Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
CEA Producers Join To Support Data-Driven USDA Project
AppHarvest (Ky.) and Revol Greens (Texas) are vanguards of modern greenhouse cultivation, while Elevate Farms (N.J.) and Fifth Season (Penn.) are pioneers in vertical farming
Four agricultural producers have joined with nonprofit Resource Innovation Institute (RII) under the banner of its USDA Conservation Innovation Grant-funded project: Data-Driven Market Transformation for Efficient, Sustainable Controlled Environment Agriculture.
AppHarvest (Ky.) and Revol Greens (Texas) are vanguards of modern greenhouse cultivation, while Elevate Farms (N.J.) and Fifth Season (Penn.) are pioneers in vertical farming. The producers will serve as initial pilot partners in support of the USDA-funded project that aims to transform the controlled environment agriculture (CEA) market sector toward more efficient production through coordinated research on energy and water practices spearheaded by RII and the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).
“We are thrilled to unite with these categories in the name of innovation and agricultural resilience,” said Derek Smith, Executive Director of RII. “Working together with these initial pilot partners and others to follow, we can unlock basic knowledge about performance metrics that will serve as beacons of efficiency and productivity for CEA producers globally.” In addition to geographic diversity, the producers represent an expanding global market growing a range of crops in indoor environments, from microgreens to tomatoes to berries.
Resource Innovation Institute’s PowerScore resource benchmarking platform enables CEA producers to confidentially validate their innovative practices. Using standardized key performance indicators, PowerScore helps producers gain powerful insights into their operational performance while protecting strategic business interests.
“RII is trusted throughout the supply chain to provide data analysis and peer-reviewed guidance to producers, vendors, governments and utilities. Our consortium of members and partners are committed to collaboratively study the most sustainable horticultural practices across climate zones, building types, technologies and techniques to guide decision-makers on how to advance agricultural resilience,” said RII’s Smith.
To ensure the highest level of PowerScore data protection, RII has engaged Management Science Associates (MSA), global companies in data security and analytics, with expertise in HIPAA compliance and benchmarking for associations across industries. Together with producers, investors, and supply chain partners, RII continues to develop protocols that clearly define access, use, and ownership of data.
“We believe that the only way to fundamentally build an industry starts with data capture and accountability,” said Travis Kanellos, Chief Strategy Officer, Elevate Farms. “Our approach from day one has been to drive yields and profitability through metrics and KPIs. We believe RII will validate our approach."
For more information:
Resource Innovation Center
www.resourceinnovation.org
23 June 2021
Indoor Ag Gets Social With New Farmbook Networking & Data Collection Initiative
“You don’t see a forum where people can get together who have small and medium-sized operations or who are thinking about investing in it. I get lots of calls from people asking for an hour of my time because they want to talk about the industry,” Farmbook’s Boston-based co-creator Peter Tasgal told AFN
September 28, 2020
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) has seen a renewed bout of interest recently, but there are plenty of pain points still plaguing the growing industry. A new non-profit initiative called The Farmbook Project is hoping to resolve some of those issues by providing indoor growers with more opportunities to connect while aggregating data to establish benchmarks.
“You don’t see a forum where people can get together who have small and medium-sized operations or who are thinking about investing in it. I get lots of calls from people asking for an hour of my time because they want to talk about the industry,” Farmbook’s Boston-based co-creator Peter Tasgal told AFN. His fellow co-creator is Albuquerque-based Xander Yang, who has been working in the vertical farming industry for the last five years.
What Tasgal noticed was, when he got these requests, people were always asking him the same questions. He realized that growers in the space were mostly isolated and likely hungering for a chance to connect with their CEA colleagues. Growers in the space have a long history of keeping information to themselves, according to Farmbook. And while there may be a few good reasons for holding this info close to the chest, a bit more sharing could help move the industry forward as a whole.
Aggregating data confidentially through the Farmbook platform can also help with tackling another problem many CEA operators face: a lack of business planning and coaching. Having a cohesive business plan can help attract more investors, according to the Farmbook team. Investors cannot predict whether they will meet their ROI needs if an operation doesn’t have a business plan addressing how it plans to succeed.
In the CEA space, startups have chosen a wide variety of routes to market, including direct sales through grocers, selling to restaurants, and wholesaling. Others sell equipment in the form of turnkey container farms.
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Considering that 75% of all retail tomato sales in the US come from greenhouse production, by Farmbook’s estimate, there should be plenty of data to sift through.
“We’ll certainly have to look at the data because […] we don’t want all the data to come from successful operators. That won’t be helpful,” Tasgal said. “We are looking to get information from a wide range of operators.”
Perhaps Farmbook’s biggest objective is to standardize some of the metrics used in CEA production, such as pounds of production per plant hole per annum. The initiative thinks the use of such standards would be valuable not only for existing producers, but also for prospective farmers trying to determine how to start their own operations. Investors assessing revenue forecasts and retail purchasing managers who need to know a potential supplier’s capacity could also benefit from standardized metrics.
“In the retail industry or in the car industry there is always lots of information available that people use to benchmark themselves or to figure out how to set up. Performance indicators,” Tasgal said. “I think people know that information in this space [but aren’t sharing it] and I think that’s hindering growth.”
Farmbook is still testing its platform, but the website is live and project members are working to grow the team to capture a wide range of industry views.
As indoor ag continues to grow and evolve, it’s finding ways to fit in with, or compete against, the existing food chain. There is a variety of opinions regarding the ultimate role that CEA will have to play in our future food system.
“I think it will never be a pure commodity. Just the cost structure of indoor farms necessarily requires that it has to be somewhat of a specialized product,” Tasgal said. “That’s not to mean small – just that you won’t ever be growing wheat, cotton, or large commodity grains indoors. But when 75% of eating tomatoes are grown indoors that is pretty amazing. It tells me that the tomato business is becoming a purely indoor market.”
Do you think the CEA industry needs more benchmarks? Let me know at lauren@agfunder.com
The Ultimate Farming Tool Is Data
The agricultural food production mechanisms and their tight dependency on nature have always left little room for operational agility. Now, thanks to Agritech, and more specifically, data, farmers can meet supply and demand efficiently, and reduce losses and uncertainty from plagues and bad weather
Data Is Shaking Up The Current Food Production Mechanisms
The agricultural food production mechanisms and their tight dependency on nature have always left little room for operational agility. Now, thanks to Agritech, and more specifically, data, farmers can meet supply and demand efficiently, and reduce losses and uncertainty from plagues and bad weather.
When we look at Agritech, there are broadly two ways in which startups are making farmers’ life easier: reengineering the products or optimizing the creation of the existing products. The first is more focused on R&D — what the Beyond Burger has been doing — and the latter is more focused on data processing and analytics.
By now, everyone is quite aware of the existence of food substitutes for meat and so on, thanks to the news coverage of the Beyond Burger lucrative IPO and its controversial nature — meatless meat, everyone! What people are not as aware of are data-intensive companies aiming at solving modern food supply problems in creative ways.
Farming is becoming data-intensive
Agritech software is allowing farmers to utilize data to boost their sales, predict the value of their crops before harvesting, and remove the uncertainty that plagues and lousy weather brings to plants; software puts the farmer in control. By gathering farming data, AI models allow farmers to understand the value and opportunities of their crops better.
Which are the companies that are empowering farmers all around? There’s a big chunk of them coming from Israel — a country characterized by their solvency when faced with agricultural adversities. One of the most notorious is Taranis, a four-year-old Tel Aviv based startup utilizing the data pulled from drones surveilling fields to predict and prevent crop diseases and pest losses. It can envision the health of the crops, detect insects and weeds early, growth problems, and many other actionable quandaries.
Also, coming from Israel, we got Prospera Technologies. The company pulls data from the farmer’s crops and also uses macroeconomic data pulled from the web. The software manipulates this data so that the farmer can visually track supply and demand balances, and in this way, plan ahead of the market. This solution enhances the sales team of farmer companies, with an outstanding 95% of accuracy. The company was founded in 2014 and has already raised a total of $22M after its recent Series B.
Guy Galonska, CTO and Co-Founder at Infarm (left) & Erez Galonska, CEO and Co-Founder at Infarm (right) — Picture originally posted at Freunde von Freunden
Startups are also tackling the adverse effects of transport of these short-lived products. Coming from Berlin, we got Infarm, an urban farming services company that develops farming tech in grocery stores, restaurants, and local distribution centers.
Infarm is developing smart farms in cities: vertical farms inside of supermarkets, restaurants, and so on, from where customers can get fresh vegetable produces. Each of these farms connects to the cloud allowing Infarms biologists, agronomists, and engineers to understand the growth and health of plants and use the data to continually adjust and improve the conditions under which the plants grow in real-time. The results are healthy and fresh grown plants that have removed the negative externalities of transport.
According to Infarm, given that 7 billion people will be living in urban centers by 2050, the ability to use the city landscape for vibrant, sustainable agriculture will be a fundamental step to ensuring sustainable cities and a sustainable future.
I spoke to the co-founders of Infarm, the Galonska brothers. Guy Galonska, CTO at Infarm, gave me his take on why data is a game-changer in the agricultural and food production space. “Data is providing an unbiased look into the inner workings of how crops grow, and it gives valuable insight into what can be done better.” As he puts it, infrastructure has been the leading enabler. “The combination of increased computing power & mobile connectivity have an immense potential to drive much-needed optimization across the entire supply chain.”
Software is now feeding the world.
— Guy Galonska, CTO & Co-Founder at Infarm
After raising a $100M Series B funding round this past June, led by Atomico, Infarm is now expanding globally, to bring smart and quality-efficient farming to a global scale. As Guy Galonska puts it, “Software is now feeding the world.”
What’s next
Some may argue that Agritech and Foodtech look more impressive on the food R&D-intensive side — it’s thrilling to envision new products that replace the traditional ones; it allows business processes to leap exponentially. Nevertheless, agricultural automatization and data analytics can have a positive impact by turning farming smart. Even though the advances may seem at first marginal, taking the uncertainty of climate change or plagues out of the equation and having a better knowledge of the state of their product is a big game-changer for farmers.
Data Analytics: The Newest Tool of Aquaponic Agriculture
Colleges across the country are looking for creative ways to give students hands-on, real-world experience using technology to solve problems. It makes sense: Proficiency in this area is one of the most in-demand skills in the workforce
The University of Connecticut taps Splunk to improve operations at a student-run farm.
Calvin Hennick is a freelance journalist who specializes in business and technology writing. He is a contributor to the CDW family of technology magazines.
Colleges across the country are looking for creative ways to give students hands-on, real-world experience using technology to solve problems. It makes sense: Proficiency in this area is one of the most in-demand skills in the workforce.
Jonathan Moore, academic director of the management information systems program at the University of Connecticut, developed a program that teaches data analytics and, in a unique twist, lets students hone their skills by helping fellow students.
Previously, Moore ran the school’s student IT help desk, working with undergraduates who provided technical support to students for campus technologies such as email, software, wireless connections and learning management systems.
Today, Moore’s students are using data analytics to support peers in another academic program at UConn. The initiative is illustrative of how far analytics use cases have come in just the past few years — and the ways in which vendors like Splunk are making their tools accessible and intuitive enough to be used not just by data scientists but also by learners still finding their footing in IT.
“It’s giving students relevant skills, moving the needle on curriculum and academia, and breaking down academic siloes,” Moore said in an interview with EdTech at Splunk’s recent .conf19 conference in Las Vegas.
UConn Business School Workshops Focus on Emerging Tech
Several years ago, Moore launched a program at the University of Connecticut School of Business called OPIM Innovate (the moniker refers to the school’s operations, information and decisions department). The program aims to give students experience with new, business-changing technologies, including augmented reality, 3D printing, the Internet of Things, microcontrollers and data analytics.
OPIM Innovate started as a series of workshops, where students came to nosh on free pizza while learning about topics in IT and business. Over time, the school began developing pilot — and then permanent — classes based on popular workshops.
That’s how UConn’s MIS students came to use data analytics to help support an aquaponics facility at the school. The aquaponics greenhouse is part of Spring Valley Student Farm, which sits 5 miles from the main campus and fosters student learning around environmental and sustainability issues. (It also grows organic produce for use in the school’s dining facilities.)
Hydroponics is the cultivation of plants in water, while aquaponics involves the rearing of aquatic animals in a hydroponic environment. The idea is that plants will use nitrogen-rich fish waste products as fertilizer. However, when the facility first opened, students didn’t see the positive agriculture outcomes they were expecting, and the farm turned to MIS students to bring data analytics to bear on the problem.
Ryan O’Connor, a Splunk engineer and adjunct faculty member at the school, designed a class project that used sensors and Splunk software to monitor conditions at the aquaponics facility. The program was supported by Splunk4Good, which donates millions of dollars each year in software licenses, training, support and education to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions around the world.
Connected Sensors and Analytics Software Track Farm Metrics
Over the summer, before the class started, Moore and O’Connor put the infrastructure in place to support analytics, expanding wireless connectivity at the farm and building a prototype system to track metrics. Then, once the class started, MIS students began collecting, monitoring and analyzing data from IoT sensors to provide real-time insights on metrics such as pH balance, water temperature, water quality and UV light.
The students quickly pinpointed simple problems affecting the facility’s success. For one, the greenhouse got colder at night than previously thought. Also, students were leaving the door open when they weren’t supposed to, which allowed animals to get in overnight and damage the plants.
O’Connor noted that Splunk allows students to crunch months’ worth of data in less than a second. But, perhaps just as important, the Splunk AR mobile tool lets students see real-time metrics on their smartphones.
“It’s great for instantaneous readings,” said O’Connor. In a typical aquaponics setup, he notes, students would have to take time to individually measure and record different metrics — using a variety of tools to measure, say, temperature and pH balance. “But if you have sensors already in there, and they’re sending the data to Splunk, that’s saving a lot of time.”
GUTER/GETTY IMAGES
"AGrowth AgTech Accelerator - 12 week programme"
The AGrowth Accelerator is a 12-week programme supporting innovative and scalable AgTech companies, from late seed through Series B stage. This programme focuses on delivering breakthrough innovations and technologies to impact the future of farming
The AGrowth accelerator programme is a 12-week programme commissioned by National Innovation Agency (NIA) and powered by Nest. Aimed at innovative and scalable AgTech startups, this accelerator programme supports startups and entrepreneurs from around the globe in delivering breakthrough innovations and technologies in AgTech to make an impact on the future of farming.
We are seeking AgTech companies that have established product-market fit and have
developed innovative solutions addressing the following areas:
Data transparency and analytics: data capture and analysis tools to maximise productivity
Automation & digitisation: technologies that can help reduce manual processes and increase efficiency
Logistics and supply chain visibility: platforms that create price transparency and visibility of logistic options and provide alternatives to incumbent solutions
New market identification and access: tools and platforms enabling farmers to access new buyers / markets
Urban agriculture: technologies to enable the creation of self-sustaining ecosystems in city environments, including but not limited to vertical and indoor farming
AGrowth Accelerator participants will be guided through their business growth and development with the help of business mentoring from NIA and Nest, as well as two leading corporates. It’s a great opportunity to establish a foothold in Thailand, or to expand your existing presence in the region through commercial partnerships.
The selected startups can expect a highly supportive and collaborative environment, with an opportunity to pitch their solutions. If chosen for the programme, startups will:
Be immersed in the innovation ecosystem in Thailand and establish a foothold to build a broader network in Asia as a foundation for future expansion
Be guided through a 12-week structured process working towards a potential PoC and possible commercial integration opportunities with two corporate sponsors
Gain exposure to business leaders and receive mentorship opportunities
Receive access to a network of investors as well as investment advice from Nest,
with the chance to pitch to investors at a demo day
Access customer insights regionally and internationally
Receive one round-trip flight as well as accommodations for the duration of the time
spent in Bangkok, Thailand
Applications close on August 11th, 2019
To learn more about the programme: http://bit.ly/32h2H5y
To apply: http://bit.ly/2NHobp8
Data Center Next To Tomato Greenhouse
BlockHeating Starts Pilot With Data Center For Supply of Residual Heat
A lot of trucks are coming and going all the time, but growers do not often see a data center coming by. Except for last week, because a data center has been placed with a grower in Venlo (Netherlands) to, after some preparations, provide heat for the tomatoes. It involves a data center in a container for a pilot of the start-up BlockHeating.
The set-up placed will contain a maximum of 60 kilowatt of IT, making this test container significantly smaller than the intended 200kW, according to Jeroen Burks of BlockHeating. "This does enable us to try some aspects in the field. The focus is on supplying heat to more than 10 hectares of tomatoes.
Heat directly in buffer tank
The heat is delivered to the grower via water. It is water of about sixty degrees Celsius delivered directly into the grower's buffer tank. This is less warm than residual heat from the industry, but it is more than enough to heat the greenhouses. It is important to limit the distance to the greenhouse, that is why there are flexible data centers.
Growers do not have to fear extra tubing or piping. Jeroen: "With minimal adjustments we realize a reduction in the energy use for the grower, and opportunities to make steps towards cultivation without the use of gas."
2019: first unit operational
After the pilot in Venlo, the intention is to realize a pilot with 200 kilowatt in a larger container. "The goal is to have the first unit, built by a partner specialized in building data centers in containers, operational in 2019.
For more information:
BlockHeating
www.blockheating.com
Jeroen Burks
jeroen@blockheating.com
+31 6 470 41000
Publication date: 5/9/2019
© HortiDaily.com
Greenhouse Co2 Measurements For Higher Productivity And Higher Quality
We have collected the essential facts for you to take into account when selecting an instrument or searching for the optimal instrument location.
Greenhouses are demanding environments for measurement devices. We have collected the essential facts for you to take into account when selecting an instrument or searching for the optimal instrument location.
The following topics are covered in the document:
The importance of CO2 measurement control in a greenhouse
CO2 for plant growth
Tips for selecting an instrument for a greenhouse
Tips for transmitter placement in the greenhouse
Fill in the form given in the link below to download the PDF document and learn about greenhouse CO2 measurements to optimize plant growth.
https://www.vaisala.com/en/lp/greenhouse-co2-measurements-higher-productivity-and-higher-quality?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=GreenhouseManagement&utm_campaign=&utm_content=CO2MonitoringInGreenhouses
Video: Vertical Farming: Growing Food In The Air And The Role of Big Data
Posted on 8 Mar 2019 by Nick Peters
The world’s food chain faces a growing crisis from climate change, population growth and the contamination of water and soil via intensive farming.
With insect populations, so vital to plant propagation and fertilisation, also under threat, the planet is heading for a crisis, one that cannot be solved by simply tweaking the existing, creaking system of agriculture. A new type of agriculture – vertical farming – has been developed that offers hope, and food, for the future. And it is all made possible by data and lean manufacturing.
Vertical farming is not a new concept. The theory that food can be grown in large quantities inside tall buildings has been around for decades. Only recently has it become possible at a price point that matches that of produce grown using traditional methods, and that is thanks to the same digital manufacturing technologies that are revolutionising our factories.
AeroFarms of Newark, New Jersey, is a pioneer of aeroponic farming with an ambition to set up vertical farms in towns and cities across the world to meet the growing ecological and human crisis of the next few decades. (Unlike hydroponics, where plant roots sit in a small container of water, aeroponics involves ‘misting’ roots with water and nutrients.)
Nick Peters, Editorial Director of The Manufacturer, discussed the project with CEO David Rosenberg:
The technologies that enabled David Rosenberg and AeroFarms to create the food chain of the future inside urban factories were provided by Dell EMC.
Nick Peters spoke to Nigel Moulton, Global CTO at Dell EMC, about AeroFarms and how successful businesses navigate their way on the digital journey:
This story appears in the March edition of The Manufacturer. Be sure to get your copy every month. Subscribe here!
Learn more about AeroFarms here and more about what Dell Technologies did for Aerofarms here
The Role of Sensors And Data Collection In A Successful Vertical Farm
It’s widely recognized that vertical farming has many advantages over traditional crop-growing methods. Simply put, despite relatively high setup and operational costs, the production per unit of growth area in vertical farms easily exceeds that in the most advanced greenhouses. But to consistently hit this level of production, you need to ensure growth conditions are continuously at their best. This is where sensors and data play a pivotal role, and why they’re ready to transform the future of vertical farming.
What data do you need to capture?
To use sensors and data effectively, you first need to know what kind of data is valuable and why. The most important values to measure are the following conditions for growth:
• Climate (characterized by a combination of air temperature, humidity levels, CO2 levels and air speed)
• Plant temperature
• The nutrient composition of the irrigation water
• The light level and spectrum (as perceived by the plants)
• Plant morphology, deficiencies and growth (phenotyping)
These conditions are significant for different reasons. The difference between plant temperature and air temperature, for example, can tell us whether the leaves’ stomata are open. If they aren’t, the plant cannot absorb CO2 and convert it into biomass. Likewise, we can continually measure the pH (acidity) and EC (electrical conductivity) of the irrigation water to ensure optimal plant growth. We are also cooperating with several companies that are developing sensors to measure other parameters of the irrigation water (such as f.e. iron or magnesium).
You might be surprised to see that we measure the light level and spectrum as perceived by the plants, presuming that we can deduce this already from the type and number of LED lighting modules installed. However, our research has found that the plants’ perceived light level can deviate up to as high as a factor of two from the light level installed depending on the optical properties of the materials used between and above the plants. This value largely depends on the degree to which the plants cover the growth area, and with such a high potential deviation rate, is one we need to measure and track to ensure optimal growth conditions.
The value of monitoring every stage of the growth process
Sensors enable us to monitor these growth conditions, recognize anomalies and identify problems as early as possible. By detecting problems at an early stage, we can respond pro-actively instead of reactively. This holds especially true for system-related problems – such as the temperature deviating from an intended setpoint – which can be rectified almost immediately.
In addition to measuring growth conditions, measuring growth results also provides valuable data – using parameters such as plant size, height, weight and color. We can use cameras to capture images of the plants in the growth layer, for example, following growth development over time and gauging whether growth meets expectations or not by comparing it to data captured in previous growth cycles under similar conditions. Like sensors, cameras can also help to prevent problems early by enabling the detection of early-stage growth deficiencies (such as tip-burn) and diseases.
How our sensor and data platform can help
Our sensor platform allows us to measure the conditions most important for plant growth. These conditions include climate parameters and irrigation parameters (including water supplied/drained in addition to pH and EC). At the GrowWise Center in Eindhoven’s High Tech Campus (HTC), we collect about 1,600 unique setpoint and sensor readings every ten minutes from our eight climate cells – valuable ongoing research that helps us to continuously build on our knowledge base and improve the solutions we can offer.
The sensors can be placed anywhere within a growth layer and wirelessly communicate the data they gather to the system backend. Cloud applications then retrieve this data and visualize the information that is most relevant and useful to plant specialists and growers. The development of the sensor platform is part of Horizon 2020 Internet of Food (H2020 IoF), a European Commission (EC) innovation project, in which we are closely collaborating with Staay Food Group.
The future of vertical farming
The benefits of modern sensor technology and data science are already manifold, but technological advancements in areas such as AI promise to be truly revolutionary. Signify is currently researching AI-based algorithms that can train models to couple realized growth conditions with realized growth results, for example, in a process known as ‘supervised learning’. This will ultimately enable us to predict the precise growth conditions to achieve optimal growth – and meet the most specific grower needs. AI techniques like machine learning can also be used to analyze images of plants’ growth to immediately detect any unexpected deviations or growth deficiencies.
Right now, our sensor and data platform combined with cloud applications adds considerable value for our plant specialists and customers – from monitoring the growth process and detecting problems as early as possible to accelerating the development of new optimized growth recipes. It’s clear that sensors and the data they capture play a pivotal role in the continuing evolution of vertical farms.
Signify and our customers will not just be a part of this revolution – we will drive it.
Why Vertical Farming Won’t Grow Without More Data
January 3, 2019
Image courtesy of Princeton University
Vertical farming got a lot of attention at the very end of 2018, from Bowery’s $90 million funding round to news of major corporations starting their own farms.
But amid all those numbers and names, one vital piece of information was (and is) missing: We don’t actually know how well the vertical farming market as a whole is doing — if it’s on track to reach its projected $13 billion marketshare by 2024, and if the concept is even as promising a food source as the headlines would have you believe.
That’s where universities come in to play — Princeton University, to be exact. The Princeton Vertical Farming Project (PVFP) researches what the most optimal growing conditions are for indoor farming and how to produce the best crop yield while using the fewest amount of resources (e.g., water, electricity). Led by Paul P.G. Gauthier, an associate research scholar in plant physiology and environmental plant metabolism, PVFP also wants to provide a model for other initiatives and companies by releasing data on their experiments about what works in vertical farming, and what doesn’t.
“I just wanted to study and provide data,” Gauthier said in a phone interview. “Yes, we’re putting [farms] indoors. We never talk about where the waste water is going, how we get the water. Is it really worth it?”
If you’re a startup operating under the pressure of turning a profit, that’s a scary question. However, Gauthier and his PVFP team are free of that burden, so they can afford to ask questions and conduct more experiments: whether that’s trying to grow wheat or questioning the very value of, say, hydroponics, the current darling of the vertical farming startup scene. “It seems that hydroponic would be more efficient, but that’s never really been proven that that’s true,” says Gauthier. The industry as a whole tends to claim things that aren’t, he says, necessarily backed up by data.
The answer, as he sees it, is open-source vertical farming. That is, turning current data about vertical farming into a framework other projects and startups can use to guide their own efforts in the space. Gauthier would like to see PVFP provide an open-source model for vertical farming so the industry can start to answer some of those tough questions and gain a better understanding of the future.
Tied to that ideal is also the need for data to tell us about the not-so-successful stories. For every AeroFarms out there, there are others who go under for various reasons: operational costs, failure to break even, etc. We know very little, for example, about why Chicago-based startup FarmedHere shuttered in 2017. But the answer could help other vertical farming companies operate more successfully.
Gauthier agrees: “A lot of the small companies have something to tell, and we should hear their story.”
He’s quick to point out, though, that even with more robust data to learn from, vertical farming shouldn’t be treated as a savior come to end world hunger. “There’s really a lot of possibility and a lot of strategy, but it’s important to put everything into a context,” he says. Right now, leafy greens and cannabis are the most successful crops grown in vertical farms; neither make for a meal by themselves, particularly when you look at them in the context of food-insecure populations who need higher-calorie food as fuel.
That said, Gauthier does believe there’s a place in our agricultural future for vertical farming. “It will save us space,” he explains. “And eventually in the future, some of the space we’re using for [traditional] agriculture we can restore to forestry and improve biodiversity.” And initiatives like PVFP can also help train a new generation of labor to understand the science and process behind caring for plants, especially in this indoor context.
Right now, PVFP is working towards realizing that open-source model mentioned above, though no data is currently available publicly as of yet. Currently, the project fuels student theses at Princeton, and the greens produced by their experiments are making their way around campus eating establishments, most notably at the Terrance F. Club, one of Princeton’s dining clubs. PVFP would like to eventually supply all of the school’s dining outposts with vertically farmed greens.
There remains a lot of debate around the merits of vertical farming. I could write a 95-page opus on the complexities of the space, and how it’s neither a worrying distraction nor the robot-manned future of indoor agriculture, and instead lies somewhere in between those two extremes. But I don’t have to: research initiatives like PVFP — not to mention a growing number of others, including University of Arizona and Cornell University — are already delving deep into those complexities as they harness data that gets to the heart of vertical farming’s real value.
Building The Digital Cooperative For Indoor Agriculture
Building The Digital Cooperative For Indoor Agriculture
Agricultural cooperatives exist to help farmers get access to cheaper services and equipment by pooling their resources and needs. Instead of purchasing an expensive piece of equipment to use seasonally, I can work with the three other farms in the area to share and pay less as a result. Do you need a truck to make deliveries? What if the same three neighboring farms also need access to a delivery vehicle? What if you could fit all four loads in one truck and you can, again, decrease the cost to all three by pooling together? This is the idea of a cooperative.
Greenhouses and vertical farms haven’t had access to the agriculture cooperative structure. Until now.
The Agrilyst Platform is a digital cooperative for greenhouses and vertical farms. Using Agrilyst, growers manage their operations and bring intelligence to their workflow.
This gives us a unique picture of what’s going on in the operations on an aggregate basis. For example, we know that growers are paying about 20% more than they should be for various inputs. They do this because they buy through distributors, order when they need product rushed, or buy from far away. There’s also a lack of transparency in pricing which puts the burden of negotiation on the grower. We want to break this model.
We recently announced a partnership with Smithers-Oasis, a worldwide leader in providing solutions throughout the plant and flower supply chain from propagation to consumer. The partnership allows us to connect growers directly to the supplier and automate their inventory purchasing. This saves growers tens of thousands of dollars every year.
We’re committed to finding every point in the supply chain where we can save or earn growers money based on the insights we can gather. This includes partnerships with sensor companies, lighting manufacturers, seed companies, nutrient companies, data companies, retailers, investors, banks, governments, and more. We’ve chosen to build a true platform and are excited to partner with others in this endeavor.
This is just the beginning. We can’t wait to show you what’s next.
If you’re a supplier of products or data to the indoor agriculture industry and want to be part of the Agrilyst Platform, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out at: akopf@agrilyst.com.
Check out more about Agrilyst at www.agrilyst.com.
Why Data Is An Essential Nutrient For Aerofarms Crops
Why Data Is An Essential Nutrient For Aerofarms Crops
Thursday, May 10, 2018
AeroFarms
An AeroFarms growing facility in Newark, New Jersey.
Urban agriculture pioneer Aerofarms eschews pesticides and herbicides. It gets away with using considerably less water than traditional growers of the leafy greens in which it specializes — it squeezes out almost 95 percent of what’s traditionally used. But there’s one ingredient it can’t go without data.
That imperative drove the well-backed startup’s partnership with information technology giant Dell. Two big projects are underway there, within the 70,000-square-foot facility that houses Aerofarms’ ninth indoor farming operation in Newark, New Jersey.
The first initiative uses sensors to track information at virtually every step of the growing process — from seeding to germination to growing to harvesting and packaging — and send it wirelessly to servers where it is closely analyzed. Aerofarms uses that information to improve taste, texture, color, yield and nutrition metrics for its crops, according to a case study published by the two companies.
The second project employs special cameras to track the spectral conditions of the grow trays, and of the lighting technologies crucial for nurturing arugula, kale and mustard greens — products that Aerofarms sells to local supermarkets under the Dream Greens brand. (It nurtures 400 plant varieties.) If something unusual is detected, an alert is sent to a ruggedized tablet computer. The images are also collected and analyzed
How we organize and manage that data, it’s incredibly important.
"We have this fully connected farm that is ever becoming even more connected," Aerofarms co-founder CEO David Rosenberg told me Tuesday during the Techonomy conference in New York. "That enables us to both manage the farm as well as take information from the farm and send it to the right people to make the most of that data."
Aerofarms relies heavily on real-time information for food safety and operational processes. It can produce a crop in just 15 days: It shrank that one day using its information metrics, but the data is also used to influence taste and texture.
"How we organize and manage that data, it’s incredibly important," he said. "When you have that as your lens, in looking at a business, you see problems in different ways and solutions come and get prioritized in different ways. That’s OK."
That information will be critical for automating vertical farming processes to the point where they can be commercialized more "meaningfully." One reason Aerofarms dismantled its new facility’s predecessor was that it didn’t have the scale to be automated effectively, Rosenberg said.
Often touted as the world’s largest vertical farming operation, Aerofarms employs about 130 people, including 30 formerly incarcerated individuals. The company closed a $40 million Series D funding round in October led by Meraas Holdings (from Dubai), ADM Capital (London) and Alliance Bernstein (New York). Furniture giant Ikea was also an investor in that round. There is a "strategic" element to that relationship, but Rosenberg declined to elaborate.
So far, Aerofarms has raised more than $100 million. It is far from the only company focused on urban farming technologies — even as Rosenberg was chatting with me at the conference in Times Square, hydroponic startup Freight Farms was offering tours of its own approach downtown in the Soho district. The Brooklyn, New York-based company grows vegetables in converted shipping containers.
Since 2013, roughly $2 billion has been invested in agricultural technology (aka agtech) across more than 700 deals, estimated Zoe Leavitt, senior retail analyst at CB Insights, who moderated a panel about the future of food during the Techonomy conference. The investments are coalescing around three primary areas, she suggested.
- Those that promise to improve the nutritional value and sustainability of food we eat: This would include lab-grown meat ventures such as Memphis Meats (Tyson and Cargill are both investors), those focused on seafood (Finless Foods) and even those tackling pet food (Wild Earth and Bond Pet). China has even negotiated a $300 million trade deal with Israel centered on research in this area.
- Those that rethink the growing and harvesting process: This includes robots such as the technology that Abundant Robotics is developing for apple picking; predictive agronomics information such as the data on climate-related agricultural conditions being amassed by aWhere; or one of many irrigation management systems that are cropping up. There are even robotic bees flying around in labs, as a recent patent filing by Walmart suggests. Actually, scientists at Harvard have been pollinating this idea since 2013.
- Those that focus on more efficient distribution methods: One of the biggest concerns here is addressing food waste, and one example mentioned by Leavitt is Apeel Sciences, which is working on an organic coating intended to help reduce produce spoilage.
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