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USDA Funds Composition of New CEA Market Characterization Report
. “This is the first such supply chain assessment in CEA. We appreciate these leaders for stepping forward to support this important effort.”
Resource Innovation Institute (RII) has assembled a senior level of its Technical Advisory Council to support its USDA-funded project titled Data-driven Market Transformation for Efficient, Sustainable Controlled Environment Agriculture. The new Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) Leadership Committee, composed of a range of subject matter experts in CEA, will advise the development of a Market Characterization Report that will analyze the emerging “controlled environment” horticultural supply chain to determine opportunities to increase energy and water efficiency in cultivation.
“Market characterization is a critical first step in a coordinated effort to transform an economic sector toward efficient production,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of Resource Innovation Institute. “This is the first such supply chain assessment in CEA. We appreciate these leaders for stepping forward to support this important effort.”
The Market Characterization Report represents the first publication that RII will deliver as part of its work on a three-year USDA Conservation Innovation Grant designed to advance resource efficiency in CEA, a diverse, expanding market that includes greenhouses and vertical farms growing a range of crops, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries. RII is partnering with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) to deploy the grant.
The CEA Leadership Committee is providing input on key market characterization issues such as supply chain: describing key market actors, barriers to energy efficiency and the best leverage points for market interventions; energy use: describing the energy used by producers (including on-site renewable energy, microgrids, and back-up generation); advantages of efficiency; describing the energy and non-energy benefits realized through implementation of efficiency projects; and baseline identification: describing key market baselines to be used in evaluating the impact of the market transformation initiative over time.
The organizations represented on RII’s CEA Leadership Committee include:
American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers
American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers
CEA Consultancy
Ceres Greenhouses
Energy Solutions
Fifth Season
Fluence by OSRAM
Grodan
Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance
Oregon Association of Nurseries
Priva
Resource Innovations
Schneider Electric
Signify
UVM Extension Services
Zartarian Engineering
For a complete roster, see www.ResourceInnovation.org/TAC.
For more information:
Resource Innovation Center
www.resourceinnovation.org
7 June 2021
Vertical Farming World Congress Kicks Off With Remote Site Visits
Aerofarms in the United States, Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) in the United Kingdom, Root AI (United States), Uns Farms from the United Arab Emirates, and YesHealth Group in Taiwan all opened their doors to virtual visitors, by means of videos showcasing what their operations are all about
Under normal circumstances, participants in the Vertical Farming World Congress, organized by Zenith Global, would have been able to visit some vertical farming sites, see the lights, sample some produce, talk to the farm managers. With the global pandemic still raging, however, the organizers decided to take the event online. As part of that move into the virtual domain, participants were able to 'visit' some vertical farms from the comfort of their own home.
Aerofarms in the United States, Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) in the United Kingdom, Root AI (United States), Uns Farms from the United Arab Emirates, and YesHealth Group in Taiwan all opened their doors to virtual visitors, by means of videos showcasing what their operations are all about.
The presentation program was then kicked off by Richard Hall, Chairman of Zenith Global, who introduced the first speaker: Ellis Janssen, Global Director City Farming at Signify. The Dutch lighting supplier has put increasing attention on developing products for vertical and indoor farming in recent years. According to Ellis, while lighting is crucial to photosynthesis, it's only part of the puzzle: "It's a combination of factors that makes a vertical farm successful or not - the sum of all elements should add up to more."
Ellis Janssen
Educating vertical farmers
Next up, Wythe Marschall introduced the FarmTech Society (FTS). As Education Committee Chair, he focuses on education and workforce development, pointing out that there are lots of opportunities there in the industry.
Wythe Marschall
"In the US, there are not that many places to go for training, unlike in Northern Europe or Japan for instance," Wythe noted. "We look to work with educational institutions and members, and based on what industry members want, we offer courses with industry credentials, skills that are vetted by the academic institutions and industry." To this end, a CEA training and education consortium has been formed by the FTS.
Vertical circularity
The mic was then passed to Stephan Wullschleger and John Macdonald of Porohita Projects, who tuned in from Switzerland and New Zealand respectively. As Stephan explains, 'Porohita' stands for 'circular' in the Maori language, so it's no surprise that the company is all about circularity in indoor agriculture.
John Macdonald
The duo met in the Middle East, where John was working on a bottled water project. Recently he also spent some time in the UAE and Saudi Arabia working on controlled-environment agriculture projects, before moving into vertical farming. "Most importantly, this project was water positive for most of the year, that made it really very exciting", he says about the latter project.
Saving energy
In the Q&A session, the discussion moved back to lighting. "It's very important that you look at the efficacy of the lighting module", Ellis explained. "In the end, some light is for free, so we need a proper business case for a vertical farm to make it economically feasible.
At Signify, they've been working on improving the efficiency of lighting modules, but as Ellis points out, the other part is also crucial: the yield of your farm. "That yield is influenced by the light spectrum. What you gain in kilograms in yield in your farm, has a direct impact on your price - not only the cost price but also the sales price.
"So it's a combination of having the right spectrum and the right module. Do not only look at capital expenditure but look at the total light plan."
John agrees that it's important to take into account energy as a critical factor and a really big cost. "Water positivity is interesting and emotionally nice to achieve, but it's not going to be your biggest cost, so energy is the one to work on."
The Vertical Farming World Congress continues until the 24th of September. HortiDaily will be posting summaries of several of the sessions in the near future, so keep an eye out for those updates!
Publication date: Wed 23 Sep 2020
USDA Grant to Support Cornell Indoor Ag Training Programs
Fueled by year-round market demand for local food and by advancements in greenhouse technology, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is a rapidly growing field
July 10, 2020
CORNELL UNIVERSITY
IMAGE: NEIL MATTSON, LEFT, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF HORTICULTURE, WORKS WITH PH.D. STUDENT JONATHAN ALLRED TO COLLECT DATA FROM STRAWBERRIES GROWING IN THE GUTERMAN BIOCLIMATIC LABORATORY GREENHOUSE. view more | CREDIT: JASON KOSKI/CORNELL UNIVERSITY
ITHACA, N.Y. - Fueled by year-round market demand for local food and by advancements in greenhouse technology, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is a rapidly growing field. In this intensive form of agriculture, plants are grown in a controlled environment, such as a greenhouse, to efficiently produce fresh, high-quality fruits and vegetables.
However, commercial CEA requires advanced knowledge of both plant biology and complex infrastructure. And while New York state ranks fourth in the nation for CEA production value, the workforce hasn't been able to keep pace with industry growth.
Now, thanks to a $496,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), two horticulture experts at Cornell University will help design new CEA training programs to build a skilled workforce pipeline for the industry.
"Growers consistently state that finding well-trained personnel to operate their facilities is among the largest barriers to expansion," said Neil Mattson, associate professor of horticulture. "This project uses a targeted approach to determine what skill sets are most critical, and it develops several pathways for training - both for traditional college students and for the professional development of existing employees."
He and Anu Rangarajan, director of the Cornell Small Farms Program, will collaborate with industry leaders, Ohio State University and its Agricultural Technical Institute, and SUNY Broome Community College to develop a technical training certificate in CEA production. They also plan to create a two-year Associate of Applied Science degree for students enrolled in those schools and for other community colleges to integrate into their curriculum.
Participants will gain experience with CEA infrastructures, such as hydroponics, aeroponics, and aquaculture. They will also develop advanced knowledge in environmental monitoring, pest management, food safety, and marketing skills.
Rangarajan already oversees numerous training programs and has spent the last five years working with commercial urban agriculture operations to better understand the key factors that influence farm viability. As part of the new project, she will lead the development of an online delivery platform for the new programming.
Mattson's current research includes using energy-efficient LED lighting for sustainable greenhouse production and studying the long-term viability of indoor urban agriculture. His role in the NIFA project involves collaborating with industry partners to develop the new learning modules.
In addition to supporting more local and sustainable food systems, Rangarajan said the work they've done thus far has been essential for learning how to provide more skilled-training opportunities for new farmers.
"Our efforts have laid the groundwork," she said, "for what I hope will be a dynamic training program that will build the workforce and elevate the industry as a whole."
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