Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
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
US: MINNESOTA: North Market Installs Onsite Vertical Farm
Black-owned and operated by the nonprofit organization Pillsbury United Communities (PUC), the grocery store North Market has installed a hydroponic vertical container farm from Freight Farms onsite
Source: North Market
07.28.2020
By Emily Park
MINNEAPOLIS – Black-owned and operated by the nonprofit organization Pillsbury United Communities (PUC), the grocery store North Market has installed a hydroponic vertical container farm from Freight Farms onsite.
Built-in an upcycled shipping container and controlled by a data-driven IoT platform called farmhand, the 320-square-foot farm is located in the retailer’s parking lot.
Regardless of the season, it will provide the market’s community with fresh produce (all pesticide- and herbicide-free) year-round. Growing at commercial volume, the farm uses less than 5 gallons of water a day.
North Market will start by harvesting 11 flavorful crops: three varieties of mini compact romaine lettuces, green oakleaf, basil, Thai basil, rosemary, thyme, lemon balm, sage, and mint.
“At Pillsbury United Communities, our mission is to co-create enduring change toward a just society in which every person has personal, social, and economic power,” said Kim Pepper, chief engagement officer of PUC. “The closed-loop food ecosystem we have built around North Market is one of the ways we are working to realize this vision. Greens grown onsite in the Freight Farm are sold at North Market ensuring community access to fresh, affordable, local produce year-round. Produce that doesn’t sell is rescued, prepared, and served at our free community café."
Some of the added benefits of the onsite vertical farm include:
Elimination of food miles: the crops only travel steps from the parking lot to the store
Consistent reliability: store can produce its own line of crops for shoppers, with year-round consistency regardless of the weather or changing climate conditions in Minneapolis
Quality and freshness: by being grown hyper-locally (in this case, right onsite), produce stays fresh for far longer, reducing food waste for both the store and consumers
Cost reduction: in removing distribution costs from the equation, PUC is able to pass savings on to the consumer
Traceability & safety: the farm’s integrated IoT platform, farmhand, enables complete traceability of crops from seed to harvest
North Market also sells produce from the PUC’s other soil-based farms in the city. To get those crops to the store, bicycle couriers pick up freshly harvested food from PUC’s Southside gardens and deliver them to North Market to be sold. Completing the cycle, they also pick up surplus food and bring it back to the Southside to be distributed in community delivery meal programs. The remaining food is composted back at the Southside gardens.
VIDEO: Vertical Farming: The Only Way Is Up
Just like we've grown accustomed to living in compartments stacked directly on top and beside each other so too are lettuce and herbs
by Jasmine Reimer
Trends - /March 2, 2020
Just like we've grown accustomed to living in compartments stacked directly on top and beside each other so too are lettuce and herbs.
Agriculture is going vertical. Why? Because it saves water, increases efficiency, and provides us with fresh, local produce.
Vertical farming is the practice of producing food on upright surfaces. Instead of farming in a field, vertical farming grows plants stacked in layers, in structures like shipping containers or warehouses.
If this seems like an insignificant shift, unlikely to produce much effect, consider this: by 2050 the world's population is expected to grow by another 2 billion people.
Feeding everyone will be challenging. Vertical farming could be a solution.
What is vertical farming?
Assembled layer by layer under candy-colored lights, vertical farming has become an increasingly popular way for food producers to reduce costs related to space and energy consumption while increasing growth rates and nutrient values.
Of the many companies that are testing out this innovative farming method, Urban Crops uses a conveyor-like system to hold baby plants under LED ultraviolet lights. Their system is automated and relies on technology to program lighting and growing conditions specific to each species. And because they don't heat up, the bulbs can be placed closer to the leaves to encourage optimal light absorption.
In addition to not having to maintain an entire plot of land, Urban Crops boasts that vertical farming yields more crops per square meter than traditional farming or greenhouses. It also grows plants faster and can be used year-round. In theory, vertical farming can be practiced anywhere, which means that water-restricted locations can still harvest produce. Vertical farming uses up to 95% less water than traditional methods.
As Urban Crops' Chief Executive Maartin Vandecruys points out:
“Basically… every day is a summer's day without a cloud in the sky."
CES 2020: LG are launching exciting new indoor gardening technology.
While vertical farming could be the future of large-scale agriculture, companies like Urban Crops are also hoping that non-farming folk like yourself will be interested in investing in DIY versions. Because, while it makes sense to grow salad greens and edible flowers, trying to grow other foods like wheat for bread isn't yet an option: “At 10 cents a kilowatt-hour, the amount of energy it would take to produce wheat would [translate to] something like $11 for a loaf of bread," states, Vandecruys. Nonetheless, vertical farming could mean big changes in the way you think about “local" produce.
Vertical farming helps reduce the amount of questions for the consumer including its provenance, growing conditions and harvest date.
Data is useless unless you put it to work
Around the world, data-driven technologies are being used to keep indoor farming afloat. Detailed, real-time data collected via artificial intelligence, location services and IoT technology is used to analyze and produce better feeding models and optimal configurations, i.e. the concentration and scheduling of light and ratio of nutrients. Most recent is IoT company n.thing's Planty Cube, launched at this year's CES 2020.
Leo Kim, n.thing's CEO, came up with the idea for Planty Cube after creating an IoT-enabled smart pot called “Planty Square."
Planty Cube is a smart hydroponic vertical farm that relies on data from farming logs, which are fed back into a database called the “Cube Cloud" and analyzed with AI to help farmers determine optimal growing conditions. As the user adds more Planty Cubes to the vertical farm, this real-time, cloud-based system makes it easier for the grower to manage the overall farm, even remotely.
But even prior to sowing seeds, technology can help vertical farmers and consumers alike.
Automation, tracking and AI technology also opens up the potential to locate farms in urban, industrial, and even domestic spaces that can produce crops all year round.
This has the possibility to truly change the way cities source food. Most urban supermarkets are supplied from distributors around the world. Local indoor farms could decrease reliance on imports and reduce carbon emissions from transportation.
In the future, I hope to see supermarkets filled with vertical farms of their own.
The ups and downs of growing up
The vertical farming industry is booming. However, there are realities to consider before growing on a professional scale:
What are you growing and for whom?
Before you invest, do some market research. Get a sense of who your customers will be and your price point. Basically, if you can't sell it, you shouldn't grow it.
What is your distribution plan?
How will you physically get your produce to your customers? Find out who your end customers are and keep your farm as close to them as possible. Being local is an integral component to your success but this may present further challenges such as high cost of land, poor soil quality, and resource restrictions.
Will your building meet your needs?
Remember, indoor farming requires substantial amounts of power: lighting, pumps, HVAC, automation equipment, fans, computers etc. Not all buildings are equipped with the type of electricity you require. And if you're serious about getting into the vertical farming industry, you need to plan for future expansions.
Fortunately, vertical farming is being supported by more than just salad-starved individuals like me; location services and tracking technology are helping farmers retain high yields and prepare for the future.