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Agrify Enters Into Multi-Year Vertical Farming Research And Development Partnership With Curaleaf
Agrify Corporation (NasdaqCM:AGFY) (“Agrify” or the “Company”), a developer of highly advanced and proprietary precision hardware and software cultivation solutions for the indoor agriculture marketplace, today announced that it has signed a definitive Collaboration Agreement (“the Agreement”) forming a long-term research and development (“R&D”) partnership with Curaleaf Holdings, Inc
Partnership To Study Impact
of Cultivation Environment on
Plant Health And Harvest Yields
July 06, 2021
BILLERICA, Mass
Agrify Corporation (NasdaqCM:AGFY) (“Agrify” or the “Company”), a developer of highly advanced and proprietary precision hardware and software cultivation solutions for the indoor agriculture marketplace, today announced that it has signed a definitive Collaboration Agreement (“the Agreement”) forming a long-term research and development (“R&D”) partnership with Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (“Curaleaf”). Curaleaf is one of the largest multi-state operators (“MSOs”) in the United States and the largest vertically integrated cannabis company in Europe as Curaleaf International.
The research will be focused on evaluating the impact of certain environmental conditions created and controlled by Agrify’s Vertical Farming Units (“VFUs”) and Agrify Insights™ software platform on harvest yields, plant terpene profiles, and flavonoid concentrations. It will also explore and analyze techniques to enhance the aesthetic appeal, aroma, and overall chemical profile of cannabis flower. In addition, the joint research team plans to study the effect of regulated environments on the overall health and longevity of cannabis plants, including research on the maturation of the chemical profile of the plants over their lifecycle.
“We are thrilled to announce our first MSO collaboration and honored to partner with Curaleaf to advance this important research,” said Raymond Chang, Chief Executive Officer of Agrify. “Curaleaf is a cannabis industry leader, and our shared research will demonstrate the critical importance that an optimally controlled environment can play on the cultivator's ability to consistently produce high-quality flower. I am proud to showcase our cutting-edge indoor vertical farming grow cultivation technology and assist Curaleaf in growing the high-quality, consistent cannabis they are known for in the most cost-effective manner possible.”
“Since our inception, we have been committed to providing our customers with premier and innovative cannabis products and experiences, with a relentless drive for quality,” said Joseph Bayern, Chief Executive Officer of Curaleaf. “The cultivation environment plays a critical role in the plant’s chemical composition, and we believe this research will help to further increase understanding of the conditions required to optimize a plant's genetic potential.”
Under the terms of the Agreement, Agrify will supply its VFUs and provide use of the Company’s Agrify Insights™ software platform for a period of three years at Curaleaf's primary R&D facility located in Massachusetts, with an option to extend another three years. The collaboration combines Agrify’s technology and expertise in creating optimized cultivation environments with Agrify Insights™-based data and Curaleaf’s expertise in cultivation and production of quality cannabis products. All test data collected by Agrify Insights™ will be jointly owned.
About Curaleaf Holdings, Inc.
Curaleaf Holdings, Inc. (CSE: CURA) (OTCQX: CURLF) ("Curaleaf") is a leading international provider of consumer products in cannabis with a mission to improve lives by providing clarity around cannabis and confidence around consumption. As a high-growth cannabis company known for quality, expertise and reliability, the company and its brands, including Curaleaf and Select, provide industry-leading service, product selection and accessibility across the medical and adult-use markets. In the United States, Curaleaf currently operates in 23 states with 107 dispensaries, 22 cultivation sites and over 30 processing sites, and employs over 5,000 team members. Curaleaf International is the largest vertically integrated cannabis company in Europe with a unique supply and distribution network throughout the European market, bringing together pioneering science and research with cutting-edge cultivation, extraction and production. Curaleaf is listed on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol CURA and trades on the OTCQX market under the symbol CURLF. For more information, please visit https://ir.curaleaf.com.
About Agrify (NasdaqCM:AGFY)
Agrify is a developer of premium grow solutions for the indoor agriculture marketplace. The Company uses data, science, and technology to empower its customers to be more efficient, more productive, and more intelligent about how they run their businesses. Agrify’s highly advanced and proprietary hardware and software solutions have been designed to help its customers achieve the highest quality, consistency, and yield, all at the lowest possible cost. For more information, please visit Agrify’s website at www.agrify.com.
Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 concerning Agrify and other matters. All statements contained in this press release that do not relate to matters of historical fact should be considered forward-looking statements, including, without limitation, statements regarding the research to be performed under the Agreement. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terms such as "may," "will," "should," "expects," "plans," "anticipates," "could," "intends," "targets," "projects," "contemplates," "believes," "estimates," "predicts," "potential" or "continue" or the negative of these terms or other similar expressions. The forward-looking statements in this press release are only predictions. We have based these forward-looking statements largely on our current expectations and projections about future events that we believe may affect our business, financial condition and results of operations. Forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other important factors that may cause our actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. You should carefully consider the risks and uncertainties that affect our business, including those described in our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”), including under the caption “Risk Factors” in our Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020 with the SEC, which can be obtained on the SEC website at www.sec.gov. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date of this communication. Except as required by applicable law, we do not plan to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of any new information, future events or otherwise. You are advised, however, to consult any further disclosures we make on related subjects in our public announcements and filings with the SEC.
Agrify
Niv Krikov
Chief Financial Officer
niv.krikov@agrify.com
(617) 896-5240
Investor Relations
Rob Kelly
ir@mattio.com
(416) 992-4539
Media Contact
Renee Cotsis
renee@mattio.com
Hydroponic Greenhouse Project To Bring Locals Food And Jobs
A new greenhouse facility will come to Torrington, CT - in addition to providing fresh, local, pesticide-free produce to residents of New England, it will also offer something else: economic opportunities to disadvantaged citizens
From left to right: Bill Rybczyk, Director of Research, Development, and Planning at New Opportunities; Joe Swartz, AmHydro; Jon Jensen, of The Corporate Advisory, Co, LLC.
A new greenhouse facility will come to Torrington, CT - in addition to providing fresh, local, pesticide-free produce to residents of New England, it will also offer something else: economic opportunities to disadvantaged citizens.
New Opportunities is a community action agency that serves Waterbury, Meriden, Torrington and 27 surrounding Connecticut towns, offering a variety of social service programs designed to eliminate poverty and assist people in need. In accordance with the mission of New Opportunities, the Agency aims to increase the self-sufficiency of its customers and support their move out of poverty toward a more middle-class lifestyle. As part of their Food 4 Thought initiative, New Opportunities is planning to build three hydroponic greenhouses in Torrington.
Years in the making
The decision to build the greenhouses didn't happen overnight. New Opportunities has been working on the development of a Controlled Environment Agriculture production facility for over three years. A business team working with the New Opportunities Foundation spent over a year evaluating controlled environment agriculture technologies and providers. After an extensive search and several interview meetings, New Opportunities chose AmHydro as the best and most experienced team to fit their needs, Joe Swartz, Vice President with AmHydro, tells us.
Food and jobs for locals
The goal of this initial project is to not only generate revenue for the foundation but also provide local residents and regional grocery chains such as Whole Foods, Stop and Shop and Big Y pesticide-free lettuce and leafy greens, living wage “green jobs” to local residents and sound economic opportunities for disadvantaged residents in the program. To achieve this goal, AmHydro has also partnered with Atlas Greenhouse, ATOM Controls, and Borghesi Builders to complete this project.
For more information:
AmHydro
1 (800) 458-6543
info@amhydro.com
amhydro.com
'Superfarm' By Studio NAB Proposes A Vertical Farm Concept To Combat Land Shortage
in response to the growing global population, studio NAB, has developed the ‘superfarm‘ concept as an alternative to traditional farming methods. as the name suggests, the project creates a building that focuses on the production of foods with a high nutritional value that can be consumed in addition to a healthy diet. the ‘superfarm’ also strives to recreate an ecosystem within an urban environment. seaweed culture, beekeeping, insect farming, aquaponics and also various greenhouse cultivations and outdoor cultures are included in the scheme by the architect.
view of the project from a dock | all images courtesy of studio NAB
As a conceptual project, studio NAB‘s design has been imagined in the heart of a city on a river development in an effort to respond to scarcity of land. the 6 storey proposal is designed to occupy a small 12m by 12m surface, with a height of 34m. each level of the ‘superfarm’ is developed to increase in area as you ascend, therefore gaining the maximum floor area with minimum impact on the site. each floor will house different functions, with the top floor comprising of a greenhouse with beehives and planting spaces. on the roof, solar panels and wind turbines provide energy to power the building.
view from the access footbridge
in addition to producing a wide variety of highly nutritious foods, the ‘superfarm’ also aims to reduce travel distances of food and therefore restore the link between producers and consumers. inhabitants will also gain easier access to these products by coming directly to the farm. accessible from the footbridge, a direct sales area has been imagined as well as a storage area for dry goods and cold rooms for perishable goods.
view from the platform of the production of seaweed
studio NAB’s concept also aspires to combat unemployment and revive the local economy on a neighborhood scale. the scheme also aims to create a collective awareness of the inhabitants and local partners around a common project of innovative and healthy urban agriculture. thanks to the installation of wind turbines and solar panels, several kW/h can be produced daily to supply the heat production systems and to allow the ventilation and lighting of indoor production areas. therefore, the building will produce it’s own power to operate and be completely energy self-sufficient.
view of the production space in direct connection with the greenhouse
view of the greenhouse, on the roof, solar panels and wind turbines power the building
section through the building showing the functions of the farm and details of the food produced by floors
level 6 greenhouse
level 5 aquaphonics
level 4 algae culture
level 3 insect breeding
level 2 platform
level 1 offices
ground level
project info:
project name: ‘superfarm’
project status: concept
architect: studio NAB
designboom has received this project from our ‘DIY submissions‘ feature, where we welcome our readers to submit their own work for publication. see more project submissions from our readers here.
edited by: lynne myers | designboom
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Calgary’s Indoor Urban Farms Breaking Down Barriers, Eye Expansion of Local Food Production
Growers at both NuLeaf farms and Deepwater farms say there’s still hurdles to overcome for Calgary to ramp up the harvest.
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.
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.
On the Heels of Digital Sales Boost, Kroger Launches First-Ever Unmanned Delivery Service
Since August, the companies have operated a self-driving grocery delivery service in Scottsdale, AZ, with an autonomous Prius fleet accompanied by vehicle operators.
Nuro and The Kroger Co. announced the launch of the first-ever unmanned delivery service available to the general public.
Since August, the companies have operated a self-driving grocery delivery service in Scottsdale, AZ, with an autonomous Prius fleet accompanied by vehicle operators. The autonomous vehicles have completed nearly one thousand deliveries to the general public.
With this launch, the fleet is expanding to include Nuro's custom unmanned vehicle known as the R1. The R1 travels on public roads and has no driver, no passengers and only transports goods. Nuro has been developing the R1 since 2016, and announced its partnership with Kroger, America's largest supermarket retailer, in June.
"Nuro envisions a world without errands, where everything is on-demand and can be delivered affordably. Operating a delivery service using our custom unmanned vehicles is an important first step toward that goal," explained Nuro President and co-founder Dave Ferguson.
"Kroger customers are looking for new, convenient ways to feed their families and purchase the products they need quickly through services like pickup and delivery," said Yael Cosset, Kroger's chief digital officer. "Our autonomous delivery pilot with Nuro over the past few months continues to prove the benefit of the flexible and reliable technology. Through this exciting and innovative partnership, we are delivering a great customer experience and advancing Kroger's commitment to redefine the grocery experience by creating an ecosystem that offers our customers anything, anytime, and anywhere."
Kroger experienced 60 percent digital sales growth in the third quarter, and its seamless coverage area now reaches more than 90 percent of customer households.
Here’s How America Uses Its Land
What can be harder to decipher is how Americans use their land to create wealth.
There are many statistical measures that show how productive the U.S. is. Its economy is the largest in the world and grew at a rate of 4.1 percent last quarter, its fastest pace since 2014. The unemployment rate is near the lowest mark in a half century.
What can be harder to decipher is how Americans use their land to create wealth. The 48 contiguous states alone are a 1.9 billion-acre jigsaw puzzle of cities, farms, forests and pastures that Americans use to feed themselves, power their economy and extract value for business and pleasure.
Methodology Land use classifications are based on data published in 2017 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service in a report called the Major Uses of Land in the United States (MLU). Data from the report provide total land-use acreage estimates for each state across six broad categories. Those totals are displayed per 250,000 acres.
Data from Alaska and Hawaii are excluded from the analysis. Special-use land and forestland make up the biggest land types in those states.
Bloomberg referenced the USDA data against estimates from the National Land Cover Database to generally locate these categories within each state.
Miscellaneous uses are defined as wetlands, rural residential lands, non-harvestable forests, desert, tundra and barren land of low economic value. Unlike all other land-use categories in the USDA data, a component breakdown for miscellaneous uses by state is not provided in the MLU.
To locate miscellaneous areas, Bloomberg referred to the National Land Cover Database to generally calculate and locate acreage by miscellaneous uses. “Rural residential lands” in the USDA data make up most of the 69 million-acre miscellaneous-use category. This category does not equally correlate to data in the National Land Cover Database, so Bloomberg subtracted the total of the other miscellaneous components to arrive at a rough estimate of “rural residential lands”—about 50 million acres.
Total pasture/range areas are proportionally divided by animal group based on National Agricultural Statistics Service livestock counts.
Data showing the 100 largest landowning families are based on descriptions of acreage and land type in The Land Reportmagazine. Representative amounts of acreage were subtracted from private timber and cropland/range to show this category, which is not a part of the USDA data.
Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service: Major Uses of Land in the United States, 2012; U.S. Department of the Interior, National Land Cover Database, 2011; U.S. Census Bureau; State governments; stateparks.org; American Farmland Trust; Golf Course Superintendents Association of America; USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service; USDA Census of Agriculture; U.S. Bureau of Land Management; U.S. Forest Service; Weyerhaeuser Co.; The Land Report magazine
10 Numbers That Show How Much Farmland We’re Losing to Development
10 Numbers That Show How Much Farmland We’re Losing to Development
By Dan Nosowitz on May 22, 2018
This image, courtesy of American Farmland Trust, shows the conversion of agricultural land to urban and low-density residential development between 1992 and 2012.
AFT, Farms Under Threat
American Farmland Trust, which since 1980 has been attempting to save agricultural land in the U.S., has compiled a huge assessment of the movement of farmland between 1992 and 2012 (the latter date being the last that the data required was available).
The organization’s findings, which they are calling “the most comprehensive ever undertaken of America’s agricultural lands,” aren’t hugely shocking, at least at the surface: American farmland is being vacuumed up by development. What’s new, though, is the discovery that the development isn’t coming only from urban areas expanding outwards—rural areas are also losing farmland rapidly.
“The fact is that we have this sort of insidious development that no one’s been paying attention to, and we really need to start paying attention,” says Julia Freedgood, the assistant VP of programs at the AFT.
Why is this happening? There’s no simple answer. One major reason, which has spiraling effects, is that farming is an incredibly difficult and not a very lucrative career path. The average age of the American farmer was nearly 60 in 2012 (the time of the last census); as those farmers retire or pass away, successive generations turn elsewhere for jobs, the land goes fallow and is sold off. Another reason: it’s sometimes simply worth more to sell farmland rather than actually farm the land, especially if that farmland is near a city or town.
“There’s no one to take it over and it’s worth more selling to developers, so why not?” That’s also part of the reason it’s obscenely difficult to find new land for new farmers; land access, according to the National Young Farmers Coalition, is one of the most difficult obstacles for beginning farmers.
This is concerning for a variety of reasons. The obvious one is that farmland produces food, so less farmland means the price of food may rise. The majority of American farmland is devoted to commodity crops—soy, corn, wheat—and many of the uses of those crops are not for direct eating. Much of it, though, is used for animal feed, and if the price of animal feed goes up, so goes the price of meat. And, of course, some of the farmland being lost is for so-called “specialty” crops, like fruits and vegetables. But there are other reasons as well.
Development on farmland can have negative effects, removing land that animals use as a habitat. Well-operated farms care for the soil, air, and water, and produce viable ecosystems. Economically, the agricultural industry employs millions in all sorts of fields, from machinery to inputs to researchers to retailers to packagers.
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We put together a list of some of the AFT’s findings that should help to add some (scary) context.
10% of the world’s arable acres lie within the United States.
Agriculture contributes $992 billion to the American economy each year.
31 million acres of farmland lost to development, in total, between 1992 and 2012.
That’s 175 acres per hour of agricultural land lost to development—3 acres per minute.
It probably comes as no surprise that the expansion of cities and suburbs are responsible for most of the loss in farmland. But 41% of the lost acres actually came from development in rural areas.
The U.S. lost 11 million acres of America’s best agricultural land—land with superior soil conditions and weather for growing food—from 1992 to 2012.
Best agricultural land for intensive food and crop production in 2012. Source: AFT, Farms Under Threat.
0.43 PVR: PVR stands for Productivity, Versatility, and Resiliency, and it’s a metric the American Farmland Trust uses to rate the quality of farmland. If farmland has a rating above that—say, 0.65—that makes it great farmland. Below that, and it’s subpar. Farmland with a high rating is being lost disproportionately quickly, which means suboptimal farmland will have to be used. And suboptimal farmland requires more water, more transportation, more energy, more fertilizers, and more pesticides to be productive, all of which are bad for the environment.
Just 17% of American land is ideal for farming. We don’t have that much to lose! The amount of the best land lost is about equal to California’s entire Central Valley.
62% of development between 1992 and 2012 took place on agricultural land. The other 38% was primarily forest and simply unused space.
Some types of farmland are more at risk of being swallowed by development than others. 91% of the acreage devoted to fruit trees, tree nuts, and berries are directly in the path of development as they’re located in counties that qualify as either metropolitan areas or immediately adjacent to them.
This report is the first part of a multi-year project to better understand farmland use and loss state-by-state and to better understand the effectiveness of state farmland protection policies. Make sure to read the full, eye-opening “Farms Under Threat” report, and you can also use that link to sign up for updates on the project from the AFT.