Vertical Farming On The Rise: Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station And 80 Acres Farms Enter Research Agreement

80 Acres Farms enters into a master research agreement with the Experiment Station at The University of Arkansas with scientists to propose collaborative vertical farming research projects aimed to advance the science of vertical farming

NEWS PROVIDED BY 80 Acres Farms

HAMILTON, Ohio, April 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Vertical farming business 80 Acres Farms has entered into a collaborative research agreement with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station to advance the science of vertical farming.

Scientists with the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, will coordinate with 80 Acres Farms researchers to pursue a variety of vertical farming research topics, said Bryan Renk, director of commercialization for the division's Technology Commercialization Office.

Utilizing world-class technology and analytics to offer customers a wide variety of pesticide-free food with a longer shelf-life that exceeds the highest food safety standards.

View fullsize

"Vertical farming is growing and trending," Renk said. "There are multiple companies forming across the U.S. that are trying to take advantage of that trend."

Jean-François Meullenet, senior associate vice president for agriculture research and director of the experiment station, said the agreement provides a unique opportunity for research.

"We are very excited about this new research partnership with 80 Acres Farms," Meullenet said. "Protected farming is a strategic research direction for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, and 80 Acres Farm is a leader in this area."

Renk said that the initial round of proposed and current research includes a project analyzing the chemical components of 80 Acres produce, an exploration into new protocols for vertical farming, and evaluation of novel blackberry variety selections that are suited for the vertical farming environment.

"We have a great multidisciplinary team of faculty that can make great contributions to the development of vertical farming technology," Meullenet said. "I look forward to seeing the impact we can have through this research."

"80 Acres is expanding its vertical farming R&D facility in Springdale, Arkansas to develop the growing recipes for multiple leafy and fruiting produce crops," said Victor Verlage, senior vice president for operations, agronomy, and research and development at 80 Acres Farms. "We are calibrating and aligning all the growing conditions, incorporating several proprietary AgTech capabilities that were not available until recently, to bring hyper-fresh fruits and vegetables loaded with taste and nutrition so our consumers can indulge in healthy diets," he said.

Margaret Worthington, assistant professor of fruit breeding and genetics in the horticulture department for the experiment station and Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, is evaluating blackberry varieties that may perform well in these novel growing conditions.

"We hope to identify blackberry breeding selections that perform well in fully-controlled indoor environments and vertical farms," Worthington said.

"Fruit breeding is a long-term effort," she said. "We need to be forward-thinking and consider how the potential varieties moving through our breeding pipeline are going to fit into new markets and productions systems that are just beginning to develop.

"The Arkansas Fruit Breeding Program has a history of mutually beneficial public-private research collaborations and I am looking forward to working with this new partner," she said.

In addition to collaborating on research, 80 Acres Farms also plans to create internship opportunities for Bumpers college students.

"80 Acres Farms is eager to provide opportunities for the next generation of farmers where they will have access to best-in-class vertical farming technology," said Verlage. "The students will have immersive training right here in Northwest Arkansas, minutes from the university campus."

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uark.edu. Follow us on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch and Instagram at ArkAgResearch.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation's historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

About 80 Acres Farms

80 Acres Farms is a vertical farming leader providing customers with the freshest and most nutritious fruits and vegetables at affordable prices. Utilizing world-class technology and analytics, the Company offers customers a wide variety of pesticide-free food with a longer shelf-life that exceeds the highest food safety standards.

For further information, please contact us at:

Rebecca Haders / rebecca.haders@eafarms.com  / +1 513-910-9089

Related Files

80AcresFarmsKroger.pdf

80AcresFarmsBarclays.pdf

Related Images

80-acres-farms-vertical-farming.jpg
80 Acres Farms' Vertical Farming Technology
Utilizing world-class technology and analytics to offer customers a wide variety of pesticide-free food with a longer shelf-life that exceeds the highest food safety standards.

SOURCE 80 Acres Farms

The Rise of Vertical Farming: A Solution to Key Agricultural Challenges

By Essex Mag

March 13, 2021

As such a critical industry, it is always interesting to read about the latest developments in farming and agriculture. Right now, vertical farming is transforming the industry and could be the future of food production with the world’s population expected to grow to a staggering 9.7 billion by 2050. So, what exactly is vertical farming and how could it change farming as we know it?

What is Vertical Farming?

The topic of vertical farming was recently explored by Marsh Commercial, providers of farming insurance, who outlined vertical farming as an indoor farming process with plants growing on vertically stacked surfaces under controlled conditions. This would allow farmers complete control over light, climate, irrigation etc which would enable them to grow seasonal crops throughout the year. This means that as opposed to farming on a single level, such as on a field, food could be produced in stacked layers integrated into structures such as a skyscraper.

Vertical Farming Benefits

Vertical farming is taking off in the UK and provides many solutions to a few of the biggest challenges facing agriculture today, including climate change and the growing and aging population. Essentially, this is because vertical farming allows food products to maximize space and optimize the environment for food production allowing for greater yield per square mater, low water consumption, and a lack of soil or pesticide.

Vertical Farming in the UK

Additionally, vertical farming is well-suited to island economies and those that import a lot of produce. Security of supply is incredibly important when it comes to the food chain in these places and vertical farming can strengthen this greatly, which in the UK is a huge plus when you consider the pandemic and Brexit. As explained by The Grocer, food supply chains are under more scrutiny than ever right now and vertical farming could be the solution.

Projects

FWI revealed that there are a number of big vertical farming projects announced in the UK lately, including Ocado sinking in £17 million in the sector in 2019 and an Edinburgh-based company with ambitions to develop 40 vertical farming sites (which 5 already in place).

Just Food also recently revealed that popular UK sausage and vegan food manufacturer Heck has also partnered with a vertical farming specialist Vertical Future to install a vertical farm in its headquarters. The farm will focus on micro-crops, which they believe could allow them to create new “unique and interesting flavors” too.

It is fantastic to see innovative and sustainable developments like vertical farming growing in the UK, especially in troubling times like this where there is so much uncertainty particularly when it comes to food supply and there being many challenges in the agricultural industry. Vertical farming is certainly the future and it is quickly becoming the norm in the UK with many big names realizing the potential for this innovative form of food production.

How Indoor Farming Is Shaping The Future of The Agriculture And Curbing Climate Change

View fullsize

October 14, 2020

Irving Fain - Bowery Farming Founder & CEO joins Yahoo Finance’s On The Move panel to discuss how the vertical farming company has expanded into more than 650 U.S. stores as well as break down how consumer demands are changing our food systems.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Farming revolution under the way. Sustainable farming, but the kind of farming that takes place indoors and on rooftops. To talk about this, we bring in Irving Fain. He's Bowery Farming founder and CEO.

Years ago, I got to see an indoor marijuana farm, essentially, where they grew everything in a ground coconut shell, but it was incredibly efficient the way the nutrients and the water were recycled. And I would imagine that's part of what you do.

But what's even cooler about this is, you're already supplying, what, is it 600 plus stores in the tri-state area with your produce. So how does someone who's got their start in software and finance go into farming?

IRVING FAIN: Yeah, it's a good question, Adam. Thanks for having me. I think I've been a believer since I was a young kid that the technology and the innovation economy could be used to solve hard problems and important problems.

And when you look at what's happening with the climate crisis right now, you look at the fires in California, you look at the storms we've been seeing, you look at just the droughts we've been going through for the last decade-plus, there is no greater cause of climate harm than agriculture. It is the largest consumer of resources globally. 70% of the world's water goes to ag every year. And we use about 6 billion pounds of pesticides annually across the world.

And so, in the last 40 years alone, we've lost 30% of all of our arable farmlands. And you look at the fact that the world population is increasing. We need more food to feed that growing population. And we are urbanizing at a faster and faster rate. I just got really obsessed with this question of, how do you get fresh food to urban environments, and how do you do that more efficiently and more sustainably?

JULIE HYMAN: Irving, it's Julie here. Thank you for joining us. You know, this has seemed to be a trend. We spoke with a company recently that was going public through a SPAC that was a big indoor farming company. That person, too, was not necessarily a farmer, right?

As Adam mentioned, you're from a banking and tech background. And so I'm curious, is the farming industry, so to speak, onboard? We have talked a lot on this show about how family farms are dying, in many cases. The economics are really tough there. So I'm wondering how much this new part of the industry is incorporating the old, and how much those people might be on board?

IRVING FAIN: Yeah, you know, I think what's so exciting to see right now, Julie, is just the fact that technology is penetrating all areas of agriculture right now. So you're seeing precision agriculture on the farms. So we can give crops much more precise amounts of water or fertilizers versus just dumping from planes or spreaders like you can see on the photo right now.

You're seeing the use of satellite imagery and drone imagery. So I think when you look at innovation in agriculture, we've got to look at indoor farming as a part of a larger puzzle. We are a piece of this puzzle, a very important piece of it because the fresh produce industry is so critical.

But in order to solve a problem where agriculture is consuming so many of these resources, where our climate is being stretched in the way that it is, we're going to need cooperation from outdoor farmers and indoor farmers alike.

MELODY HAHM: And Irving, I think the company that Julie was mentioning was AppHarvest. Also news today that SoftBank is leading a $140 million funding round for Plenty, of course, your counterpart there. And actually, Driscoll's, the berry company, is going to be an investor.

I want to think about the idea of vertical farming. Speaking with folks who are in very saturated cities or very cosmopolitan areas, as I understand it, vertical farming was another way to provide fresh fruits, fresh veggies to perhaps lower-income students, many of whom depended on their schools for breakfast, lunch, and even dinner sometimes.

How have you been navigating this space, if at all? And what's your vision therein allowing a lot of these fresh produce items to reach the masses and perhaps those who wouldn't be able to afford some fresh things at Whole Foods?

IRVING FAIN: Yeah, no, it's a great question, Melody. And so, you know, at Bowery, we're building the modern farming company. And, you know, we're really proud to be the largest indoor vertical farming company in the United States right now. And we are building smart farms that are close to the cities that we're serving. And we really take the responsibility of the community members seriously.

And so that, for us, means a number of things. We're engaging with nonprofit partners in the mid-Atlantic, where we are, as well as in the tri-state area. We're actually the largest donation partner for fresh produce in the Maryland Food Bank right now.

We're actually selling a wholesale product to the DC Central Kitchen Healthy Corners Program right now. And what they then do is they take that produce and they bring it into corner stores in food deserts across the Baltimore and the DC area. And they sell that at a subsidized price inside coolers to get fresh, healthy produce to consumers who may have a difficult time achieving that.

That's a really critical piece, but also, we have just built Bowery under the belief that we want to democratize access to high-quality fresh food. Everybody should be able to eat great produce. And the produce we're growing is, it is like the produce you remember from your grandparents' garden.

And so you can find Bowery products everywhere from Whole Foods or a Giant, all the way to retailers like Walmart and then online retailers as well. And so we really believe in spreading the access to what we're growing at Bowery.

ADAM SHAPIRO: I am curious because I think a lot of people, there's a passion about what you're doing with this farming revolution. But it's all about yield when you talk about crops. So can you give us a perspective of where the indoor farming market stands with its yield? And potentially, we're talking about feeding, at least this country, with things that are grown in this manner, or is that really a pipe dream?

IRVING FAIN: No it's the right question to ask. I think it's one of the reasons why, at Bowery, we've invested really heavily in the technology side of what we're building. And so, we're building warehouse-scale indoor farms. We stack our crops from the floor to the ceiling. And we grow under lights that mimic the spectrum of the sun.

And so we can grow year-round, independent of weather and seasonality. It is pesticide-free, protected produce. We're 100 times plus more productive than a square foot of farmland. And we use only a fraction of water compared to traditional agriculture. And what really makes that possible is innovation that we've been driving in robotics and automation, as well as innovation around the software side.

So we've built something called the Bowery OS, Adam, which is, it's the brains of our farm. It's a proprietary system, and it uses software, computer vision, machine learning to both monitor and manage our crops to ensure they're getting exactly what they need when they need it. They're as flavorful as possible. And they're harvested at that peak yield and peak freshness.

So it really is where technology marries traditional growing and traditional agriculture, which comes together. And it creates an enormous opportunity. I mean from our view, this is a $100 billion a year opportunity in the US and probably about a trillion dollar a year opportunity globally.

And that's not for every crop. We don't look at staple crops, for instance, corn and wheat and soy, as areas that we're necessarily focused in today. Could you do that eventually? You know, technology has a nice way of surprising us. But that's not something where we're focused or counting on right now. And you don't need that to build a big business.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Look, I tried to grow tomatoes on the 18th floor, the terrace out here. And I refer to them as the toxic tomatoes because it was a disaster. I want to thank you for joining us, Irving Fain, Bowery Farming founder, and CEO.

Liberty Produce & James Hutton Institute To Transform Agriculture Through Collaboration

1st October 2020

London and Dundee, UK

View fullsize

Liberty Produce and James Hutton Institute remotely sign MoU in lockdown and launch new hydrobubble project. Image credit: 2020 Liberty Produce and the Hutton.

Liberty Produce & James Hutton Institute to transform modern agriculture through collaborative research and tech development

Liberty Produce and the James Hutton Institute have been awarded UKRI funding to address the challenges of Climate Change and the food production yield-gap. This ambitious project will develop technologies to utilize captured carbon to boost yields of hydroponic crops. It further develops the growing collaboration between Liberty and the Hutton, formalized in a recently signed Memorandum of Understanding.

By bringing together farmers, technologists, and scientists, the team will develop a unique 'hydrobubble' technology that will deliver significant benefits across the sector. This project will develop cutting-edge technology that will make nutrient delivery to crop roots more effective, efficient, and sustainable.

Through the injection of gas-enriched micro and nano-sized gas bubbles into the irrigation water, ‘hydrobubbles’ have the potential to boost plant growth in hydroponic systems by up to 30%.  

The miniature sizes of these bubbles cause them to be negatively charged and electrostatically attracted to plant roots, where they cluster to provide an on-going additional gas resource to the plant.

This approach has proven benefits to plant yield with research demonstrating a marked improvement in root development, fresh weight, and the synthesis of specific plant biocompounds in a number of crop varieties. 

This inaugural ‘hydrobubbles’ project is a milestone in the collaborative relationship between the James Hutton Institute and Liberty Produce that will push the boundaries of the vertical farming sector and accelerate its growth in the UK and globally.

 A Memorandum of Understanding between the two organizations was recently signed by Professor Lesley Torrance, Executive Director of Science of the James Hutton Institute, and Alex Giles, Commercial Director of Liberty Produce. 

Technological solutions are urgently required to overcome the challenges of productivity and sustainable production. This project and the cooperative relationship between Liberty Produce and the Hutton marks a step towards delivering those technological solutions and groundbreaking research through a collaborative multi-disciplinary approach. 

Alexander Giles of Liberty Produce commented, “We are delighted to formalize our relationship with the Hutton. Even before the MoU was signed, the collaboration between our organizations has yielded incredible results and we’re excited to continue to work with the Hutton to push the boundaries of research and technology development, which will transform modern agriculture.”  

Professor Lesley Torrance, Executive Director of Science of the James Hutton Institute, added: “Our collaboration with Liberty Produce marks the next step in the growth of our Open Science Campus initiative and brings new innovative companies to work closely with world-leading science. This has been facilitated by the Tay Cities Deal funding of an Advanced Plant Growth Centre in Invergowrie and our other new investments there and builds on our track record of engaging with industry, research partners, and the public.” 

About Liberty Produce

Liberty Produce is a farming technology company founded in 2018 to drive innovations that will enable us to meet our global crop requirements over the next century, without harming the planet.

As experts in the development of technology (from advanced lighting systems to machine learning for integrated control systems) for the breadth of indoor agriculture (from glasshouses to Totally Controlled Environment Agriculture systems), Liberty delivers research and products that consistently push boundaries.

Liberty Produce develops and builds systems that reduce operational costs with enhanced resource efficiency, improve yields, and increase sustainability for greater food security through the growth of local produce year-round. www.liberty-produce.com 

For further information contact:

Benita Rajania

benita@liberty-produce.com

+44 20 3290 8801

About James Hutton Institute

The James Hutton Institute is a world-leading, multi-site scientific organisation encompassing a distinctive range of integrated strengths in land, crop, waters, environmental and socio-economic science. The Institute takes its name from the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment scientist, James Hutton, widely regarded as the founder of geology and agronomist. www.hutton.ac.uk 

For further information contact:

Bernardo Rodriguez-Salcedo

Bernardo.RodriguezSalcedo@hutton.ac.uk 

+44 (0)1224 395089 or +44 (0)7791 193918.

About Innovate UK

Innovate UK drives productivity and economic growth by supporting businesses to develop and realise the potential of new ideas. We connect businesses to the partners, customers and investors that can help them turn ideas into commercially successful products and services and business growth. We fund business and research collaborations to accelerate innovation and drive business investment into R&D. Our support is available to businesses across all economic sectors, value chains and UK regions. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation.

www.innovateuk.ukri.org

Liberty Produce, The James Hutton Institute, Errol Road, Dundee, Tayside DD2 5DA, UK, +44 20 3290 8801

How We Can Rethink Agriculture So It’s More Local

View fullsize

Words by Ingo Mueller

SEP 21, 2020

Climate Week is a reminder of how susceptible global agriculture systems are to climate change risks. More than 800 million people went to bed hungry every night even before COVID-19 disrupted the global food supply chain, which put an additional 130 million at risk of food insecurity.

This unprecedented crisis comes as industrial agriculture already struggles to feed a growing global population under threats of declining resources and an increasingly inhospitable environment.

While we can still produce enough food to feed the world today, we are running out of time. Many experts believe that conventional farming techniques are becoming unsustainable because of the vast amounts of land, water, and energy required, as well as additional crop failures that will occur with the warming climate. To achieve sustainable food security, we must fundamentally disrupt the traditional forms of agriculture. We must pivot towards more cost-effective food production that is closer to home, more sustainable than factory farming, and less land-intensive.

Building more local capacity for agriculture

With a global population projected to exceed eight billion in 2023 and 10 billion by 2056, we can ill afford the inefficiencies and incremental gains of today’s industrial agriculture. Feeding 10 billion people will require an additional 109 million arable hectares, a landmass larger than Brazil. Given that 80 percent of arable land is already in use, the world faces even more acute food shortages if we can’t figure out how to grow more with less and get it where’s it’s most acutely needed.

The first step is to decentralize food production and distribute it more locally. When the 2017 famine in South Sudan took hold, it wasn’t because there wasn’t enough food to feed the five million people; it was because disruptions to the food supply prevented its distribution. Similarly, when food supply disruptions caused harrowing shortages on American supermarket shelves in the early months of the pandemic, we all witnessed how quickly panic and hoarding set in. 

Urban agriculture is one way to build more local capacity. Building in cities, even on rooftops, can improve local food security and nutrition in food deserts where underserved communities suffer from access to fresh produce. Studies show that urban agriculture can meet 15 to 20 percent of global food demand today.

The next step is to bring food production indoors, when and where it makes sense. Technological innovation has helped bring food closer to local communities, enabling food to be grown more in places once thought impossible. However, we need to rethink our approach to indoor growing systems.

Today’s most advanced greenhouses and indoor vertical farms have significant shortcomings. Vertical farms, for instance, require massive amounts of energy due to the need for climate control systems and artificial lighting. Some argue that energy and environmental costs of vertical farms are offset by the reduced “food miles” of transporting food from afar. But as climate and environmental scientist, Dr. Jonathan Fole points out this argument turns out to be a red herring. Local food typically uses about the same energy per pound to transport as food grown away due to volume and method of transport.

And both indoor vertical farms and greenhouses suffer from a lack of the sun’s full light spectrum, compromising the robustness of indoor plant growth as well as the quality of the food.

The need for precise controls

Instead, a new model of agriculture is emerging that is nimbler than large-scale commercial farming, safer than outdoor farms, greener than greenhouses, more natural than vertical farms, and more efficient than almost any other growing technique in terms of water consumption, power usage, and CO2 production. It’s essentially a hybrid approach of all three growing modalities – outdoors, greenhouses, and indoor farms. This “fourth way” of agriculture integrates and continually refines entirely new approaches to crops, operations, facilities, systems, and the growing environment (COFSE). The model was developed to produce far higher yields per acre than outdoor farms, superior yields to greenhouses and up to 20 percent better yields than comparably sized indoor farming systems.

The new model has two key principles: first, bring the full sun indoors and, secondly, create and control an indoor ecosystem precisely tuned for each kind of crop.

Plants grow most robustly and flavorfully in full natural sunlight. While it may seem counter-intuitive to some, even the clearest of glass greenhouses inhibit the full light spectrum of the sun. But new cladding materials have emerged recently that enable the near-full-transmission of the sun’s RV and light spectrum.

Unlike plastic or glass, these new transparent membranes can help crops achieve their full genetic (and flavor) potential. Natural light also warms the microclimate when necessary, dramatically reducing heating energy requirements. And at times when the sun isn’t cooperating, advances in supplemental grow lighting can extend the plants’ photoperiod – even beyond natural daylight hours – to maximize crop growth and quality, and reduce time to harvest by up to 50 percent or better.

Greenhouses and vertical farms are also compromised by outdoor and human-introduced contamination. The new model relies on creating a tightly-sealed, cleanroom-like microclimate that keeps pests, pesticides, and other pollutants outside.  

Thanks to artificial intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things, and similar advances, growers can create highly automated growing systems that reduce human intervention and its associated costs. Finely-tuned convective air circulation systems enable the microclimate to remain sealed and protective. Natural temperature regulation using sunlight and organic foam-based clouds can significantly reduce air-conditioning electricity requirements. And highly automated hydration, fertilization, and lighting are all continuously optimized by machine learning.

This new model, which has been designed over more than three years of research and development, is set to be put into large scale practice when the first of three new grow facilities completes construction on a 41-acre site in Coachella, Calif. Construction is set to commence within the next year. This unique approach, which included contributions from lighting experts who had previously worked at NASA sending plants into space, was developed to significantly affect local food security in an environmentally friendly way. It applies the best aspects of current growing methods – outdoors, greenhouse, and indoors – and, where possible, replaces their shortcomings with superior technology and processes, creating an overall improved approach. Yet as a result of the facility design and automated growing system, it is designed to and expected to consume up to 90 percent less energy than traditional indoor grow operations while producing up to 10 to 20 percent better yields than other comparably sized farming systems.

The world we live in now gives us the intelligence and technologies we need to change the outdated legacy of how farming is done today into tomorrow’s way of producing food, creating a robust, delicious, and nutritious food chain on a global level. Using these technologies, we can decentralize production, reducing our reliance on global supply chains, and move high-density growing systems closer to communities to ensure food security for all.

Image credit: Devi Puspita Amartha Yahya/Unsplash

Indoor Agriculture, Challenges And Innovation

At Verde Compacto we want to share knowledge with you and make you part of the new era of agriculture.

That is why we developed a series of webinars where we will talk about the future, the challenges, and innovation in agriculture.

We look forward to your assistance and we invite you to register at the following link:

Greenhouse automation
September 22
18:00 hrs CDMX

Indoor growing systems: The new era of agriculture
24th September
18:00 hrs CDMX

REGISTRY

View fullsize

View fullsize

Our mailing address is:
Compact Green Cañada # 105 Col. Jardines de Moral

Leon De Los Aldama , Gua 37160

Mexico

Expert Input Can Boost Yields For Vertical Farming

View fullsize

View fullsize

3rd September 2020

Designing, constructing, and integrating new facilities that live up to vertical farming’s many promises calls for the right kind of know-how, says Ian Hart, business development director at adi Projects.

For almost 12,000 years, humankind has found increasingly ingenious ways to convert the natural forces at play on Planet Earth into an ever more bountiful, diverse and predictable source of sustenance.

And, as global and national populations have grown historically and in particular, in recent decades, the issue of food security has always hovered somewhere in the background. Today, although we’re by no means on the brink of a Malthusian catastrophe, the idea that the UK might at some stage struggle to feed itself has taken on a new relevance.

View fullsize

We’ve always been used to the supermarket shelves being full. But the early stages of lockdown betrayed the reality that supply chains are highly sensitive not only to the onset of a pandemic but to economic and environmental shocks.

Imperfect storm

Putting COVID to one side, the UK is staring those other two factors square in the face. We currently import approximately 80% of our food, including real basics, such as carrots, but, in Brexit, we are on the verge of a significant dislocation between ourselves and our biggest and closest trading partners who also happen to supply 30% of the total.

And, while Brexit may cause short-to-medium term disruptions, presupposing an eventual agreement on future trade, the risks posed by the environment seem baked in for decades to come.

High hopes for UK vertical farming startup

Scottish vertical farming startup harvests £5.4m in funding

Extreme weather events, such as significant flooding which has quadrupled since 1980, can harm livestock and spoil crops. On the other side of the coin, water inefficiency and scarcity are issues in many parts of the world, as agriculture competes increasingly with industry and domestic use.

Rising temperatures are playing havoc with growing seasons and sparking ever more wildfires that can devastate farms, even when the flames don’t actually reach them.

So, the commercial risks are there for producers. Supply chains are fragile, meaning that businesses dependent on imported produce may be unable to meet the service levels demanded by the supermarkets – even in the short-term – and then scramble for unsustainable and often very costly workarounds.

Removing risk

Vertical farming facilities are the subject of increased interest in the industry. Climate-controlled facilities enable producers to regulate the variables of the environment and avoid pollution to grow produce of a consistently high standard and at predictably higher yields.

The vertical farm projects we have worked on are very hygienic, removing fungal and bacterial risks and the threat from all manner of pests. And, run on LEDs and recycling very high proportions of the water they use back into their processes, energy costs can be minimized, there is no need for water to be chemically treated and producers can extricate themselves from any sense that the taps might one day dry up.

Locally sited facilities mean the vagaries of geopolitics and international trade agreements are no longer an issue. And, as importantly, locating one close to a waste-to-energy plant would enable you to harness its heat and CO2 to aid the growing process.

View fullsize

The UK currently imports around 80% of its food

So, vertical farming has a real role to play in helping create circular economies at the local level.

While no means a silver bullet, in our experience vertical farms do solve many of the problems of contemporary food production and have the potential to help brands forge solid reputations as innovators and on sustainability.

But, so great are its potential upsides, one might quite reasonably ask why the shift to vertical farming isn’t gathering pace at a steadier rate. The answer, I believe, lies in a perceived lack of expertise in this country at getting such projects off the ground.

A specialist business

For all the simple answers the technology offers, the processes involved are highly sophisticated and capital intensive. Often it is only businesses with the means who go beyond the initial feasibility stages but, even then, they require specialist assistance.

The design and construction of the facilities themselves are highly complex. Different vegetable, fruits, and greens each require their own zoning and specific climatic conditions, and each of the different vertical levels – up to nine in some cases – has to create and sustain its own unique characteristics.

The electrical and robotic systems running the lighting and hydroponics are as innovative as anything in the sector and that’s before one overcomes the challenges of integrating the entire operation.

So, I’d advise companies exploring their options on vertical farming to go back to basics. If you can get those right from the outset and ensure you have continuity throughout the project, you can not only remove risk during planning and construction and for the duration of the facility’s lifecycle but also enjoy certainty on cost and program during the set-up phases.

Ian Hart is business development director at adi Projects

Visit the UK’s dedicated jobsite for engineering professionals. Each month, we’ll bring you hundreds of the latest roles from across the industry.

AgriTech - A Hotspot For Investments

AgriTech - The Sought After Technology Breakthrough 

In recent times, AgriTech or AgTech solutions are gaining their popularity factor because individuals and entities alike, are becoming increasingly aware of the efficiency technology adds to their daily processes, which otherwise would have been tasking to follow through with. The ‘revolutionary’ factor has been highlighted in the AgTech space and hence, it has caught the eyes of investors and big corporations.

AgTech represents that specific niche category of technology buffs that intermingle the age-old occupation of agriculture with the new age specs and wonders of technology.

View fullsize

The specifics of Agronomic Processes:

 The agronomic processes encompass diverse solutions in every step, ranging from the sowing of seeds to the harvesting of crops. The processes comprise of integrated resolutions to enhance efficiency within agricultural organizations, along with benefiting smallholder and marginal farmers. 

AgriTech, breaking barriers and records:

The upward curve of investments and profitability within the industry does not seem like it would dip anytime soon, with a continuous maturity, breaking barriers, and records. Since 2013, funding within the AgTech sector has increased by roughly a whopping 370%. According to an AgFunder report, specifically, startup investments bucked global venture capital markets across all sectors to $4.7 billion in 2019. The 695 deals were carried out across 940 unique investors.

COVID-19 comes into play:

Similar growth cannot be expected for the remainder of 2020, due to Coronavirus governing industries across all business streams. However, there is less chance of the investments cutting to a freefall wherein they would dip way lower than initially expected. New investment projects may be put on hold, however, ongoing funding is expected to be perennial.

Localizing our viewpoint, we notice that most of these investments are still being carried out within the United States. However, investments in India continue to rise at a rapid rate, representative of a two-way flow (up-stream as well as down-stream) of funding, again highlighting the maturity of the sector.

The reasoning:

WHY? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Sir Isaac Newton was well aware of the specifics of investment and the network within which it functions. Our world is at a point today, where overpopulation is a severe problem in various countries, along with the overall population set to increase by 30% over the next 35 years, according to Global-Engage.com. According to a report conducted by FAO, agricultural production will have to increase by 60-70% to feed the world population by 2050. To work towards an increase in the production of food, along with keeping a tap on the factor of ‘sustainability’, it is essential and integral to adopt smart farming and smart agricultural practices, allowing processes and outcomes to become more efficient in the long run.

The Need for Emerging Trends:

The importance of utilizing ‘big data’ and ‘predictive analytics’ to counteract the issues faced by farmers daily is now more than ever. They will allow farmers to achieve and maybe even surpass their targets for the seasons, resulting in an influx of productivity. In a survey conducted with farmers, 60% mentioned that precision farming is an influential trend to look towards for a structural and foundational change in the way daily practices take place. With the risk of climate change looming overhead at all times, it is crucial to understand the essential need to channel funds towards projects that solve difficult and foreseen problems.

The Agricultural 4.0 wave:

Today, 25-30% of all food produced is wasted, which incurs a social, economic, and environmental cost of $2.5 trillion annually. An outdated supply chain with no digital integrations or climate-smart advisory results in around 20% of the crops produced in developed countries being left in the field itself. To spark a change and make a difference, socially conscious investors who look to profitability as well, view the AgTech sector as a gold mine, essentially killing two birds with one stone.

AgriTech today is an area that is ripe for innovation with limits imposed solely due to constraints in terms of available capital. When this constraint is counteracted, creativity applied to AI and food production will be ten-fold.

Sanjay Borkar

Founder, CEO of FarmERP

IDTechEx Identifies Innovative Companies Changing The Face of Vertical Farming

View fullsize

IDTechEx 

Sep 02, 2020

BOSTON, Sept. 2, 2020,/PRNewswire/ -- Vertical farming, the practice of growing crops indoors under tightly controlled conditions, is continuing to expand rapidly. By using LED lighting tailored to the exact needs of the crop, alongside advanced hydroponic growing systems, and growing crops in vertically stacked trays, vertical farms can achieve yields hundreds of times higher than the same area of traditional farmland.

Investors and entrepreneurs alike are excited about the potential of vertical farming to revolutionize the global food system and some vertical farming companies have raised dizzying amounts of money. Plenty, a San Francisco-based start-up, and the most well-funded vertical farm, has raised $401 million in funding, with backers including SoftBank, Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Fellow US start-ups AeroFarms and Bowery Farming are not far behind, with $238 million and $167.5 million in funding, respectively.

While there has been much attention on these companies and their exploits, there are dozens of other companies in the industry developing their own approaches to vertical farming. Here, we explore some of the most innovative vertical farming start-ups, based on the recent IDTechEx report, "Vertical Farming 2020-2030".

View fullsize

Freight Farms

Freight Farms is a Boston-based vertical farming company that manufactures "container farms", vertical farming systems installed into 40' mobile containers. Alongside its container farms, Freight Farms provides the farmhand software, a hydroponic farm management, and automation platform that also connects users with other Freight Farms customers. Container farms have many advantages - they are easy to transport, compact, and relatively cheap to set up in comparison to other vertical farming systems. Container farms are often turnkey systems, too, meaning that they require much less experience and expertise to operate than either a factory-scale vertical farm or indeed a traditional farm.

Freight Farms recently released its most advanced container farming system, the Greenery, which it believes is the most advanced container farming system in the world. The Greenery is a turnkey system that uses an array of sensors to continuously monitor the growing conditions inside the farm, with the farmhand software automatically making adjustments and planning watering cycles in order to provide the optimum environment for growing crops and allowing users to control their Greenery remotely from a smartphone.

80 Acres – Collaboration, Food Experience

Despite their potential, many vertical farming start-ups have struggled over the years with the labor costs and power requirements for running a high-tech indoor farm. This has often forced producers to sell their crops at a much higher price than conventionally farmed leafy greens. Additionally, many founders of vertical farming companies have little experience in the food industry and can struggle with the day-to-day realities of running a food production industry.

View fullsize

80 Acres is an Ohio-based vertical farming start-up aiming to overcome these challenges by constructing the world's first fully automated indoor farm. The company was founded in November 2015 by Tisha Livingston and Mike Zelkind, who between them have over 50 years' experience in the food industry. Collaboration is also important to 80 Acres. The company believes that vertical farming is a very multidisciplinary field, requiring collaboration between partners who are experts in their own discipline. Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) developed the LEDs used in the facility and Dutch greenhouse automation company Priva developed the control and fertigation systems, with 80 Acres using its experience in food to bring the system together and integrate the technology.

The company currently operates a 75,000 square foot facility in Hamilton, a suburb of Cincinnati, which is set to expand to 150,000 square feet in summer 2020 following a $40 million investment from Virgo Investment Group. When completed, 80 Acres claims this facility will be the world's first fully automated indoor farm. The farm will be automated from seeding to growing to harvesting, using robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and around-the-clock monitoring sensors and control systems to optimize every aspect of growing produce indoors.

View fullsize

Jones Food Company

Jones Food Company is a British vertical farming start-up that operates Europe's largest vertical farm out of a warehouse in Scunthorpe, UK. It was founded in 2016 by James Lloyd-Jones and Paul Challinor, who wanted to build the largest vertical farming facility that they could in order to help overcome some of the operational problems plaguing the industry and bring vertical farming to the mainstream. After visiting several vertical farms in Japan, they decide that the only way to make vertical farming a success is to focus on scale and automation.

Jones Food Company focuses on maximizing automation and robotics in their facility to minimize operating costs, with its facility being modeled on a car factory, with the growing process resembling a production line - over the 25-day growing period, plants move from one end of the facility to another. Much of the work is done by machines, helping to reduce labor costs. Harvesting is carried out by bespoke machines and the heavy lifting is performed by a robot called Frank. This focus on automation means that only six employees are required to operate the Scunthorpe facility.

Jones Food Company has partnered with UK online grocery company Ocado, which currently owns about 70% of the business. Through this partnership, Jones Food Company is aiming to set up vertical farms next to Ocado's grocery depots, meaning that fresh produce could be delivered to shoppers within an hour of being picked.

View fullsize

Infarm

Infarm is a Berlin-based start-up that sells modular, hydroponic vertical farms for growing leafy greens and herbs in supermarkets, schools, and offices. A single two-square meter unit can grow 8,000 plants in a year, with the company claiming its farms use 95% less water than soil-based farms, take up 99.5% less space, use zero chemical pesticides, need 90% less transportation, and use 75% less fertilizer.

Infarm has partnered with several major supermarkets across Europe, where it has currently deployed over 500 farms in stores and distribution centers. The company is also beginning to expand in the USA, having recently partnered with Kroger to trial its indoor farms in two QFC stores in Seattle. In the UK, it has partnered with supermarket chain Marks & Spencer, which is trialing in-store urban farming in seven locations in London, growing Italian basil, Greek basil, Bordeaux basil, mint, mountain coriander, thyme, and curly parsley.

The company's business model is based around an "agriculture-as-a-service" model. The modular farms remain the property of Infarm, which receives income per harvested plant. Infarm then coordinates with clients such as retailers and takes care of the farm including installation, cultivation, harvesting, and maintenance. Aside from the regular visits by service personnel to plant new plants, the farms are controlled remotely. This modular, data-driven, and distributed approach — a combination of big data, IoT, and cloud analytics — sets Infarm apart from competitors. From a price point, Infarm is attractive for supermarkets, which get a better product at the same price. In addition, the plants, especially herbs, are harvested fresh, preserving color, smell, flavor, and nutrients.

For more information about the vertical farming industry and the innovative companies operating within the space, please see the recent IDTechEx report, "Vertical Farming 2020-2030", www.IDTechEx.com/VertFarm or for the full portfolio of related research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research.

IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Consultancy, and Event products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information on IDTechEx Research and Consultancy, contact research@IDTechEx.com or visit www.IDTechEx.com.