15 of The Coolest Urban Farms Around The World

July 23, 2021

When we think of farms, we usually think of the countryside. But many cities have amazing urban farms within their city borders. They not only offer an amazing break from busy city life, but they’re also often really sustainable! On top of that, it’s also a powerful tool against world hunger. We have listed our favorite Urban farm that our spotter wrote about from around the world down below.

Amsterdam – Amsteltuin

Workshop at the vineyard (by RTVA)

Amsteltuin is a vineyard in Amsterdam! Okay, a vineyard is not exactly a farm, but plants still grow and the grapes can still be harvested. They offer a little vacation right out of the city center. They sell picnic baskets with local products that you can enjoy in between the vines! How cute is that?

Berlin – Charlottenburger Ziegenhof

Goats at Charlottenburger Ziegenhof (by Rainer Jensen)

Charlottenburger Ziegenhof is located in a backyard in Berlin. They are a community-based farm that wants to motivate anyone who is interested to take care of the animals and produce on the little farm. They teach people about sustainability through their work on the farm and host workshops for those who don’t want to get their hands dirty.

Florence – Orti Dipinti

The beds in which the crops are grown at Orti Dipinti (by Laura Pirovano)

Orti Dipinti is located in Florence and one of the smallest urban farms on this list. It’s located on an old running track so they had to bring the soil in. The crops are grown in wooden crates by the volunteers from the neighborhood. But their work doesn’t stop at planting and harvesting! They also have a mission to educate about nutrition, sustainability, and the role that urban farming can play in those subjects. If you don’t have the green fingers you can always check out their little shop to buy fresh products.

Glasgow – North Kelvin Meadow

Children building a treehouse at North Kelvin Meadow (by North Kelvin Meadow)

North Kelvin Meadow is a beautiful communal green space in Glasgow. It used to be a football field! Today they have fruit trees, over 30 raised beds that people can rent to grow their own crops, 2 honey beehives, and 6 bumblebee homes. The space is used by the whole community almost daily.

London – Mudchute Farm

Sheep at Mudchute Farm with a view of London (by Helen Graves)

Mudchute Farm is London’s biggest urban farm. They have plenty of animals you would expect at a farm (pigs, sheep, chickens) and some you might not (hello llamas). They spin their own wool and your kids can cuddle with the animals! Interested in finding out more about keeping chickens, laying hedges, spinning wool, or other countryside activities? They offer courses on all of them!

Milan – Cascina Cuccagna

People at the bar of Cascina Cuccagna (by Radio Mamma)

Cascina Cuccagna is a true hidden gem in Milan. It’s a whole concept that features way more than just an urban farm. You’ll find a very good restaurant, a self-service bar with homemade bakery snacks, a wonderful garden growing vegetables, a hostel, bike and wood workshops, a wine shop, a farmer’s market offering selected local produce, and various events. It’s the perfect spot to leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind.

Oslo – Losæter

Losaeter creative greenhouse (by Monica Løvdahl)

Losæter is located in Oslo. It all started in 2011 as an art project and has since grown into a lush green mix of Oslo’s unique urban farm, a cultural meeting point, a knowledge exchange platform, and a funky wild park. They literally brought soil into the city and have been thriving ever since then.

Rome – CoBrAgOr

People eating at the restaurant of CoBrAgOr (by CoBrAgOr)

CoBrAgOr in Rome combines an amazing restaurant with an urban farm. The acronym means ‘Cooperativa braccianti agricoli organizzati’, a cooperative of the farmers who cultivate the 40-hectare area surrounding this agritourism in the Insugherata Natural Reservation on Monte Mario, the highest hill in Rome. They also have a shop where you can shop their fresh products daily.

Rotterdam – Op Het Dak

Yoga class at Op Het Dak (by Gianni Tahamata)

Rotterdam is a pioneer when it comes to urban farming. Op het dak is one of many urban farms in the city.  Op het dak means on the rooftop in Dutch. And that’s exactly where this farm is located! The rooftop is filled with flowers and plants, organic vegetables, edible flowers, and herbs. They are all used in the dishes that their little restaurant serves. They also have beehives that produce honey on a yearly basis!

The Hague – Pluk!  & De Heemtuin

Plants for sale at Pluk! (by Sanne Verhoef)

Pluk! De Heemtuin is a small farm located a little out of the city center of The Hague. They combine the small farm with a café and the Heemtuin where kids (and adults) can run around freely. Their animals all found their home at Pluk after being abandoned by their previous owners. You can come and pick your own fruit and vegetables, your kids can learn more about food and the animals or you can just enjoy a coffee on their terrace.

Toronto – Riverdale Farm

Riverdale Farm entrance (by Mother Goose)

The Riverdale Farm is located in Toronto, smack in the middle of downtown. The small farm is open year-round and it specializes in pioneer breeds of farm animals like horses, cows, goats, and sheep that are hard to find on commercial farms. Y0u can also find the oldest building in the city here!

Vancouver – Southlands Heritage Farm

A rider is getting her horse ready at the Southlands Heritage Farm (by Art Zaratsyan)

Southlands Heritage Farm is located within the border of Vancouver. this farm has made it their mission to guide us all into making healthier, more sustainable choices. Take a stroll through their gardens, hand-feed their chickens and goats, walk through the barn to greet the ponies and horses, and stop by their farmer’s market on the way out for some fresh produce, eggs, honey, and jams. They also offer several programs to educate on the topic of urban farming and nutrition.

Zurich – Frau Gerolds Garten

The bar at Frau Gerolds Garten (by Dimitri Burkhard)

Frau Gerolds Garten is more than just an urban farm. It’s a whole concept of a community located in Zurich. It’s a restaurant, bar, shopping area, and urban gardening project all in one. The food for the restaurant is partly grown on-site, with the rest being organic and locally sourced. There is a community thread running throughout, and locals are invited to grow their own veg on site.

Village Farms Spreads The Word About Healthy Eating

By

urbanagnews -

February 13, 2019

Press Release – Village Farms recently sponsored and participated in “Cars for the Cure”, a car show benefitting the American Lung Association. This event showcased an array of the most distinctive and unforgettable cars from around the world during a daylong, family-friendly festival.

A team of volunteers from Village Farms spent the day giving away almost 2000 pounds of their authentic Heavenly Villagio Marzano® tomatoes to participants, attendees, and volunteers. The Transformer Bumblebee even got in on the action to create some buzz about eating healthy!

“Village Farms was proud to be a sponsor and support Cars for the Cure in its 15th year,” said Helen Aquino, Director of Brand Marketing and Communications. “Participating in an event like this for such a good cause was especially rewarding. We truly enjoyed getting out in our community to promote health and wellness and we loved hearing time and time again how much people enjoy the Garden Fresh Flavor® of our tomatoes!” 

Now in its second century, the American Lung Association is the oldest voluntary health organization in the United States and the leading organization working to save lives by improving lung health and preventing lung disease. Founded in 1904 to fight tuberculosis, the American Lung Association today fights lung disease in all its forms, with special emphasis on asthma, tobacco control and environmental health.

About Village Farms

Village Farms is one of the largest producers, marketers, and distributors of premium-quality, greenhouse-grown fruits and vegetables in North America. The food our farmers grow, along with other greenhouse farmers under exclusive arrangements are all grown in environmentally friendly, soil-less, glass greenhouses. The Village Farms® brand of fruits and vegetables is marketed and distributed primarily to local retail grocers and dedicated fresh food distributors throughout the United States and Canada. Since its inception, Village Farms has been guided by sustainability principles that enable us to grow food 365 days a year that not only feeds the growing population but is healthier for people and the planet. Village Farms is Good for the Earth® and good for you.

Earth Notes: Urban Agriculture

By DIANE HOPE • FEB 13, 2019

Earth Notes

In backyards and vacant lots, urban farming is on the rise in towns and cities across the Colorado Plateau. Vertically stacked growing shelves, closely spaced plantings, and covered beds are helping farms fit in where space is often restricted.

Roots Micro Farm

CREDIT MADELYN CHANCE

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Warehouse farming operations grow crops in sterile atmospheres that need costly nutrient inputs and energy for lighting. But small-scale urban farms offer lots of sustainable advantages.

These farms use natural sunlight and moisture, and make great use of local food waste,  says Josh Chance. He and his wife Maddy established Roots Micro Farm on a neighborhood lot in downtown Flagstaff two and half years ago.

They mix organic waste from Northern Arizona University and local breweries with horse manure from nearby barns, creating deep fertile growing beds. Hoop houses let them extend the growing season from late April through December. They raise everything from kale to kohlrabi and tomatoes to edible flowers.

Such small urban farms can’t achieve the economies of scale that massive modern farming can – so their produce may cost a bit more than at large grocery chains. But, since they’re often located just a mile or two from consumers, local growers deliver fresh, healthy produce requiring little or no energy for transportation.

There are some extra benefits too--these farms provide pleasant green spaces within a city. And they can give young people the chance to see where food comes from, and how it’s grown. Some even provide training workshops for locals to learn - and trade - skills.  

All in all, urban agriculture appears to be an idea ripe for the picking.  

Farming On The Roofs of Shopping Malls In Singapore

Amidst the luxurious commercial setting of Singapore's Orchard Road, filled with fancy malls, department stores and food courts, there is a farm.

Reuters reports that the 6,450 sq ft Comcrop farm utilises vertical racks and hydroponics to grow leafy greens and herbs such as basil and perppermint, which are sold to nearby bars, restaurants and stores.

Allan Lim set up the rooftop farm five years ago, and recently opened a 4,000-square-metre farm with a greenhouse on the edge of the city.

The goal, in Singapore where land is at a premium, is to tackle food security. 

“Agriculture is not seen as a key sector in Singapore. But we import most of our food, so we are very vulnerable to sudden disruptions in supply,” Lim said.

“Land, natural resources and low-cost labor used to be the predominant way that countries achieved food security. But we can use technology to solve any deficiencies,” he said.

In the country where 5.6 million people are densely packed in, land reclamation, moving transport utilities and storage underground, and clearing cemeteries for homes and highways have been undertaken.

Agriculture, takes up only about 1% of its land area.

Last year, Singapore topped the Economist Intelligence Unit’s (EIU) Global Food Security Index of 113 countries for the first time, scoring high on affordability, availability and safety. 

However, importing more than 90% of its food, food security is susceptible to climate change and natural resource risks.

As climate change makes its impact felt across the world, the scarcity of water, shifting weather, and population growth will require better ways to feed the people.

A study published last year, cited by Reuters notes that urban agriculture currently produces as much as 180 million metric tonnes of food a year - up to 10% of the global output of pulses and vegetables.

From what was once an agrarian economy that produced nearly all of its own food, from pig farms, vegetable gardens and durian orchards and chicken in the kampongs, to government is now pushing to relocate over 60 farms in the countryside by 2021, to reclaim land for the military. 

Speaking to the publication, Chelsea Wan, a second-generation farmer who runs Jurong Frog Farm said: “It’s getting tougher because leases are shorter, it’s harder to hire workers, and it’s expensive to invest in new technologies.

“We support the government’s effort to increase productivity through technology, but we feel sidelined,” she said.

Urban Farms Could be Incredibly Efficient—But Aren’t Yet

JOHN TIMMER - 12/28/2018, 3:45 AM

The green revolution that transformed modern agriculture has generally increased its scale. There's tremendous potential for efficiencies in the large-scale application of mechanization, fertilization, and pesticide use. But operating at that level requires large tracts of land, which means sources of food have grown increasingly distant from the people in urban centers who will ultimately eat most of it.

In some ways, hyper-local food is a counterculture movement, focused on growing herbs and vegetables in the same dense urban environments where they will be eaten. It trades the huge efficiencies of modern agriculture for large savings in transportation and storage costs. But is urban farming environmentally friendly?

According to researchers at Australia's University of New England, the answer is pretty complex. Within their somewhat limited group of gardeners, urban agriculture is far more productive for the amount of land used but isn't especially efficient with labor and materials use. But the materials issue could be solved, and the labor inefficiency may be a product of the fact that most urban farmers are hobbyists and are doing it for fun.

Urban ag

The researchers—Robert McDougalla, Paul Kristiansena, and Romina Rader—defined urban agriculture as taking place within a kilometer of a densely built environment. Working in the Sydney area, they were able to find 13 urban farmers who were willing to keep detailed logs of their activity for an entire year. Labor and materials costs were tracked, as was the value of the produce it helped create. The energetic costs of the materials and labor were also calculated in order to assess the sustainability of urban farming.

The plots cultivated by these farmers were quite small, with the median only a bit over 10 square meters. Yet they were extremely productive, with a mean of just under six kilograms of produce for each of those square meters. That's about twice as productive as a typical Australian vegetable farm, although the output range of the urban farms was huge—everything from slightly below large farm productivity to five times as productive.

For the vast majority of crops, however, the urban farms weren't especially effective. They required far more labor than traditional farms, and, as a result, the total value of the inputs into the crop exceeded the income from selling it. In other words, the urban farmers were losing money, at least by traditional accounting measures. And the farms weren't especially sustainable, with only about 10 percent of all the inputs coming from renewable resources. Again, labor was a major culprit, as it's not considered very renewable, and urban farming is very labor-intensive.

So that all sounds like a bit of a disaster, really. But as mentioned above, things quickly get complex. The urban farmers, as it turned out, bought compost and fertilizer and used the municipal water supply. Cities, as the authors note, produce large quantities of organic waste that could be used to make compost. While it would require additional labor and land space, it would be easy to make the care of the crops far more sustainable. Combined with the use of collected rainwater, these could get the percentage of renewable contributions up to roughly 40 percent.

Laborious

Then there's the issue of the time spent on labor. The urban farmers don't seem to be especially efficient compared to regular farm laborers, and by all indications they don't necessarily want to be. For many of them, it's more a hobby than career; they put in more labor because they enjoy it or find it relaxing. If you start reducing the labor costs to reflect this, things start changing dramatically. If only the material costs of urban farming are considered (meaning labor was set to $0), then the apparent efficiency improves dramatically.

Not surprisingly, ignoring labor costs also makes a big difference financially, with the profit-to-cost ratio going from a mean of 0.62 up to 2.8, indicating that these urban farms would generally be quite profitable.

Labor also makes a big difference in terms of energy use. As they're now operating, these urban farms aren't very different from rural farms, which means they're not sustainable. Shifting to local sources of materials, like rainwater and compost, would drop the energy use dramatically, shifting the farms into territory that's typically considered sustainable. Eliminating labor considerations on top of that would make urban agriculture among the most efficient means of growing vegetables presently studied.

There are two obvious caveats to this work: the small number of farms sampled and the fact that they were all in a single urban area. This sort of study will obviously need to be replicated in other locations before we can start generalizing about hyper-local produce. But the role of labor in this sort of analysis makes conclusions difficult to generalize. Is it reasonable to discount some fraction of the labor costs when people are doing the farming for pleasure? Do we start considering a tomato plant on a balcony part of an urban farm?

While many of the details are unclear, the overall conclusion seems solid: while urban farms aren't yet there in terms of sustainability and energy use, the potential for them to outpace their larger rural cousins is definitely there. But it will take an entire sustainable support infrastructure for them to truly arrive.

With Farms Atop Malls, Singapore Gets Serious About Food Security

ECONOMY

January 09, 2019 5:11 PM

• Reuters

SINGAPORE — 

Visitors to Singapore's Orchard Road, the city's main shopping belt, will find fancy malls, trendy department stores, abundant food courts — and a small farm. 

Comcrop's 600-square-meter (6,450-square-foot) farm on the roof of one of the malls uses vertical racks and hydroponics to grow leafy greens and herbs such as basil and peppermint that it sells to nearby bars, restaurants and stores. 

The farm's small size belies its big ambition: to help improve the city's food security. 

Comcrop's Allan Lim, who set up the rooftop farm five years ago, recently opened a 4,000-square-meter farm with a greenhouse on the edge of the city. 

He believes high-tech urban farms are the way ahead for the city, where more land cannot be cultivated. 

"Agriculture is not seen as a key sector in Singapore. But we import most of our food, so we are very vulnerable to sudden disruptions in supply," Lim said. 

"Land, natural resources and low-cost labor used to be the predominant way that countries achieved food security. But we can use technology to solve any deficiencies," he said. 

Singapore last year topped the Economist Intelligence Unit's (EIU) Global Food Security Index of 113 countries for the first time, scoring high on measures such as affordability, availability and safety. 

Yet, as the country imports more than 90 percent of its food, its food security is susceptible to climate change and natural resource risks, the EIU noted. 

With 5.6 million people in an area three-fifths the size of New York City — and with the population estimated to grow to 6.9 million by 2030 — land is at a premium in Singapore. 

The country has long reclaimed land from the sea, and plans to move more of its transport, utilities and storage underground to free up space for housing, offices and greenery. 

It has also cleared dozens of cemeteries for homes and highways.

An aerial view shows Citiponics' urban farm located on the rooftop of a multi-story garage in a public housing estate in western Singapore, April 17, 2018.

Agriculture makes up only about 1 percent of its land area, so better use of space is key, said Samina Raja, a professor of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo in New York. 

"Urban agriculture is increasingly being recognized as a legitimate land use in cities," she said. "It offers a multitude of benefits, from increased food security and improved nutrition to greening of spaces. But food is seldom a part of urban planning." 

Supply shocks

Countries across the world are battling the worsening impacts of climate change, water scarcity and population growth to find better ways to feed their people. 

Scientists are working on innovations — from gene editing of crops and lab-grown meat to robots and drones — to fundamentally change how food is grown, distributed and eaten. 

With more than two-thirds of the world's population forecast to live in cities by 2050, urban agriculture is critical, a study published last year stated. 

Urban agriculture currently produces as much as 180 million metric tons of food a year — up to 10 percent of the global output of pulses and vegetables, the study noted. 

Additional benefits, such as reduction of the urban heat-island effect, avoided stormwater runoff, nitrogen fixation and energy savings could be worth $160 billion annually, it said. 

Countries including China, India, Brazil and Indonesia could benefit significantly from urban agriculture, it said. 

"Urban agriculture should not be expected to eliminate food insecurity, but that should not be the only metric," said study co-author Matei Georgescu, a professor of urban planning at Arizona State University. 

"It can build social cohesion among residents, improve economic prospects for growers, and have nutritional benefits. In addition, greening cities can help to transition away from traditional concrete jungles," he said. 

Singapore was once an agrarian economy that produced nearly all its own food. There were pig farms and durian orchards, and vegetable gardens and chickens in the kampongs, or villages. 

But in its push for rapid economic growth after independence in 1965, industrialization took precedence, and most farms were phased out, said Kenny Eng, president of the Kranji Countryside Association, which represents local farmers.

Organic cilantro seedlings sprout from growing towers that are primarily made out of polyvinyl chloride pipes at Citiponics' urban farm on the rooftop of a multi-story garage in a public housing estate in western Singapore, April 17, 2018.

The global food crisis of 2007-08, when prices spiked, causing widespread economic instability and social unrest, may have led the government to rethink its food security strategy to guard against such shocks, Eng said. 

"In an age of climate uncertainty and rapid urbanization, there are merits to protecting indigenous agriculture and farmers' livelihoods," he said. 

Local production is a core component of the food security road map, according to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) of Singapore, a state agency that helps farmers upgrade with technical know-how, research and overseas study tours. 

Given its land constraints, AVA has also been looking to unlock more spaces, including underutilized or alternative spaces, and harness technological innovations to "grow more with less," a spokeswoman said by email. 

Intrinsic value

A visit to the Kranji countryside, just a 45-minute drive from the city's bustling downtown, and where dozens of farms are located, offers a view of the old and the new. 

Livestock farms and organic vegetable plots sit alongside vertical farms and climate-controlled greenhouses. 

Yet many longtime farmers are fearful of the future, as the government pushes for upgrades and plans to relocate more than 60 farms by 2021 to return land to the military. 

Many farms might be forced to shut down, said Chelsea Wan, a second-generation farmer who runs Jurong Frog Farm. 

"It's getting tougher because leases are shorter, it's harder to hire workers, and it's expensive to invest in new technologies," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. 

"We support the government's effort to increase productivity through technology, but we feel sidelined," she said. 

Wan is a member of the Kranji Countryside Association, which has tried to spur local interest in farming by welcoming farmers' markets, study tours, homestays and weddings. 

Small peri-urban farms at the edge of the city, like those in Kranji, are not just necessary for food security, Eng said. 

"The countryside is an inalienable part of our heritage and nation-building, and the farms have an intrinsic value for education, conservation, the community and tourism," he said. 

At the rooftop farm on Orchard Road, Lim looks on as brisk, elderly Singaporeans, whom he has hired to get around the worker shortage, harvest, sort and pack the day's output. 

"It's not a competition between urban farms and landed farms; it's a question of relevance," he said. "You have to ask: What works best in a city like Singapore?"

Local Grown Salads Launches Indoor Vertical Farms In Opportunity Zones

BALTIMORE, MD, UNITED STATES, January 10, 2019 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Local Grown Salads is opening Indoor Vertical Farms in Opportunity Zones located in Baltimore, Washington DC, and Nashville.

Local Grown Salads will be providing Ready-To-Eat salads, Ready-To-Use Herbs and vegetables that are GMO Free, Organic, Herbicide & Insecticide free, and certified insect free.

Wonderfully Fresh - Harvested and delivered on the same day.
Massive Selection - 25 different salads.
No prep needed - these are ready-to-eat.
No Food Safety concerns - FSMA & SFQ Quality Code level.
Good For The Environment - Reduced Carbon Footprint, No nasty runoff. No killing the bees.

Local Grown Salads is looking to provide LGS First Account status to a small set of restaurants, caterers, or food delivery companies prior to the official launch.

The LGS First Accounts will have special pricing, guaranteed availability, first access to product, and other advantages.

LGS First Accounts are select food service companies that will use Local Grown Salads' Ready-To-Eat Salads to provide extra-ordinary products to consumers.

LGS First Accounts will be located within 2 hours of one our locations and sell at least 5,000 high quality meals a week.

Local Grown Salads has limited the volume available and will be selective about who will receive this market advantage.

About Local Grown Salads Patent Pending Indoor Vertical Farming technology:
• Grows fresh produce year-round in a controlled environment with the highest standards of food quality and food safety
• Creates product that is organic, pesticide free, herbicide free, and GMO free
• Decreases transportation costs, thereby reducing the carbon footprint
• Helps to address the problem of food deserts
• Allows indoor farming that helps save the planet’s arable land

About Local Grown Salads and Opportunity Zones:
Opportunity Zones are a tax incentive established by Congress in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017. 8,700 Opportunity Zones have been designated. The Opportunity Zones are low-income and food desserts. Local Grown Salads is expecting to create 20 jobs in its farms and provide fresh healthy food at wholesale prices to the community.
The Local Grown Salads farms can re-purpose older (heritage) buildings which are not challenged for other uses.

Zale Tabakman
Local Grown Salads
+1 416-738-2090
email us here
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Distribution channels: Food & Beverage Industry

Meet The People Running A Farm In The Middle Of Andheri – Herbivore Farms

By Mallika Dabke January 15, 2019  

The minds behind Herbivore Farms

There’s no doubt that the awareness of eating clean food is growing by the day, but for most of us, it’s an ongoing struggle to make that lifestyle shift. Most of us are grossly unaware about where our produce comes from, and the authenticity of organic products is often left as an unanswered question at the back of our minds. Bringing clarity to our kitchens, is Herbivore Farms, which is an actual farm in the middle of Andheri, set up by duo Sakina Rajkotwala and Joshua Lewis. The young guns from Mumbai set themselves up on a mission to directly provide the citizens with vegetables through their hyperlocal, hydroponic farm, a first for the city. I spoke to Sakina and Joshua to know more about them and their work, read on to see what we spoke about!

Give us a quick introduction to Herbivore Farms.

Herbivore Farms is Mumbai’s first hyper local farm located in Andheri East. We grow the super healthy varieties of leafy green veggies like Swiss Chard, Kale, Rocket and Lettuce using hydroponic methods of cultivation. 

Our produce is delivered to customer’s homes a few hours post-harvest, so it’s always at its peak of freshness, nutrition and flavour. Our indoor farm enables to grow in a clean, sterile environment and we use absolutely 0 pesticides so it’s 100% safe. We also use up to 80% less water to grow our produce using a recirculating irrigation system. 

Talk us through your story – what inspired you, how you started, and the journey so far. 

The journey that led us to start this project began in 2017 when we both quit our jobs – Sakina worked at an NGO called Magic Bus and Joshua was working with an ad company called Directi. While our jobs seemed to be working out well for us, we were missing a sense of purpose and were on a mission to find it. So, we decided to pack our bags and go live in Auroville for three months and work on a farm. We wanted to get our hands dirty and also reconnect with ourselves and nature. 

We worked as farm labor for three months at Solitude Farm. The farm also had a cafe where lunch was served and made from ingredients that were harvested fresh off the farm the same morning. We ate meals post work there every day and food had never tasted better. It was always basic and simple food but it changed everything for us in terms of our energy levels, our mood and in general, our overall health. We felt happy and well. 

This was the starting point of our inspiration. We wanted to create a way for people to enjoy fresh, healthy local produce. We also wanted people to revive their relationship with their food – understand where it comes from, who grows it, how it’s grown, why it’s good for you. We wanted people to be able to feel as good as we did. And that’s how Herbivore Farms was born. 

Through extensive research we discovered how we could build a farm within the city and grow indoors. Hydroponics appealed to us because it saves two of the most precious urban resources – space and water. After a year of trial and error and lots of research, we built our small indoor farm. The two of us handle everything right from the farm tasks (planting, monitoring, harvesting) to deliveries, sales and marketing. 

We believe that the food we eat is one of the most important factors in determining our health and more and more people are starting to realise it too. What we put in our bodies three times a day can impact just about everything in our lives and we are on a mission to get everyone to start valuing good food and make good choices. We also wanted to build a chain of supply that is completely transparent so people can trust what’s on their plate as opposed to the way our markets currently work. 

Give us an overview of the set up and functioning of Herbivore Farms. 

We have converted an old industrial warehouse in Andheri East into a climate controlled greenhouse. We’ve built vertical hydroponics systems that enable us to grow 10 times more in the same square footage. Our recirculating irrigation system also enables us to use 75% less water as compared to traditional agriculture. We’ve put in place processes that allow us to harvest on a daily basis, and each morning’s harvest is delivered to the customer’s homes a few hours later. 

Up until a month ago it was the two of us managing absolutely everything, we personally went to people’s doors to hand them their produce. It was exhausting but extremely rewarding, and the motive was to dive into the depth of every little detail to put into place effective farm processes which we have been able to do now, and we’re still learning every day. A few weeks ago, we hired our first employee. He is learning quickly and developing into the role of Primary Farm Manager. 

How has the feedback been? What are some of the things that customers are saying about you?

The response from customers who tried our free samples was phenomenal. About 90% of the people who took a sample home wrote back to us saying they loved how fresh and flavourful the leaves were and how they wanted to know how soon they can start buying. Some even said that we had changed their perception on leafy greens – what they previously associated with tasting “bitter” or “bland” and didn’t enjoy eating but would force themselves to, to try and be healthy. A lot of people we met at events told us were happy to finally have some transparency as to where their veggies are grown and where they come from, as they were skeptical of eating raw greens because of the fear of pesticides, unhygienic growing conditions, and not knowing who has handled the produce. 

How does one place an order at the farm and what all do you currently grow to offer?  

A Herbivore Harvest Box (Monthly Subscription) is INR 1500 (extra delivery charges for South Mumbai) for one month. One subscription = total four deliveries (one per week) on a fixed day depending on where the subscriber lives. Each week the subscriber will receive one box at their chosen address which will contain two to three varieties of leafy greens harvested that morning. 

Our range of leafy greens – seven types of lettuce (lollo rosso, oakleaf, French romaine, summercrisp, butterhead), three types of Swiss chard (red, yellow, mangold), two types of rocket (wild and cultivated) and we are working on four kale varieties that will be part of our box soon! 

Pick from a range of leafy greens!

Lastly, what’s next for Herbivore Farms? 

We can’t wait to upgrade to a much larger facility and cater to a larger population of our city. We want to be more than just a farm. We want to teach kids how to grow their own food “kindly”, for that is the most essential foundation of a community of the future. Herbivore Farms aims to create jobs with meaning, and bring people closer together.

Hippie Amenities With A High-End Twist

By Kim Velsey

Aug. 18, 2017

Garden construction in progress on the eighth floor deck of 550 Vanderbilt in Brooklyn.CreditCreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

As dusk fell over Staten Island on a recent evening, about 10 people sat around a large wooden table in a communal kitchen, listening to Van Morrison and painting terra-cotta flowerpots. Houseplants were suspended from the room’s high wood-beamed ceilings, and the smell of freshly baked bread hung in the air.

A hippie house share? Not quite. It was crafts and cocktails night at Urby Staten Island, an upscale rental complex where the demographic skews more young professional than drum-circle enthusiast. Nonetheless, the complex has features that might make that crowd feel right at home: In addition to the communal kitchen, there’s a 5,000-square-foot urban farm, a 20-hive apiary — both tended by live-in farmers/beekeepers — and a kombucha workshop planned for later this summer.

“Live cultures are really something people are responding to,” said Brendan Costello, the complex’s in-residence chef, as he wiped the last of the bread crumbs and black maple butter from the countertops. He has already taught well-attended workshops on making sauerkraut and kimchi.

Just as Birkenstocks and bee pollen have come back in style, so have crunchy lifestyle concepts, from yoga and meditation to composting and home fermentation. And with veganism, Waldorf schools, doulas and healing crystals shifting from far out to very much in fashion, a growing number of New York luxury buildings have embraced the hallmarks of 1970s hippiedom with a high-end twist. Look for amenities like rooftop gardens, kitchen composters, art and meditation studios, bike shares, infrared saunas, even an adult treehouse.

“Especially in Brooklyn, the concrete jungle is not the atmosphere people are aiming for,” said Ashley Cotton, an executive vice president of Forest City New York, whose recently opened condo in Prospect Heights, 550 Vanderbilt, developed in partnership with Greenland USA, has window planters for units on lower floors and a communal garden terrace with individual plots on the eighth floor. Two of the terrace’s six large planters will be tended by a nearby farm-to-table restaurant, Olmsted, which will also offer gardening lessons to residents.

Residents of URBY in Staten Island visit a farmstand set up by Empress Green in Urby’s communal kitchen.CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

Residents of URBY in Staten Island visit a farmstand set up by Empress Green in Urby’s communal kitchen.CreditEmon Hassan for The New York Times

At Pierhouse, the Toll Brothers City Living condo in Brooklyn Bridge Park in Brooklyn, every kitchen has an in-unit composter, a first for a Toll Brothers development.

“If we were deciding between a compost unit and a wine chiller, we’d probably go with the wine chiller since more people would be interested,” said David von Spreckelsen, the president of Toll Brothers City Living division. “But here we had large kitchens and a lot of the units have outdoor space, so we thought people could compost in their kitchen and go right out to their garden.”

While such amenities might be aspirational for some, others are yearning to get their hands dirty. Christine Blackburn, an associate broker at Compass real estate, said that for a woman to whom she recently sold a condo at 144 North Eighth Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, the roof garden was the most important amenity.

“She didn’t care about the gym, she didn’t care about the garage,” Ms. Blackburn said. “They live in a $2 million condo, but for her to be able to grow tomatoes with her son, that was it.

“The garden plots in that building are tiny,” she added, “but it makes some people feel like they’re not living in a high-rise.”

Public green space has always been a priority, of course, and let’s not forget that large swaths of all five boroughs were once farmland.

Green rooftops have some historical antecedents in the city: The Ansonia, on the Upper West Side, kept 500 chickens on its rooftop farm in the early 20th century, with eggs delivered daily to the tenants, according to “The Sky’s the Limit,” a book by Steven Gaines. But the roof was shut down by the Department of Health after just a few years, in 1907. And for the past century, it was accepted that living in New York meant leaving nature, and local honey, behind.

“It definitely used to be an either/or mentality,” said Rick Cook, a founder of the architecture firm CookFox and a designer of 550 Vanderbilt, who moved to New York from a small town upstate in 1983. But after studying abroad in Florence, Italy, he said, “I understand you could have both. That, in fact, the highest quality of life is to have both.”

Indeed, the explosion of the wellness industry has left many craving a different kind of New York lifestyle.

For a younger generation, practices like organic gardening and meditation may not carry any whiff of the counterculture.

“Being green is modern, being organic is modern,” said Jordan Horowitz, 26, an assistant manager of Enterprise Rent-a-Car who grew up gardening in suburban New Jersey and was excited to get a studio at Urby, where residents have an entire city block of gardens. But he is equally enthusiastic about the pool, the giant bean bags strewn across the grounds and learning to make Vietnamese cuisine from scratch in Mr. Costello’s cooking classes.

That many such offerings tend to be far more upscale than their 1970s counterparts no doubt helps to remove any lingering hippie vibe. Rather than a stable of rusty Schwinns, for example, 50 West, in the financial district, allows residents to pedal out on Porsche bikes that cost $3,700 a pop.

Javier and Irina Lattanzio, residents and brokers of 50 West in Lower Manhattan, take a spin on Porsche bikes provided by the building.CreditSasha Maslov for The New York Times

Javier and Irina Lattanzio, residents and brokers of 50 West in Lower Manhattan, take a spin on Porsche bikes provided by the building.CreditSasha Maslov for The New York Times

“Yes, it’s sharing, but in a luxury manner,” said Javier Lattanzio, the sales manager at the condo.

The adult treehouse at One Manhattan Square on the Lower East Side, likewise, is hardly primitive, with Wi-Fi and a staircase. As for all those rooftop herb gardens, asked if they are actually used, one broker replied that they definitely were, though not necessarily for a Moosewood recipe: On a recent trip to 338 Berry in Williamsburg, she saw people with Aperol spritzes clipping herbs to put in their cocktails.

Frank Monterisi, a senior vice president of the Related Companies, emphasized that the new generation of renters and buyers “like to see sustainability, they like to see rooftop gardens.”

At Hunter’s Point South, Related’s massive affordable housing complex in Long Island City, Queens, residents can receive deliveries of fresh vegetables from a C.S.A. — community-supported agriculture. There are also an apiary, about 2,300 square feet of rooftop gardens and a waiting list for the gardening club.

“Everyone wants to garden now. I think New Yorkers have gotten comfortable with the amount of concrete we have, but they also want to see green,” said Joyce Artis, a retired Port Authority worker who helps organize the gardening program at the complex and grows microgreens and lemon trees in her apartment.

Ms. Artis said that when she was growing up in Brooklyn, she was sent to visit relatives in North Carolina in the summer, and hated having to get up early to weed. “But then as I got older, I started missing it,” she said. “And I started growing things in my apartment. No matter how small your space I always say: ‘You can grow one thing.’”

Ms. Blackburn, the Compass broker, said that gardening, for some, is a version of meditation. “Maybe they’re not sitting there with a meditation app, but sticking their hands in the soil — it doesn’t matter if someone’s making $10 million a year — it can be very therapeutic.”

She expects the enthusiasm to continue and intensify. “I wouldn’t be surprised in a year if a luxury building had a chicken coop,” she said.

Calgary’s Indoor Urban Farms Breaking Down Barriers, Eye Expansion of Local Food Production

December 10, 2018 Darren Krause CALGARY 1

Megan Janz with Deepwater Farms looks over some of the greens the Calgary commercial aquaponics company grows. DARREN KRAUSE / LIVEWIRE CALGARY

The seeds of Calgary’s commercial food industry have been planted, but conditions aren’t yet ripe for the city to harvest the full rewards of urban food production, local producers say.

Former oil and gas engineers Paul and Ryan Wright, along with Dan Clayholt, launched NuLeaf farms, a hydroponic agriculture operation in a southeast Calgary garage.

“We really wanted to find something where we had some passion and where we could apply our skills to really solve some problems,” said Paul.

“Agriculture stood out like a sore thumb.”

They saw an opportunity to use high-end tech they’d been exposed to for the development of more sustainable and efficient year-round food production in Calgary.

“That led to the beginning of us not only developing something that was environmentally sustainable, but we wanted something that was economically sustainable,” Paul said.

They have a proprietary software that optimizes climate conditions and nutrient delivery, light conditions and amount of CO2. It’s allowed them to build a vertical growing system that produces 180 plants per square foot annually, enough to allow them to sell to smaller grocery stores and Calgary restaurants.

Now they’re scaling up. They have a module designed – similar to the size of the garage – but they also have plans for a full-sized manufacturing operation.  

While headway’s been made in the adoption of land-uses for indoor commercial food growth in Calgary, Paul said accessibility to programs to help them scale up is a challenge.

(From left) Ryan Wright, Paul Wright and Dan Clayholt with NuLeaf Farms, a hydroponic operation based in southeast Calgary that grows basil. DARREN KRAUSE / LIVEWIRE CALGARY

“A lot of (granting) agencies are looking for innovation, but the parameters for grants aren’t tailored to anything like this. They seem pretty closed-minded to anything that far out of the norm,” Paul said.

He added that when setting up operations he’s cognizant of the business tax regime in the city and how it compares with jurisdictions like Rocky View County.

Kristi Peters Snider, sustainability consultant with the City of Calgary’s CalgaryEATS! Food Action Plan, said indoor commercial food operations are new in Calgary, with the city seeing mostly outdoor “spin farms” and other  smaller urban farms over the past decade.

Peters Snider said the city’s land use bylaw amendments coupled with Calgary Economic Development’s saying agri-business should be an area of focus has boosted efforts to modernize Calgary’s food rules.

“There’s some work to do, and the role the city can play is in enabling more food distribution pathways to help these growers,” she said.

Paul Shumlich, founder and CEO of Calgary’s Deepwater Farms, an aquaponics operation in southeast Calgary, said it’s early days in all this and any movement forward should be done in consultation with the growers.

“If they go ahead and start implementing things, or drafting policy or bylaws without input from industry, they’ll screw it up. Or they’ll make hurdles that don’t need to exist,” Shumlich said.  

“They (the city) need to understand what we need and then reverse engineer as if we’re the customer.”

Shumlich’s operation, which he started a number of years back, grows plants without soil and feeds the plants with water whose nutrients come from the waste of edible sea bass they’re raising in the same operation.

They’re at one-third capacity and will be expanding in their current space through 2019, also with eyes on a new facility. They’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign to push the production forward.

He said it’s been a challenge being a pioneer locally, as they’re paving the way through the civic bureaucracy.

“We’ve definitely been pioneering a lot of it in terms of getting through all the permitting, land use and through all the inspections,” said Shumlich.

“Everybody that we deal with, from a permitting perspective, has no idea what they’re looking at or how to deal with us, so that’s been a bit of a headache.”

Peters Snider said the city’s working on the development of an urban farm that will not only allow them to test a model of city-owned land used for food production, but also to help inform them on best practices for approaching things like permits and approvals.

She said they have a 17-point action plan that will help break down some of the barriers new operations face – including creating new pathways for the sale of urban farm products.

• Background on City of Calgary rules around food processing, growing and distribution
  

They piloted pop-up LRT markets for the sale of fresh produce and will continue to build out that program. They’re also hoping to open up more markets on city-owned land. More changes to land use are expected in 2019.

“There’s lots more work. I feel that each area of focus helps achieve that goal of producing more local food,” she said.

That’s the goal. Both NuLeaf and Deepwater Farms are committed to the safe, environmentally-friendly and sustainable growth of local food. They both want to scale up and push the boundaries of their business to deliver fresh produce (and in Shumlich’s case, sea bass) to the Calgary and Alberta market.

“We’re trying to supply the big guys,” said Paul from NuLeaf.

“We’re trying to eliminate as much imported product as possible.”

While there are some hiccups, Shumlich said that’s normal when breaking new ground.

“More than anything it’s exciting and fun because there’s no playbook, so what we’re doing is novel,” he said.

NKDA Mulls Panel to Boost Urban Farming

Tarun Goswami Dec 2018 4:15 AM

Kolkata: New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) is considering a proposal to form an empanelled group to assist people, particularly senior citizens, to set up rooftop urban farming. The matter has been discussed in the board of NKDA and a decision in the matter will be soon taken. A notice will be given asking interested groups to respond. It may be mentioned that at Swapno Bhor, the state's first senior citizens' park, organic farming of vegetables has recently been started in collaboration with an NGO and senior citizens, who are members of the same, are overseeing it. Senior officials of the NKDA said many people have shown keen interest to start rooftop urban farming but could not start it because of lack of expertise. For many years, people have been growing flowers on their rooftop gardens. It may be mentioned that in the annual flower show organised by Alipore Agri Horticulture Society there is a section where flowers and cactus that are grown on rooftop gardens and displayed. The best flower grower is also awarded. Now, in addition to flowers, people have shown interest to start rooftop urban farming. But a majority of them lack expertise and knowledge. For example, on rooftop garden pots made of coconut fibres are used instead of earthen pots as they cause heavy damage to the roofs. Again, from where seeds of vegetables can be procured are not known. To address these issues, the empanelled groups will assist those whose are interested to start rooftop urban farming. The group will charge for providing assistance and the rate will be fixed by the NKDA. This will keep the senior citizens socially engaged, the officers felt. To keep the senior citizens engaged and occupied who will be buying accommodation at Snehodiya, an open terrace has been made in the proposed multi-storeyed building whose construction is going on. The senior citizens can utilise the terrace to coach children from economically-challenged families. This will keep them socially busy and also motivate the children to a great extent.

Urban Farm In Brooklyn Looking To Attract Young Farmers

So-called 'urban', or 'vertical', farms have been making their way into some US cities over the past few years. With limited land in major metropolitan areas, indoor urban farms offer the chance for city stores and restaurants to get their hands on locally-grown produce. Square Roots in Brooklyn, New York, is one of these next generation indoor farms. Located in a former Pfizer factory in the Williamsburg district, the company said one of its main aims is to offer young people careers in agriculture.

"The average age of the American farmer is 58," noted Karsten Ch'ien of Square Roots. "With more young people living in cities, we bought shipping containers into the city because that is where many of them live. Young people are very technology literate, and with the rise in demand for healthy, locally-grown foods, this is the perfect combination for them to get involved in the produce industry. As a result, the average age of our farmers is just 24."

Ch'ien said that Square Roots offers training and skill building as part of helping young farmers establish a firm foundation in the industry. "At the heart of Square Roots is the Next-Gen farmer training program, which creates opportunities for more people to become farmers—and future leaders in urban farming—through a year-long commitment on the Square Roots team."

Produce is grown in modified shipping containers. Ch'ien is on the far right.

Growing in shipping containers
Produce at Square Roots is grown in shipping containers, which have been climate controlled and fitted with the latest in vertical farming gadgetry. All the operations are controlled in the company's offices overlooking the parking lot where the ten containers lie. The shipping container model gives the company great flexibility.

"Growing in shipping containers requires less upfront capital to establish and maintain," Ch'ien explained. "They are easy to retrofit and move if we need to. Additionally, it's very simple to expand the farm. Instead of remodeling or building an extension, we simply add another shipping container and fit it out in the same manner. Here in the parking lot, we have plenty of room to grow horizontally. At this stage, it's not practical for us to stack containers due to the need for climbing up and down ladders with produce."

According to the company, each shipping container yields between 50 and 70 pounds of produce each week. The containers have been engineered to be environmentally friendly and food safe. "The mineral nutrient system cycles and recycles, so each container only requires eight to ten gallons of water per day. Any kind of food safety issue can be contained in each farm," Ch'ien said.

Culinary herbs the focus
Vertical farms still have a way to go to become a mainstream source of produce. Currently, they are typically restricted to leafy greens and other plants that have minimal energy requirements. Square Roots focuses on culinary herbs. The herbs are grown and packed inside the container and then delivered to local independent retailers on one of the company's tricycles.

"Leafy greens are the easiest to grow vertically," Ch'ien observed. "We can also grow things like grape tomatoes and other small vegetables. It really depends on the energy requirements of each plant. Here at Square Roots, we focus on culinary herbs, with each container specializing in a herb. Typically, the timeframe of maturity to harvest is four to six weeks, depending on the herb. We grow in sections and harvest each container twice per week, so that there is always produce that is ready to be picked."

Square Roots uses these tricycles to deliver their produce direct to customers in the NYC area.

Ch'ien notes that growing more energy-intensive commodities such as tomatoes and small root vegetables is not economical at this stage but said that this may soon become viable as technology continues to improve. "Outside of leafy greens and herbs, it's very challenging to grow other crops economically right now. However, technology is improving each year, providing us with increased opportunities to scale and moderate costs. Additionally, we want to ensure we balance sellable yields with quality."

As to the question of whether vertical farming is a threat to traditional farming, Ch'ien believes the two are not mutually exclusive, but rather the whole system can work side by side. "We don't see it as a competition between traditional land-based farming and urban, vertical farming. All growers have the same goal which is to deliver the freshest, best quality produce to customers. We believe vertical farming can work in tandem with traditional farming, each serving a useful purpose in the industry."

For more information:
Karsten Ch'ien
Square Roots
Ph: +1 (740) 337-6687 
karsten@squarerootsgrow.com
www.squarerootsgrow.com

Publication date : 12/18/2018 
Author: Dennis Rettke 
© FreshPlaza.com

IKEA and Tom Dixon Announce Urban Farming Collection

Gunseli Yalcinkaya | 29 November 2018  4 comments

IKEA has teamed up with British designer Tom Dixon to launch an urban farming project that encourages city-dwellers to grow food locally.

Dixon and the homeware brand are developing a series of gardening products and tools that can be used by individuals in cities to grow their own food and medicinal plants at home, available in IKEA stores globally in 2021.

Collaboration aims to encourage growing food at home

The project aims to motivate and enable a healthier and sustainable lifestyle for people in cities by making "homes the new farmland".

It also aims to build awareness of where food comes from and show the ways in which growing produce can be introduced into the home. "Food is a crucial part of everyday life, and IKEA wants to inspire and enable a healthier and more sustainable life," said IKEA.

Renders of the two planned levels at the Tom Dixon and IKEA RHS Chelsea Flower Show installation in May 2019

"If more greens were to be grown in homes, it would have a positive impact on the planet with fewer transports, lower water usage and less food waste."

Presentation at Chelsea Flower Show will demonstrate possibilities

An experimental model for growing plants in urban environments will be presented in May 2019 at the annual RHS Chelsea Flower Show in Chelsea in London.

It will feature a garden that is divided into two levels. The base garden will include a "horticultural laboratory" where hydroponic technology will be used to grow "hyper-natural" plants.

The raised level – described as a "botanical oasis" – will have a canopy-like ecosystem of trees and plants chosen for their medicinal, health and environmental properties.

The installation aims to explore the difference between natural and technology-driven approaches to farming. "Gardening is unique in its universal appeal and its transformational power," said Dixon.

"Although we are not traditional garden designers, we think we can demonstrate ways that anybody could make a small difference and broadcast not only the beauty but also the functional importance of horticulture through both traditional knowledge and the latest in growing innovation," he explained.

IKEA builds on previous urban gardening products

This is not the first time IKEA has branched into urban farming products. In 2016, the Swedish brand launched an indoor gardening product, intended to bring home hydroponics to a larger market.

"For IKEA, this collaboration is about challenging the way society looks at growing in general and addressing that it’s both possible and rewarding to have a place to grow your own plants in the city," said James Futcher, creative leader at IKEA Range and Supply.

"Food is key to humanity and design can support with better solutions. Because at the end of the day we need people to feel inspired to grow and harvest their own edibles within their homes and communities."

IKEA and Tom Dixon's previous project together was a bed that launched earlier this year with a distinctive furry cover and modular elements that allowed customers to modify the product for their own needs.

Farms in the City: How a Chinese Firm Uses Tech to Boost Yield

By Feng Yilei

2018-12-01 08:01 GMT+8

Updated 2018-12-01 09:06 GMT+8

An appetite for clean, fresh greens is growing with the burgeoning population in Chinese cities and towns. But feeding the rising demand is a challenge, partly because of the country's massive shift from being an agrarian to urban economy.

In the next 15 years, over 200 million Chinese are expected to move from rural areas into urban and suburban environments. This will greatly reduce the labor force on China's arable lands, which some say calls for a revolution in farming methods in order to create sustainable food production.

Beijing COFCO wisdom farm. /COFCO Photo

In suburban Beijing, a number of plant factories built with innovative techniques have incorporated farming into urban growth.

Dr. Wei Lingling, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said controlled environmental agriculture (CEA) aims to get the most output with the least resources at the highest efficiency. They use technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to precisely control production.

On a small plot of indoor space, plants are rooted on layered shelves vertically and bathe in light continuously during the day. Sensors linked to automatic irrigation and temperature control systems provide optimal conditions for growing.

Planned production means a higher yield resource-wise, space optimization, and labor savings. Dr. Wei believes CEA technologies will be more accurate in the future to better balance cultivation and the environment with less energy consumption.

“And in this closed production system, we circulate water and fertilizer to cut emissions, and improve sustainability of agriculture,” she added.

Plant factory using artificial light. /VCG Photo

While many believe this industrialized and intelligent way of farming will gradually replace extensive farming, which relies heavily on manual work and land usage for mass production, ordinary Chinese may have to accept difficulties in their daily lives during the process of moving on to the next stage.

For individual farmers that own the country's hundreds of millions of small plots, some have temporarily transferred their leaseholds to these high-tech farms and are adapting to their new roles.

Villager Wang Xiangang said that he got paid for both his land and working on the farm as an employee meaning he no longer worries about natural disasters and has time to learn about organic farming. He doesn't make as much as he used to, but it is stable.

And when conditions are ripe – will consumers be ready to pay a higher price for the products? Experts say the public will recognize the value of these crops as awareness of food safety and environmental stewardship rises. And once the demand rises, more players are expected to use tech-based food production, which will drive down prices.

Danone Among Backers of French Urban Farming Start-Up Agricool

Posted By: Contributor on: December 07, 2018

French urban agriculture start-up Agricool has secured $28 million in its latest funding round, including an investment from Danone’s investment arm, Danone Manifesto Ventures.

In the past three years, Agricool has developed a technology to grow local fruits and vegetables more productively and within small and controlled spaces, known as ‘Cooltainers’ (recycled shipping containers transformed into urban farms).

The Paris-based business said it is responding to reports which suggest that by 2030 20% of products consumed worldwide will come from urban farming – compared to 5% today.

Other investors in the round – which adds to $13 million previously raised – include Bpifrance Large Venture Fund, Antoine Arnault via Marbeuf Capital, Solomon Hykes and a dozen other backers.

With the new funding, Agricool aims to position itself as a key player in the vertical farming sector. The start-up hopes to multiply its production by 100 by 2021, in Paris first, then internationally, starting in Dubai, where a container has already been installed in The Sustainable City.

Agricool said that its challenge, and that of urban farming, is to help develop the production of food for a growing urban population which wants to eat quality produce, while limiting the ecological impact of its consumption.

In a statement, the start-up said: “Agricool strawberries are harvested when perfectly ripe and contain on average 20% more sugar and 30% more vitamin C than supermarket strawberries.

“The production technique makes for strawberries which require 90% less water to grow compared to traditional agriculture, with zero pesticides, and a reduced transportation distance reduced to only a few kilometers between the place of production and point of sale.”

Agricool co-founder and CEO Guillaume Fourdinier said: “We are very excited about the idea of supporting urban farming towards massive development, and it will soon no longer be a luxury to eat exceptional fruits and vegetables in the city.”

Jenny Quiner Brings Local Produce To Des Moines With DogPatch Urban Gardens

Jake Slobe  December 5, 2018

In the fall of 2015, Jenny Quiner launched Dogpatch Urban Gardens (DUG), the only for-profit farm inside Des Moines city limits.

Before starting the farm, Quiner was a high school science teacher for six years.

“It was a great gig, but in those six years I had three little boys and was just feeling compelled to do something else in my life,” said Quiner.

Just a few years later and Quiner has wrapped up her third successful season and Dogpatch Urban Gardens has become a well-known name within the Des Moines food scene.

The garden’s biggest source of revenue comes from its onsite farm stand, Quiner told Clay & Milk.  The DUG FarmStand is a seasonal onsite locally-sourced store that sells DUG products as well as other items from growers and producers throughout the state of Iowa. DUG also sells products to the Iowa Food Coop, local restaurants and through a subscription service called “Salad Subscription”.

In addition to selling food, the farm also contains an Air BnB called the “Urban FarmStay.”

Dogpatch Urban Gardens is located in the middle of Des Moines and has turned an acre of land to a garden and farm stand selling other local producers goods. (Photo courtesy of DogPatch Urban Gardens).

An expensive roadblock

Earlier this year, county officials told Quiner that the farm stand operates more like a commercial business and would need to make changes in order to follow commercial business requirements.

The unplanned costs and changes forced the Quiners appeal for help from supporters with a Kickstarter campaign.

“We raised around $27,000 and our goal was $15,000,” Quiner said. “We were very excited with how the community rallied and supported us.”

Looking ahead

Quiner recently took part in the Fall 2018 cohort of Venture School to help her better understand who her primary customers are.

“It’s been fabulous connecting with other entrepreneurs in the area. I’ve really enjoyed the program,” Quiner said. “It has really allowed me to better get to know my customers and helped me pinpoint who I need to target my marketing towards.”

Next season, Quiner plans to start holding events to the farm including farm-to-table dinners and wellness workshops.

“We’ve also just added a commercial kitchen space,” Quiner said. So next season we’re going to be focusing in on grab and go options like ready-to-eat salads and sandwiches that people can come and by at the farm stand.”

This Hidden U Of T Rooftop Farm Helps Feed the Hungry—and Could Impact How Cities Eat

By Kimberly Lyn

To feed Toronto, we must import more than 6000 tonnes of food every single day. As a result, more than 30 per cent of Toronto's environmental footprint is food-related—including the impact of shipping, pesticides and packaging. In fact, Toronto's food footprint affects the environment even more than its car traffic. And the reliance on imports also comes with a social cost: for those in poverty, fresh, organic produce can be hard to access.

But atop an engineering building at the University of Toronto, students are conducting a living experiment in doing food differently: one of the city's biggest and most innovative food-producing rooftop gardens.

For more than eight years, Sky Garden's student and alumni volunteer farmers have planted, watered, weeded, and harvested produce on the bright, windswept rooftop of U of T's Galbraith Building. Their yield clocks in at an impressive 500 pounds of fresh, organic produce a year, and they send more than half of it directly to nearby Scott Mission—so that people in need can receive hot meals made with organic, locally grown produce.

“The garden takes inanimate concrete and transforms it into something that’s growing things,” says Matt Stata, a PhD student in the department of ecology and evolutionary biology, who helps oversee the project.

“It’s an example of what's possible,” says Stata. “There are so many unused roof spaces in Toronto that could be producing food... and so many people who would love to garden, but don't have any space to do it. And the people at Scott Mission are ecstatic when we bring over bags and bags of fresh produce. There's a real need.”

That vision is shared by U of T's affinity partners and alumni, who help fund the Sky Garden project. When alumni use a U of T MBNA credit card, or sign up for insurance through Manulife or TD Insurance, these affinity partners contribute a portion of the proceeds to Sky Garden—as well as to other key U of T alumni and student initiatives that are making an impact on our community.

Sky Garden's unique containers

Sky Garden is catching on: its volunteers have been called on to help set up similar rooftop gardens for other Toronto buildings and residences.

Rooftop gardens are a compelling idea because they offer all the benefits of a conventional green roof—stormwater retention, heat reduction, and air quality improvement—but with the added benefits of producing food, building a stronger sense of community, and helping connect people to food, nature, and each other.

Of course, farming on a roof comes with its challenges. Sky Garden's volunteer farmers use special, lightweight semi-hydroponic containers (featuring only a thin layer of soil) instead of covering the whole roof in soil, to ensure the farm doesn't exceed the roof's weight limit—since older roofs like Galbraith's can only bear so much.

They've also learned to cultivate shorter plants, as tall plants such as sunflowers can be bowled over by the strong rooftop wind. "We're actually growing corn this year," Stata says, "but it's a dwarf variety."

Sky Garden volunteers, Cindy and Matt.

Plus, not all produce works out. "We can't seem to grow kale," Stata muses. "We don't get too many pests up here, but for some reason, aphids just go bonkers for our kale." 

But with every year that passes, the students have learned more and more about rooftop farming.

Give pumpkins and squash a few buckets to stretch out in, like they would in a real field.

Rip out plants as soon as they've stopped producing, and replace them with ones that are ready to produce—that way you use your containers more efficiently, and get a much bigger yield.

And don't even think about hand-watering and hand-fertilizing—it might work for a small garden, but it isn't viable for a farm of Sky Garden's size. Instead, the students installed an automated drip irrigation system, so each plant can suck up as much fertilized water as it needs, without drowning or drying out.

Sky Garden has also become a hub for other urban agricultural experiments. It's home to a year-round beekeeping operation, a solar-powered fruit dehydrator, and an array of unusual and heirloom produce—from ghost-white pumpkins to blue (yes, blue) tomatoes.

Sky Garden tomatoes. Photo by Jesse Milns

Student farmers are also trained in seed collection and preservation, and are encouraged to grow their own pet projects. In 2018, Sky Garden is hosting a student's struggling goji berry plant, testing out baby bok choy, and tackling their very first crop of mushrooms—grown in buckets of used coffee grounds, acquired "from a deal we struck with the local Second Cup," says Stata.

And the results have been mouth-watering. "There's a noticeable difference between our melons and grocery store melons," says Stata. "By letting our melons ripen on the vine, they're so much sweeter."

But the sweetest thing of all, according to Stata?

"Seeing how excited the students are to learn."

When you use U of T alumni financial services, you support Sky Garden too. Learn more »

Young, Hip Farmers: Coming To A City Near You

Date:December 3, 2018

Source:Purdue University

Summary:The population of American farmers is aging, but a study shows a new generation of farmers is flocking to cities with large populations, farmers markets and the purchasing power to support a market for niche goods.Share:     

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Farmers markets in larger cities are supporting a new, younger faction of American farmers.

Credit: Purdue University/Mark Simons

If you've been to your neighborhood farmers market or seen a small "local" section pop up in your grocery store, you may have noticed a trend: People want to know where their food is coming from, and the agricultural industry is responding. The number of farmers markets in the U.S. has skyrocketed in recent years, but with an aging population of farmers, who's supporting this growth?

Enter the new American farmer. It's a term used by Andrew Flachs, an environmental anthropologist at Purdue University, to describe a movement of younger people new to agricultural work who do it for different reasons than the conventional farmer. They may be motivated through higher education, personal politics, disenchantment with urban life or in search of an authentic rural identity, he says.

In a new paper in the journal Rural Sociology, Flachs identifies several hot spots where this movement is really taking shape: the West Coast, central Texas and Oklahoma, central Florida and the Great Lakes region.

"We're seeing these hot spots pop up in the peripheries of hip cities," Flachs said. "Some of these places might seem obvious, like the West Coast and the northern Midwest around Madison, the Twin Cities and Chicago. But we also see some things that aren't totally expected."

Among the unexpected trends he found, east Texas and the southern Midwest are becoming increasingly important for this kind of agriculture. Appalachia, which has historically been a hub, essentially disappeared from the map.

In collaboration with Matthew Abel, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Flachs built a model that counts how many traits associated with new American agrarianism appear in each county. With data from the USDA agricultural censuses from 1997 to 2012, they considered factors such as average sales per farm, number of certified organic farms, owners under age 34, number of farms selling directly to individuals, proximity to farmers markets and more.

The findings show that newer farmers appear to thrive on the outskirts of cities that provide high demand and purchasing power, a large population and healthy number of farmers markets.

The price of real estate is another important factor in determining where these markets can flourish. Rural developers have steadily increased farm real estate over the last few decades, which could deter newer farmers from settling down there. Concentrations of urban wealth drive up real estate costs in the city while simultaneously creating new niche markets, making space for younger farmers to exist between urban and rural landscapes.

Identifying where new and small farmers live and work will pave the way for further research on what's motivating this budding sector of the agricultural economy. New American farmers occupy an important intersection of niche marketing strategies, environmental politics and rural demographic change that could have a significant impact on food production and social life in agrarian landscapes, according to the paper.

Flachs points out that many new American farmers approach agriculture with hopes to embody a nostalgic past where food and environments were healthier, but others may be simply trying to make a living as farmers amid dissatisfaction with conventional agribusiness. Although it's easy to stereotype, it's unlikely that all new American farmers fit this description.

"Sometimes when we think about these farmers, we picture young people with liberal arts degrees looking for some kind of connection to the earth or wanting to work with their hands," Flachs said. "What we found is that that's probably not the most representative view of who these people actually are. I'm glad to have my stereotype broken up by the data."

Story Source:

Materials provided by Purdue University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Journal Reference:

1. Andrew Flachs, Matthew Abel. An Emerging Geography of the Agrarian Question: Spatial Analysis as a Tool for Identifying the New American Agrarianism. Rural Sociology, 2018; DOI: 10.1111/ruso.12250

Urban Farms are Becoming Budding Business Enterprises

Joe Jenkins, owner of Bow Tide Farms, harvests Arugula with Kate Lainhart at the farm in Richmond on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018.

By TAMMIE SMITH Richmond Times-Dispatch

• Nov 18, 2018

Urban farms cropping up all over Richmond are more than backyard gardens on steroids.

Joe Jenkins and his wife, Whitney Maier, were growing more organic vegetables in raised beds in their backyard in North Richmond than they could eat, so he started taking some to his job at a restaurant to give to co-workers.

The chef there said the arugula was better than what he was getting from vendors and that he wanted to buy it from Jenkins.

Jenkins and business partner Josh Dziegiel operate Bow Tide Farms, which grows and sells arugula, mixed greens and other produce to about half a dozen Richmond restaurants.

At Shalom Farms’ new Westwood urban farm in North Richmond, mostly volunteers work there, including those that recently helped farm manager Katharine Wilson harvest sweet potatoes — produce that went to food access initiatives such as a healthy corner store project, mobile markets and local food banks.

After the harvest, the fields became a classroom as Wilson talked to a group of elementary school kids about the farm and had them help pull up rows and rows of leftover sweet potato vines to go into a compost pile.

***

The urban farming phenomenon is creating agricultural entrepreneurs — agripreneurs — who are passionate about growing healthy, tasty food locally using methods that are sustainable and that minimize impact on the environment.

The farms are a mix of commercial enterprises and charitable operations.

“It’s similar to many small businesses. The profits don’t start rolling in when you put up your nameplate,” said Sally Schwitters, executive director of local urban farm pioneer Tricycle — Urban Ag Culture.

She has seen a shift from urban farms created as feel-good enterprises to those focused on customers and buyers.

Tricycle — Urban Ag Culture, a nonprofit that started its first urban farm more than a decade ago in Church Hill, has updated its programs accordingly.

The organization is about to graduate its second class of urban agriculture fellows who have spent a year learning crop growth and management and farm business management. The training program is offered in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Bon Secours Richmond Health System.

“We have courses on how to develop your business plan, how to get a loan, marketing and promotion of your business. We’ve seen that shift,” Schwitters said.

“A lot of this is customer demand where it has moved from this romantic notion to what consumers truly want. Our restaurants, our small grocers, our large grocers all want to be able to source more locally produced food. We as consumers are demanding that,” she said.

Some past fellows have gone on to start commercial urban farms such as Creighton Farm LLC and Hazel Witch Farm, Schwitters said. Operators of both also are working other jobs as they build their businesses, she said.

***

Jenkins and Dziegiel are just finishing their first growing season at Bow Tide Farms at the corner of Brook Road and Wilmington Avenue in North Richmond.

From the start, their plan was to sell to restaurants instead of trying to hit all the farmers markets. Both still work full-time jobs in hospitality. They are self-taught farmers, learning from other farmers, books and videos, and Dziegiel interned at a farm in Canada in summer 2017, Jenkins said.

“Our business plan was basically to go in and say both Josh and I have been in the restaurant industry. We know a lot of the chefs. We saw the product that was out there, and we felt like that we could do something better,” Jenkins said.

They took samples to local restaurants and pitched their products, including arugula and salad mixes, to chefs.

Their clients include the three Tazza Kitchen locations; Mama Zu; SB’s Lakeside Love Shack; Julep’s, where Jenkins works; and Edo’s Squid, where Dziegiel works.

“At this point, we are doing a little better than breaking even with a little less than half a growing season,” Jenkins said in an interview in October.

“We didn’t have water until after June. We didn’t have power until after mid-August,” he said.

They are leasing the land that had been used for softball. It’s been just the two of them and one other person hired to come in one day a week to help with harvests, Jenkins said.

He said they have spent about $15,000 getting the farm up and running. Having the water lines installed cost about $8,000.

They bought a piece of equipment called a paperpot transplanter, which sells for about $2,800, to speed up planting. Using the machine, they can put 264 small plants into the ground in 15 to 20 minutes, work that would take the two of them 90 minutes if done completely manually.

They raised some of the startup funds through a crowdfunding campaign. Contributors got membership in the farm’s Community Supported Agriculture organization.

They sell their arugula for about $10 a pound, Jenkins said. Heirloom tomatoes were priced higher than cherry tomatoes. During a typical week, they processed between 180 and 220 pounds of greens, he said.

“There is a number that you can go through that everyone has,” Jenkins said. “There is a kind of set price across the board in Richmond. You can say this is the average of what everyone is paying. That’s kind of where we priced our things out. We tried to look at it as one of those beds is usually worth between $400 and $500. So once it’s completed its cycle, we want to see that it’s made $400 or $500.”

On a recent morning, Dziegiel delivered an order of arugula that has been harvested, washed and dried the day before to The Big Kitchen, a new concept in Scott’s Addition in which fully prepared meals are made, kept chilled and then packaged in containers that allow for a pop into the microwave or oven once at home.

***

Shalom Farms, a nonprofit with volunteers providing most of the farm labor, limits to 10 percent the amount of its produce to be used to earn income, said executive director Dominic Barrett.

Last year, the organization’s primary farm in Powhatan County grew over 220,000 pounds of produce, food that was distributed through the organization’s food access programs.

The group’s new Westwood site began farm production on about half of the 5 acres available. It’s probably the area’s largest urban farm, though because of its size and use of tractors, Barrett said they don’t call it an urban farm.

“We just call it a farm. It’s not that it’s not an urban farm. We think people typically think of smaller scale, more attentive growing, often raised beds [as urban farms]. What we are doing there resembles more traditional rural agriculture in many ways but just placed in a city setting,” Barrett said.

***

At Virginia State University, urban agriculture expert Leonard Githinji said part of a 12-week certificate program in urban agriculture that VSU offers focuses on how to make urban farm enterprises successful.

Participants get the benefits of research-proven methods. One project underway there now is comparing growth of 14 varieties of sweet potatoes.

“You learn how to grow stuff in the most optimal way, but then you need to have a market,” said Githinji, an assistant professor and extension specialist in sustainable and urban agriculture.

He has seen some interest in indoor hydroponics systems that don’t use soil, but the higher initial investment can be a deterrent.

“With those, you can get produce fairly quickly, in a couple of months, while people who are growing in the ground it may take longer because of preparation and depending on the season,” he said.

Githinji also said the urban agriculture movement is more than a fad.

“In my opinion, it’s here to stay for a couple of reasons. There is a high demand for produce, and now there is also this movement of people wanting to consume locally grown produce. The more they understand the benefits of locally grown produce, they have the demand to buy food grown within their neighborhoods,” he said.

“There are also people out there who want to have a small business to serve other people,” Githinji said.

More than 60 people have gone through the certificate course that meets from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on consecutive Saturdays. The next session starts in May.

To finish the programs, participants have to complete 80 hours interning with community farms or co-ops in order to receive certification. So far, 23 have completed the requirements to be certified, said Cynthia Martin, education support assistant for the cooperative extension program at Virginia State.

Martin said she knows of at least four participants who have started farms. Others have talked about family land they would like to farm.

“Their dream is to go back,” Martin said. “The passion is there, but the land has been sitting there with nobody doing anything.”

***

Challenges to the growth of urban farms include land-use policies and infrastructure, said Duron Chavis, community engagement coordinator for Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. Chavis for years helped drive grass-roots efforts to establish community gardens in Richmond.

“The city has a great deal of vacant property, close to 1,000 or more vacant parcels that the city owns. The Maggie Walker Community Land Trust is working to identify parcels of land that cannot be turned into affordable housing that could be turned into urban ag enterprises,” said Chavis, who is on the board of the trust. Land toxicity can be an issue, as well.

“There are a lot of harsh chemicals that pollute urban land. That has to be mitigated before you can produce food,” Chavis said. “There have been conversations about indoor farms. None of them have gotten traction here in Richmond.”

***

Initiatives such as the Real Local RVA and businesses such as Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market and Little House Green Grocery are important to the survival of urban farms, experts say.

Real Local RVA’s members are small independent grocers, restaurants, farmers markets and others, and the organization emphasizes locally produced food. This year’s annual farm tour highlighted four Richmond-area urban farms — Tricycle Urban Ag, Bow Tide Farms, Community Food Collaborative and Lakeside’s Tiny Acre.

Little House Green Grocery on Bellevue Avenue in Richmond gets in produce almost daily from local farms, said store owner Erin Wright. It carries products from over 50 local vendors, including bakery products, prepared foods and home goods.

“There are so many reasons why urban farms are important,” Wright said. “The environmental impact. When we can buy directly from farms, we can reduce the amount of packaging and the amount of food miles that the food travels, making it more nutritious and more delicious. We can reduce waste because we are simply getting it fresher.”

Connections are made between consumers and producers who know each other, she added.

“We are able to talk directly to farmers and find out what is going on with them, what they are excited about and what their challenges are, and pass that along to the consumers as a real look at the impact of their purchasing power,” Wright said.

Farming In A Box Comes To Downtown Holyoke

By PAUL TUTHILL •  2018

WAMC Northeast Report

The two shipping containers converted to hydroponic farms sit on a lot on Race Street in Holyoke next to the HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute.

Francesca Mazzillio, head farm manager for Freight Farms, explains some of the container farm equipment. Freight Farms is a Massachusetts start-up company that converts old freight trailers to food production units.

The urban agriculture pilot project is funded for two years with $208.000 from MassDevelopment.

A new project in urban agriculture is launching this week in western Massachusetts.

Community farmers and college students will grow produce inside two shipping containers that have been outfitted with hydroponic farming technology and set up on a vacant lot in downtown Holyoke. It is a pilot project which, if successful, could help satisfy a demand for locally grown food year-round and create jobs.

The container farm project is a joint venture of the city of Holyoke, Holyoke Community College, and the grassroots urban agriculture organization Nuestras Raices. MassDevelopment provided $208,000 to pay for the project through the agency’s Transformative Development Initiative, which is intended to promote economic growth in the state’s Gateway Cities.

Lettuce and herbs will be grown to be sold to local stores and restaurants. Each of the 40-foot-long containers can grow as much produce in a year as an acre of farmland.

"We have local farms in Holyoke, but I think it is great to try this type of farming and bring the community into it as well," said  Alina Daveledzarova of Westfield , whohas been hired as the container farm manager.

The goal is to grow and sell enough product for the container farm to become self-supporting after two years, according to Insiyah Mohammad Bergeron, manager of the Holyoke Innovation District.

"So we are really excited, but we are treating it as a big experiment," said  Bergeron. "It is an emerging but very expensive technology, so we want accessiblity and equity to be a big part of the project."

Staffing at the container farm will be a mix of HCC students, who will receive course credits for their work, and community members who be paid as apprentices.  The staff will turn over about every three months.

Kate Maiolatesi, who heads the sustainable studies programs at HCC, said some of her students will be interns at the container farm.

"They are in a program learning about how to farm and this is an opportunity for them to see what more of an urban farm setting is," said Maiolatesi. " They also are looking for employment and there is growing interest in this kind of farming verus land farming, so we thought it would be a great program to be involved in."

For Nuestras Raices, which operates a 30-acre farm in Holyoke and a network of community gardens, the appeal of the container farm is to able to grow produce year round, says Hilda Roque, the organization’s executive director.

"This came as a blessing because we will be able to grow food during the winter time,"  said Roque.

The container farm is next to the new HCC MGM Culinary Arts Institute which opened earlier this year in a converted former mill building.