Technology Capital Markets Veteran Tom Liston Appointed VP of Corporate Development For CubicFarm Systems Corp

Strong Track Record of Shareholder

Value Creation With

Disruptive Technologies

VANCOUVER, B.C., April 6, 2021 – CubicFarm® Systems Corp. (TSXV: CUB) (“CubicFarms” or the “Company”), a local chain agricultural technology company, today announced the appointment of Thomas Liston as Vice President (VP) of Corporate Development.

Thomas (Tom) Liston will provide CubicFarms with strategic business development and capital markets advisory services in his role as VP of Corporate Development. Liston is a technology investor, advisor, and a Chartered Financial Analyst® with over 20 years of experience in capital markets. He’s the founder of Water Street Corp and currently serves on several boards of directors for public and private technology companies, and he has a strong track record of shareholder value creation in that capacity. He has served on the Board of Directors of WELL Health Technologies (TSX: WELL) since April 2018 and Tantalus Systems Holding Inc. (TSX.V: GRID) since January 2021.

Prior to his current role, he was the Chief Investment Officer of a leading technology-focused venture capital firm and was responsible for leading the firm’s investments in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), FinTech, and Healthcare Information Technology (IT) sectors. Two of these investments were among the top exits in Canadian technology in recent years.

“My focus is working with disruptive technology companies in sectors with compelling macro tailwinds, which has resulted in the delivery of strong returns for shareholders. I was drawn to CubicFarms because the Company’s best-in-class indoor growing technologies uniquely fit this theme,” said Tom Liston.

Liston began his career with Yorkton Securities as a Research Analyst covering public Software and IT Services companies. In 2003, he joined Versant Partners in the same role and was quickly promoted to Director of Research while maintaining his coverage of technology companies. In 2012, Versant Partners’ team was acquired by Cantor Fitzgerald, where he served as Director of Canadian Research and covered the technology sector. Liston has been consistently ranked among the top technology analysts in several surveys, including StarMine, Brendan Wood, Greenwich Associates, and Reuters. During his tenure as a Research Analyst, he had received more StarMine stock-picking awards than any other technology analyst.

“Tom is a capital markets veteran in technology with proven experience identifying underrecognized companies and assisting in unlocking value for shareholders. He’s uniquely experienced to work with a disruptive technology company of our size on the journey to achieve industry leadership,” said Dave Dinesen, CEO, CubicFarm Systems Corp.

A respected member of both the technology community and his alumni organizations, Liston completed a Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Finance from the University of New Brunswick (UNB) and a Master of Arts in Economics and Finance from Queen’s University. In 2017, he was the recipient of the UNB Faculty of Management’s Certificate of Achievement and UNB also recognized Liston with the Proudly UNB Alumni Award of Distinction in 2020.

About CubicFarms

CubicFarms is a local chain, agricultural technology company developing and deploying technology to feed a changing world. Its proprietary ag-tech solutions enable growers to produce high quality, predictable produce and fresh livestock feed with HydroGreen Nutrition Technology, a division of CubicFarm Systems Corp. The CubicFarms™ system contains patented technology for growing leafy greens and other crops onsite, indoors, all year round. CubicFarms provides an efficient, localized food supply solution that benefits our people, planet, and economy.

For more information, please visit www.cubicfarms.com.

On behalf of the Board of Directors

“Dave Dinesen”

Dave Dinesen, Chief Executive Officer

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This news release may contain forward-looking statements which include, but are not limited to, comments that involve future events and conditions, which are subject to various risks and uncertainties. Forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and actual results may vary materially from those statements. General business conditions are factors that could cause actual results to vary materially from forward-looking statements.

Media Contact:
Andrea Magee
T: 236.885.7608
E: andrea.magee@cubicfarms.com

Investor Contact:
Adam Peeler  
T: 416.427.1235
E: adam.peeler@cubicfarms.com

The information transmitted herein is confidential and may contain privileged information. It is intended solely for the person or entity to which it is addressed. Any review, retransmission, dissemination, taking of any action in reliance upon, or other use of this information by persons or entities other than this sender's intended recipients is prohibited. If you received this in error, please notify the sender and delete or destroy all copies.

VIDEO: 8 Startups That Are Revolutionizing AgTech

Agriculture is changing rapidly in the modern age. The global population is rising at an alarming rate and consumer preferences are shifting towards organic and sustainably produced goods. To keep up with these demands, the traditional agriculture industry must adopt new technologies to make farms more efficient and automate production.

The growing interest in AgTech is reflected in venture capital investments for AgTech startups. According to Pitchbook, $6.7 billion was invested in AgTech startups in the last five years and $1.9 billion in the last year alone. These 8 AgTech startups are paving the way to revolutionize the future of the agriculture industry.

1. Big Wheelbarrow

Big Wheelbarrow connects wholesale food buyers with local farmers. Big Wheelbarrow makes it faster and easier for buyers to work with small independent growers, regardless of size. Their technology empowers their customers to offer local products to their clients without the time and effort it used to require.

2. Vestaron

Vestaron Corporation develops and produces insecticides by employing peptides sourced from spiders in the United States. Its products are used in agricultural, animal health, and specialty non-crop applications, as well as in-household insects and commercial pest control applications.

3. Cainthus

Cainthus is developing the world’s most advanced technology for dairy farms today; technology that’s transformational for animals, farmers, and the production of food. Using computer vision and artificial intelligence to identify health, reproduction, and environmental changes early on, Cainthus translates visual information into actionable data.

4. Rex Animal Health

Rex Animal Health is on a mission to help livestock producers and farmers feed the world by increasing productivity and predicting, preventing, and precisely managing disease in the herd. They have a built up the largest database of clinical, health, performance, and genetic data on these livestock. Also, agribusinesses can use this data in order to understand their supply chain to identify the source of potential food borne illness, find the most efficient producers, set prices in commodities trading, and to understand and assess risk to increase transparency in the food supply chain.

5. Smallhold

Smallhold provides retailers and restaurants with contained-­environment vertical farm units that produce large amounts of mushrooms, herbs, and leafy greens with minimal labor. Their current product offering is with on-site mushroom production and can produce up to 120 lbs/week in the space of a bookcase. The mushrooms are certified organic and are competitive with conventional ways of growing.

6. Babylon Micro-farms

Babylon Micro-farms provides an on-demand indoor farming service to make sustainable indoor farming more accessible than ever before. Their farms grow fresh produce 2x faster using 90% less water than conventional agriculture, without the use of pesticides or harmful chemicals. Their business model drastically reduces the upfront costs and expertise associated with indoor agriculture, powered by a patented IoT platform that remotely operates the ecosystem of farms.

7. Kiverdi

Kiverdi technology uses all-natural microbes to transform CO2 and other gases into high-valued nutrients, oils, and bio-based products. Kiverdi’s proprietary platform, which extends early NASA research, converts carbon dioxide from diverse industrial and agricultural sources into new materials using proprietary gas fermenting microbes.

8. Cambridge Crops

Cambridge Crops develops natural and edible coatings to extend the shelf life of a wide variety of perishable foods. Their coatings regulate the exchange of gases and slow down bacterial growth. These unique attributes allow for drastic improvements in shelf life for everything from avocados and spinach to meat and seafood. Cambridge Crops’ technology is easily integrated into existing packing and processing lines, minimizing the need for supply chain changes or expensive on-boarding. By increasing the window of peak freshness, Cambridge Crops allows food producers, food processors, and retailers to extend shelf lives, reach new markets, and reduce waste.

Publix Grows Hydroponic Produce At Greenwise Store

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Krishna Thakker@krishna_thakker

Aug. 3, 2020

Dive Brief:

• Publix has partnered with local hydroponics firm Brick Street Farms to grow, pack and harvest hydroponic lettuce in a container farm located outside its Lakeland, Florida Greenwise Market store. 

• The 40-foot container farm will grow an equivalent of 2.5 to 3 acres of lettuce and can operate 365 days a year in any weather conditions, Brick Street Farms told Grocery Dive in an emailed announcement. It substitutes soil for mineral-rich water, which means no pesticides are needed. The container farm uses 90% less water than a traditional farm and produces 720 heads of lettuce each week. 

• Customers can watch the produce grow through a window on the side of the container and purchase heads of lettuce inside the store.

Explore how the current landscape is impacting coffee manufacturers and how organic and fair trade can help ensure long-term success of the industry.

Dive Insight:

Publix has recently stepped up its partnerships in alternative agriculture. Earlier this year, the company began hosting Vertical Roots' interactive mobile hydroponic farm in the parking lots of its grocery stores and Greenwise locations. In March, Publix began selling microgreens from Kalera, a hydroponic farm on top of a Marriott hotel that lost all its business due to coronavirus, at 165 stores.

Hydroponic farming has been plagued by inefficiencies and high costs in the past, but improvements in technology are helping suppliers better meet retailers' demands for pricing and scale. On-site farms also add a bit of theater that can draw curious shoppers to stores. 

Publix isn’t the only food retailer exploring this field. Kroger last year installed mini hydroponic farms in a handful of Seattle stores in partnership with Infarm, a start-up based in Germany. Around the same time, Gordon Food Service and indoor farming startup Square Roots opened their first co-located hydroponics farm on Gordon’s headquarters in Wyoming, Michigan. H-E-B and Whole Foods have also experimented with hydroponics in and around their stores.

Having a hydroponic farm at the store removes the need for transportation and storage of lettuce before it hits shelves, according to Brick Street Farms. It also allows Publix to sell the produce in-season all year round, providing some supply stability.

Although omnichannel business is booming for grocers like Publix right now, many are looking for ways to drive traffic to their stores, where they can make the most money per order. Grow farms and other safe, eye-catching attractions could be one way to accomplish this.

Follow Krishna Thakker on Twitter

Lead Photo: Permission granted by Publix

Filed Under: Fresh food Natural/organic

Why Locate In Appalachia?

Kentucky native Jonathan Webb is turning his dream of a high-tech farming hub in Appalachia into reality with AppHarvest.

The company is building some of the largest indoor farms in the world, combining conventional agricultural techniques with today’s technology to grow non- GMO, chemical-free produce. The company’s first greenhouse will span 60 acres and open in the second half of 2020 in Morehead, Ky.

Collaboration Overview - AGRICULTURAL TECHNOLOGY ECOSYSTEM IN KENTUCKY by Herb on Scribd

• Like many Kentuckians, Jonathan grew up knowing of the devastating job losses in the region. His grandmother was raised in Whitley County, where a coal mining accident killed his great-grandfather. Jonathan strives to work alongside the hard-working men and women of Eastern Kentucky and build a resilient economy for the future.

  Before founding AppHarvest, Jonathan worked with the U.S. Department of Defense on what was then the largest solar project in the Southeastern United States. The project aimed to help achieve a White House goal of ensuring the military receives 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2025.

• -  Kentucky native and University of Kentucky graduate

• -  Before starting AppHarvest, Jonathan helped build some of the largest solar projects in the Southeast, seeking to help the military generate 20% of their electricity from renewable sources.

• -  While working on renewable energy farms, Jonathan discovered the high-tech controlled environment agriculture farms of the Netherlands and returned home to Kentucky in 2017 with the dream of building AppHarvest and creating America’s AgTech capital in Eastern Kentucky.

• -  Named Emerging Entrepreneur by the Kentucky Entrepreneur Hall of Fame in 2019

• -  Selected to be a member by worldwide entrepreneurship network Endeavor.

• The organization seeks out the best high-impact entrepreneurs around the world, and, to date, has screened more than 60,000 individuals and selected around 2,000.

• Talking points for agreement

• -  17 organizations signed an agreement committing to create America’s AgTech capital in Eastern Kentucky

• -  Calls for opening a Dutch representative office in Kentucky, creation of a series of research programs at universities, construction of a center of excellence, and the building of additional controlled environment agriculture farms like AppHarvest’s, which is under construction in Morehead.

• -  Dutch are widely recognized as the world’s leaders in AgTech. Even with a landmass just roughly the size of Eastern Kentucky, the Netherlands has become the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter. How? They utilize controlled environment agriculture facilities to grow up to 30 times more fruits and vegetables on an indoor acre compared to a traditionally farmed outdoor acre. And they do it using 90% less water.

• -  Why Kentucky? Our central geographic location, which has attracted the likes of Amazon and UPS, allows fresh fruits and vegetables to reach nearly 70% of Americans in a day's drive. That means fresher food and far less food waste as grocers benefit from the extended shelf life. Eastern Kentucky is also home to a strong workforce that long powered the country and exhibits the faith and grit needed to build a more resilient economy.

UAE Agricultural Firm Uses Technology To Help With Food Security

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KATERYNA KADABASHY

July 13, 2020 | DUBAI

Smart Acres aims to support the UAE’s food security program by using high-tech vertical farming to produce approximately 8,000 kilograms of lettuce per cycle.“

In the expansion phase, we will have 78 modules, which comes to a total of 88,320 pots. Each lettuce, for example, will weigh 100 grams. So, that is approximately 8,000 kilograms of crops per cycle,” the company’s CEO Abdulla Al-Kaabi told Arab News.

The vertical farm — currently in the proof-of-concept stage — is expected to launch in the third quarter of 2020, producing 12 cycles of crops annually and expanding from Abu Dhabi to the rest of the country. In this type of farming, plants are stocked vertically, providing more produce per area and resembling something similar to the green walls sometimes seen in malls.

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Smart Acres collaborated with South Korean vertical farming technology n.thing in their farming processes. (Supplied)

The company collaborated with South Korean vertical farming technology n.thing to employ the Internet of Things in their farming so as to efficiently use water and monitor humidity, temperature, and nutrients.“

Vertical farms, in general, save over 90 percent of water compared to traditional farming methods. There is constant water flow across all the little pots, and the water is filled with all the nutrients necessary for the plant to grow,” Lead Project Manager Aphisith Joe Phongsavanh said.

The high-tech design of the farm allows Smart Acres to produce clean crops without any pesticides and with minimal intervention.“

Since we are growing our crops in a 100 percent closed environment, we don’t have to use pesticides at all. That’s exactly what we mean by clean food: non-adulterated food products that go through minimal processing,” Phongsavanh said.

However, this closed environment in which the plants grow requires staff and visitors to wear protective gear before entering the premises in order to preserve the sterility of the area.“

It is almost like going into a very high-tech factory. You have to wear lab coats and go through an air shower, where one door is closed and the other door only opens after 10 seconds of disinfection,” Director of Smart Acres Sean Lea said.

Currently, the company does not have any investors, but Al-Kaabi said that the expansion phase “of course will require an investment,” expected to cost around AED16.7 million ($4.5 million).

It will not just include a larger number of crops, but also a research and development center with a vision to start cultivating baby spinach, mature spinach, baby arugula, strawberries, and potato seeds.

Earlier in July, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan visited some local farms and met with agricultural entrepreneurs.“

I was pleased to meet some of the UAE’s aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs who are pioneering sustainable and resilient farming practices using modern technology,” Al-Nahyan tweeted.  

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The UAE is pushing for local production of crops and livestock.

According to Khaleej Times, the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority provided over $174 million to “138,000 families, 30,632 breeders and farmers, and 259 small-scale producers and commercial animal farms in Abu Dhabi” to support the industry in June.

Lead Photo: Smart Acres’ vertical farming technology enables it to produce approximately 8 tons of lettuce per cropping cycle. (Supplied)

CubicFarms Announces Sale of 16-Machine Commercial-Scale System in Armstrong, BC

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VANCOUVER, BC, July 10, 2020,/CNW/  

CubicFarm® Systems Corp. (CUB.V) ("CubicFarms" or the "Company") is pleased to announce that its automated, controlled-environment system has been selected by a new customer to grow commercial quantities of leafy greens for retail markets in the Okanagan region in British Columbia, Canada .

The Company has finalized an agreement for the sale of 16 CubicFarms machines, and received a deposit from a British Columbia -based agriculture industry expert specialized in equipment sales in Western Canada.

CubicFarms CEO Dave Dinesen commented: "We are excited to be working with our new customer who plans to supply commercial-scale greens in the Okanagan region. While the Okanagan Valley is a great location for growing fresh produce, the weather can affect growing seasons. CubicFarms allows our customers to eliminate the weather variable and grow locally, all year round.

"We invite growers to contact us for a visit to our facility in Pitt Meadows, BC to get a first-hand view of our technology and learn how we can help them scale up their business. Interested parties can also opt for tours via live video calls, or receive the same in-person tour experience through our virtual tour available on our website. We look forward to continue serving our customers and sales leads to help them supply their markets with fresh produce and nutritious livestock feed."

The system includes 14 growing machines, two propagation machines, and an irrigation system, representing a total of US$2,145,000 (excluding installation and shipping) in anticipated sales revenues to the Company. The system is expected to be installed by the end of the year in Armstrong, BC.

The Company has a current backlog of approximately US$20 million representing 161 machines under deposit and awaiting installation – demonstrating continued sales momentum due in part to the growing demand for its systems. The current backlog is anticipated to be recognized in revenue in late-2020 to mid-2022.

Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor it’s Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.

About CubicFarm® Systems Corp.

CubicFarm Systems Corp. ("CubicFarms") is a technology company that is developing and deploying technology to feed a changing world. Its proprietary technologies enable growers around the world to produce high-quality, predictable crop yields. CubicFarms has two distinct technologies that address two distinct markets. The first technology is its patented CubicFarm™ System, which contains patented technology for growing leafy greens and other crops. Using its unique, undulating-path growing system, the Company addresses the main challenges within the indoor farming industry by significantly reducing the need for physical labour and energy, and maximizing yield per cubic foot. CubicFarms leverages its patented technology by operating its own R&D facility in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, selling the System to growers, licensing its technology, and providing vertical farming expertise to its customers.

The second technology is CubicFarms' HydroGreen System for growing nutritious livestock feed. This system utilizes a unique process to sprout grains, such as barley and wheat, in a controlled environment with minimal use of land, labour and water. The HydroGreen System is fully automated and performs all growing functions including seeding, watering, lighting, harvesting, and re-seeding – all with the push of a button – to deliver nutritious livestock feed without the typical investment in fertilizer, chemicals, fuel, field equipment, and transportation. The HydroGreen System not only provides superior nutritious feed to benefit the animal but also enables significant environmental benefits to the farm. 

Cautionary statement on forward-looking information

Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the customer's ability to supply leafy greens to the Okanagan region, CubicFarms' expected revenue recognition, and installation of the system by the end of the year. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors including evolving market conditions, which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of CubicFarm Systems Corp., or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information including the Company obtaining the approval of the Offering from the TSX Venture Exchange. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict", and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events, or results "may", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken, occur, or be achieved.

These statements reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events, performance, and results and speak only as of the date of this news release. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except as required by securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if the Company's expectations regarding future events, performance, or results change. 

SOURCE CubicFarm Systems Corp.

View original content to download multimedia: http://www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/July2020/10/c9695.html

VIDEO: IGS Intelligent System Design – FTS Finds Out More

Tom Zöllner

July 6, 2020

IGS has, as a company, focused from the outset on automation, intelligent system design, and the energy equation of CEA vertical farming. This has garnered them a reputation as one of the leading and most innovative companies in the industry. We took some time to have a chat with them and find out a bit more about how this all works in practice.

FTS: Hello and thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Can you briefly introduce IGS, its history as well as its outlook?

IGS:   IGS was founded in 2013 bringing together decades of farming and engineering experience with a vision to revolutionize the indoor growing market. The two founders, farmer Henry Aykroyd and our CTO Dave Scott had an appetite for innovation and realized that there were significant gaps in the provision of scalable technology for the sector. 

Henry knew how to grow and understood the challenges which faced traditional farming: Dave knew how to manage automation and power controls in an industrial environment. The opportunity to bring greater climate control to a growing environment was significant. The ability to manage power consumption was revolutionary. The simplicity of its implementation and use is pivotal. 

We opened our first vertical farm demonstrator in Scotland in 2018. Artificial intelligence determines optimal nutritional input and the exact combination or ‘recipes’ of weather: lighting, watering, and ventilation. Data is collected continuously and machine learning used to make iterative adjustments, all of which is monitored through a web-based app. The whole Intelligent Growth platform is IOT-enabled to automate system control and management. Our degree of control is so fine that each 6m2 growth tray has its own microclimate. Technical simplicity is at the heart of our mechanical design.

Our commitment to innovation has continued apace and we have evolved the applications of our technology beyond agriculture to create solutions for a wide variety of indoor environments, developing the Intelligent Grid platform.

The Intelligent Grid uses the same IOT-enabled power and controls platform to manage and monitor lights, sensors, cameras, and communications for complete climate control and reporting. It too has a very simple, clean, and elegant design for application in any commercial building, greenhouse or livestock shed. In contrast to the vertical farm, we use our same core technology through the Intelligent Grid to create whole-space macroclimates.

Both IGS demonstrators are based at the James Hutton Institute, a world-renowned crop, and plant science research facility. IGS and the Hutton collaborate closely to help advance the understanding of plant science for indoor growing. 

Until 2018 IGS had invested approximately £7m in R&D to ensure that its platforms offered the greatest levels of control and achieved levels of economic viability, scale, and minimal environmental impact compared to other systems on the market. In 2019 IGS raised £7 million in institutional capital to enter production and take its systems to global markets. We continue to invest over £1m per annum in R&D.

FTS: You have recently shared news of two reseller partnerships – one in the Middle East and one in the UK and Italy with TEP Renewables. Can you tell us briefly a bit more about them? 

IGS: We have been talking to International Real Estate Partners (IREP), the international facilities management firm for some time in the Middle East, and we’re really pleased to recently sign this referral agreement which is specifically focused on indoor vertical farming for the UAE and Saudi Arabian markets.

We also have an opportunity to extend into Asian markets in the future. It gives us a greater capacity to service the Middle East market and secure and deploy vertical farming platforms across the region. IREP’s presence in this market is well established with many existing customers across agriculture, retail, and construction and it is a very positive development for both companies we believe.

The agreement with TEP Renewables is an MOU (Memorandum of Understanding) or a reseller-type partnership if we identify customers who would like to operate solar-powered vertical farms in Italy or the United Kingdom that we will work with them.

FTS: Fantastic! In the end, any vertical farm (indeed any farm!) is only as environmentally sustainable as its energy equations. But it is also only as financially sustainable as its energy cost. You have focused quite intensely on this energy cost question. As we see this dramatic collapse of fossil fuel energy production return on investment, it seems that NOW is the time to have renewable energy options on hand for CEA.  Do you believe that renewable energy can be cost-competitive – both in terms of installation, sustainable life-cycle and with regard to the price of the final product for the consumer?   

IGS: We consider a variety of power distribution and supply methods. Renewables can have considerable benefits from an environmental perspective and also specific to grants and other financial support for utilizing renewable energy resources.   

The “virtual power plant”  capabilities of our systems indicate strong Demand Side Response (DSR) potential. We can manipulate our growth cycles to respond to power availability and respond to inherent instabilities in power networks. This is already having an influence on our engagement in circular energy projects to utilize spare energy for growing and allows for more renewable power sources to be adopted.

FTS: Labor cost is the other biggest outlay for any vertical farm. You have invested heavily in automation. Is the trade-off of increased capital expenditure for automation worth the reduction in operational expenditure for labor, in your experience? 

IGS: Absolutely. Driving down the farm gate price is the ultimate goal and while labor costs vary from region to region, we believe that this investment in the automation (and indeed the associated patents) within our growing operations is imperative and differentiates our systems considerably.

FTS: You’ve set about designing modular and intelligent systems. Such a bespoke system offers advantages of course, as we’ve seen above.  But it can also present challenges if it cannot be integrated with other equipment and systems later. Do you future-proof your systems to be able to accommodate such updates and integrations over time? 

IGS: We have thought about this from the outset, and our systems are designed in a plug and play model, rather than being bespoke as such. Scalability is paramount for our customers and this has been a consideration throughout our R&D development.  Rather than using proprietary systems for processes such as sowing and harvesting, we use off-the-shelf equipment and components. This means we can keep startup and maintenance costs down by providing items with which farmers are already familiar. If a section of the vertical farming system needs to be replaced or upgraded, such as a water filter, a lighting panel or a tray, it can be done with almost no interruption. 

However, what is also imperative to think about in terms of future proofing, and a hugely important part of our approach, is how we work so closely with the science community to better understand plant light interactions. The level of control we have designed into our hardware systems allows us to flex and adapt as we need to deploy the most up to date plant light information through our software development, which is continuously evolving. 

The approach of our software development has also involved maximising security of our systems and ensuring simplicity of operation. This will be continuously updated, but with seamless integration for our customers. 

FTS: Along with FTS, you’ve joined a number of other associations and similar collaborative groups. Why is this important to you as a company, and how do you balance the proprietary needs of your company against this desire to cooperate?

IGS:  Collaboration and cooperation across this sector is essential. Our vision is that sustainable change will only be delivered not only when we collaborate, but when we are all open and honest about the limitations, as well as the opportunities for this sector.  We want to work alongside technology vendors with complementary products, and with growers and producers, supported by science and greater understanding of growing plants indoors, all backed by far-sighted investors.

We firmly believe that through innovation, collaboration and investment we can create an economically and environmentally sustainable global indoor food industry.

FTS: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today. We wish you every success and look forward to working with you in the future.

IGS: Thanks very much indeed. We look forward very much to be part of Farmtech Society as we all move forward in the development and innovation of agricultural technology.

For IGS

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David Farquhar

CEO

VIDEO: Dubai’s Badia is GCC’s First Commercial Vertical Indoor Farm

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June 26, 2020

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An expert takes notes on the health of vegetables.

Gulf Today, Staff Reporter

Badia Farms in Al Quoz Industrial area in Dubai is the GCC’s first commercial vertical indoor farm that supports Dubai’s agricultural sustainability.

The large-scale high-tech vertical farm produces 3,500kg of chemical, pesticide, and herbicide-free fruits and vegetables per year.

Badia Farms said, “We have a growing reputation for supplying the finest micro-greens and herbs to Dubai’s top restaurants, caterers and chefs.”

Vertical farming is the practice of producing food vertically in stacked layers, vertically inclined surfaces, and/or integrated in other structures.

It uses a combination of indoor farming techniques and controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) technology.

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Experts examine a produce.

Vertical farms can grow non-native produce in locations where traditional agricultural methods are impossible. Also, there’s no exposure to the hazards of traditional farming, such as bugs, diseases, pesticides and weather.

In some ways, it’s as simple as it sounds: a vertical farm is a multi-story greenhouse where fruit and vegetables are grown in stacked up towers. There’s obviously a lot more to it than that – and here’s where we’ll try not to blind you with science.

The techy term for it all is hydroponics, which is a technique for growing produce without soil. Seeds are planted in a sterile, soil-less growing environment and then grown in nutrient-rich water. Water is recycled, and everything from air and water temperature through to humidity and lighting are controlled to create the perfect growing environment.

Badia Farms Vertical Farming Agriculture Dubai UAE InnovationTechnology

Future Farm Technology Expo Announces That The UK Urban Vertical Farm Association Urban Agritech UK (UKUAT) Has Joined Future Farm Technology Expo As An Official Supporter of The Event

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Future Farm Technology Expo is delighted to announce that the Uk urban vertical farm association Urban Agritech UK (UKUAT) has joined Future Farm Technology Expo as an Official Supporter of the event as an Official Association.  UKUAT will be working with the team at FFT Expo to help promote, educate and support UKUAT exhibiting members and connecting the UK urban vertical farming industry to suppliers, farmers, and those who are researching the industry. FFT Expo will run from 11th & 12th of November 2020, at the NEC Birmingham.

Statement from Mark Horler here:

Mark Horler, Chairman, and Founder of UKUAT commented “We are very excited to announce UKUAT’s partnership with FFT Expo and to have the opportunity to promote urban agriculture and the related technologies at such a leading and exciting event. Urban farming is an integral and rapidly growing part of farming. UKUAT is proud to represent and promote our members who are creating new technologies, sharing knowledge, and ultimately producing food in urban and peri-urban areas. It’s a truly exciting time to be involved with UKUAT, as we have networked with different internationally recognized institutions to promote the fantastic new technology that is arising from the sector. We seek always to create new strategic links with experts, organizations, institutions, and to share knowledge. This partnership with FFT Expo will enable us to expand and promote these activities, utilizing this event, online webinars, whitepapers, and networking events in the future.”

Mike Enser, Marketing Manager for the show said ‘the launch edition in 2019 attracted motivated and engaged visitors from across the farming community, with 96% of attendees having buying power. We are delighted that UKUAT is working with us. The knowledge they have of the UK sector is second to none and we at FFT Expo are looking forward to working with Mark and his team to ensure the UK urban vertical farm market is showcased through its exhibiting members, through the associations thought leadership and through its vision ‘To utilize Urban Agritech as a tool to achieve greater sustainability & resilience in the UK food system. Expanding the horizons of Urban Agritech to better inform communities across the UK.’

Future Farm Technology Expo is run by Farmers Weekly and Reed Exhibitions. The event hosts demonstrations of new technologies and the multitude of capabilities that data provides as well as bringing together innovators in agricultural technologies with farmers looking to improve their productivity and yields.

Editors notes:

The UK Urban AgriTech collective, or UKUAT, brings together the UK’s key players in modern agricultural technologies. We’re a cross-industry group devoted to promoting urban agtech as a solution for food and environmental crises. We influence policy by sharing information, educating, and communicating practitioner needs as one. We promote the uptake of agtech in urban and peri-urban settings by uniting to attract funding and customers.

Future Farm Technology Expo is one of the only UK events dedicated to solving the challenges faced by farmers through agricultural technology solutions.

Whether you are looking to optimise your production or reduce waste, here you have direct access to the experts and technological solutions that will benefit you long-term and plant those seeds for positive change.

For immediate circulation:

To get in touch with UKUAT please email info@ukuat.org

If you would like to talk to the team behind FFT Expo, please email Mike Enser –michael.enser@reedexpo.co.uk

Shipping Container Farms Come to London as Growers Ditch Soil

Vegetables Are Grown Vertically Supplied With Nutrient-Rich Water

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20 June 2020

By Emma Gatten

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Racks of vegetables grown in a shipping container in London CREDIT: Fiona Hanson

In the era of climate change and Brexit, British farming is facing unprecedented challenges. How to supply environmentally friendly, locally sourced, and competitively priced food?

One part of the answer could lie in a shipping container in an east London car park, just moment’s away from the capital’s business district. Inside are racks of leafy green vegetables, grown vertically using hydroponic technology. Instead of being planted in soil, the vegetables are plugged into a system of nutrient-rich water and kept at the optimal temperature, under specially designed lighting.

The result is flavorsome lettuces, kale, basil, and other leaves, free of pesticides and using up to 95 percent less water than traditional agriculture over a fraction of the space. The shipping containers, which are custom made, mean the produce can be located virtually on the doorstep of its market, effectively eliminating food miles.“

Traditional organic farming is not sustainable if we're going to feed a population,” says Sebastian Sainsbury, the founder of Crate to Plate, which has just had its first harvest.

Not only does Crate to Plate use otherwise wasted space - these three shipping containers can grow the equivalent of an acre’s soil - but the proximity to customers keeps the produce fresh.“ When you harvest the lettuce from the soil, within 48 hours, you've lost 40 percent of the nutritional value. And it goes down every day,”

Indoor farming has boomed in recent years, particularly in the US, where Mr. Sainsbury lived until recently and where he developed his business.

But the UK is yet to fully capitalize on its opportunities, says Dr. Robert Hancock of the James Hutton Institute, which is supporting pioneering vertical farming techniques from its facility in Dundee.“

Even with current technologies and current efficiencies, there's probably a lot more that can be done. And I think that indoor farming can interface a lot more with the broader agricultural picture,” he said.

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Lead Farmer of Crate to Plate, a hydroponic vertical farm producing leafy greens and herbs.

CREDIT: Fiona Hanson

Environment Secretary George Eustice this week said vertical farming would have a vital role to play in helping British farming meet the challenges of climate change and post-Brexit food security.

“There are a lot of pressures on land use,” he told the parliamentary environment committee, highlighting “the tricky issue” of repairing biodiversity and soil health in our intensely farmed landscapes.

Mr. Hancock highlighted the UK’s strawberry industry, which relies on imports of propagated plants from the Netherlands, as one example of where indoor farming could boost British production. Britain produces just 7 percent of its fruit and 53 percent of its vegetables. But ultimately, he says, vertical farming can only ever be part of the answer and will likely be limited to salads, berries, and niche crops.

“The replacement for calorie crops I don't think is ever going to happen,” he said.

Crate to Plate is the latest of several hydroponic farming ventures started by those outside of traditional agriculture (Mr. Sainsbury is an ex-banker), many of which haven’t translated to long-term success. The key to seeing vertical farming at scale will be getting more existing farmers on board, says Mr. Hancock.“

They understand the economics of growing.

And they also understand the routes to market,” he said.

The government is hoping that the end of the EU's Common Agricultural Policy could be a chance for new blood to enter the agricultural industry, and will offer older farmers a “golden handshake” if they retire early.

Mr. Sainsbury employs three recent agricultural graduates and says the younger generation are eager to explore new technologies. He has also had interest from farmers keen to locate his shipping containers on their land.

So far, Crate to Plate’s economies of scale and niche produce puts them out of reach of the average supermarket shopper (think £10+ salads marketed to City workers). But they have hopes of moving into residential areas, amid a growing trend for urban farming. The dream, says Mr. Sainsbury, would be a vegetable farm in every urban neighborhood, manned by a dedicated farmer and producing fresh produce for everyone to buy.“

The aim is to make it as local as possible,” he said.

Pricey Greens From Indoor Farms Are Thriving In The Covid Era

Deena Shanker Bookmark

Published: June 19, 2020, 4:30 PM

Updated: June 20, 2020, 6:35 PM

(Bloomberg Businessweek)

By Saturday, March 14, even before Mayor Bill de Blasio announced the shutdown of all in-restaurant dining in New York City the next night, Viraj Puri, chief executive officer of the Brooklyn, N.Y.-based indoor urban farming company Gotham Greens

Read more at https://www.bloombergquint.com/businessweek/novel-farming-sees-massive-jump-in-demand-amid-coronavirus

Copyright © BloombergQuint

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NEW YORK: Vertical Farming Takes Root in Hudson Valley

By Phil Hall 

June 20, 2020

Among the more disturbing aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic involved food costs and supplies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a 2.6% increase in food prices nationwide from March to April, marking the largest monthly increase in 46 years. These increases have been fueled by disruptions in the supply chain due to worker illnesses in processing plants.

For restaurants and food retailers, not being able to access materials or being charged higher-than-normal exacerbates an already acute problem of trying to maintain revenue streams during the pandemic.

However, a pair of regional businesses have begun using agricultural technology from the Israeli company Vertical Field that takes the farm-to-table concept and turns it into a container-to-table approach.

“The way it works is that we take a container, just the standard shipping container,” explained Sam Miner, Vertical Field’s U.S. launch manager.

“And the main thing that we do is we put these modules on the wall that have irrigation lines behind it. We simply fill those modules with soil and we put in the right lighting equipment. And once you put plants in there, they just grow fairly simple.”

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John Lekic, chef and owner of Poughkeepsie’s Farmers & Chefs restaurant, poses in front of his Vertical Field container used for growing greens and herbs. Photo courtesy Vertical Field.

Vertical Field launched in Israel in 2006 as an agricultural supply solution for the nation’s urban markets. Miner stated the firm began as a “green wall company” that took the horizontal aspect of rooftop gardens and switched it on its side.

The company now has 400 projects around the world, including a massive installation in Vietnam that Miner described as being “tremendous, like a football field.”

This spring, Vertical Field made its way into the U.S. market through a pair of Hudson Valley installations. John Lekic, chef and owner of Poughkeepsie’s Farmers & Chefs restaurant, learned about the technology at a Culinary Institute of America symposium in late 2019 and was intrigued about operating his own food source.

“We were planning to bring in the container in March and we actually brought in a container days after the emergency thing was declared in New York,” he said. “It was a perfect timing. Ten days later, we planted our first crop, mostly salad greens, and in the middle of May we already had to harvest. We are going to have a third one this week.”

Lekic praised the technology for allowing several harvests per week, noting the ability to “harvest them the day of serving.” He also praised the user-friendly aspect of the 20-foot containers.

“It’s super easy to maintain,” he said. “Once the container is set up and the mechanism is in place, you have an app that does the irrigation and controls the temperature and the humidity. It’s not really complicated — after you do it once or twice, the planting and everything else becomes really easy to maintain. It does not require a lot of time.”

Lekic is now growing herbs and leafy vegetables in the containers, adding “it’s still a playground for us.”

Another Hudson Valley business that has Vertical Field’s technology in place is the Evergreen Kosher supermarket in Monsey, which installed its containers at the end of May. Menachem Lubinsky, president of Brooklyn-based Lubicom Business Consulting and marketing director for Evergreen, praised the product for creating a speedy supply of produce.

“If something takes normally three months to grow, the technology can accelerate that to three weeks,” he said. “A restaurant or a supermarket can be in control of their supply.”

Lubinsky said he reached out to Vertical Field following news reports during the pandemic of truckers not being able to deliver goods and farms destroying crops because they suddenly had no outlets for selling. Besides selling the harvested crops, Evergreen is planning to make the containers a visitors’ attraction.

“The customer will be able to see the process of how it grows because one of the walls of the container is glass,” he said. “It’s kind of like an educational experience just for a family to go over to see how this whole process grows. And there’s a very large kosher constituency there who are concerned about consuming insects. This eliminates that concern because of the way it grows — it is insect-free.”

Lubinsky said that Vertical Field is planning to build on its technology to accommodate the growing of a wider variety of items, including strawberries and vegetables.

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• TAGS AGRICULTURE EVERGREEN SUPERMARKET FARM TO TABLE FARMERS & CHEFS

• ISRAEL MONSEY POUGHKEEPSIE TECHNOLOGY VERTICAL FIELD

CubicFarms Leverages Its Expertise In Controlled-Environment Agriculture And Announces Launch of new Control Room System And Sale To Career Field Farmer And Entrepreneur

VANCOUVER, BC, JUNE 18, 2020 – CubicFarm® Systems Corp. (TSXV:CUB) (“CubicFarms” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the launch of its new Control Room system for sale to growers looking to grow crops more efficiently by controlling every aspect of the growing environment.

CubicFarms’ Control Room is assembled inside its proprietary stainless steel, fully insulated growing chamber with the option to customize features such as lighting, automated irrigation, and nutrient delivery, and full climate control for temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels. The system has a variety of sensors available, all of which can be remotely monitored and controlled.

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Photo: Inside a CubicFarms Control Room, complete with LED light fixtures, an automated heating, cooling and ventilation system, and wired environmental controls.

The Control Room enables growers to have complete control over the growing environment that is so crucial for high yields and quality – a capability especially well suited for research and development purposes. The temperature, humidity, lighting, and airflow can be properly calibrated to suit crop requirements.
 
“We are pleased to launch a new product that allows growers to conduct their own growing trials inside a controlled-environment chamber. We’ve had numerous inquiries for this kind of solution and are pleased to be able to support our customers with this technology. We see good market potential for this solution that helps growers fine-tune the optimal environmental parameters for growing crops indoors,” commented CubicFarms CEO Dave Dinesen.
 
“We are confident that once growers experience the consistency and quality of yields achieved in the Control Room, they will seek to automate growing inside our Fresh Produce system, which is essentially the Control Room plus motorized rows of trays containing crops that follow a patented path inside the chamber to ensure all sides of the crop are evenly bathed in light to maximize growth.”

CubicFarms control rooms can be placed inside an existing warehouse or greenhouse to serve as controlled-environment growing chambers to test and develop crop varieties. They can also be placed outside in many environments. It is well-suited for many types of growers, including:

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Photo: CubicFarms control rooms being installed at the customer’s site.

• Greenhouse growers and vertical farmers who have a need to hold larger plants in an environment separate from their existing facility. As an example, a hemp grower who would like to hold the mother plant used for cloning in an ideal environment; 

• Growers in the floral or nursery industry who need to hold plants or bulbs at a specific temperature or humidity; and 

• Growers undertaking research activities that require different environmental controls than their typical growing space.

• 
  CubicFarms announces first sale and installation of control rooms to BC-based field farmer and food entrepreneur
   
  The Company is pleased to announce that it has sold three control rooms to a customer in British Columbia. The control rooms were recently installed at the customer’s site. The customer, an experienced field farmer, and consumer packaged foods expert, plans to engage in controlled-environment growing trials of various crops that have traditionally been grown in the field. Mr. Dinesen added: “I’m very excited that CubicFarms can support our customers by leveraging technology we already have, but in this unique way. Our customers never cease to amaze me in how creative and inspiring they are when looking to grow their businesses.”
   
  Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor it’s Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
   
  About CubicFarm® Systems Corp.
   
  CubicFarm Systems Corp. (“CubicFarms”) is a technology company that is developing and deploying technology to feed a changing world. Its proprietary technologies enable growers around the world to produce high-quality, predictable crop yields. CubicFarms has two distinct technologies that address two distinct markets. The first technology is its patented CubicFarm™ System, which contains patented technology for growing leafy greens and other crops. Using its unique, undulating-path growing system, the Company addresses the main challenges within the indoor farming industry by significantly reducing the need for physical labor and energy, and maximizing yield per cubic foot. CubicFarms leverages its patented technology by operating its own R&D facility in Pitt Meadows, British Columbia, selling the System to growers, licensing its technology and providing vertical farming expertise to its customers.
   
  The second technology is CubicFarms’ HydroGreen System for growing nutritious livestock feed. This system utilizes a unique process to sprout grains, such as barley and wheat, in a controlled environment with minimal use of land, labor, and water. The HydroGreen System is fully automated and performs all growing functions including seeding, watering, lighting, harvesting, and re-seeding – all with the push of a button – to deliver nutritious livestock feed without the typical investment in fertilizer, chemicals, fuel, field equipment, and transportation. The HydroGreen System not only provides superior nutritious feed to benefit the animal but also enables significant environmental benefits to the farm.
   
  Cautionary statement on forward-looking information
   
  Certain statements in this release constitute "forward-looking statements" or "forward-looking information" within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, statements with respect to the market potential of the Control Room system and system capabilities. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors including evolving market conditions, which may cause the actual results, performance, or achievements of CubicFarm Systems Corp., or industry results, to be materially different from any future results, performance, or achievements expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements or information including the Company obtaining the approval of the Offering from the TSX Venture Exchange. Such statements can be identified by the use of words such as "may", "would", "could", "will", "intend", "expect", "believe", "plan", "anticipate", "estimate", "scheduled", "forecast", "predict", and other similar terminology, or state that certain actions, events, or results "may", "could", "would", "might", or "will" be taken, occur, or be achieved.
   
  These statements reflect the Company's current expectations regarding future events, performance, and results and speak only as of the date of this news release. Consequently, there can be no assurances that such statements will prove to be accurate and actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. Except as required by securities disclosure laws and regulations applicable to the Company, the Company undertakes no obligation to update these forward-looking statements if the Company's expectations regarding future events, performance, or results change.

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cubicfarms.com

Kimberly Lim
VP, Corporate Communications & Investor Relations
Mobile: 236.858.6491
Office: 1.888.280.9076
Email: kimberly@cubicfarms.com

Creating A Business Based on Hydroponics And Agricultural Technology

June 14, 2020

PLAY EPISODE

Featured Guest:

Alex Tyink, Fork Farms
101 W Edison Ave
Suite 224
Appleton, WI 54915

Email: info@forkfarms.com
Direct: 920.515.0730
Toll-Free: 877.886.7736

BizTalk Air Date: June 6, 2020

Fork Farms is a leader in hydroponics and agricultural technology-based here in the Fox Cities.  Listen to Alex Tynik, founder and president explain how they have developed the products and organization needed to enable individuals and organizations to produce low cost, high-quality food.

Fork Farms has built a national and international reputation in just five years and theirs is a story that will inspire others thinking about creating a social enterprise balancing business results and improving society.

Business PlanningFinanceMotivationSales & MarketingStrategic Management

Sustaining The Future of Indoor Vertical Farming With Microgrids

June 15, 2020, By Guest Post

Schneider Electric’s Don Wingate discusses how microgrids can help the indoor vertical farming movement realize its full potential. 

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Don Wingate, vice president of utility and microgrid solutions at Schneider Electric

While indoor agriculture has steadily gained traction in recent years as the world seeks alternative ways to feed growing populations, the uncertainty of today’s global pandemic has accelerated a rethinking of the way we obtain our food. In the last few months, modern supply chains experienced volatility like never before and it wasn’t long before we started to see the impact beyond medical gear and personal protective equipment and began to affect food production. According to the Institute of Supply Chain Management, 75% of companies reported some kind of supply chain disruption due to COVID-19.

Indoor vertical farming is emerging as an alternative to conventional farming because it both requires lower land-use and introduces the opportunity to bring agricultural production closer to consumers — shortening supply chains and increasing footprint productivity. This is especially important during times of turmoil, which is broader than the current pandemic as weather events and changing climate patterns continue to put constant strain on traditional farming practices. In addition to shortening supply chains, indoor farming has many other advantages in comparison to traditional agriculture such as using zero pesticides, employing 95% less water, and reducing food waste. Health benefits also include fresher food, increased urban availability, and pollution reduction.

Despite the major advantages, there is one looming barrier to mainstream adoption: the process is very energy-intensive.

Solving for the energy intensity problem

Vertical farming presents a unique opportunity to grow food on already developed land and increase domestic food production, but the energy demand required to power these facilities is much higher than other methods of food production. In fact, we’ve identified indoor agriculture as one of the four major drivers that will increase electricity consumption in the next decade, along with electric vehicles, data centers and the electrification of heat. This is why more of today’s modern farming companies are turning to microgrids as a possible solution to ease their energy challenges.

Although most of today’s facilities are not equipped to meet the electricity needs of an indoor agriculture operation, microgrids can provide dynamic energy management and the resources required to support maximum productivity, sustainability, and energy efficiency. They can provide localized power generation and utilize renewable distributed energy resources to help deliver power and reach clean energy goals, while also allowing users more control and reliability. Additionally, microgrids can capture and repurpose CO2 emissions to help in crop production.

Moreover, microgrids provide resilience from unexpected outages that could result in a loss in production. A key advantage of vertical farms is their ability to allow crops to grow year-round, and communities rely on their ability to deliver on this promise. Microgrids not only have several clean energy benefits, but they also increase business continuity that maximizes output. Given their ability to operate either in conjunction with or as an island from the utility grid, they can keep the farm producing even when the grid goes down.

The case for investment: Securing an affordable solution 

Building and operating a vertical farm requires various technologies that can translate to high startup cost and design complex processes. At the same time, it is more expensive to maintain a vertical farming operation than traditional field farming. Microgrids offer a compelling value proposition, but they’re inherently complex machines and not many companies have the upfront capital or in-house expertise needed to make the investment. Fortunately, innovative business models such as energy-as-a-service (EaaS) help provide price certainty and make the investment attainable.

For example, a modern farming company, Bowery Farming, created a facility wherein crop production is 100 times more efficient than traditional farmland. This generated a need for a greater need for reliable, efficient power. Thus, the company made the decision to integrate a hybrid microgrid system that would feature a rooftop solar array, natural gas generator, and a lithium-ion battery energy storage system through an EaaS business model. Through EaaS, Bowery Farming saved upfront capital that can be used toward additional operational investments.

By 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow by another 2 billion people, and feeding it will be a major challenge. According to the projections of the Food and Agriculture Organization, we have to increase overall food production by 70% by this timeline. Coupled with new concerns that have surfaced as a result of today’s global pandemic and unstable weather, vertical farming will play a key role in future food production and institutions will take notice. However, the technology that will help ease some of the industry’s ongoing energy challenges will be just as important to aid the transition.

Don Wingate is the VP of utility and microgrid solutions at Schneider Electric.

The Indoor Farm Revolution

Coronavirus chaos has spurred a grow-your-own food movement — and space-age hydroponic technology is rising to meet it.

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By Chris Taylor

NOTE FOR 2020 READERS: This is the eleventh in a series of open letters to the next century, now just 80 years away. The series asks: What will the world look like at the other end of our kids' lives?

Dear 22nd Century,

For all the pain, grief and economic hardship the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has sown, a handful of green shoots seem to have taken root in its blighted soil.

Green being the operative word, because many of these developments could be a net positive for the planet. In lockdown, many of us are seeing what our cities look like without smog. Office workers are experiencing office life without the office; just last week, Twitter announced that most of its employees could work from home forever, while much of Manhattan is reportedly freaking out about what could happen to commercial real estate. Thousands of companies just discovered they can still function, and maybe even function better, when they don’t chain employees to desks or force them to make a soul-crushing, carbon-spewing commute 10 times a week.

And what do more people do when they’re spending more time at home? Well, if you’re like my wife, you start literally planting green shoots. Our house is filling up with them as I write this: lettuce, chard, tomatoes, basil, strawberries, to name the first five shoots poking out of dozens of mason jars now taking up residence on every windowsill. She’s hardly alone; garden centers and seed delivery services are reporting as much as 10 times more sales since the pandemic began. Even the mighty Wal-Mart has sold out of seeds. If viral Facebook posts and Instagram hashtags are any guide, pandemic hipsters have moved on from once-fashionable sourdough starters to growing fresh fruit and veg. 

Another one of our cyclical “back to the land” movements seems to be underway, just like during the 1960s and the Great Depression before that. Only this time, we don’t need land. We don’t need soil. We don’t need pesticide of any kind. We don’t even need natural light. Thanks to giant leaps forward in the science of hydroponics and LED lighting, even people in windowless, gardenless apartments can participate in the revolution. With a number of high-tech consumer products on the way, the process can be automated for those of us without green thumbs. 

In previous letters I’ve discussed the inevitable rise of alternative meat, a process that has been accelerated by the pandemic. I talked about the smaller, more nutritious plant-based meals we're going to need for life extension; I assumed such meals would be delivered by drone. But now I see a future with no food deserts, in which every home is filled with rotating space-station-like hydroponics run by artificial intelligence — a cornucopia of push-button farming providing the side salad to your plant-based meat. 

Even if you don’t grow your own, robot-run vertical farms and community “agrihoods,” now springing up everywhere, will make amazing-tasting produce abundant and cheap. The “locavores” of our era like to boast about their 100-mile diet. Yours will look more like a 100-yard diet. 

Green, not soylent 

It’s worth remembering that it wasn’t supposed to be this way. The 2020s, in fact, is when we were slated for starvation, food riots, and big business quietly processing our corpses into food. 

That’s the plot of the 1973 movie Soylent Green, set in the year 2022. Fruit and veg have all but vanished. In one scene, Charlton Heston's detective hero smuggles home a single tomato and a wilted stick of celery, enough to reduce his roommate Sol (Edward G. Robinson) to tears. On the other end of the future, in a lighter but equally depressing vein, the 2006 comedy Idiocracy showed the Americans of 2500 running out of crops because they couldn’t figure out that water, not "Brawndo" (a spoof on colorful sports drinks), is “what plants crave.”

But these dismal future visions are receding thanks to the science of hydroponics — which dates back to the 19th century, no matter its present-day association with growing marijuana. By the 1930s, we’d figured out that what plants crave is surprisingly minimal: nitrogen, a handful of minerals, something to anchor the roots like rock wool or coconut husks, and H2O. Early hydroponic farms helped feed U.S. soldiers as they hopped through the Pacific during World War II.

Minimalist methods multiplied, and are still multiplying. We’re tweaking the spectrum of LED lights for maximum growth, and figuring out ways to use progressively less water and nutrients. My wife’s mason jar seedlings use something called the Kratky method, where you don't even need to change the water. It turns out this method was invented by a Hawaiian scientist as recently as 2009. And it’s the closest science has yet given us to a free lunch.

Reinventing the wheel

I’m nowhere near as excited by hydroponics as my wife is. But during our quarantine time, even my head has been turned — by the Rotofarm, which I’ve come to think of as the iPhone of gardening. It’s a beautiful device inspired by NASA research on growing plants in space. It uses anti-gravity — literally, when the wheel rotates around its LED light source and the plants are hanging upside down — to grow plants faster. A magnetic cover reduces the glare and increases the internal humidity. You manage it via an app.

Humankind’s oldest technology turns out to be the most efficient use of space for growing plants; even in this 15-inch-wide wheel, you can really pack them in. At the bottom of the wheel, plants dip their roots into the water and nutrient tanks. An owner’s only job is to refill the tanks every week or so, and to snip off their dinner with scissors a few weeks after germination. Some leafy greens, like my favorite salad base arugula, can be regrown without replanting.

Still, to be fully self-sufficient, a future apartment is going to need to have multiple Rotofarm-style devices on the go at once — but they’re designed to live anywhere you can plug in, on coffee tables, on desks, on walls, as eye-catching as artwork.

The main problem with the Rotofarm: It isn’t actually on sale yet. “It feels like we’ve done everything in reverse,” Rotofarm creator Toby Farmer said when I reached him via video chat from his home in Melbourne. “We’ve got the patents, we’ve got the design awards, we’ve got the customers. Now we need to finish the prototypes.” (One key tweak: reducing Rotofarm’s energy requirements, which as it stands could double many users’ household electricity bills.)

Still, orders have come from as far afield as Japan and the Netherlands, from retailers and regular users alike. Farmer’s biggest regret: When Ron Howard’s production company called, hoping to use eight Rotofarms in an upcoming Nickelodeon show set in space, Farmer didn’t have enough to spare.

Rotofarm has been in the works for a few years, but a crowdfunded Indiegogo campaign that closed last month exceeded its $15,000 goal by a third of a million dollars. Farmer, despite his name, had no experience in this area; just 23 years old, he had been a web designer since the age of 12. But he’s scaling up fast, hiring teams in LA and Singapore, soaking up their knowledge (he was keen to assure me he’d hired a lot of 40-somethings for this very reason).

After a projected 2021 release date, Rotofarm’s business model involves making money on proprietary seed pods — though Farmer admits that “there’s a DIY aspect” where customers can make their own. His hope is that official Rotofarm pods will be competitive because they’ll have fewer germination failures, but he'd rather see a world where more people own the device itself. In that spirit, he’s making it modular — the LED light bar can be upgraded separately, for example, rather than making customers buy a whole new device. (As for cost, Farmer says he can't comment yet — though Indiegogo backers were able to secure one for $900 a pop.) 

Might the Rotofarm fail? Of course, just like any other crowdfunded project. Much depends on its price point, as yet unannounced. But it’s far from the only next-level, set-it-and-forget-it hydroponic station taking aim at your kitchen. There’s a Canadian Kickstarter called OGarden that also grows food on a wheel, albeit a much larger wheel. The OGarden was funded in its first six minutes online and is set to cost around $1,000 per unit. There’s Farmshelf, a $4,900 pre-order hydroponic device that looks like a see-through refrigerator, backed by celebrity chef Jose Andres. Users will pay a $35 monthly subscription to get all the seeds they need. 

One of these models is the future; maybe all of them are. Right now, these are high-end devices aimed at early adopters (and restaurants, which get a lot of benefit out of showing off how fresh their produce is as customers walk-in). But with scale, with time, and with the growing desire for grow-your-own food that Rotofarm and its brethren have revealed, they will get cheaper and more widespread. 

After all, the first Motorola cellphone, in 1983, cost $4,000. It looked like a brick and had 30 minutes of talk time. Now sleek, supercomputer-driven smartphones are accessible to pretty much everyone. The same process will happen in-home hydroponics. 

Rise of the vertical farm

Give it 80 years, and I can see apartments with built-in hydroponic farms provided as a standard utility, much as a fridge is seen as a standard feature today. As more humans move to urban environments — two out of every three people will be in cities by 2050, according to the latest UN estimate — the need for such devices will only grow.

“We strongly believe the future of gardening is indoor gardening and more individual gardens,” OGarden CEO Pierre Nibart told us last year. “Stopping mass agriculture and starting to produce their own little stuff at home.” He said this while demonstrating his family's daily OGarden routine: His kids harvest most of what they need for dinner from the spinning wheel. 

Mass agriculture hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory where produce is concerned. And in the post-coronavirus age, we are surely going to become less tolerant of the disease its intensive farming methods have caused.

Food poisoning caused by romaine lettuce, which makes up a quarter of all leafy greens sold in the U.S., has become depressingly familiar. The 2018 E Coli outbreak was the worst — it sickened 240 people in 37 states, hospitalized almost half of them, and killed five. But the CDC has logged 46 E Coli outbreaks since 2006 and says that every reported case of infection is likely matched by 26 unreported ones. And they’re only just starting to figure out the most likely cause: groundwater contaminated by nearby cattle manure. There could also be an infection from passing birds, another major vector of bacteria. 

Never mind the wet markets of Wuhan that likely caused the coronavirus pandemic. We’re already sickening ourselves on the regular with a problem that is baked directly into our food system — and it’s affecting vegans as much as meat-eaters. 

I have no doubt you’ll look at our barbaric farming methods and shake your heads. Why did they use so much water? Why did they transport produce an average of 1,500 miles? Why did they grow it outdoors, where it’s vulnerable to pests, and then use pesticides that had to be washed off? Why did they think “triple washing” did anything to remove bacteria (it doesn’t)? Why did they bother using soil, for goodness’ sake? Didn’t they know what plants crave?

The force of legacy agriculture is strong, but an increasing number of companies are figuring out a better way: the vertical farm, so named because they can stack hydroponic produce in shelves or towers. As I write this, there are more than 20 vertical farm operations being constructed and tested around the country. They use around 90 percent less water than regular soil farms, can grow roughly 10 times more food per acre than regular soil farms, and using precision software they can harvest their produce 30 percent faster than regular soil farms. 

Sure, they’re spending more on electricity, but they’re also spending nothing on pesticide. The economics seem irresistible.

Last year, less than 20 miles from where I write this, in highly urbanized South San Francisco, a company called Plenty unveiled its flagship operation, a vast vertical farm named Tigris. Its sheer scale invites the correct usage of California’s favorite word, “awesome.” Tigris can grow a million plants at once, harvesting 200 of them every minute. With $226 million in funding, Plenty says it has already farmed 700 varieties of produce. Right now, the cost to consumers is comparable to non-hydroponic products (I can get their baby arugula at my nearest Safeway for a dollar an ounce); in the long run, it should be cheaper.

And they are far from the only success story. A Chinese startup, Alesca Life, is turning disused parking lots into vertical farms as well as selling plug-and-play shipping container farms. Back in Silicon Valley, a company called Iron Ox is developing robot arms for indoor farmwork. The future looks green and bountiful, and mostly automated (which is yet another reason you’re going to need Universal Basic Income). 

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Fresh future: Inside Plenty's vast vertical farm in South San Francisco.PLENTY

Which is not to say that outdoor agriculture is going away completely; it’s just going to shrink to the size of a community garden. That’s the basis of new urban developments called “agrihoods,” or multi-home communities centered around a professionally managed farm; a just-published book called Welcome to the Agrihood represents their first directory. 

Rooftop organic farms, urban allotments: These are places where city dwellers can connect to the land and feel the satisfaction of nurturing their seeds from scratch. Soil may not be necessary to feed us, but sometimes it’s good to feel the dirt in your fingers. Similarly, farmer's markets are unlikely to go away. In a world where grocery stores are increasingly becoming delivery centers for services like Instacart, there will still be value in meeting and buying direct from the growers of high-end produce. 

With big agribusiness heading indoors, with our apartments growing much of what we need and vertical farms providing backup in every city, we’ll also be able to let most of our present-day farmland go fallow. That in itself should take care of a chunk of climate change, considering the amount of carbon-soaking vegetation that springs up on fallow land. Lab-grown and plant-made meat will remove the need for those disease-ridden feedlots. Aquaponics, another discipline where the science is expanding by leaps and bounds, may even let us grow our own fish for food, reducing the strain on our overfished oceans.

No doubt it won’t be all smooth sailing. No doubt we, as humans, will stumble upon fresh ways to mess up the planet and make life worse. But from where I’m sitting, surrounded by soilless germinating jars, the future looks very green and nutritious indeed.

Yours in leafy goodness,

2020

TOPICS: Tech, Tech, Food, Health & Fitness, dear 22nd century, Internet Of Yum, Indoor-gardening