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UAE’s “Green Sheikh” Visits Green Bronx Machine, Gotham Greens And CS55
Green Bronx Machine founder Stephen Ritz and his students welcomed yesterday His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, to their classroom at the National Health and Wellness Learning Center (NHWLC) at CS 55 in the Bronx
22-July-2021
Green Bronx Machine founder Stephen Ritz welcomes the "Green Sheikh," His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi to GBM's National Health, Wellness and Learning Center at CS 55 in the South Bronx.
Green Bronx Machine founder Stephen Ritz welcomes the "Green Sheikh," His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi to GBM's National Health, Wellness and Learning Center at CS 55 in the South Bronx.
Green Bronx Machine
The "Green Sheikh," His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi tours Green Bronx Machine's National Health, Wellness and Learning Center at CS 55 in the South Bronx.
Gotham Green Co-Founder and CEO Viraj Puri (r) hosts the "Green Sheikh," His Royal Highness SheikhAbdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, along with Green Bronx Machine Founder Stephen Ritz and former GBM student and current Gotham Greens employee Corey Gamble at their Brooklyn-based greenhouse.
Senior officials from NYC Department of Education, the Office of the Brooklyn Borough President, NYS Senator Gustavo Rivera, and other staff and community from CS 55 greet His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi at Green Bronx Machine's National Health, Wellness and Learning Center.
Newswise — BRONX, NY, July 22, 2021 – Green Bronx Machine founder Stephen Ritz and his students welcomed yesterday His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, to their classroom at the National Health and Wellness Learning Center (NHWLC) at CS 55 in the Bronx.
A member of the ruling family of Ajman of the United Arab Emirates and an environmental adviser to the Ajman Government, HRH is a globally acclaimed humanitarian and philanthropist whose work focuses on mindfulness, well-being, spirituality, sustainability, and nutrition, particularly in children and those living in marginalized communities.
During the visit, HRH, known as the “Green Sheikh,” and Ritz, often called “America’s Favorite Teacher,” had a chance to catch up on all things ag education-related and see what GBM students are growing and learning during the Summer Rising school program that is currently in session. In fact, GBM’s students hosted a luncheon for HRH, preparing and serving him a vegan meal made from vegetables grown by them right in their NHWLC classroom. Prior to arriving at CS 55, Ritz accompanied HRH on a tour of Brooklyn-based Gotham Greens, a longtime GBM supporter, and partner. Gotham Greens, a pioneer in sustainable indoor farming with the largest network for hydroponic greenhouses in North America, brings a fresh perspective to how businesses can operate with a triple bottom line.
"The power of friendship between the UAE and USA started many years ago via multiple platforms. Events like these help that friendship to continue to blossom and grow. Today, we all come together for sustainability, stewardship, and the best interests of all children. Today, we celebrate education and possibilities,” said His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi. “After many years of working together overseas, to be able to visit my dear friend, Stephen Ritz, and see the work of Green Bronx Machine personally, in his home country and home community is beyond exciting. To see this classroom and to visit Gotham Greens is to truly understand what is possible when people work together with innovation and dedication to change lives. This is what community looks like. This visit helps to share our work, our commitment, and our shared vision for the future and the planet for everyone to see - all around the world. I want to thank the NYC Department of Education, the residents of the Bronx, Stephen's family, colleagues, and the community at Community School 55 and the staff at Gotham Greens for their gracious hospitality. I look forward to continuing our sharing, our learning, and our working together."
Longtime sustainability allies, the two green leaders met years ago in UAE via government officials with The Knowledge and Human Development Authority (KHDA) of Dubai. KHDA is responsible for the growth and quality of private education in Dubai. The two quickly became friends, sharing their passion for impact work, philanthropy, sustainability, education, and wellness initiatives.
Stephen continues to work in UAE with ESOL Education. Based on the model of Green Bronx Machine's National Health, Wellness, and Learning Center, ESOL launched the International Health, Wellness and Learning Center at Fairgreen International School located in the heart of Dubai’s The Sustainable City – the first net-positive city in the world. Fairgreen International School is considered a Top Twenty School in the UAE and is known for innovation globally.
“It has been an honor hosting His Royal Highness Sheikh Abdulaziz bin Ali Al Nuaimi, our dear friend, colleague, and fellow believer in the power of the plant to grow successful people, communities and economies,” said Ritz. “We look forward to our continued work with HRH. We are always ready to bring the Bronx to the world and make epic happen for millions more across the globe.”
Over the coming months, HRH and Ritz will embark on a series of joint projects including a series of books for young people about bringing the farm to the desert, as well as building farms throughout the UAE to address food insecurity, agricultural innovation, workforce development, and overall health and wellness.
“We built our first greenhouse in New York City in 2011 with the mission to reimagine how and where fresh food is grown,” said Viraj Puri, Co-Founder, and CEO of Gotham Greens. “His Highness, Green Bronx Machine, and Gotham Greens all share a passion for environmental advocacy and building a more sustainable future for our planet and for people around the world. We believe business can be a force for good, so we plant roots in the neighborhoods surrounding our greenhouses through long-standing partnerships with community groups and non-profit organizations like Green Bronx Machine, bringing nutritious, local food and STEM education to cities across America. We know that the impact from these programs extends beyond the borders of our neighborhoods and are proud to share learnings from our experience over the past decade.”
About Green Bronx Machine
Founded in 2011 by Global Teaching Prize finalist and life-long educator Stephen Ritz, Green Bronx Machine (GBM) is an impact-driven, for-purpose organization with 501(c)(3) status. GBM builds healthy, equitable, and resilient communities through inspired education, local food systems, and 21st Century workforce development. Dedicated to cultivating minds and harvesting hope, its school-based model and propriety curriculum uses urban agriculture aligned to key school performance indicators, to grow healthy students and healthy schools. Simultaneously, GBM also transforms once fragmented and marginalized communities into neighborhoods that are inclusive and thriving. For more information, visit www.greenbronxmachine.org.
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No Soil. No Growing Seasons. Just Add Water And Technology
A New Breed of Hydroponic Farm, Huge And High-tech, is Popping Up in Indoor Spaces All Over America, Drawing Celebrity Investors And Critics
A New Breed of Hydroponic Farm, Huge And High-tech, is Popping Up in Indoor Spaces All Over America, Drawing Celebrity Investors And Critics.
By Kim Severson
July 6, 2021
MOREHEAD, Ky. — In this pretty town on the edge of coal country, a high-tech greenhouse so large it could cover 50 football fields glows with the pinks and yellows of 30,600 LED and high-pressure sodium lights.
Inside, without a teaspoon of soil, nearly 3 million pounds of beefsteak tomatoes grow on 45-feet-high vines whose roots are bathed in nutrient-enhanced rainwater. Other vines hold thousands of small, juicy snacking tomatoes with enough tang to impress Martha Stewart, who is on the board of AppHarvest, a start-up that harvested its first crop here in January and plans to open 11 more indoor farms in Appalachia by 2025.
In a much more industrial setting near the Hackensack River in Kearny, N.J., trays filled with sweet baby butterhead lettuce and sorrel that tastes of lemon and green apple are stacked high in a windowless warehouse — what is known as a vertical farm. Bowery, the largest vertical-farming company in the United States, manipulates light, humidity, temperature, and other conditions to grow produce, bankrolled by investors like Justin Timberlake, Natalie Portman, and the chefs José Andrés and Tom Colicchio.
“Once I tasted the arugula, I was sold,” said Mr. Colicchio, who for years rolled his eyes at people who claimed to grow delicious hydroponic produce. “It was so spicy and so vibrant, it just blew me away.”
The tomatoes at AppHarvest were delicious enough to attract an investment from Martha Stewart.Credit...Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
The two operations are part of a new generation of hydroponic farms that create precise growing conditions using technological advances like machine-learning algorithms, data analytics and proprietary software systems to coax customized flavors and textures from fruits and vegetables. And they can do it almost anywhere.
These farms arrive at a pivotal moment, as swaths of the country wither in the heat and drought of climate change, abetted in part by certain forms of agriculture. The demand for locally grown food has never been stronger, and the pandemic has shown many people that the food supply chain isn’t as resilient as they thought.
But not everyone is on board. These huge farms grow produce in nutrient-rich water, not the healthy soil that many people believe is at the heart of both deliciousness and nutrition. They can consume vast amounts of electricity. Their most ardent opponents say the claims being made for hydroponics are misleading and even dangerous.
“At the moment, I would say the bad guys are winning,” said Dave Chapman, a Vermont farmer and the executive director of the Real Organic Project. “Hydroponic production is not growing because it produces healthier food. It’s growing because of the money. Anyone who frames this as food for the people or the environment is just lying.”
The sprawling Kentucky farm is one of a dozen that AppHarvest hopes to open across Appalachia.Credit...Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
The technical term for hydroponic farming is controlled environmental agriculture, but people in the business refer to it as indoor farming. What used to be simply called farms are now referred to as land-based farms or open-field agriculture.
“We’ve perfected mother nature indoors through that perfect combination of science and technology married with farming,” said Daniel Malechuk, the chief executive of Kalera, a company that sells whole lettuces, with the roots intact, in plastic clamshells for about the same price as other prewashed lettuce.
In March, the company opened a 77,000-square-foot facility south of Atlanta that can produce more than 10 million heads of lettuce a year. Similar indoor farms are coming to Houston, Denver, Seattle, Honolulu, and St. Paul, Minn.
The beauty of the process, Mr. Malechuk, and other executives say, is that it isn’t limited by seasons. The cost and growing period for a crop can be predicted precisely and farms can be built wherever people need fresh produce.
“We can grow in the Antarctic,” he said. “We can be on an island. We can be on the moon or in the space station.”
That’s easy to picture: The farms are staffed by a new breed of young farmers who wear lab coats instead of overalls and prefer computers to tractors.
Today, the more than 2,300 farms growing hydroponic crops in the United States make up only a sliver of the country’s $5.2 billion fruit and vegetable market. But investors enamored of smart agriculture are betting heavily on them.
Lettuces at a Kalera vertical farm destined for nutrient-filled water begin in small plugs of growing medium.
Credit...Courtesy of Kalera
In 2020, $929 million poured into U.S. indoor-farming ventures, more than double the investments in 2019, according to PitchBook data. Grocery chains and California’s biggest berry growers are partnering with vertical farms, too.
“There is no question we are reinventing farming, but what we are doing is reinventing the fresh-food supply chain,” said Irving Fain, the founder, and chief executive of Bowery, which is based in Manhattan and has the indoor farm in New Jersey and one in Maryland, another under construction in Pennsylvania, and two research farms in New Jersey.
Mr. Fain said his farms are 100 times as productive as traditional ones and use 95 percent less water. Other companies claim they can grow as much food on a single acre as a traditional farm can grow on 390.
Vertical farms can be built next to urban centers, so lettuce, for example, doesn’t have to sit inside a truck for days as it makes its way from California to the East Coast, losing both quality and nutritional value. Vegetables can be bred for flavor rather than storage and yield.
The new systems are designed to produce a sanitary crop, grown without pesticides in hygienic buildings monitored by computers, so there is little risk of contamination from bacteria like E. coli, which forced large recalls of romaine lettuce in 2019 and 2020.
Bowery, the largest vertical-farm company in the United States, is growing hydroponic vegetables that have attracted the attention of chefs. Credit...Brian Fraser for The New York Times
Still, many farmers and scientists remain unpersuaded. Mr. Chapman, of the Real Organic Project, served on a U.S. Department of Agriculture hydroponics task force five years ago, and is leading an effort to get the agency to stop allowing hydroponic farmers to certify their produce as organic. The very definition of organic farming, he and others say, rests on building healthy soil. In May, the Center for Food Safety, an environmental advocacy group, led an appeal of a federal court ruling that upheld the agency’s policy.
Although the nutritional profile of hydroponic produce continues to improve, no one yet knows what kind of long-term health impact fruits and vegetables grown without soil will have. No matter how many nutrients indoor farmers put into the water, critics insist that indoor farms can never match the taste and nutritional value, or provide the environmental advantages, that come from the marriage of sun, a healthy soil microbiome, and plant biology found on well-run organic farms.
“What will the health outcomes be in two generations?” Mr. Chapman asked. “It’s a huge live experiment, and we are the rats.”
The divide between soil loyalists and ag-tech futurists is playing out on a much more intimate scale between two influential brothers: Dan and David Barber, who founded and own the organic farm Blue Hill and its restaurants in Greenwich Village and at Stone Barns in Pocantico Hills, N.Y.
In 2018, David Barber created an investment fund to support new food tech companies, including Bowery. But Dan Barber, a chef whose 2014 book “The Third Plate: Field Notes on the Future of Food” devotes an entire section to soil, believes that truly delicious food can come only from the earth.
“I am not buying any of it,” Dan Barber said of the hydroponic fever.
The chef Dan Barber, a soil loyalist, is skeptical of the claims made for hydroponic farms.
Credit...James Estrin/The New York Times
Trying to enhance water with nutrients to mimic what soil does is virtually impossible, he said, in part because no one really knows how the soil microbiome works.
“We know more about the stars and the sky than we do about soil,” he said. “We don’t know a lot about nutrition, actually.”
There is a cultural cost, too. For centuries, cuisines have been developed based on what the land and the plants demanded, he said. Regional Mexican diets built on corn and beans came about because farmers realized that beans fixed nitrogen in soil, and corn used it to grow strong.
“The tech-farming revolution is turning this equation on its head,” Mr. Barber said. It aids efficiency in the name of feeding more people but divorces food from nature.
His brother, David, had long been skeptical of hydroponics, too. “Most of my career was about good soil leads to good agriculture and good systems and ultimately good flavor,” David Barber said.
But the environmental advantages of next-generation hydroponic food production can’t be ignored, he said. Nor can the improvements in taste over earlier hydroponic produce. “They are combining outdoor and indoor thinking, and science and history, to create something special,” he said. “There are not going to be many winners in this space, but it is going to be a part of our food system.”
At Bowery, “there is no question we are reinventing farming, but what we are doing is reinventing the fresh-food supply chain,” said Irving Fain, its founder, and chief executive. Credit...Brian Fraser for The New York Times
Indoor farm companies view their competition as the large, industrial growers that produce fruits and vegetables bred to withstand processing and shipping — not smaller farmers using more natural growing techniques. The battle, they say, is against monoculture, not farmers who maintain healthy soil and feed their communities. Hydroponic farms can help develop new and more diverse plants, and reduce overall pesticide use.
“The only thing we are trying to do is get as good as farmers were 100 years ago,” said Mr. Malechuk, the hydroponic lettuce grower.
Indoor farming is a bet on the nation's agriculture, said Jonathan Webb, the Kentucky-born founder and chief executive of AppHarvest.
“The American farmer is already obsolete,” he said, pointing out that the United States imports four billion pounds of tomatoes from Mexico every year. “Our hope is we can get farmers back on U.S. shelves.”
Even Mr. Colicchio, who led a campaign against genetically modified food and has long been a champion of small farmers, said the two styles of farming can coexist. “We’re going to need a lot of tools in the toolbox,” he said.
Ouita Michel, a chef in Kentucky, likes AppHarvest because the company is creating jobs and growing tomatoes she is happy to use in her restaurants.
But technology, she said, will never trump the magic of soil. “Nothing will ever replace my summer Kentucky tomatoes.”
Lead photo: AppHarvest, the nation’s largest hydroponic greenhouse, opened in January in Morehead, Ky. — one in a new breed of huge indoor produce farms that use technology to fine-tune flavor, texture, and other attributes. Credit...Luke Sharrett for The New York Times
USA: BOSTON - 'Space-Age Farming': Agtech Company Looks To Expand In Mass.
The company (Nasdaq: APPH) was founded in 2017 with the mission to modernize the way food is grown and delivered to large enterprises
By Miranda Perez - Inno Reporter
June 23, 2021
AppHarvest has a local office in Woburn and is looking to develop local tech centers under the direction of Chief Technology Officer Josh Lessing. AppHarvest
AppHarvest, a Kentucky-based, agriculture-tech startup, is looking to expand to Boston to further develop its tech-centered farming.
The company now has a local office in Woburn, and it's looking to develop local tech centers under the direction of its chief technology officer, Josh Lessing.
The company (Nasdaq: APPH) was founded in 2017 with the mission to modernize the way food is grown and delivered to large enterprises. It maintains indoor farms that operate year-round, using no pesticides to maintain freshness and relying on recycled rainwater to leverage sustainability.
“This brilliant technology, originally made in the Netherlands, where you could make food anywhere in the world, allows us to do it year-round, with 90% less water and with 30 times more yield per acre,” Lessing said.
The public company, which has 550 employees, is looking to “massively expand'' in upcoming projects in robotics and enterprise software for the agricultural industry.
In a statement regarding it's 2020 annual filing, the company said it a "pre-revenue state in 2020," and reported a net loss of $17.4 million, compared to $2.7 million for the year before.
AppHarvest has one fully-functional farm right now with two more being built. The goal is to have a dozen by 2025.
The existing farm is a 60-acre building, which Lessing describes as “almost like being inside of some combination of a 60-acre robot and its own world.” Inside is an entire ecosystem of insects that support the pollination of fruits and manage to keep the “bad bugs” away. The main focus is on tomatoes now, but Lessing says he plan to expand to other fruits and vegetables.
Watering is automatic, through robotic systems. Other systems are designed to handle specially designed supplemental lights.
“It's just remarkably space age farming,” Lessing said.
AppHarvest food is available in the top 25 grocery stores and in some food service locations such as Kroger and Wendy’s.
“If you talk to a farmer, there's an infinite amount of work that you can be doing at a farm and there's never enough time to get it done. AppHarvest frees us up to start doing more individualized crop care,” Lessing said.
Research Signify And Fragaria Innova Into Growing Strawberries With LED Bears Fruits
“Extra growth light is needed to realize sufficient yield and quality in winter”, according to plant specialist Peer Hermans, who conducts the research on behalf of Signify
June 15, 2021
· Provides better steering of the plants
· Optimizes winter growth
· Helps growers realize a stabile production pattern with high yield and good quality strawberries
Eindhoven, the Netherlands – Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, has worked together with Fragaria Innova to develop specific light recipes for strawberries, resulting in a steady production pattern with high yield, and good quality strawberries in wintertime. The joint research over the past year helps to further optimize the winter production of the so-called ‘June bearers’, a strawberry cultivar known for relatively short peaks in production.
Within Fragaria Innova, progressive strawberry growers commit themselves, together with external partners, to innovation surrounding the themes of growing under light and plant health. For growing under light, Fragaria Innova and market leader Signify conduct a multi-year program with participating growers/propagators. At one of the production companies, a special compartment has also been equipped with separate climate control, this enables the testing of several growth- and light strategies for multiple cultivars under full LED. One of the main goals of the research is realizing a (more) stable production pattern during wintertime.
Current winter productions usually take place with June bearers with a short production period of 8 to 10 weeks, after which a new planting in another section takes over production to create a stable, flat production. Unlit cultivation dominates before- and after the winter production.
“Extra growth light is needed to realize sufficient yield and quality in winter”, according to plant specialist Peer Hermans, who conducts the research on behalf of Signify. “The trials have shown that you can influence the plant build-up somewhat with specific light recipes, for which LED is ideally suited.” By accurately tuning the light intensity and spectrum offered to the developmental stage of the plant, you can optimize the leaf surface and stretching of the flower trusses and leaf stalks. A better plant build-up can benefit the production. The idea is to raise the production quality through light optimization.
Grower Marcel Dings from Brookberries, co-initiator behind Fragaria Innova, noticed some influence on the plant build-up, but the extra assimilates that came with it, went mostly to the crop and less to the fruits. Dings: “Next season will focus on how we can further optimize the division of the assimilates in the plant, and how we can get the assimilates to the fruits”. The grower notices that there are a lot of variables at play, such as: cultivars, planting times, cultivation goals, light spectra, light intensity, and the balance between natural daylight and artificial lighting. “The benefit of this new generation of LED grow lights is that we can play with lighting efficiently and that we can finetune the recipe to our own wishes and possibilities. Within this project, together we can achieve faster and more progress. I am satisfied with the results of this first year, but there is definitely room for further optimization. Hopefully, we can keep this going in the coming years.”
Grower Dave Linssen, a participant within Fragaria Innova (cultivar: Malling Centenary), had a trial with different spectra at one company location, planted in August just like his unlit crop. “The lit plants went into production earlier in winter, as expected. When it came to kilos and plant build-up, we hardly noticed any difference between the light spectra”, he concludes. “We may need to tinker a little to get the ideal light recipe for our company. It seems obvious to me that growing under LED is a desired addition.”
Based on these encouraging results, the trial set-up for the coming season will be determined. Spectrum research and testing different cultivars will be part of this research. For more information on growing strawberries with LED grow lights, please go to www.philips.com/horti.
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For further information, please contact:
Global Marcom Manager Horticulture at Signify
Daniela Damoiseaux
Tel: +31 6 31 65 29 69
E-mail: daniela.damoiseaux@signify.com
About Signify
Signify (Euronext: LIGHT) is the world leader in lighting for professionals and consumers and lighting for the Internet of Things. Our Philips products, Interact connected lighting systems and data-enabled services, deliver business value and transform life in homes, buildings and public spaces. With 2020 sales of EUR 6.5 billion, we have approximately 37,000 employees and are present in over 70 countries. We unlock the extraordinary potential of light for brighter lives and a better world. We achieved carbon neutrality in 2020, have been in the Dow Jones Sustainability World Index since our IPO for four consecutive years and were named Industry Leader in 2017, 2018 and 2019. News from Signify is located at the Newsroom, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Information for investors can be found on the Investor Relations page.
About Innoveins | Fragaria Innova
Innoveins is an ecosystem where organizations cooperate at the cross-over between plants and technology to develop innovations through co-creation and bring them to the market.
Within Innoveins, Fragaria Innova unites ambitious strawberry growers to jointly tackle challenges in the areas of labor, upscaling, efficiency, plant health and resilience, biodiversity, growth media, product quality, continuity, delivery reliability and smart farming.
North America’s Indoor Farms Plan To Add 500-Plus Acres Over Next 5 Years
“Now that the market has established itself, you’re going to see a lot of technology in the next few years come on to the market. New hardware, new sensors, new control systems, new lighting, new physical structures, new growing system automation, robotics, AI — you name it.”
June 7, 2021 Lauren Manning
Indoor farming analytics provider Artemis has just released its annual State of Indoor Farming report, which reflects a survey of 205 enterprise horticulture facilities across the US and Canada. Put together in partnership with research firm Startle, the report’s goal is to assess where the region’s industry is today – as well as giving growers a voice around the latest trends, challenges, and opportunities it presents.
It covers everything from container farms to high-tech glass greenhouses and vertical farms.
“One thing we did this year that was different from last time was asking things like, ‘How are you actually getting capital? How are you getting contracts with buyers? How did the mechanics work to make sure that you can actually expand and build projects?'” Artemis co-founder and CEO Allison Kopf tells AFN.
“There are some really interesting tidbits that might go unnoticed, like the small number of people who indicated that part of their expansion plan includes packing operations. I think this is probably driven by Covid-19 and the supply chain holes that we saw. Doing more on-site packing and increasing on-site capacity is very different from field ag.”
A few other notable findings from the report include:
77% of respondents are growing multiple crops while 23% are growing a single crop.
The three most commonly cultivated crops indoors are leafy greens (26% of total), herbs (20%), and microgreens (16%). Tomatoes (10%), cucumbers (8%), peppers (8%), ornamentals (6%), and strawberries (6%) round out the list.
The average revenue reported by growers selling the leading indoor crop, leafy greens, is $7.82 per pound.
Inputs remain one of the biggest drivers of operational costs for indoor growers with average annual costs for seeds ($24,989), grow media ($19,190), and nutrients ($17,510) among the most expensive.
Retail and grocery outlets (28%) remain the dominant sales channel for indoor growers, followed by direct-to-consumer outlets (26%) and wholesale accounts (17%).
Indoor growers are also eager to expand their footprints. Roughly three-quarters have expansion plans that they aim to execute in the next five years. If they are successful in their endeavors, they’ll add a predicted 544 acres to North America’s indoor farming industry.
Technology adoption indoors
The indoor farming industry has a big appetite for technology, according to the Artemis report. Just over a third of respondents are using mainly tablets and mobile phones to run their daily operations, with 24% using desktop computers. Six percent have adopted barcode scanners.
When considering new technologies, 39% of indoor growers are eager to find solutions to manage operations more efficiently. Lowering the cost of production (20%) and increasing yields (19%) are also high on the tech discovery list.
Investing in technology and understanding it is a critical ingredient for success, according to Kopf.
“Now that the market has established itself, you’re going to see a lot of technology in the next few years come on to the market. New hardware, new sensors, new control systems, new lighting, new physical structures, new growing system automation, robotics, AI — you name it,” she says.
But the increase in choice comes with its own problems. Some growers may find themselves overwhelmed by the flood of new offerings, or lack the time to research the optimal products for them.
“Being able to find the right stuff to operate the facility the way you want for the crops that you are growing is going to be really, really critical. [Tech vendors] that differentiate based on product are going to stand above the rest,” Kopf suggests.
This could include products that help indoor farms prove they are carbon neutral or negative, opening up a new world of branding and marketing opportunities.
Advancements in breeding technology are also starting to open the door to new types of crop cultivation. As developments in genetics unlock the right varieties for indoor conditions, the industry will be better equipped to move beyond leafy greens and herbs.
Suited for public markets
As more indoor farming startups raise substantial rounds or take their companies public — like AppHarvest and Aerofarms have done recently through SPAC mergers — questions are bubbling up around whether the momentum can last.
For Kopf, the fact that indoor farms are producing tangible products differentiates them from some of the other hyped subsectors within agrifoodtech. Indoor farming operations can also involve substantial physical infrastructure, making them well suited for public markets, she says – while they can also tick the increasingly important ESG box for investors. As a result, she sees more SPAC deals and IPOs on the horizon.
There’s also room left for indoor farming to expand in certain geographies where massive consumer markets await.
“If you look at the Netherlands or Spain, markets where greenhouse production is commonplace, we’re really behind in the US. If you’ve got plenty of room to grow – that changes the dynamic,” Kopf says.
“I don’t think we are anywhere near where we will be in the next five to 10 years, which to me indicates you’re not in a bubble. You’re in the early stages of a transitional period for an industry as a whole.”
How AgriTech Is Playing A Key Role In Greenhouse Vegetable Production
In this exclusive interview with Greenhouse Grower, Gov. Beshear provides a closer look at the AgriTech Initiative and how companies like Kentucky Fresh Harvest are building a brighter future for the commonwealth
June 2, 2021
Editor’s Note: This is the last of a four-part series covering of growth of Kentucky Fresh Harvest as it prepares for its first crop. Check out the previous parts of the series here.
In support of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s vision of a diverse and resilient agricultural industry in Kentucky, one of the keys to the long-term growth plan of Kentucky Fresh Harvest is its involvement with the Kentucky AgriTech Initiative. This initiative is designed to highlight Kentucky’s unique position to offer an environment that can attract, develop, and sustain agritech-related enterprises.
In this exclusive interview with Greenhouse Grower, Gov. Beshear provides a closer look at the AgriTech Initiative and how companies like Kentucky Fresh Harvest are building a brighter future for the commonwealth.
Greenhouse Grower: Can you give an overview of the Kentucky AgriTech Initiative, why it was formed, and its goals?
Gov. Beshear: Last June, I took several steps, including creating an AgriTech Advisory Council, to keep my promise to build America’s AgriTech capital in Kentucky. The council includes representatives from farming, education, labor, civic life, and representatives from leading companies in the commonwealth such as Alltech, AppHarvest, Black Soil, and Kentucky Fresh Harvest.
Your readers are familiar with Kentucky Fresh Harvest, which cares about where our food comes from, how our food is grown, and who grows our food. These are all elements that align with the Kentucky AgriTech Initiative. Because of this, they have been able to revolutionize the protected agriculture industry and become an authority on vegetable production in Kentucky.
Kentucky Fresh Harvest already has been through the growing pains associated with building a greenhouse of this scale. So, it made sense for them to join the AgriTech Advisory Council nearly a year ago in our collective mission to highlight and develop Kentucky’s tremendous potential to help solve one of the greatest challenges of our generation: producing reliable, safe, and accessible food for the world. While that challenge is prevalent today, the expected global population surge in between now and 2050 will only amplify its severity. Team Kentucky is addressing this by combining three signature strengths: Kentucky’s prowess as a national leader in both manufacturing and logistics, along with our deep roots as an agricultural state.
The initiative will attract and cultivate good-paying, private-sector jobs and companies that create technologies, services and produce to help feed the world.
Our AgriTech Advisory Council’s goals for the initiative:
Create good jobs and strengthen Kentucky’s economy;
Attract local and global technologies and partners that support the development of innovative agriculture in the commonwealth;
Craft policies that spur the development of our agritech ecosystem;
Develop local supply and demand for technologies and agricultural products grown and manufactured here in Kentucky;
Develop and attract the necessary workforce to sustain the agritech ecosystem;
Help develop access to capital for new and innovative businesses in this sector; and
Build necessary cooperation channels between interested players.
Greenhouse Grower: What are the benefits of the initiative to both consumers and growing operations?
Gov. Beshear: By harnessing the assets in our backyard, the AgriTech Advisory Council seeks to develop an environment in which consumers gain better access to healthy food, obtain a more thorough understanding of where their food comes from, and realize the benefits of supporting local, sustainable farms. Relative to growing operations, the initiative focuses on helping them do what they do best – run their businesses while relying on Team Kentucky as a partner that shares their vision for a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system based right here in the Bluegrass State.
Greenhouse Grower: How can growers get involved?
Gov. Beshear: We want to hear from growers, no matter the size of their operations. We believe there are a number of opportunities for collaboration among growers and other innovators from all sectors – from greenhouse vegetable producers to our advanced manufacturing and logistic sectors. We even offer opportunities on all levels of the educational and workforce training system so that some of our youngest minds can look forward to becoming a part of the industry. If you are in a position to showcase your work or engage with Kentucky students, please contact us. Visit www.agritech.ky.gov.
Greenhouse Grower: What has been Kentucky’s experience of working with Kentucky Fresh Harvest?
Gov. Beshear: Kentucky Fresh Harvest has been a great partner of the commonwealth and true pioneers in the state’s high-tech greenhouse sector. Rocky Adkins, my Senior Advisor, and I visited the site in Lincoln County recently, and it was great to see the rich promise of agritech in Kentucky on display. The company’s scientific approach shows us that certain obstacles of large-scale agritech are no longer relevant. Kentucky Fresh Harvest’s dedication to education and inclusivity are great examples of excellent corporate citizenship and ambassadorship for the industry as a whole.
Source and Photo Courtesy of Greenhouse Grower
Ontario Greenhouse Installs Combined Heat Power
"We look forward to expanding our energy-efficient and sustainable system"
With the demand for greenhouse-grown produce continuing to increase, DelFrescoPure is consistently looking for ways to become more sustainable. "Ensuring high-quality produce is available year-round. Implementing a Cogeneration power plant is the most efficient way to achieve that goal," they say. As of fall 2021, DelFrescoPure will be increasing their pre-existing Cogen system by 6.5 MW, for a total of 10+ MW across their facilities.
Cogeneration or combined heat and power (CHP) is the onsite generation of electricity from the use of natural gas. The byproducts of CHP are the heat that can be stored and used to create the desired microclimate within the greenhouse and CO2 that is used to fertilize the crops. The CHP units will additionally produce the electricity required to power the grow lights as well as the mechanical load of the facility. While electricity generation alone is typically 40% efficient in converting fuel to power, adding heat recovery to the equation can bring that efficiency to 90%, a reality that suits greenhouses well.
Year-round production
DelFrescoPure intends to use the electricity to power the lights at Via Verde Hydroponics. These grow lights allow for an extended growing season, making produce that would originally be grown in the summer available all year round. The heat harnessed by CHP will also be recycled to heat the greenhouses and meet all daily power needs. Being able to produce electricity more cost-effectively onsite also means DelFrescoPure does not have to worry about voltage fluctuation from the area maxing out the local grid. With electricity no longer being a concern DelFrescoPure is primed and ready for the 25-acre expansion currently underway.
“DelFrescoPure is excited to increase our Cogeneration Power units. We are very pleased to be working with Martin Energy again to install the new CHP technology and solutions they offer. The results from using the Cogeneration technology over the past three years have been great. We look forward to expanding the system so we can continue to provide fresh produce all year long.” said Carl Mastronardi, President of Del Fresco Produce.
Along with the financial benefits, CHP power is better for the environment. This method ensures that fewer resources are wasted and required to produce electricity. The extended growing season also reduces our carbon footprint by decreasing the need for local retailers to import high milage commodities. DelFrescoPure is taking a sustainable approach to providing consumers with the freshest items possible. CHP is perfectly suited for the greenhouse environment since it is able to harness all three attributes of the technology (electricity, heat & CO2). DelFrescoPure® will never have to worry about where their energy is coming from and can continue to expand as market demand increases.
For more information:
DelFresco Pure
www.delfrescopure.com
VIDEO: Indoor Farming Biz AppHarvest Delivered Sales In First Earnings As Public Company
AppHarvest, the tech-forward indoor vertical farming company that went public in February, released its first earnings report showing Q1 net sales of $2.3 million for its tomato harvest
May 17, 2021
AppHarvest, the tech-forward indoor vertical farming company that went public in February, released its first earnings report showing Q1 net sales of $2.3 million for its tomato harvest. The stock ($APPH) was up on the news, rising to more than $13 a share in morning trading, but still well short of its closing high of $38.
Founder and CEO Jonathan Webb spoke to Cheddar about the company's challenges in building a facility and harvesting its product amid a pandemic and pointed to expanding in the future. "Our thesis is that controlled-environment agriculture will be growing almost all fruit and vegetable production at scale indoors," Webb said.
New Greenhouse Design Shines With More Growing Capacity
Lettuces, Asian greens, herbs, and more. These are just a few types of produce that Shayne Johnson of Grampa G’s farm in Pillager has experimented with growing in the middle of winter in Central Minnesota
30-04-2021
University of Minnesota Extension
Lettuces, Asian greens, herbs, and more. These are just a few types of produce that Shayne Johnson of Grampa G’s farm in Pillager has experimented with growing in the middle of winter in Central Minnesota.
Photo: Shayne (left) and Louise Johnson of Grampa G’s farm in Pillager, outside their deep winter greenhouse prototype, 2018. Courtesy of University of Minnesota Extension
“Nothing we’ve tried to grow has failed,” said Johnson, who sells the farm’s product to local food co-ops and customers in the area by word of mouth.
How does Grampa G’s do it? With the help of a prototype deep winter greenhouse made possible by a collaboration with the University of Minnesota Extension Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships (RSDP) and the College of Design Center for Sustainable Building Research (CSBR).
In fall 2020, this collaboration released new designs for a farm-scale winter greenhouse (FSWG v1.0). These new solar winter greenhouse designs seek to improve both the productivity and profitability of extended season vegetable and produce production in Minnesota, creating a more resilient, local food system.
“Our partnerships with Minnesota farmers and the Center for Sustainable Building Research to develop these farm-scale winter greenhouse designs will make winter production more accessible to small- and mid-sized farmers in Minnesota and beyond,” said Greg Schweser, statewide co-director of RSDP’s Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems program who has helped lead related research and outreach with Daniel Handeen, winter greenhouse designer and CSBR research fellow.
Evolution in solar winter greenhouse design
The farm-scale winter greenhouse designs rely on passive solar principles, similar to the earlier deep winter greenhouse design (DWG 2.0), but build on and incorporate lessons learned from the deep winter greenhouse prototypes in the field. The deep winter greenhouse at Grampa G’s farm is one of five prototypes in Greater Minnesota, supported by RSDP.
Farm scale winter greenhouse under construction at Appetite for Change in Minneapolis, 2021. Photo credit: Daniel Handeen.
The new farm-scale designs have a larger footprint that increases growing capacity. They also include variations in foundations and thermal storage specifications to accommodate different budgets.
“These designs keep evolving and getting better. That’s what I find so cool about them,” Johnson said. “The University adjusts based on our experiences and feedback with the technology.”
RSDP and CSBR partners iteratively developed the farm-scale winter greenhouse designs with input from growers like Johnson and Carol Ford, Extension project coordinator, and an early winter greenhouse pioneer. Ford has helped spread the word and grow a network of deep winter greenhouse adopters and enthusiasts.
“It’s always been about not just making this technology effective for me, but then having it be something that other farmers would feel engaged to do,” Ford said, during a recent podcast interview about this work.
Since their release in November 2020, the farm scale winter greenhouse designs have had more than 1,150 downloads. Solar winter greenhouse designs are freely available and can be downloaded from the RSDP Deep Winter Greenhouse resource website.
Farm scale designs ripe for testing
Schweser noted the designs are now ripe for testing and recommends a similar, regional prototype approach that proved successful with the earlier deep winter greenhouse design.
Open house at the Lake City Catholic Worker Farm deep winter greenhouse, 2018.
In the earlier prototyping process, university and community partners prioritized both research and education, testing the design’s performance and hosting outreach events that have attracted hundreds of participants.
“It’s turned out to be so much more than just the prototype and initial support,” Johnson said. “It’s now this long-standing relationship. We connect with other greenhouse operators and are regularly in touch with our university partners throughout the year.”
Schweser hopes to see similar results with prototypes of farm-scale winter greenhouses in the coming years. University and community partners could then evaluate their performance in the field and improve existing cost estimates before encouraging more widespread adoption.
After field testing, Schweser believes the new structures could open up opportunities for smaller and more diverse farmers to grow more produce and be more profitable.
“The new farm-scale design, more so than the smaller deep winter greenhouses, is far more affordable to construct, and is an appropriate scale for most small direct-market farmers,” Schweser said. “It has the potential to be an equity-building, level-playing field technology to sustainably and profitably grow produce in the winter.”
Johnson is also optimistic about the potential of the new farm-scale winter greenhouse designs.
“I love to see the evolution of these greenhouses taking shape,” Johnson said. “We are learning from our accomplishments and defeats, and then we make them better. That’s what’s exciting about this work and these partnerships—if anyone can make these designs better, this initiative is the one to do it.”
Those with questions about the University of Minnesota's farm scale winter greenhouse designs and related work can contact RSDP's Greg Schweser (schwe233@umn.edu), statewide co-director of the Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems program.
OGVG And Blue Radix Introduce Autonomous Greenhouse Management In Ontario
The Ontario government is supporting greenhouse growers by investing over $3.6 million in 12 innovative projects to help develop new technologies
The Ontario government is supporting greenhouse growers by investing over $3.6 million in 12 innovative projects to help develop new technologies, recover from the impact of COVID-19 and enhance competitiveness and innovation.
One of these approved projects is ‘Autonomous Greenhouse Management’- a collaboration between the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG) and Blue Radix, an independent Dutch AI-tech specialist for the international greenhouse industry. This project is supported through the Greenhouse Competitiveness and Innovation Initiative, a cost-share program funded by the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and delivered by the Agricultural Adaptation Council.
Autonomous growing with Crop Controller
“Together with OGVG we introduce autonomous growing with Crop Controller to Ontario vegetable growers,” says Ronald Hoek, CEO of Blue Radix. “Crop Controller is a service: data models and algorithms control the greenhouse installations 24/7, supported by off-site Autonomous Greenhouse Managers with in-depth knowledge about crops, energy, and data. With autonomous steering of the greenhouse installations, the crop strategy is put into practice with artificial intelligence. Crop Controller is not developed to replace growers. The grower is still needed to define the crop strategy. Ultimately, they can manage more hectares and worry less about repetitive actions and routine thinking. The algorithms do the work for them in their daily operations.”
“We are very thankful to the Ontario government for the GCII funding of this project. It will help greenhouse businesses improve their productivity with adopting autonomous growing. Greenhouse owners are less dependent on crop experts, will have a higher operational profit while limiting their operational risks and usage of resources,” says Ronald.
Main objectives project
The project looks to meet four main objectives:
1) To research the specific needs of Canadian growers (compared to Dutch growers) related to autonomous greenhouse management and translate these needs into product features.
2) To research and implement the adjustments that must be made to improve the match of Crop Controller with different Canadian (Ontario) climate conditions.
3) To demonstrate the working of the Blue Radix data models and algorithms. This helps growers to better understand the value and adopt this new technology in their company.
4) To share knowledge with market peers and help growers to work with this new technology in their day-to-day operations.
OGVG will select three vegetable greenhouse production locations across Ontario to participate in the project. During the project OGVG & Blue Radix will share information regularly about progress and results through articles, learn ‘n’ lunch sessions, presentations and online demos.
About the GCII program
The Greenhouse Competitiveness and Innovation Initiative is a cost-share program, to help the sector to create, adopt and invest in innovative new technologies to reduce production costs, increase productivity and improve produce quality. Enabling operations to expand their businesses, attract new investment and create good jobs. It is delivered by the Agriculture Adaptation Council, on behalf of the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA).
About OGVG
Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers (OGVG) represents approximately 200 farmers responsible for over 3,200 acres of greenhouse tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers across the province. With farmgate sales of over $1 billion in 2019, support for over 13,000 jobs, a contribution of $1.8 billion to the economy and a consistent track record of growth, the sector is a valuable economic driver for the province.
About Blue Radix
Blue Radix is an independent Dutch AI-tech specialist for the international greenhouse industry. Blue Radix creates solutions with artificial intelligence for daily decisions and actions in greenhouses. Greenhouses offer an efficient way to produce food and flowers in a sustainable manner. But the number of skilled people with expertise of growing crops in greenhouses is declining every year. This has direct impact on yield, costs, continuity and product quality. Blue Radix offers solutions for these challenges: smart algorithms which optimize and steer climate, irrigation and energy continuously and autonomously, supported by off-site Autonomous Greenhouse Managers. Always working with the grower’s unique crop strategy as a starting point. Blue Radix offers growers a digital brain for their greenhouse.
For media inquiries, please contact:
OGVG
Mr. Joseph Sbrocchi, General Manager
T 519-326-2604 or 1-800-265-6926
Email: j.sbrocchi@ontariogreenhouse.com
www.OGVG.com
Blue Radix
Mrs. Marijke van Rongen, Manager Global Marketing & Communications
T +31 6 53 43 38 39
E-mail: marijke.vanrongen@blue-radix.com
www.blue-radix.com
USA: Zenat Begum Turned A Bustling Brooklyn Street Corner Into A Working Greenhouse
She reached out to Jasper Kerbs of the Cooper Union Garden Project and, with the help of several volunteers, the structure was erected in October of last year. The shop is utilizing one of the city’s outdoor vending permits and they’re in the midst of harvesting this month
The owner of Playground Coffee Shop transformed the cafe’s outdoor dining space into a project centered around care, creativity, and community
April 21, 2021
“I’m inviting people that I love to come and dress up the facade,” Zenat says of the greenhouse's verdant mural by artist Tiffany Baker. “I’m inviting people that I really respect to come and build these things because we deserve the best.”Image courtesy of Zenat Begum
To understand how a fully functioning greenhouse ended up at the busy intersection of Quincy Street and Bedford Avenue in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, it’s important to get to know Zenat Begum, the owner of Playground Coffee Shop.
Zenat opened the shop back in 2016, in a space that previously housed her father’s hardware store, and quickly expanded to include the Playground Annex, which houses a radio station and bookstore, as well as Playground Youth, a nonprofit organization dedicated to issues confronting the community, including literacy and food equity.
“I believe in Bed-Stuy. I believe in myself. I believe in the shop. I believe in the greenhouse,” says Playground Coffee Shop owner Zenat Begum. “These are things that are active radical attempts. We are imagining our futures because these things aren’t going to be built for us.”Image courtesy of Zenat Begum
Providing for the community is fundamental to each project that the Playground team takes on. “Every time we do something, we change and raise the bar of what should be done in our communities,” Zenat explains. “I’m talking about being able to keep implementing this really large notion and understanding of entrepreneurship into taking care of your communities.”
Shortly after the pandemic hit, Playground got to work on several mutual aid projects. The team established a take-one-leave-one library that distributes works exclusively by writers of color, assembled a network of volunteers distributing PPE and essential supplies at Black Lives Matter protests, and they worked with organizers to create a network of community fridges providing free produce 24 hours a day.
It was while working on the fridge project that the idea for the greenhouse began to crystalize, in realizing that fundamentally addressing the issues surrounding food sovereignty wasn’t, as she says, “as simple as just donating a fridge.”
Zenat cites the statistics: One in three kids in New York City are food insecure, and one in 10 in public schools experience homelessness. She probed further, looking at obesity and food deserts and gentrification. “Let’s reel it back: Why aren’t there programs that support Black and brown families who can’t support their children with adequate nourishment and nutrition?”
“It made me really frustrated. We need to have a plot of land that grows for this. We need to get an actual farm to be able to grow food for this,” Zenat says. And never having built a greenhouse before didn’t scare her off. “I don’t really have the tools,” she thought. “But I also know that, for the understanding that I have and the experience that I’ve had growing up in New York, I know what a New Yorker deserves, which is a lot more.”
She reached out to Jasper Kerbs of the Cooper Union Garden Project and, with the help of several volunteers, the structure was erected in October of last year. The shop is utilizing one of the city’s outdoor vending permits and they’re in the midst of harvesting this month.
When they’re able to resume programming, Zenat intends to teach kids in the neighborhood how to get involved and have plots so they can start growing together. “The most important thing about this is that this will be an opportunity for kids who live in Bed-Stuy to see food growing, to show them that there is life that starts at fertilizing and that we can be involved in the process of food distribution and food harvesting from the very beginning.”
“Our greenhouse is straight up on the street. I want people to see that these structures have to and should exist.”Image courtesy of Zenat Begum
And she acknowledges the responsibility and history that comes with this endeavor. “We’re on stolen land right now,” Zenat says. “We’re thinking about farming practices that date back to East Asia, which is where my family is from, and sharecropping that was implemented during the period just after slavery, which is one of the darkest times in history, period. But with all of those tragedies and travesties occurring, there is this sense of land and relationship that we have that we need to bring back to ourselves. It’s ancestral, of course, and it’s spiritual, but most importantly it’s territorial. Why is it that Black and brown people have a hard time with housing and food insecurity when we have literally created some of the most adequate and sophisticated food systems in the world? Our bodies are used to actually supply people with this type of food and nourishment.”
“So there’s many things that we’re addressing here, but I only hope that at surface level we’re talking about things that actually make a difference, which is ultimately feeding children.”
In true Playground style, the greenhouse is one of many initiatives in the works—from financial literacy courses and book clubs to bystander intervention trainings. Given Zenat’s dedication, there’s no doubt they’ll come to fruition. “The way that I love New York is so poetic. I’m like one of those gnarly girlfriends, ‘Did you eat today? Do you want water?’” She asks the city: “Did you eat today, New York? Do you want water? Do you want a pillow?”
If you’d like to support Playground Youth, there is a fundraiser underway for programming and operational costs.
Greenhouses Can Grow Lettuce And Generate Solar Power: Study
A recent study shows that lettuce can be grown in greenhouses that filter out wavelengths of light used to generate solar power, demonstrating the feasibility of using see-through solar panels in greenhouses to generate electricity
March 30, 2021
By Matt Shipman
A recent study shows that lettuce can be grown in greenhouses that filter out wavelengths of light used to generate solar power, demonstrating the feasibility of using see-through solar panels in greenhouses to generate electricity.
“We were a little surprised – there was no real reduction in plant growth or health,” says Heike Sederoff, co-corresponding author of the study and a professor of plant biology at North Carolina State University. “It means the idea of integrating transparent solar cells into greenhouses can be done.”
Because plants do not use all of the wavelengths of light for photosynthesis, researchers have explored the idea of creating semi-transparent organic solar cells that primarily absorb wavelengths of light that plants don’t rely on, and incorporating those solar cells into greenhouses. Earlier work from NC State focused on how much energy solar-powered greenhouses could produce. Depending on the design of the greenhouse, and where it is located, solar cells could make many greenhouses energy neutral – or even allow them to generate more power than they use.
But, until now, it wasn’t clear how these semi-transparent solar panels might affect greenhouse crops.
To address the issue, researchers grew crops of red leaf lettuce (Lactuca sativa) in greenhouse chambers for 30 days – from seed to full maturity. The growing conditions, from temperature and water to fertilizer and CO2 concentration, were all constant – except for light.
A control group of lettuces was exposed to the full spectrum of white light. The rest of the lettuces were divided into three experimental groups. Each of those groups was exposed to light through different types of filters that absorbed wavelengths of light equivalent to what different types of semi-transparent solar cells would absorb.
“The total amount of light incident on the filters was the same, but the colour composition of that light was different for each of the experimental groups,” says Harald Ade, co-corresponding author of the study and the Goodnight Innovation Distinguished Professor of Physics at NC State.
“Specifically, we manipulated the ratio of blue light to red light in all three filters to see how it affected plant growth,” Sederoff says.
To determine the effect of removing various wavelengths of light, the researchers assessed a host of plant characteristics. For example, the researchers paid close attention to visible characteristics that are important to growers, grocers, and consumers, such as leaf number, leaf size, and how much the lettuces weighed. But they also assessed markers of plant health and nutritional quality, such as how much CO2 the plants absorbed and the levels of various antioxidants.
“Not only did we find no meaningful difference between the control group and the experimental groups, we also didn’t find any significant difference between the different filters,” says Brendan O’Connor, co-corresponding author of the study and an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State.
“There is also forthcoming work that delves into greater detail about the ways in which harvesting various wavelengths of light affects biological processes for lettuces, tomatoes and other crops,” Sederoff says.
“This is promising for the future of solar-powered greenhouses,” Ade says. “Getting growers to use this technology would be a tough argument if there was a loss of productivity. But now it is a simple economic argument about whether the investment in new greenhouse technology would be offset by energy production and savings.”
“Based on the number of people who have contacted me about solar-powered greenhouses when we’ve published previous work in this space, there is a lot of interest from many growers,” O’Connor says. “I think that interest is only going to grow. We’ve seen enough proof-of-concept prototypes to know this technology is feasible in principle, we just need to see a company take the leap and begin producing to scale.”
About this article:
The paper, “Balancing Crop Production and Energy Harvesting in Organic Solar Powered Greenhouses,” appears in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science. Co-lead authors of the paper are NC State Ph.D. students Melodi Charles and Eshwar Ravishankar. The paper was co-authored by Yuan Xiong, a research assistant at NC State; Reece Henry and Ronald Booth, Ph. D. students at NC State; Jennifer Swift, John Calero and Sam Cho, technicians at NC State; Taesoo Kim, a research scientist at NC State; Yunpeng Qin and Carr Hoi Yi Ho, postdoctoral researchers at NC State; Franky So, Walter and Ida Freeman Distinguished Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at NC State; Aram Amassian, an associate professor of materials science and engineering at NC State; Carole Saravitz, a research associate professor of plant biology at NC State; Jeromy Rech and Wei You of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; and Alex H. Balzer and Natalie Stingelin of the Georgia Institute of Technology.
VIDEO: Utah Company To Launch All-In-One Universal Climate Control Utility System To Agribusiness
Water scarcity and land degradation is a global problem with additional difficulties in utility costs and climate control for growing food and sustaining strong and sufficient agricultural commerce. However, a new company, Selu.earth, is providing a universal solution
BY JENNIFER WEAVER, KUTV SATURDAY
MARCH 20TH 2021
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Water scarcity and land degradation is a global problem with additional difficulties in utility costs and climate control for growing food and sustaining strong and sufficient agricultural commerce. However, a new company, Selu.earth, is providing a universal solution.
According to a press release, Selu is an innovative company that created patent-pending technologies to reclaim atmospheric humidity, produce renewable energy, and use CO2 to fertilize agriculture environments to regulate temperature and humidity. The result is an all-in-one climate-control utility system to enhance plant growing conditions.
“Selu Oasis” provides agribusiness customers with the ability to grow and harvest food in many more areas than previously available or viable. By vastly increasing the locations and amount of land available for growers, the Selu Oasis system allows agribusiness providers to reduce overhead costs while achieving maximum potential growth yields.
To that end, the company is seeking and intends to launch five pilot programs to support greenhouses, agriculture infrastructure suppliers, and vertical farms in the United States.
Jake Hammock, Cofounder and CEO (Photo: Selu)
Jake Hammock, Selu’s founder and CEO, said in a prepared statement:
By providing universal climate control conditions from one solution, our customers will be able to better realize lower utility costs and higher crop yields. Now is the time for producers to have a lower universal utility access solution to grow closer to consumers without the hassle of multiple climate controlling devices saturating energy costs.
By adapting and using the Selu Oasis technology, our customers will not only receive substantial utility savings but will also replenish the environment through our carbon-neutral solution.
Utah company to launch all-in-one universal climate control utility system to agribusiness (Photo: Selu){p}{/p}
Selu’s technology addresses seven of the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals:
Zero hunger,
Clean water and sanitation,
Affordable and clean energy,
Decent work and economic growth,
Industry innovation and infrastructure,
Sustainable cities, and
Life on land.
In all, Selu’s goal is to strengthen and enhance nature to liberate all life, while empowering agribusiness with immense commercial value, a press release stated.
Lead photo: Utah company develops technology that provides water & renewable energy for agribusinesses (Photo: Selu)
This New Greenhouse Is Expected To Break New Ground
The 1.5-acre facility will rely on 99% sunlight and recycled water of up to 7,500 gallons a month and produce about 500 tons of leafy greens per year
The 1.5-acre facility will rely on 99% sunlight and recycled water of up to 7,500 gallons a
month and produce about 500 tons of leafy greens per year.
Outlook Web Bureau
March 20, 2021
Vertical farming is fast gaining popularity since growers obtain increased yield in a smaller area of land. In India, many farms in and near urban areas have since taken to this practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers.
Another benefit is that under a controlled environment plant growth is set to optimize. Soilless farming techniques also add to the advantages.
Vertical farming can be done inside buildings, shipping containers, and even tunnels. That involves artificial lighting.
Now, a new 1.5-acre vertical farming greenhouse, situated in an opportunity zone in Cleburne, Texas, will reportedly produce approximately 500 tons of leafy greens per year for its local offtake partners.
Eden Green Technology, a next-generation vertical farming company, announced this week that it has broken ground on the new facility, next to its R&D greenhouse in the Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex. Existing investment partners are investing $12 million into Eden Green Technology as part of the development deal.
The company's plans include partnering with firms and organisations not only in Texas, but also in other domestic and international locations.
The facility will rely on 99% sunlight, rather than 100% LED lighting, and recycled water of up to 7,500 gallons a month. Combined with annual water consumption equal to only two households, the facility will produce 11 to 13 harvests per year, compared to 1-2 harvests yielded by traditional farming methods.
Eden Green Technology claimed that this facility will use 99% less land, and 98% less water, than an equivalent yield on a soil-based farm.
In This Article: AgricultureAgri OutlookOutlook KrishiTechnology
Indoor Agtech: An Evolving Landscape of 1,300+ Startups
Our Indoor AgTech Landscape 2021 provides a snapshot of the technology and innovation ecosystem of the indoor food production value chain
March 17, 2021
Editor’s note: Chris Taylor is a senior consultant on The Mixing Bowl team and has spent more than 20 years on global IT strategy and development innovation in manufacturing, design, and healthcare, focussing most recently on indoor agtech.
Michael Rose is a partner at The Mixing Bowl and Better Food Ventures where he brings more than 25 years immersed in new venture creation and innovation as an operating executive and investor across the internet, mobile, restaurant, food tech and agtech sectors.
The Mixing Bowl released its first Indoor AgTech Landscape in September 2019. This is their first update, which you can download here, and their accompanying commentary.
Since the initial release of our Indoor AgTech Landscape in 2019, the compelling benefits of growing food in a controlled indoor environment have continued to garner tremendous attention and investment.
One of the intriguing aspects of indoor agriculture is that it is a microcosm of our food system. Whether within a greenhouse or a sunless (vertical farm) environment, this method of farming spans production to consumption, with many indoor operators marketing their produce to consumers as branded products. As we explore below, the indoor ag value chain reflects a number of the challenges and opportunities confronting our entire food system today: supply chain, safety, sustainability, and labor. Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic rippled through and impacted each aspect of that system, at times magnifying the challenges, and at others, accelerating change and growth.
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Our Indoor AgTech Landscape 2021 provides a snapshot of the technology and innovation ecosystem of the indoor food production value chain. The landscape spans component technology companies and providers of complete growing systems to actual tech-forward indoor farm operators. As before, the landscape is not meant to be exhaustive. While we track more than 1,300 companies in the sector, this landscape represents a subset and serves to highlight innovative players utilizing digital and information technology to enhance and optimize indoor food production at scale.
Supply chain & safety: Where does my food come from?
The pandemic highlighted the shortcomings of the existing supply chain and heightened consumer desires to know where their food comes from, how safely it was processed and packaged, and how far it has travelled to reach them. A key aspect of indoor farming is its built-in potential to respond to these and other challenges of the current food system.
Indoor farmers can locate their operations near distribution centers and consumers, reduce food miles and touch points, potentially deliver consistently fresher produce and reduce food waste, and claim the coveted “local” distinction. The decentralized system can also add resiliency to supply chains overly dependent on exclusive sources and imports.
Growing local has many forms. Greenhouse growers tend to locate their farms outside the metropolitan area while sunless growers may operate in urban centers, such as Sustenir Agriculture in Singapore and Growing Underground in London. Growers like Square Roots co-locate their indoor farms with their partner’s regional distribution centers, and Babylon deploys its micro-farms solution on site at healthcare and senior living facilities and universities. Recently, Infarm announced it was expanding beyond its growing-in-a-grocery store model, to include decentralized deployments of high-capacity “Growing Centers” across a number of cities. Additionally, the value of “growing local” might take on a much larger meaning if your country imports most of its produce from other countries; a number of the Gulf region countries have announced major indoor growing initiatives and projects with AeroFarms, Pure Harvest, and &ever to address the region’s food dependence on other countries.
Organic produce sales jumped to double digit growth in 2020 as consumers are increasingly mindful of the healthiness of their food. The additional safety concerns due to the pandemic only accelerated this trend. While not typically organic, crops produced in the protection of indoor farms are isolated from external sources of contamination and are often grown with few or no pesticides. Human touch points are reduced as supply chains shorten and production facilities become highly automated. Through the CEA Food Safety Coalition, the industry has recently taken steps to establish production standards with a goal to keep consumers safe from foodborne illness.
Indoor farmers market their products as local, fresh, consistent and clean. This story is resonating with consumers as the growers seem to be selling everything they can produce, with many reporting significant sales growth in 2020. The direct connection to consumer concerns is also a key part of their ability to sell their branded products at a premium, which has been critical to financial viability for some growers. This connection can also enable them to collapse the supply chain further, at least at smaller scales, through direct sales and creative business models, e.g., sunless grower Willo allows subscribers to have their own “personal vertical farm plot” and watch their plants grow online.
Sustainability: Is my food part of the problem or part of the solution?
Farming, as with most industries, has been under increasing pressure to operate more sustainably, and indoor growers, with their efficient use of resources, have rightfully incorporated sustainability prominently into their narratives.
We are well aware of the impacts of climate change, including greater variability in weather patterns and growing seasons. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that over the coming decades climate change will cause a decrease in global crop production through traditional farming practices, causing greater food insecurity. Indoor growing, which provides protection from the elements, consistent high yields per land area, and the ability to produce food year-round in diverse locations, including those unsuitable for traditional agriculture, can help mitigate this trend.
Water scarcity is projected to increase globally, presenting a national security issue and serious quality of life concerns. According to the World Bank, 70% of the global freshwater is used for agriculture. Indoor agriculture’s efficient use of water decreases use by more than 90% for the current crops under production. It is also common practice for greenhouses to capture rainwater and reuse drainage as does Agro Care, the Netherlands’ largest greenhouse tomato grower.
On the flip side, energy use, particularly in sunless facilities, is indoor growing’s sustainability challenge. Efficiency will continue to improve, but as recent analysis on indoor soilless farming from The Markets Institute at WWF indicated, there is an industry-wide opportunity to integrate alternative energy sources. Growers recognize this opportunity to decrease impact and improve bottom-line and are already utilizing alternative approaches such as cogeneration, geothermal sources, and waste heat networks. H2Orto tomatoes are grown in greenhouses heated with biogas generated hot water. Gotham Greens’ produce is grown in 100% renewable electricity-powered greenhouses, and Denmark’s Nordic Harvest will be running Europe’s largest indoor farm solely on wind power.
Labor: We’re still hiring!
There are labor challenges and opportunities throughout the food system value chain, and this couldn’t be more acute than on the farm. Farm operators—both in-field and indoor—find it difficult to attract labor for the physically demanding work. Even before the pandemic, the hardening of borders in Europe and the US created a shortage of farmworkers for both field and greenhouse production. In addition, grower and farm manager-level expertise is in short supply, exacerbated by an aging workforce and the rapid addition of new indoor facilities. While operators would like to see more trained candidates coming from university programs, they are also looking to technology and automation to relieve their labor challenges.
Automation of seedling production and post-harvest activities is already well established for most crops in indoor farming. In addition, the short growth cycle and contained habit of leafy greens lends them to mechanization. For example, the fully automated seed-through-harvest leafy green systems from Green Automation and Viscon have been deployed in major greenhouse operations like Pure Green Farms and Mucci. On the sunless side, Urban Crop Solutions has uniquely implemented automation in shipping containers, and Finland’s NetLed has developed a fully automated complete growing system. Note that many of the larger-scale sunless growers have developed their own technology stacks and have designed labor-saving automation into their systems. For example, Fifth Season has robotics deployed throughout the entire production process.
Despite numerous initiatives, the challenging daily crop care tasks and harvesting for certain crops (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and berries) have not yet been automated at scale. However, planned, near-term commercial deployments of de-leafing and harvesting robots offer the promise of significantly altering labor challenges. Software technologies, like those from Nitea and Hortikey address labor management, crop registration, yield prediction, and workflow/process management for the indoor sector and strive to improve operational efficiencies for a smaller workforce.
Technologies that provide, monitor, and control climate, light, water, and nutrients are already deployed in today’s sophisticated indoor growing facilities and are fundamental to maintaining optimal conditions in these complex environments. They also form the base for the next innovation layer, i.e., crop optimization and even autonomous control of the growing environment based on imaging and sensor platforms (like from Ecoation, iUNU, and 30MHz), data analysis, machine learning, digital twins and artificial intelligence. Recent events like the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge have successfully explored the potential of AI to “drive horticultural productivity while reducing resource use and management complexity”. Emerging commercialized autonomous growing innovations, such as the Blue Radix Crop Controller and Priva’s Plantonomy, promise to extend and enhance the reach of available grower expertise, particularly in large and multi-site operations.
Where do we go from here?
Since we created our initial Indoor AgTech Landscape, there has been positive change and reason to be optimistic about the future. But, as with any evolving market and sector of innovation, it can be a bumpy ride. Some believe CEA is not the answer to our food problems because not everything can be economically grown indoors today. We see indoor ag as just one of the approaches that can help fix our food system and it should be applied when it makes sense. For example, tomatoes sold through retail are already more than likely grown in a greenhouse. Expect more crops to be grown indoors more economically with further advancements.
One aspect of our previous landscape was to increase awareness that, despite the fervor surrounding novel sunless farming, greenhouse growing was already well-established. Dutch greenhouse growers have demonstrated the viability of indoor growing with 50-plus years of experience and more acres “under glass than the size of Manhattan.” The recent public offering and $3 billion market cap of Kentucky-based greenhouse grower AppHarvest also clearly raised awareness! Other high-profile and expanding greenhouse growers, including BrightFarms and Gotham Greens, have also attracted large investments.
The question is often asked, “which is the better growing approach, sunless or greenhouse?”. There is no proverbial “silver bullet” for indoor farming. The answer is dictated by location and the problem you are trying to solve. A solution for the urban centers of Singapore, Hong Kong and Mumbai might not be the same as one deployed on the outskirts of Chicago.
Regardless of approach, starting any type of sizable tech-enabled indoor farm is capital intensive. A recent analysis from Agritecture indicates that it can range from $5 to $11 million dollars to build out a three-acre automated farm. Some of the huge, advanced greenhouse projects being built today can exceed $100 million. Given the capital requirements for these indoor farms, some question the opportunity for venture-level returns in the sector and suggest that it is better suited to investors in real assets. Still, more than $600 million was raised by the top 10 financings in 2020 as existing players vie for leadership and expand to underserved locales while a seemingly endless stream of new companies continue to enter the market.
Looking forward, indoor farming needs to address its energy and labor challenges. In particular, the sunless approach has work to do to bring its operating costs in line and achieve widespread profitability. Additionally, to further accelerate growth and the adoption of new technologies in both greenhouse and sunless environments, the sector needs to implement the sharing of data between systems. Waybeyond is one of the companies promoting open systems and APIs to achieve this goal.
As we stated in the beginning of this piece, the indoor ag value chain reflects some of the challenges and opportunities confronting our entire food system today: supply chain, safety, sustainability, and labor. Indoor agriculture has tremendous opportunity. While it is still early for this market sector overall, it can bring more precision and agility to where and how food is grown and distributed.
Gotham Greens Goes West To Unlock Next Growth Chapter: ‘The Indoor Environment Is Relatively Unexplored But Offers Fantastic Opportunities’
Expanding to Solano, California, where the greenhouse will be co-located with the University of California-Davis (UC Davis), is a significant milestone for the company that has thus far built greenhouses in its home state of New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Illinois, and Colorado
By Mary Ellen Shoup
02-Mar-2021
Photo Credit: Gotham Greens
Using funding from its recent $87m Series D capital raise, indoor agriculture company Gotham Greens has expanded operations to Northern California – its first West Coast greenhouse location – opening a 10-acre facility, which will bring its total annual production to 40 million heads of lettuce and herbs.
Expanding to Solano, California, where the greenhouse will be co-located with the University of California-Davis (UC Davis), is a significant milestone for the company that has thus far built greenhouses in its home state of New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Illinois, and Colorado.
“California is a significant contributor to the nation’s produce industry in several ways. Not only is California responsible for growing one-third of the country’s vegetables and two-thirds of the nation’s fruits, but also it is home to numerous research institutes, industry groups, and suppliers,” Gotham Greens co-founder and CEO Viraj Puri told FoodNavigator-USA.
While working to produce hydroponic indoor lettuce on a mass scale for West Coast consumers is a major goal with the new greenhouse facility, Puri added that its partnership with UC Davis will help drive the next wave of innovation in controlled environment agriculture (CEA).
“The location of this new greenhouse uniquely enables opportunities for Gotham Greens to play a greater role in the produce industry as well as collaborate on research and innovation with the University of California system focused on advancing the science, workforce, technology, and profitability of indoor agriculture globally,” he said.
'Over time, we’ve increased the use of automated systems'
As the top producing state of lettuce, the California agriculture industry has battled with many issues such as heavy rains and flooding to months-long drought periods that have resulted in supply shortages and price increases.
Indoor agriculture such as the greenhouse hydroponic solution Gotham Greens has brought to market could provide a viable solution to all these issues, it claims.
Gotham Greens grows its greens uses natural sunlight and hydroponic systems which uses 95% less water and 97% less land than conventional farming.
“Over time, we’ve increased the use of automated systems to ensure that temperature, humidity and light levels, as well as air composition, are exactly the right balance,” said Puri.
The end product is packaged fresh greens which are beginning to reach cost parity with commoditized field-grown lettuce. A 4.5-ounce package of Gotham Greens Romaine lettuce for example costs $3.49 on average compared to a head of conventional Romain lettuce which retails for $2.28 (in Chicago), according to USDA market price data.
Consumers also have the extra security of knowing that the lettuce they purchased is fresh since the produce traveled a much shorter distance and passed through fewer hands than is typically required for field-grown lettuce, noted Gotham Greens.
Gotham Greens Product Shot_Photo Credit Gotham Greens
Size of the prize
Puri noted that while just a small fraction of the overall lettuce category, the potential addressable market for indoor-grown, packaged leafy greens and herbs in the US and Canada is $15bn.
"While indoor farming currently represents a small portion of the salad and leafy greens market, Gotham Greens is growing +70% year over year and the indoor farming sector is growing more than +50% year over year*, far outpacing the overall category (+15% YoY) as well as the organic segment (+9% YoY)," he said.
*Nielsen Total US xAOC Lettuce and Pre Packaged Salads, Dollar Sales, Latest 52 weeks ending 1/23/21
Advantages of greenhouse farming
Asked whether the company would ever explore a vertical farming model, which in theory could use less land to produce equal amounts of lettuce, Puri noted that its greenhouse method mixed with technology is a more flexible and economic solution.
“Vertical farming is an exciting extension of modern greenhouse farming with many shared principles, but it is still a relatively young industry with open questions around technology and financial sustainability. Fully indoor environments that rely on artificial light and HVAC systems can theoretically offer much higher yields and levels of climate control, pest management, and food safety. However, these benefits currently come with significantly higher capital and operating costs,” said Puri.
Plant varieties optimized for indoor growing
The company has proved its system can work at a large scale (Gotham Greens products are available in 40 states and at 2,000 retail stores), but there are many new areas it can explore to further optimize its growing methods.
“One area of particular interest for UC Davis is the breeding of improved crop varieties for indoor agriculture. For several centuries, plant breeders have focused on selecting and breeding crops suited to outdoor conditions, where they have been successful. The indoor environment, in contrast, is relatively unexplored but offers fantastic opportunities to use lights and nutrients to modify plant development, nutritional quality, yield, and shelf-life,” said Professor Gail Taylor, chair of the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences.
“Much remains to be explored over the coming years to ensure safer, cleaner, and more sustainable food.”
‘We are interested in the complementary nature of indoor and outdoor agriculture’
Gabe Youtsey, chief innovation officer, UC Agriculture, and Natural Resources, believes the CEA industry a new and exciting frontier for agriculture.
“New genetics, data-driven intelligent farming, farm automation, energy optimization, and other technologies can all be brought together to create a range of new tasty, healthy, and sustainable food products. We are interested in the complementary nature of indoor and outdoor agriculture, and the opportunity to help expand a local footprint of food production that is less resource-intensive and create a new generation of diverse young farmers,” Youtsey told FoodNavigator-USA.
The greenhouse will generate 60 new full-time jobs and create a new type of opportunity for UC Davis students that want to pursue CEA as a career.
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RELATED TAGS: indoor farming, greenhouse farming, Gotham Greens
Climate Corps America: The Urban Farms Transforming How America’s Most Vulnerable Communities Eat
Urban farms not only promote healthy eating but have the ability to transform industrial cities.
Louise Boyle
The microwave plays a significantly more important role to urban farming in Baltimore than you might first imagine.
“Our butternut squash comes from a seed which makes it little and easily microwaveable,” Gwen Kokes, food and farm programme director at Civic Works, told The Independent. “For our [customers] this is really important as it might be too expensive to turn on the gas to cook or the oven might not be working.”
The squash, along with a range of produce, is grown at Real Food Farm, one branch of Civic Works urban service corps program in Maryland’s largest city.
The farm started about a decade ago and spans eight acres in northeast Baltimore with four fields, more than 100 fruit trees, a greenhouse for seedlings, and eight “hoop houses” which, for the uninitiated, are a sort of passive greenhouse with crops planted directly in the soil but sheltered by heavy-duty plastic sheets stretched over frames.
The farm produces 5,000 pounds of fruit and vegetables each year to be sold for reduced cost at farmers’ markets in low-income neighbourhoods across Baltimore. A mobile market, operating out of a box truck, also visits all 12 senior centres in the city.
“In total, we distribute about 100,000 pounds of food every year,” says Ms Kokes. “We buy from other urban farms in a 50-mile radius, prioritising Black-owned farms. Sometimes we have donations from Hungry Harvest, a programme to reduce food waste from grocery stores, and we’ve been adding pantry and hygiene items so that it’s more of a one-stop shop.”
Civic Works is part of AmeriCorps, the federal agency for service and volunteering programmes in the US. To tackle the climate crisis, President Biden has called for “reinvigorating and repurposing” the agency into a so-called “Civilian Climate Corps” to provide jobs while ramping up clean energy and sustainability to “heal our public lands and make us less vulnerable to wildfires and floods”.
“Biden’s plan could be huge for us,” Ms Kokes said. “I think it can grow exponentially. There’s plenty of demand for these jobs.”
The non-profit also runs programmes to mentor students, fix up abandoned houses and makes homes safer for seniors by doing minor DIY like adding handrails and ramps.
AmeriCorps estimates that its existing network – 25,000 participants in about 130 programmes – could be scaled up to 500,000 young people and veterans over the next five years.
Around 19 million people in the US live in “food deserts”. The term is believed to have been coined in Scotland in the early 1990s by a public housing resident, referring to areas where healthy, fresh options are scarce and packaged and fast food has proliferated.
The term is now seen as having negative connotations, implying that “low healthy food access is a naturally occurring phenomenon, rather than the result of underlying structural inequities”, according to a 2018 study by John Hopkins. (Baltimore residents told researchers they preferred the term “Healthy Food Priority Areas”.)
Researchers also point to the systemic racism at the heart of Americans’ access to food. It’s difficult to improve diet and health, for example, if prices for nutritious food are far beyond your budget, and there’s no public transport to take you stores.
“The fact that predominantly black neighbourhoods, on average, have fewer stores and poorer quality [food] compared to their white counterparts means something,” Ashanté M. Reese, professor of sociology and anthropology at Spelman College who studies race and food inequity, told HuffPost .
Baltimore is one of America’s poorest cities. In 22 of the city’s 668 Census tracts, at least 40 per cent of residents live below the poverty line. Even before Covid, the unemployment rate in the poorest neighbourhoods hovered above 15 per cent, triple that of wealthier areas.
Lack of access to healthy food in Baltimore is one layer of racial inequality that has plagued the city since the early 20th century, when deliberate policies were put in place to separate the city’s white and Black residents.
In the city’s Greenmount East neighbourhood the average life expectancy is around 66 years while four miles away in the wealthier Roland Park, the average life expectancy is 84 years, according to Kaiser Health News.
That’s where organisations like Real Food Farm step in. Those who are unemployed or on low-incomes and using government nutrition assistance programmes get double the value for their dollar if it’s spent at the farmers’ market, for example.
Urban farms not only promote healthy eating but have the ability to transform industrial cities.
“Motor City” Detroit, once the backbone of the car industry, has suffered a well-documented decline since its mid-20th century heyday. But its industrial wastelands have been transformed by urban farming with at least 1,400 farms and gardens in the city. In Pittsburgh, Hilltop Urban Farm is set to become the largest urban farm in the country. Baltimore has around 17 urban farms and upwards of 75 community gardens that grow food, according to Baltimore magazine.
Civic Works’ role on the frontline of food insecurity meant that its teams were well-positioned to adapt during the Covid pandemic, delivering boxes of fresh produce and basic necessities to the most vulnerable at no cost. They also worked with public bodies and local charities to deliver donations.
“During lockdown, Baltimore City public school system had to get rid of those little cartons of milk really fast. We have thousands of customers so we focused on getting those out to them,” Ms Kokes said.
From March through the end of July, the programme’s teams ran a free programme delivering boxes of produce, meals and hygiene kits to about 1,000 households a week. They went on to launch a discounted local produce programme, delivering boxes with about $15-$20 of food for $5 with free delivery, mostly to seniors.
Urban farms will play a role in mitigating how climate change impacts urban areas. Cities are often several degrees hotter than rural areas due to the “urban heat island effect” caused by dark-coloured roads and buildings. Increasing vegetation cover can help curb rising temperatures.
Urban farms can also lower the risk of flooding during heavy downpours and help retain water in dry areas, according to a paper in the journal Earth’s Future.
Research in 2018 from Arizona State University and Google found that urban agriculture could save the energy equivalent of 9 million home air conditioning units and produce up to 180m tonnes of food globally. Along with supplying almost the entire recommended consumption of vegetables for city dwellers, it would cut food waste and reduce emissions from transportation of produce, the study found.
Maryland is among the states most vulnerable to climate change, facing both rising sea levels and heightened storm intensity. Government data predicts that Maryland’s sizeable farming community could suffer costly losses during extreme droughts and heat waves.
Ms Kokes says that more extreme and unpredictable weather has impacted their operations in recent years.
“With day-to-day farming, we have to get ‘swamp ready’,” she said. “2018 was the worst for Maryland farmers as the rain was astronomical. We took a huge hit. It was very humbling because we had to reckon with our limitations, and partner with others to be a reliable source of food.
“Irregular weather patterns especially in the spring make it really difficult to know when to plant. We’ve [also] had early frost in October. Our farmer Stewart is a very smart, science-oriented guy and thankfully, there’s resources that we can lean on to translate this unpredictability into clear language.”
Around 3,000 students from kindergarten to high school have visited Real Food Farm over the years to learn about agriculture. Separately, programmes like Future Harvest are preparing the farmers of the future. But it’s important that Real Food Farm’s mission stays relevant to the communities they are in, Ms Kokes said.
“Environmentalism, from our perspective and our work, has to be people-focused,” she said. “We’re not talking about weather patterns when people are hungry and just want affordable produce in their neighbourhood.”
The Indoor Farms Disrupting The Produce Industry
If you don't already, chances are you'll soon be eating produce from indoor farms
If you don't already, chances are you'll soon be eating produce from indoor farms. FORWARD GREENS:
Known as 'America's salad bowl,' Yuma County, Arizona grows much of the iceberg lettuce and other leafy greens consumed in the United States. During the winter months, the area grows as much as 90 percent of America's leafy greens. Yet, over the past decade, indoor vertical farms popping up in cities throughout the country have begun to decentralize the produce market. But can they scale enough to provide consumers with local vegetables and even fruits year-round while still being able to compete with the price of conventionally grown produce?
"By remotely monitoring and analyzing the data across our global network of modular farms in real-time, we're not only able to offer a closer, more sustainable alternative to industrial farming, but we're able to improve the way our produce grows to offer a fresher, tastier product year-round," said Emmanuel Evita of Global Communications Director of Infarm which has more than 1200 indoor farms in stores and distribution centers in the United States, Canada, and Europe.
Vertical farms like Washington-based Forward Greens use soilless farming techniques, technology and constant data monitoring to grow their crops. PHOTO: FORWARD GREENS
If you don't already, chances are you'll soon be eating produce from indoor farms. While outdoor farms rely on water, sun, and sometimes luck to produce leafy greens and other produce, most indoor farms use soilless farming techniques, technology, and constant data monitoring to grow their crops.
"We believe that vertical farming will play an instrumental role in the future of local, pesticide-free, sustainable food production year-round in nearly any location in the world," said Hiroki Koga, Co-Founder &CEO of Oishii, which figured out how to vertically farm strawberries, growing the Omakase Berry. "The industry is in its infancy, and over time yields will increase and production costs will decrease. There truly is a roadmap to reaching cost parity with greenhouse and conventional production systems."
There's no doubt that vertical farms will play a role in feeding the growing worldwide population, especially as increasing climate disruptions make outdoor farming more unpredictable. However, much of the indoor farming industry is still trying to figure out the best model, whether that looks like distributed or centralized indoor farms to produce food efficiently and sustainably.
"Where an indoor farm is built is just as important as who it's being built by," Ken Kaneko, the founder of Washington-based Forward Greens. "It requires a consumer that is willing to try new things."
Ken Kaneko got introduced to vertical farming while working at Apple AAPL -3.7%. With a goal of simplifying the indoor farm process to be more affordable and scalable, he launched Forward Greens (then known as West Village Farms) in 2017.
Forward Greens currently provides leafy greens throughout southwest Washington-state and is working to expand to a larger demographic PHOTO: FORWARD GREENS
"When you build smaller farms even multiple farms within a city you can enjoy fresh local produce made in your neighborhood," said Kaneko.
Forward Greens currently provides leafy greens throughout southwest Washington-state and is working to expand to a larger demographic while focusing on making sure all the business fundamentals are accounted for before growing.
"In addition to creating and marketing a product we're also creating a demand for how a product is being made," Kaneko said.
Like Forward Greens, Oishii is currently working to build out its farms to expand to new locations within the US.
"Oishii has set its sights on creating a paradigm shift in indoor vertical farming," Koga.
It may not be long before consumers start to pay attention to and create the demand for specific brands of lettuce or strawberries the way they might for a brand of tomato sauce.
I’m a NY-based freelance writer covering food, technology, and the environment. My work has appeared in Martha Stewart Living, Civil Eats, PBS NewsHour, and more. As the former digital strategy at Edible Brooklyn I worked closely with the Editor-in-Chief to develop editorial content around the magazine’s annual Food Loves Tech event, reporting on urban farms, food waste, and other issues relating to how technology is changing our food system. When not editing, reporting, or writing, you will often find me exploring new places through their food markets, dreaming about the beach, and attempting to wrangle my golden retriever into proper behavior.
VIDEO: Take A Virtual Tour Of The New Controlled Environment Ag Center At The Ohio State University
Dr. Chieri Kubota, the Director of the new center focusing on controlled environment agriculture and protected cultivation hosted this event to introduces the programs and membership
Dr. Chieri Kubota, the Director of the new center focusing on controlled environment agriculture and protected cultivation hosted this event to introduces the programs and membership.
What OHCEAC is unique about is that we are an integrative, interdisciplinary, and inclusive team conducting collaborative research to respond to CEA stakeholder needs. Our focus inclusively covers various production systems and crop types. We use the terminology of CEA as having a very broad meaning including soil-based or soilless systems under various types of climate control or modification structures.
University of Arizona Announces Greenhouse Engineering Course
Join the University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center for their 20th Annual CEAC Greenhouse Crop Production & Engineering Design Short Course on March 3rd, 10th, and 17th via Zoom
Join the University of Arizona’s Controlled Environment Agriculture Center for their 20th Annual CEAC Greenhouse Crop Production & Engineering Design Short Course on March 3rd, 10th, and 17th via Zoom. This virtual conference will increase your knowledge in Controlled Environment Agriculture and hydroponic growing and will allow you to network with industry leaders.
Each day will be jam-packed with incredible presentations given by experts in academia and the CEA industry. Topics will include Greenhouse Structures and Environments, Managing Plant Nutrition, Lighting, Fertigation Systems, Pest Identification, and Control Strategies, Hemp and Mushrooms in CEA, Organic Hydroponic Food Production, and much more! Registration is open until February 26th, 2021.
Click here for the 2021 Online Greenhouse Crop Production & Engineering Design Short Course Schedule
For more information, visit ceac.arizona.edu.