost.” In essence, the satellites constitute a perfect match, as they offer complementary strengths.
With the start of the GRACE-FO mission, after roughly a year an important gap in satellite monitoring will become a thing of the past. As with its predecessor, the planned mission duration is five years. But Ingo Sasgen hopes that the second generation, just like the first, might continue to provide data for as long as 15 years. “We would then have a time series covering roughly 30 years, which would mean a truly representative timespan for climate models. The data gained will be a valuable resource for climate research, today and for decades to come.”
Video: NASA
As The Organic Movement Fractures, Farmers And Food Companies Are Redefining The Standard They Built
As The Organic Movement Fractures, Farmers And Food Companies Are Redefining The Standard They Built
Meet the new "organic-plus" certifications developed by a movement's discontents, from Patagonia to Dr. Bronner's. But how many certifications are too many—and will anyone be able to understand the difference?
March 15th, 2018
by Stephanie Strom
Frustrated by what they see as a continued watering down of the standards that define what foods may be labeled “organic,” Patagonia Provisions—the food business offshoot of the outdoor apparel company—organic body care and food products company Dr. Bronner’s, and the research-based Rodale Institute will begin offering a new organic certification program.
Related: USDA withdraws organic animal welfare rules.
Companies seeking the new certification, called Regenerative Organic Certification (ROC), will first have to secure the federal organic seal through the National Organic Program, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) agency that controls organic regulation. Then they’ll have to meet additional requirements to protect workers and guarantee a higher standard of animal welfare, among other things.
At the same time, several founders of the organic movement in the United States have started the Real Organic Project, which will offer a seal of approval to organic farmers who meet higher standards that it is setting for organic farming.
“The industrial organic machine has been using real organic farmers as a sort of smokescreen.”
“In its origins, the organic movement encompassed fair labor practices, a greater level of compassion for animals, and a mandate to improve soil health, but much of that got lost when the federal organic regulations were set,” says David Bronner, the “cosmic engagement officer” (or CEO) of Dr. Bronner’s. “Our new seal recognizes and celebrates that next level of organics, which goes further than the federal program.”
These new certification programs have brought to light a schism that has been growing for more than a decade in the organic business, creating a quietly expanding divide between companies and farms that do just enough to win the federal organic seal and those with practices that go far beyond the requirements set by the Department of Agriculture.
That the rift has now become public has raised concerns among organic champions, who fear that it will reduce the value of “organic” as a marketing and advocacy tool and confuse eaters who invest in products bearing the seal.
Related: It’s the end of organic as we know it.
Mark Kastel, co-founder of the Cornucopia Institute, a non-profit organic advocacy group, says that while diehard organic eaters may devote time to understanding the nuances of three different organic labels, many more may just throw up their hands and decide it’s too hard to suss out their varied meanings.
A long-time adversary of the Organic Trade Association (OTA), Mr. Kastel has, somewhat uncomfortably, found himself on the industry trade group’s side in the debate over the new certification programs. “There’s a real risk that the new seals will turn products that just have the federal seal into second-class citizens, unable to command the premium prices needed for even the most basic organic production,” Kastel says.
In comments submitted to Regenerative Organic Alliance—the body overseeing the new Regenerative Organic Certification, OTA warned that another organic seal posed “a serious risk” to the federal label—which first went on packaging in the early 2000s. “As awareness of this standard spreads, so may the misconception that the USDA organic standards do not include requirements for soil health, biodiversity and animal welfare,” the group wrote. “Although not intended, this could present an unfortunate disservice to the livelihood of the organic sector and organic farmers across America.”
Regenerative Organic Certified
New certification programs have brought to light a schism that has been growing for more than a decade in the organic business
But David Chapman, an organic farmer in Vermont who is the spokesman for the Real Organic Project, says the standards in federal law and regulation are the bare minimum for organic farming and that USDA does little to enforce them.
Over the last decade, the department has revoked less than a dozen organic certifications in the U.S. and more than 80 in foreign countries, according to its Organic Integrity Database. It suspended more than 1,700 certifications during that time.
Chapman says large companies hoping to cash in on the premium prices organic products command were doing as little as they could to stay in compliance with federal regulation. At the same time, they were counting on media coverage of small organic farming operations with shinier stories to convey a narrative about organic that doesn’t reflect the vast majority of farming federally certified as such.
“This is not creating divisions that don’t exist already,” Chapman says. “The industrial organic machine has been using real organic farmers as a sort of smokescreen, allowing consumers to think that farming the way I do it, say, is the same as the farming they’re doing—and it isn’t.”
These new certification programs have brought to light a schism that has been growing for more than a decade in the organic business.
Like ROC, Real Organic will require at a minimum federal organic certification. But it will not offer its additional certification to companies making processed foods; rather, its certification is for farmers who go well beyond the federal requirements. Mr. Chapman said about 20 farmers will participate in a pilot program this year, with a goal of putting the first seal on produce next year.
The project grew out of a decision last fall by the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) that allowed companies growing fruits, vegetables, herbs and other produce using hydroponic and aquaponic systems to continue to use the federal organic seal. New technologies have greatly expanded the use of such systems, but organic traditionalists object to allowing produce grown that way to be labeled organic because it isn’t grown in soil.
The Organic Food Production Act of 1990 states that an organic plan, which is required for organic certification, “shall contain provisions designed to foster soil fertility, primarily through the management of the organic content of the soil through proper tillage, crop rotation, and manuring.”
Related: What are hydroponics, anyway?
Depletion of the nation’s soils has become a hot-button issue across farming at large after decades of pesticide application, tillage, and other practices that diminish soil health. Farmers are looking to crop rotation, reduced tillage, manure and other techniques to try to increase nitrogen stores in soil and enhance carbon sequestration.
“The problem is—and I hate it—the USDA has given up any claim that organic might have to do with leadership in soil health,” says Chapman. “I have friends who are not organic farmers, but they are definitely regenerative farmers doing pioneering stuff and doing a better job of protecting the soil.”
A USDA spokesman pointed to notes provided to the House Appropriations Committee, explaining a request for an additional $3 million for enhanced enforcement of organic regulations. “With respect to goals, National Organic Program activities will have a strong emphasis on strengthening enforcement in order to protect the integrity of the label and allow for the industry to continue to grow,” wrote USDA.
“There’s a real risk that the new seals will turn products that just have the federal seal into second-class citizens.”
Soil regeneration and enhancement are required in order to qualify to use the seals of the Real Organic Project and ROC, and so produce like hydroponically grown strawberries and aquaponically grown herbs will not qualify.
“Under the existing organic standards, you can be an organic farmer and not do everything to the best of your ability to continue to improve soil health over time,” says Jeff Moyer, executive director of the Rodale Institute.
ROC will, for instance, require farmers to reduce tillage, one area where conventional farming has outpaced organic farming. (One of the selling points of genetically engineered crops is that they require little tillage.) “Particularly in organic vegetable operations, there may be too much tilling,” Moyer says. “If you’re an earthworm, doing your work to enrich the soil, those are pretty rough days.”
Rodale will oversee the ROC standards for soil health, while standards for worker welfare have been compiled by the Fair World Project, a fair trade group born out of the Organic Consumers Association. Compassion in World Farming helped draft the animal welfare standards.
Dr. Bronner’s and Patagonia Provisions are among 10 or so companies that will participate in a pilot program, but mammoth food companies like Danone, the French dairy business, and Kashi, owned by the Kellogg Company, have also expressed interest in the new seal. Roughly 20 companies applied to be part of the pilot, which will run for the next nine months or so.
“ROC brings everything together under one cohesive seal that signifies a product was grown in a way that’s good for the soil and good for the workers and animals involved,” says Justin Gold, the founder of Justin’s, the nut butters and snacks brand now owned by Hormel.
Organic traditionalists object to allowing produce grown that way to be labeled organic because it isn’t grown in soil
Danone’s chief executive, Emmanuel Faber, has long been a proponent of better care for earth and animal, and the company’s Happy Family, Horizon Organic, and Vega One brands are helping the development of ROC certification. “We have always been a strong supporter of the USDA organic standard,” says Michael Neuwirth, a company spokesman. “DanoneWave looks forward to concretely exploring and understanding how this proposed new certification will further benefit our planet through soil health, animal welfare, farming communities and more choices for our consumers and our business.”
Over the past several years, many of the oldest organic food companies and the farmers and stores that support them have become increasingly disenchanted with the National Organic Program, contending that it has loosened standards to accommodate big food businesses seeking to cash in on burgeoning consumer demand for organic products.
Sales of organic foods have grown strongly over the last decade, rising 8.4 percent in 2016, while sales of food overall conventional foods grew a meager 0.6 percent. Organic products, including clothing and health and beauty products, accounted for $47 billion in sales that year, according to the OTA.
“The USDA has given up any claim that organic might have to do with leadership in soil health.”
Recently, two things, in particular, have rankled those who consider themselves the keepers of the organic flame. First, the Trump administration shelved more stringent animal welfare requirements that were slated to go into effect for organic producers. Currently, some private animal welfare certification programs have more stringent requirements for animal care than the federal organic program, which some in the organic world consider an embarrassment.
And then there was the brouhaha over hydroponic and aquaponic production, or what its practitioners prefer to call “container growing.”
“While it is very convenient to blame both the Trump and Obama administrations, neither of which has been a friend to organic, the industry itself is culpable as well,” says Max Goldberg, founder and publisher of Organic Insider, a newsletter that broke the story of the ROC program. “There are organic companies who have representatives on the National Organic Standards Board, and these individuals voted for hydroponics. In my mind, this is a complete betrayal of the American organic consumer, who is under the impression that her strawberries and tomatoes have been grown in soil.”
Goldberg says he regards ROC as a kind of “gold standard for organics” but that establishing the new seal would not be easy. For one thing, he says, there is not yet an abundant supply of commodity ingredients like corn and wheat that will meet the higher standards. For another, explaining what the ROC seal means to eaters already confused by the proliferation of seals on food packaging will be a challenge.
Related: Welcome to certification nation.
And ROC’s founders agree that, at least in the beginning, products bearing the new seal are likely to be more expensive because of the higher standards it requires for production. “We know that there are consumers out there who want more transparency about the food they eat and are willing to pay for it,” says Rose Marcario, chief executive of Patagonia.
Marcario also contends that the new seal may, in fact, reduce confusion caused by the proliferation of seals on packaging because it implicitly covers practices policed by, say, fair trade or animal welfare certification groups.
“The ROC seal will mean that not only has the product received the approval of the federal organic program, it has also met requirements for regenerating and improving soil quality, treating workers fairly and with justice and treating animals with a high level of compassion,” Marcario says.
Related: Who certifies the certifiers?
NSF International, the company behind one of the largest organic certification agencies, will act as the certifier for ROC during the pilot program, though Marcario says the aim is for other organic certifiers to join once the kinks are worked out. The seal should start showing up on grocery shelves early next year.
“We want to continue to support the work of the National Organic Program, but we believe there is an option for farmers who have been doing more than the program requires for decades to showcase the extra things they do,” she says. “Think of ROC as organic-plus.”
Stephanie Strom was a reporter for The New York Times for 30 year. During that time, she covered Wall Street, nonprofits, Japan and retail, but her favorite assignment by far was covering the food business and the people in it. She lives in New York City with her husband and a feisty French bulldog.
ENVIRONMENT, FARM, NEWS, POLICY, SHELF, SYSTEMSORGANICOTAREAL ORGANIC PROJECTREGENERATIVE ORGANIC CERTIFICATIONSOILUSDA
What If We Could Grow Delicious, Nutrient-Dense Food, Indoors Anywhere In The World?
This Computer Will Grow Your Food In The Future
What if we could grow delicious, nutrient-dense food, indoors anywhere in the world? Caleb Harper, director of the Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab, wants to change the food system by connecting growers with technology. Get to know Harper's "food computers" and catch a glimpse of what the future of farming might look like.
Introduce Vertical Farming by Hydroponics and Aquaponics in Dry Arid Regions of India
It is known for everyone in India that the farming communities of the dry and arid regions of Central India mostly in the regions of Bundelkhand, Vidarbha and Marathwada have been struggling for a long time.
Introduce Vertical Farming by Hydroponics and Aquaponics in Dry Arid Regions of India
Independent started this petition to pmoindia and 4 others
It is known for everyone in India that the farming communities of the dry and arid regions of Central India mostly in the regions of Bundelkhand, Vidarbha and Marathwada have been struggling for a long time. Droughts and Farmer Suicides are rampant in Vidarbha and Marathwada. There were times when people have to eat even grass to kill their hunger in Bundelkhand. Unfortunately even though new technologies have been developed around the world to develop crops and food in most difficult situation, still these technologies have not reached these farmers who are in dire need of hope.
Hence I appeal to the Govt of India and the Ministry of Agriculture to introduce Vertical Farming by Hydroponics (and Aquaponics) to the farmers of these regions. Hydroponics is the method of growing plants without soil, using mineral nutrient solutions in a water solvent. This method can be used to grow plants in Vertical Towers and Stands without any need for soil.
Advantages of Vertical Farming using Hydroponics:
- No need for soil so can be set up in dry and arid regions.
- No effect of drought or storms or unseasonal rains.
- 80-90% less usage of water due to water recycling.
- Crops grow quickly hence improved productivity of 10-12 crops per year instead of 2-3 crops per year.
- Scope of Installing Solar Panels for Generation of Solar Electricity on top of Warehouse.
- Vertical Farms give more crops per acre. No limit of vertical expansion of farm.
Today, the advanced countries have been using these technologies for mass production of food for the people of their countries. Vertical Farming in Temperature Controlled Warehouses are now a proven and standard system for food production. Combined with installing Solar Panels on top of the roofs, these system can become a food production industry in itself and can bring the farming communities of Bundelkhand, Vidarbha and Marathwada out of Poverty. Since the plants being raised using Hydroponics are not dependent on soil, these can be setup in the dry and arid regions easily (and also anywhere in the country).
I am sure the ministry of agriculture must be aware of these technologies. I request the ministry and the Govt of India to urgently look at introducing Vertical Farming by Hydroponics in India. Not only it has the potential to eliminate poverty of the farming communities but also it can bring enough food for all the needy and the poor.
Hope the farmers of India can be benefitted and they come out of poverty quickly.
Regards
Souvik Jana
New Rooftop Farms Sprout Up In Singapore!
American Hydroponics (AmHydro) of Arcata, CA and ComCrop of Singapore are proud to announce the development of an 8-greenhouse rooftop farm to provide pesticide-free, sustainable food to this Island Nation.
Singapore to produce more of it's own food!
New Rooftop Farms Sprout Up In Singapore!
Published on February 2, 2018Joe Swartz Vice President at American Hydroponics / Hydroponic and Controlled Environment Agriculture Consultant
American Hydroponics (AmHydro) of Arcata, CA and ComCrop of Singapore are proud to announce the development of an 8-greenhouse rooftop farm to provide pesticide-free, sustainable food to this Island Nation.
ComCrop, Singapore’s premier rooftop farming company, will be utilizing specialized rooftop greenhouse technology and state of the art AmHydro hydroponic growing systems to address skyrocketing demand for locally grown, sustainable produce.
Converting previously neglected rooftop spaces into urban farms, ComCrop is the 1st and only AVA certified rooftop farm in all of Singapore. Their goal is to increase the volume of domestically produced food, as over 90% is currently imported. ComCrop sells fresh herbs and leafy greens online, to supermarket customers, as well as to restaurants. "This new farm will be producing new crops for these customers by July 2018". - ComCrop CEO, Peter Barber
AmHydro, worldwide leader in hydroponic rooftop farming technology has previously designed and built rooftop hydroponic systems for successful industry leading growers, such as Lufa Farms in Montreal, Gotham Greens, and Sky Vegetables, both in NYC. This new rooftop farming project now puts AmHydro in 66 countries across the globe.
To design and build their new rooftop growing systems, ComCrop CEO Peter Barber explains that “ComCrop chose AmHydro over competing systems because they are best suited for our rooftop environment and will deliver the best yields in Singapore’s unique climate.”
He also adds that “the new greenhouses combined with AmHydro growing systems will significantly increase our yield and allow us to sell higher volumes and larger varieties of leafy green vegetables to local customers.”
AmHydro High-Performance Growing System
AmHydro Vice President Joe Swartz says, “We are very pleased and look forward to extending our close working relationship with ComCrop as they expand to more sites across Singapore and beyond.”
He adds, “Rooftop farming is just one of the many tools that we will use to feed our urban populations in the future, and working with great companies such as ComCrop will help us to achieve that goal.”
Worker tending current ComCrop rooftop farm
This rooftop farming complex will consist of 8 rooftop greenhouses. The first farm (phase 1) will be 6,930 square feet, capable of producing over 332,000 plants (approx. 90,000 pounds of fresh food) per year. The entire project, when complete, will total over 35,000 square feet.
For more information, please contact Joe Swartz, Vice President of AmHydro at:
Joe@AmHydro.com
A Startup Is About To Build 300 Vertical Farms In China, Thanks In Part To Jeff Bezos
A Startup Is About To Build 300 Vertical Farms In China, Thanks In Part To Jeff Bezos
A Silicon Valley vertical farming startup sees a future in China. (AP Photo/Martha Irvine)
WRITTEN BY Chase Purdy
January 26, 2018
A Silicon Valley agriculture startup is preparing to build 300 vertical farms across China, propelled by investments from funds created by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos and Alphabet executive chairman Eric Schmidt.
By entering the Chinese market, the startup, Plenty, hopes to tap into the country’s growing demand for organic foods. Chinese citizens have become all too familiar with food safety scandals in recent years. Perhaps the most dramatic was in 2008 when six babies perished and at least 54,000 were made sick when tainted baby formula created a kidney disease outbreak. Now that the country is experiencing a swelling middle class with more buying power, more people are willing to spend a premium to purchase organic foods, which are perceived as safer to eat (something that isn’t always true).
Plenty plans to build and fill warehouses with 20-foot-tall, plant-growing towers that sparkle with LED lights. Herbs, kale, mustard greens, and more will grow horizontally from the poles, fed by water disseminated from the top of the structures via gravity—and won’t need soil or pesticides. Plenty can’t yet grow root vegetables or fruits this way, so it’s focusing its attention next on strawberries and cucumbers.
The company is able to make the move into China in part because of a massive $200 million investment round led by the Japanese telecom company SoftBank Group in July 2017, and which included money from Bezos Expeditions and Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors.
Plenty’s business proposition is these sorts of agricultural operations can help an increasingly urbanized global population cut back on amount of water and land used in a conventional farming. Because they can be built in cities, the vertical farms can reduce and even eliminate the financial and environmental costs of transporting food long distances. Plenty is building one such farm in spring 2018 outside Seattle, Washington. It’s expected to produce about 4.5 million pounds of greens per year, enough to feed more than 183,000 people.
The type of operation Plenty wants to bring to China could fit in well with steps the government there is taking to revamp how it feeds its people. Earlier this month (Jan. 16) at a meeting about creating green zones for growing food in major cities, Chinese agricultural minister Han Changfu said in a statement (in Chinese) that he wants to change the way China approaches agriculture. “It is necessary to speed up the transformation of agriculture from yield-oriented to quality-oriented, raise the overall quality of agricultural products, promote the transformation and upgrading of agriculture,” he said in the statement.
Read this next: You next head of lettuce, grown by a robot
Official Opening of The World Horti Center
Official Opening of The World Horti Center
The World Horti Center will have its official Grand Opening on Wednesday, March 7, 2018, in The Netherlands. The World Horti Center will introduce everyone to the concepts, values and core competencies important to their success. Come learn how they plan to create entrepreneurship, research, and education that will allow this innovation center to lead the world of horticulture into the future.
There will be an official opening ceremony that will take place for partners and participants in the World Horti Center (invitation only). Afterwards, the Center will celebrate the World Horti Festival, where companies, industry professionals, and students are welcome.
Contact the World Horti Center for additional information on the Grand Opening.
https://www.worldhorticenter.nl/nl/evenementen/officiele-opening
A Jeff Bezos-Backed Warehouse Farm Startup is Building 300 Indoor Farms Across China
A Jeff Bezos-Backed Warehouse Farm Startup is Building 300 Indoor Farms Across China
Inside Plenty's first farm in South San Francisco, California. Plenty
January 23, 2018
The vertical farming startup Plenty just announced that it plans to build 300 organic, indoor farms in or near Chinese cities.
- In late 2017, the company scored $200 million in the largest-ever ag-tech deal. The funding round was led by Softbank Ventures and included DCM Ventures as well as funds that invest on behalf of Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
- Due to rising concerns surrounding food safety, middle-class Chinese consumers are increasingly willing to pay a premium for organic produce.
In the past two decades, China has experienced several food scandals. Between 2001 and 2006, toxic mushrooms killed 148 people and poisoned over 500 others in Yunnan. In 2010, Hunan police shut down a large operation that produced "green beans" from dyed soybeans.
As a result, a growing number of Chinese residents are turning to organic produce, which is considered safer since its production is more regulated, according to The Guardian.
A Jeff Bezos-backed indoor farming company called Plenty will soon harvest some of this organic produce. But unlike traditional farms, it will grow crops on LED-lit 20-foot-tall towers, which do not require soil, pesticides, or even natural sunlight. The technique is called vertical farming.
Plenty says it will build 300 vertical farms in or near major Chinese cities, where it will capitalize on the country's growing middle-class demand for organic produce. The first farmwill open next year, Bloomberg reports. In Beijing and Shanghai, the company will also build centers where customers can taste produce.
To date, the Silicon Valley startup has raised $226 million. In July, $200 million came from a Series B funding round led by SoftBank Vision in the largest ever ag-tech deal. The round included DCM Ventures as well as funds that invest on behalf of Alphabet’s Eric Schmidt and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
In a past interview with Business Insider, Plenty CEO Matt Barnard said the company hopes to eventually sell its organic produce for the same price as traditional produce. Plenty plans to drive down operational costs by automating its growing processes as much as possible.
In the spring, Plenty will open a 100,000-square-foot farm in the greater Seattle, Washington area. The 100,000-square-foot warehouse facility will grow 4.5 million pounds of greens annually, which is enough to feed around 183,600 Americans, according to the USDA. The company also has a smaller non-production facility in Wyoming, where it has tested different growing processes for over 300 crops.
Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg to Visit West Africa
Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg to Visit West Africa
Photo Courtesy of CORAF.
The President of the Americas-based non-profit group, Food Tank, will visit Senegal and other West African countries from January 15 to 25, 2018.
During the visit, Danielle Nierenberg will learn, document and write about agricultural traditions and innovations in Africa. A meeting with officials of the West and Central Africa Council for Agricultural Research and Development (CORAF) is central to the visit.
“Farmers and scientists are continually improving ways to increase the nutritional value and nutrient density of food,” says Nierenberg. “They do this while protecting natural resources and their efforts improve social equality, and create better markets for their crops.”
CORAF is Africa’s largest sub-regional research organization. It works with 23 African nations to help coordinate agricultural research and development.
“Solutions to food scarcity are developed in fields, kitchens, and laboratories, by farmers, researchers and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and Latin America,” says Nierenberg. “We have a lot to learn from CORAF and these countries.”
Economic growth from agriculture is eleven times more effective at reducing extreme poverty than any other economic sector in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). Rural poverty is driving urbanization, leading to overcrowded cities and increased risks for vulnerable people.
The demand for food will continue to increase due to population growth, with more than nine billion people to feed by 2050. However, sub-Saharan Africa has the potential to dramatically increase its agricultural output, with a quarter of the world’s arable land but only ten percent of the world’s agricultural output. Traditional agriculture techniques such as agroforestry and intercropping (growing several crops together) can help create a more sustainable global agricultural system.
Both CORAF and Food Tank are interested in promoting sustainable changes in food systems across Africa and the globe, with the ultimate goals of increased food output and access.
Food Tank will share the research institution’s work to improve smallholder farmers’ livelihoods across the region. Family farmers produce 57 percent of the world’s food while increasing food security, boosting local economies, and improving nutrition. CORAF puts both producers and consumers at the center of its research, focusing on economically sustainable and culturally appropriate agribusiness and disseminating knowledge and education in the agriculture sector.
“Farmers in wealthier countries tend to think that they have so much to teach farmers in other parts of the world,” says Nierenberg. “In some cases that’s true. But what really interests me is how much we can learn from farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, particularly as our world grows warmer and water more scarce.”
U.S. Indoor Farming Startup Plenty Eyes Rollout In China, Japan
January 17, 2018 By Reuters
Shutterstock photo
By Dominique Patton
BEIJING, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Ambitious U.S. indoor farming startup Plenty Inc is actively seeking urban sites for new farms in Chinese cities as part of a global drive to set up high-tech facilities growing organic vegetables in warehouses under banks of LED lights.
Matt Barnard, Chief Executive of the San Francisco-based firm which counts Amazon Inc. founder Jeff Bezos and Japanese tech player SoftBank Corp among its backers, told Reuters on Wednesday that China could potentially host at least 300 of Plenty's farms.
He didn't disclose financial or investment targets for the expansion of a firm which currently operates just one farm, in San Francisco, with another due to open in Seattle in first-half 2018. In July 2017 SoftBank's giant Vision Fund led investors in Plenty in a $200 million funding round.
"We see a massive opportunity to get people product that tastes better and also has health and safety that far surpasses anything on the market today," Barnard said.
Plenty's farming model means growing vegetables and herbs on vertical towers indoors, with hydroponic systems delivering nutrients to plants and LED lighting designed to stimulate rapid growth all-year round. The firm says its model means no soil or pesticides are required, as farm sites are entirely enclosed.
China is expected to contribute 25-50 percent of the firm's business in the future, Barnard said, without disclosing numerical targets.
He said the firm saw huge untapped demand amid concerns among Chinese consumers over food safety.
China has less than a third of the arable land per person compared with the United States, but in many places soil has been contaminated by heavy metals and pesticides, Barnard said.
The Next Great Plague Could Destroy Humanity | Hint: It Starts With The Food
The Next Great Plague Could Destroy Humanity | Hint: It Starts With The Food
2017-11-17 | Jack Griffin and CJ Friedman
In 1347, the plague known as The Black Death began and killed 50% of Europe's population.
1665, the Great Plague of London killed 25% of the city's population.
The 1918 Flu Pandemic broke out and killed more people than WW1, affecting populations in every corner of the world. Estimates range from 50-100 million deaths.
1956, the Asian Flu broke out and killed over 2 million people.
The HIV/AIDs pandemic began in 1960 and has killed over 35 million people.
Now, we face an even greater threat.
Many scientists believe the next plague that could kill billions of people will find roots in the current food system. This is a largely unrecognized risk to the general population. Consider the scenario from this angle: with a human plague, a person could escape the infected area and remain relatively safe. But with a plague that affects the food supply, there is no place to hide. Every person on the planet and all of the animals we eat will be affected by starvation.
Think about the ramifications: What would happen if 50-75% of the global food supply died? By the time we replant everything, the damage will already be done.
That is the risk the current agricultural system is running with how things operate today.
In the past 100 years, 94% of the world's edible seed varieties have vanished.
We are not fear mongering here. What would happen if 94% of the fish varieties humans eat went extinct? There would be panic all over the world. That has happened to the world's seed varieties. This post is an attempt to educate the public regarding the dangers of the global agricultural system.
Simply stated, a lack of biodiversity in any living system increases the system's risk of spreading a deadly pathogen.
Currently, 75% of the world's food comes from only 12 plants and 5 animal species. This lack of biodiversity dramatically increases the susceptibility to widespread disease, and could result in colossal famine that affects billions of people, and would put companies like Monsanto in control of the fate of human existence.
To help combat this growing issue, Metropolis Farms is planning a robust seed bank propagated by our indoor farming systems to grow, save, store, and distribute diverse seeds to local farmers.
In our continuing exploration of the failing food system, this post will discuss the most important resource available to humans (besides water): SEEDS.
Across all species, especially plant-life, genetic diversity is the safeguard against evolving forms of viruses, bugs, and disease. Low levels of biodiversity are dangerous because as pathogens are introduced to the system, the pathogens encounter less resistance to spreading than they do in diverse systems. As we will explore, outbreaks of disease, invasions of insects, and climatic anomalies have caused many wholesale crop failures in the past, and are causing massive crop failures today.
To begin, looking at history can give us an understanding of this risk the agricultural system is running.
The Irish Potato Famine
Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland's population fell by ~25% due to the poverty-stricken population being heavily dependent on one crop for sustenance.
The Great Famine, more commonly known as the Irish Potato Famine, occurred because a significant amount of Ireland's population lived on one variety of one crop: the lumper potato. Due to the lack of crop diversity, entire fields of potatoes were susceptible to a disease called Phytophthora Infestens, aka potato blight. This disease soon spread across most of the potato crops not only in Ireland, but all over Europe.
Ireland experienced widespread famine because their diet was reliant on the one crop that was susceptible to this disease. The rest of Europe was okay, despite losing massive amounts of potato crops, because their diet was more diversified. Due to Ireland's situation, 1 in 8 Irishmen and women totaling 1,000,000 people died of starvation or starvation related diseases. Another 1 in 8 emigrated to escape the famine. In total, Ireland's population fell by roughly 25%.
A large portion of Ireland's population were reliant on one crop for many economic and political reasons which are similar to the diet trends here in the United States and elsewhere in the world. The moral of the story, however, is that being dependent on a small variety of crops increases the risk of one disease wiping out a population's food source.
Implication's today's food system
Today, the world is vulnerable to experiencing the potato famine on a planetary scale due to a reduction in agricultural biodiversity.
The global dependence on so few crops for a majority of the population's sustenance is replicating the same system that led to the Irish Potato Famine. Only this time, rather than affecting 1 country, due to globalized specialization, a disease can wipe out crops that affect everyone on earth.
The current food system has valued short-sighted mass production of low quality crops at the expense of long-term survivability, biodiversity, and soil quality. In addition to rapidly destroying the topsoil and causing desertification, the proliferation of massive monocultures poses a serious threat to long-term food security.
Considering 70% of agricultural crops are grown for livestock and not for humans, this potential problem will not only affect the vegetables we eat, but also the meat, dairy, eggs, and other products that are staples in today's average diet.
Farmers are the backbone of this country.
"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds."
- Thomas Jefferson
And for a long time, this sentiment held true throughout government. In 1862, the USDA was established and at the start, it devoted at least one-third of its budget to collecting and distributing seeds to farmers across the country. By 1900, over 1 billion seed packages had been sent out to this country's farmers. Furthermore, farmers were encouraged to breed, propagate, and strengthen their own plants and seed banks, resulting in strong localized seed banks in which farmers could depend on themselves or their neighbors for next year's plantings.
However, in 1883, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) was founded, recognizing the potential profits that could be made off seeds instead of a free program for all farmers. After 40 years of lobbying by ASTA, Congress eliminated the USDA seed distribution program in 1924 and paved the way for the seed industry as we know it today.
At the time, there were thousands of seed companies and farmers were able to save seeds from their existing crops to establish their own sustainability.
Today, 10 companies control 73% of the global seed market. The top 6 control 68% of the market and new mergers could lower that number down to 4 companies. Think about that. 4 companies could control the world's food supply.
Henry Kissinger once said: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." Research has shown that US strategy has deliberately destroyed local family farming in the US and abroad and led to 95% of all grain reserves in the world being controlled by 6 multinational agribusiness chemical corporations.
How did we get here?
To keep this post from becoming a book, this is a quick synopsis:
After the USDA seed distribution program ended in 1924, seed companies began to emerge and create hybrid seeds that promised more crop yields.
These hybrid seeds had recessive gene characteristics that disabled farmers from saving the crop's seeds for the next year's plantings. This made farmers more dependent on purchasing seeds annually.
In 1930, the Plant Patent Act (PPA) was signed, thus allowing patents for unique plant varieties. For the first time in human-history, companies could legally own the rights to plants. Although, it's important to note the original PPA did not allow a patent right to plants propagated by seeds, so farmers could still attempt to save seeds for future harvests without violating patents. This would eventually change.
Over the next decades, seed companies focused on selling a smaller subset of seeds.
In 1980, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, a landmark Supreme Court case granted the first patent on life. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that living organisms could be patented. This opened the floodgates for companies like Monsanto, and soon over 1,800 patents for genetic material and plants were submitted to the US Patent & Trademark Office.
Seed companies slowly became biochemical companies and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, commonly known as GMOs, started to emerge.
Now, seeds have been engineered to withstand the effects of herbicides so farmers can simply spray their fields with chemical poisons to kill weeds and not their crops. One of the problems is the same company that sells the seeds is also selling the chemicals. This is giving unprecedented amounts of power to companies like Monsanto.
Under this seed industry consolidation, big farmers are now more dependent than ever on these companies, and are forced to purchase seeds and the chemicals annually. Additionally, this consolidation has led to the massive reduction in crop biodiversity on commercial farms.
This short-sighted approach to agriculture - focusing on massive yields with the least amount of work - has led to specialization rather than diversification. Another consequence of this system is food is no longer grown for people.Food is grown for trucks. In fact, 30-45% of the cost of food is tied to trucking and distributing food over a 3,000+ mile supply chain.
In review: crop specialization leads to monocultures. Monocultures lead to susceptibility of disease.
For example, rather than soil regenerative farming practices seen onpermaculture farms, one mega farm will solely focus on growing one crop of corn or wheat or cotton, etc, over acres and acres of land, to maximize planting, maintenance, and harvesting production. Farmers are doing this because the current economics of outdoor farming are not in favor of a diversified field. This agricultural practice is already leading to the collapse of major crops.
In 2016, an article in The Guardian reported that Florida grown oranges
are already experiencing unfixable collapse. Per the article, "The orange crop devastation began in 2005 when a bacterium that causes huanglongbing - better known as citrus greening or HLB disease - was found in southern Florida. Since then, the Asian citrus psyllid, a tiny flying insect which transmits the disease, has been blown across Florida by various hurricanes... Farmers have spent more than $100m on research into ways to combat the disease, but so far scientists are stumped. 'Farmers are giving up on oranges altogether,' said Judith Ganes, president of the commodities research firm J Ganes Consulting. 'Normally after a freeze or hurricane [which both kill lots of trees], the growers would replant 100% of their plants. But the disease has been spread all over... and made it totally uncontrollable. Farmers are giving up and turning to other crops or turning land over to housing.'" (As a sidenote: this is happening all over the country. Farmers are giving up on agriculture and are becoming land developers for urban sprawl.)
A quick google search will show that coffee beans, bananas, and coconuts are expected to experience some form of collapse within this century due to the monocropping practices.
Imagine what will happen if a superbug wipes out wheat or corn. These major crops, who's source is likely 1 of 6 companies, are a major factor in the global economy and extend well beyond the food they provide for people. 70% of the crops are actually designated to feed livestock. So additionally, meat, energy sources, and other industries will be vastly affected by such an event. And we the people will suffer as a result.
What's the solution?
As is often the solution when facing problems created by the current food system: the world needs more local farms and local farmers that grow diverse crops. People everywhere need to be more conscious of where their food is coming from, how it is grown, and the practices that are being utilized to ensure long-term food security.
In that light, Metropolis Farms is working with the City of Philadelphia to start an educational farming institute in Fairmount Park, the largest landscaped urban park in the world. In addition to providing training and educational opportunities related to farming, we are planning the creation of a seed bank to help preserve precious varieties of fruits and vegetables that face extinction.
A seed bank stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity. There are seed banks all over the world, but not nearly enough to combat the problem outlined above. In addition to storing seeds, anyone involved with a seed bank needs to continuously germinate seeds, grow crops, and produce more seeds. A current limitation most seed bankers face is a limited growing season in which to propagate their seed collection.
By developing a robust seed bank in conjunction with indoor farming, we can save more seeds annually due to our capability of year-round indoor vertical farming. After creating a seed bank, we will be a point for seed access to local farmers and gardeners who want a diversified farm. Part of Metropolis Farms' mission is to democratize our technology to make local farming accessible to anyone. With the plans of creating this seed bank, we plan to democratize the ability to grow a diverse set of crops for local farmers everywhere. We hope others join this mission and start seed banks as well.
A rise in seed banks will hopefully correspond with a rise in local farming, in turn creating a new food economy in which fruits and vegetables will be grown for people, and not trucks.
To learn more about this topic, we recommend viewing the powerful documentary Seed: The Untold Story.
Freight Farms Expands Reach to Asia
Company Announces Partnership with Everlane to Equip Saitex Denim Factory with Leafy Green Machines ™
NEWS PROVIDED BY | Freight Farms
BOSTON, Nov. 21, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --
Freight Farms today announced Everlane as a new corporate partner, who plans to purchase and launch three Leafy Green Machines™ at Saitex, their LEED-certified denim factory in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Everlane is a San Francisco-based retailer known for its commitment to radical transparency and high quality, ethically-made basics. Everlane will be placing the farms at Saitex to provide its workers with two healthy meals a day. This project is made possible by Everlane's Black Friday Fund, an annual initiative which uses Black Friday sales to improve the lives of workers at factories like Saitex.
Everlane's contribution addresses the rampant use of unregulated pesticides in Vietnam, which has severely degraded soil health and water quality. As a result, existing sources of local agriculture leave Saitex's employees at risk to exposure to dangerous chemicals.
"Since 2014, the Black Friday Fund has allowed us to invest in projects that give back to the workers at our factories," saidMichael Preysman, founder, Everlane. "This year, we are excited to partner with Freight Farms to build a farm that will provide the workers at Saitex two healthy meals per day that are pesticide free and grown in the cleanest way possible."
"We're thrilled to empower Everlane and Saitex to grow fresh and clean lettuce for their workers. The container's controlled environment enables anyone to grow produce at a commercial scale without the need for pesticides or herbicides, and with very little water consumption," said Brad McNamara, co-founder, Freight Farms.
About Freight Farms: Founded in 2010 in Boston, Freight Farms has established itself as the leader in the agriculture technology industry. The company was the first to bring farming into a shipping container to create their flagship product: The Leafy Green Machine™. To date, there are over 160 farms in operation in the U.S., Canada, the Caribbean, Dubai, and Europe. For more information about Freight Farms, visit www.freightfarms.com/media-kit.
About Everlane: Everlane launched online-only in November 2011 with the mission to provide consumers with well-designed, high-quality clothing and accessories at an approachable price point. Simultaneously, Everlane encourages consumers to stay informed and educated on product origins. By cutting out the middleman and sharing the true cost and markup of each product, they have become distinguished leaders in the transparent retail space, and a disruptor of the luxury clothing industry. Everlane currently works with 25 factories and employs 100 people at offices in San Francisco and New York City.
SOURCE Freight Farms
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Growing Urban Agriculture
Growing Urban Agriculture
To feed the world’s growing population, we must do more to promote the success of urban farms through better tracking, financial incentives, land use, and support systems.
By Esther Ngumbi Oct. 23, 2017
In Paris, post office workers have successfully raised chickens and grown vegetables on the rooftop of a mail-sorting center. In Chattanooga, the city council just loosened zoning rules to allow urban dwellers to keep livestock. And in Ekurhuleni, South Africa, an urban resident is successfully growing vegetables including chilies, spinach, and onions to supply restaurants.
These urban farmers are part of a global revival. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization reports that 800 million people around the globe grow their own fruits or vegetables, or raise animals in cities, accounting for 15-20 percent of world’s food production. And while people have grown food in cities for a long time, urban farming has recently gained renewed attention for its social, health, environmental, and economic benefits. It can help farmers and consumers save money, increase year-round fresh food access, and promote healthy lifestyles in urban settings. It also gives people more control over the production of the food they eat, which has benefits like reducing the use of harmful pesticides.
Onions and greens on the Siyakhana Urban Farm in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Esther Ngumbi)
Some urban farms and farmers are pushing the limits of innovation, using technology and controlled environments that allow them grow food all year-round while avoiding challenges like erratic weather patterns, pests, and disease. Some of these enterprises are sustainably meeting year-round food needs for people living in cities. In Detroit, for instance, urban farms have the potential to supply 31 percent of the fresh vegetables that Detroiters eat each year. Urban farming can be productive, sustainable, lucrative, and profitable.
So how do we tap into this renewed attention and help further expand the urban farming movement to feed our growing population? We can do more to promote its growth and success through better tracking, incentives, land use, and support systems.
Create inventory
To keep moving in the right direction, we must have firm grasp on the state of the current landscape. In Chicago, for example, a group of individuals, organizations, businesses, and educational institutions have collaborated to map urban agriculture initiatives across the metropolitan area. Their database identifies more than 890 farms. More areas need to create this kind of information, which can help connect urban farmers with each other and with other stakeholders including potential funders. Such databases can also be used to inform governments, urban city planners, and policy makers.
The United Nations has previously published reports detailing the state of urban and peri-urban farming across the African Continent and in Latin America and The Caribbean. These resources and broader global inventories are valuable and updating them would be useful to all stakeholders interested in seeing urban agriculture continue to scale in cities around the world.
Lobby for more land
Many cities have zoning regulations that exclude agriculture or related activities in urban areas. Until June 2010, the City of Los Angeles, for example, prohibited residents from growing crops in residential zoning districts. And until June 2012, Portland, Oregon, also banned agriculture as primary use in some zoning districts. Thus, to allow urban farming to happen in urban areas, we need more municipal governments to set aside land for urban agriculture. Depending on how cities prioritize land for food over other development initiatives, advocacy groups and local citizens can step in. Making the case to governments requires that these groups present compelling narratives that describe the benefits of supporting urban farming. Agriculture Advocates Work Group in Detroit and the Urban Agriculture Working group in Los Angeles are examples of coalitions that have successfully convinced city governments to pass ordinances allowing people living in urban areas to farm. In Motherwell, South Africa, farmers are lobbying their municipal officials to allocate more land to allow them to expand their urban pig farms.
Increase support systems
Urban farmers need up-to-date knowledge about growing methods, innovative business models, and indoor farming best practices to thrive and remain sustainable. As urban farming continues to grow around the world, universities, colleges, nonprofit organizations, and funding agencies need to step up to support urban farmers’ needs. For example, through its Purdue Extension urban agriculture programs, Purdue University provides technical expertise, education resources, networking, and business development programs for people wanting to venture into urban farming. In 2016, 35 urban agriculture entrepreneurs participated in their urban farm business planning course. Established and successful private urban farms can also serve as mentors, sharing best practices and business models with new farmers. Growing Power is a nonprofit that offers training, as well as educational and technical support to urban farmers. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also has a website dedicated to urban farming, which offers several resources to support dedicated to urban farming, and in 2016, it supported and funded dozens of urban farms. These efforts should continue.
Create incentives for farming
Increasing financial incentives could encourage urban farming to grow. Some public schools, hospitals, and other public institutions like universities receive tax breaks for obtaining a certain percentage of their food from urban farms. Such arrangements can create guaranteed markets for produce from urban farms. Some states and municipalities have programs to help such institutions redesign their procurement policies to increase the percentage of locally grown produce. Food retailers could also get tax incentives from the government for carrying products from urban farms. In addition, urban farms could receive tax breaks for donating excess produce to food banks and pantries. Most importantly, government could provide tax incentives to urban farms that work with food pantries and food banks in an effort to ensure that people receiving public assistance can buy fresh food from urban farms using food stamps.
Efforts to promote urban farming around our world must be intensified. African Development Bank President and 2017 World Food Prize laureate Akinwumi Adesina has for years emphasized that making agriculture modern, profitable, and appealing to young Africans could be the key to lifting millions out of poverty. Other countries, including those in Africa, can learn from some of the incentives and advocacy efforts happening in the United States. With the right supports, urban farming offers a promising approach to help feed the world’s growing population.
Esther Ngumbi is a postdoctoral researcher at Auburn University’s College of Agriculture and a Food Security Fellow with Aspen Institute's New Voices Fellowship. She advocates for urban farming and food security and has published articles on those subjects for outlets including Reuters, The Conversation, Aljazeera, SciDev.Net, and Inter Press Service.
First Indoor Vertical Farm in Slovenia
First Indoor Vertical Farm in Slovenia
Slovenia has amazing nature with mountains, lakes, woods, rivers, good fertile land and clean fresh water. Sounds like a fairy-tale, but it is true.
It is also true that we have lots of farms growing different crops and farmers raising livestock and all this you can see when you drive just a few miles from the city. You guessed it. Our country is small. So perhaps we have good soil, good weather conditions, clean fresh water, but the quantity of the fertile land is getting smaller. (And of course, we can't forget that people wants to eat quality and clean food all year.)
So that’s why, we decided to start exploring the idea of indoor vertical farming. We decided to start from scratch. Firstly, with books, YouTube, online courses and then we made a small room for growing microgreens, around 120cm long, 40cm high and 30cm deep with fluorescent lights, thermometer from an aquarium, and seeded our first seeds.
We were so proud!
We quickly found out, the importance of airflow, so we installed a PC fan, which was a simple and amazingly effective solution. In a few days we had our first microgreens crop.
And they were so tasty
So after some more trials and fine adjustments of the parameters, we decided that it is time to start developing larger and more advanced Indoor Vertical Farms and its components.
So in the past two years, we developed and constructed a controlled growing room with multi layers, providing perfect conditions for growing vegetables locally, without using any non natural enhancements.
Our automated control system keeps more than 10 parameters at optimal level all the time, for perfect growing conditions.
Our ventilation system is one of a kind. It solves the problem of even heat distribution between layers, better introduces CO2 to the plants, removes humidity from the leaves and keeps them dry and also keeps roots warm and cools the air, on top of the plants. Basically, it imitates the movement of the air in nature.
We also made our own recipes for optimal growing different plants and we constantly upgrade our software and hardware with better solutions. In the future, we are planning to develop our own fully automated Indoor Vertical Farm.
We presently offer complete construction of vertical farms to the potential buyer, with all our solutions. We are also already selling vegetables, produced in our farm, to local chefs and other markets.
Joburg Launches First Rooftop Farm Plan
The first commercial, rooftop small-scale farm has been launched in the Joburg CBD on the top floor of the 93-year-old Chamber of Mines building.
Joburg Launches First Rooftop Farm Plan
THE STAR / 12 OCTOBER 2017, 2:50PM / ANNA COX
Nhlanhla Mpati is a small-scale entrepreneurial farmer who started a roof-top farm on top of the Chamber of Mines building in the Joburg CBD. Picture: Dimpho Maja / ANA
The first commercial, rooftop small-scale farm has been launched in the Joburg CBD on the top floor of the 93-year-old Chamber of Mines building.
This urban farm has already supplied almost 15kg of basil to the Johannesburg Fresh Produce Market and to surrounding cafés and coffee shops during the past 45 days.
The project, called the Urban Agriculture Initiative, was launched by Wouldn’t It Be Cool (WIBC), an incubation and mentorship organisation which helps entrepreneurs get started.
The project has been such a success thus far that the Department of Small Business Development has provided funding for another 100 small-scale farms to be rolled out in the inner city.
The Chamber of Mines intends giving these farmers more space as it still has 400m² of unused space in its heritage building.
Michael Magondo, chief idea sherpa for the WIBC, said they were not competing with residential space, but would be happy to make use of any unutilised space, indoors or outdoors.
The organisation identified and trained Nhlanhla Mpati as one of the first roof-top farmers, as he had some farming experience.
“We want to see all 100 farms rolled out now that we have government funding. We want to create entrepreneurs, jobs, skills and food security.
“There are many vacant government and provincial buildings, plus privately owned ones, as well as deserted parking garages and spaces in which farms can be set up.
“Although the donation of premises is welcome, and some property companies have donated their rooftops to us, we will try to pay market-related rents. All our entrepreneurs are fully trained in business and backed by us,” he said, adding that the aim was to turn Joburg into one big, sustainable ecosystem.
Mpati, who started farming in the CBD in August, said he already had orders for the next six months for basil, as it was out of season.
He proudly shows off his crop, saying the plants were farmed hydroponically, meaning that they don’t require soil and, therefore, use very little water.
He doesn’t use pesticides or insecticides.
He intends expanding to farming spinach, potatoes and carrots, among others.
Mpati, who says his basil grows in 21 days, has been interested in gardening since he helped his granny in Kagiso on the West Rand with the planting of flowers and vegetables, which she loved.
He studied plants and agriculture by himself and is particularly interested in growing specialised plants which are not easily available.
“I do a lot of my own research and I am learning all the time,” he said, adding that he had done several entrepreneurial courses.
“I am very happy so far with this business. Many restaurants are already ordering from me, and the Produce Market is impressed with the quality of my plants. They have already increased their prices because of the high quality of my basil,” he said.
He has preliminary orders for the next six months, but would welcome more.
WIBC has several partners and backers, including the City of Joburg, FNB, the Affordable Housing Company, the Inner City Partnership, Thebe, Botha Roodt, Bizcre8 and Stay City.
Contact Mpati at 081 3141972 for produce or Magondo on 0828577636 for available space.
This Tiny Country Feeds the World
This Tiny Country Feeds the World
The Netherlands has become an agricultural giant by showing what the future of farming could look like.
10/10/2017
In a potato field near the Netherlands’ border with Belgium, Dutch farmer Jacob van den Borne is seated in the cabin of an immense harvester before an instrument panel worthy of the starship Enterprise.
From his perch 10 feet above the ground, he’s monitoring two drones—a driverless tractor roaming the fields and a quadcopter in the air—that provide detailed readings on soil chemistry, water content, nutrients, and growth, measuring the progress of every plant down to the individual potato. Van den Borne’s production numbers testify to the power of this “precision farming,” as it’s known. The global average yield of potatoes per acre is about nine tons. Van den Borne’s fields reliably produce more than 20.
That copious output is made all the more remarkable by the other side of the balance sheet: inputs. Almost two decades ago, the Dutch made a national commitment to sustainable agriculture under the rallying cry “Twice as much food using half as many resources.” Since 2000, van den Borne and many of his fellow farmers have reduced dependence on water for key crops by as much as 90 percent. They’ve almost completely eliminated the use of chemical pesticides on plants in greenhouses, and since 2009 Dutch poultry and livestock producers have cut their use of antibiotics by as much as 60 percent.
Read the article
Bosses Of Google And Amazon Back Plenty In plan To Bring High-Tech Farm Warehouses To Feed Britain
Bosses Of Google And Amazon Back Plenty In plan To Bring High-Tech Farm Warehouses To Feed Britain
Danny Fortson, San Francisco
September 24 2017, 12:01am, The Sunday Times
Plenty plans to open farm warehouses globally, in the cities that are home to at least 1m peopleALAMY
An indoor-farming start-up backed by Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, chairman of Google parent Alphabet, plans to bring its high-tech farm warehouses to Britain by 2019.
Plenty raised $200m ($148m) in a funding round led by SoftBank Vision Fund, the $100bn mega-fund created by Saudi Arabia and Japan’s SoftBank. Bezos and Schmidt, who invested in a previous financing, also contributed.
The San Francisco company is in the midst of bringing in more investors to bankroll an aggressive global rollout. Chief executive Matt Barnard wants to open “farms” in the 500 cities around the world with at least 1m people, with that expansion arriving in Britain as soon as 2019.
Plenty’s giant warehouses — where plants are grown in 20ft towers with lighting, temperature, water and pests controlled and managed with artificial intelligence — promise to dramatically improve efficiency and output compared with normal farms.
Barnard claimed lettuce can be grown with less than 1% of the water required in a traditional operation. High energy costs are offset by locating warehouses in or near city centres, doing away with the need for long-haul transport that accounts for up to 40% of the price for fruit and veg.
He said: “What’s going to be stunning for people is the speed at which much of what they eat will be grown.”
Danny in the Valley podcast: Plenty’s Matt Barnard: “You’re eating year-old apples”
Paris Embellishes Skyline With Organic Rooftop Farms
Paris Embellishes Skyline With Organic Rooftop Farms
© Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The organic farm perched on top of the RATP-building in eastern Paris is one of the first commercial rooftop cultivation grounds in Paris
Text by Louise NORDSTROM | Latest update : 2017-09-02
Paris has taken the farm out of the field and planted parts of it onto its rooftops to make the city greener and more sustainable. This summer, metro operator RATP became one of the first companies to host a commercial farm on one of its roofs.
A sudden breeze carrying gentle notes of basil and mint envelops pedestrians walking by the RATP building at Place Lachambeaudie in the 12th arrondissement, a middle-class district located in the east of the French capital. Some passersby quickly lift their noses to try to figure out exactly where the fresh and appetising scents are coming from, but none seem able to locate the origin.
The scents are coming from the top of the grey and arch-shaped office building where Michel Desportes and Théo Manesse have been spending the better part of the afternoon harvesting row upon row of various types of organically-grown herbs ranging from violet-coloured basil to chocolate-and-banana-flavoured mint.
Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | Michel Desportes picks zuccini flowers at the farm on top of the RATP building
“It’s growing so much at the moment that we have to harvest every day,” Desportes, one of the founders of the start-up Aéromate which runs the farm, tells FRANCE 24. Bees and ladybugs constantly buzz around the plants, seemingly oblivious to the traffic and pollution on the streets down below.
“They’re all over the place,” Desportes says.
Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The lush, green plants attract a lot of bees and ladybugs
Inca technique
The farm was started in July this year after a 2016 call by the City of Paris for a series of urban agriculture projects to make the city more environmentally sustainable. By 2020, Paris aims to have transformed 33 hectares, or 330,000 square metres, of its unused urban space into urban agriculture.
Although the commercial Lachambeaudie farm, which sprawls over a 450 square metre area and houses up to 5,000 plants, mainly focuses on growing fresh herbs, it also offers some seasonal fruits and vegetables. At the moment, this includes several different species of tomatoes, zucchini, peppers and lettuce. This winter, Aéromate plans to cultivate crops like watercress, spinach, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and artichoke. Everything is grown hydroponically, a hydroculture method developed by the Inca and Aztec Indians and in which the plants are grown without any soil by using only mineral nutrient solutions in water solvent.
Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | Aside from herbs, Aéromat also grows seasonal fruit and vegetables like peppers and tomatoes
“The tomatoes are delicious, you really can’t compare the quality to the ones you get in the store,” says Eric Poutong, who bought a basket of the farm’s products at RATP’s weekly fruit and veg sale on Thursday.
“I get a basket almost every week.”
A greener Paris
The decision by RATP to install and invest in the farm is part of its corporate mission to contribute to a more sustainable Paris. The group, which owns several buildings in the city, has identified 1.4 hectares (14,000 square metres) that it plans to transform into cultivated grounds by 2020.
Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The Aéromat team need to harvest the fields every day
Emeline Becq, project manager for RATP’s property development arm SEDP, said the Aéromate herbal garden fits perfectly into that picture.
“We wanted to do something with our unused rooftops – up until now they haven’t really served any particular purpose - and this concept turned out to be just the right thing for us.”
Thirty-one tons
Aéromate is currently setting up a 180-square-metre farm, also on the roof of real estate group Tishman Speyer, at Place de la Bourse in central Paris, and is planning for a third commissioned by the City of Paris at the nearby Place de la République.
Louise Nordstrom, FRANCE 24 | The farm occupies a 450 square metre-space that was previously unused
Aside from selling the herbs and produce to staff of the companies that own the buildings, Aéromate also offers its harvest on online platforms such as “La Ruche qui dit oui!”, which connects local producers with consumers directly. Aéromate has also begun doing business with local restaurants and bars, of which two of its current customers are Michelin-starred eateries. As the business grows, Aéromate expects to harvest up to 31 tons of herbs, fruits and vegetables each year.
“It feels good to work up here. I feel lucky to be surrounded by all these green plants while actually working in the centre of the city,” Desportes says.
Date created : 2017-09-02