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SINGAPORE - VIDEOS: How IoT And Machine Learning Are Automating Agriculture
A new generation of farmers is tapping the internet of things and machine learning to operate self-sustaining urban farms with minimal supervision
A New Generation of Farmers Is Tapping The internet of Things And Machine Learning To Operate Self-Sustaining Urban Farms With Minimal Supervision
By Aaron Tan, TechTarget
21 Jul 2021
A new generation of farmers is turning to technologies such as the internet of things (IoT) and machine learning to automate agricultural production, alleviating the need to toil on the land while keeping a watchful eye on their crops.
Joining their ranks is Phoebe Xie, director, and co-founder of Singapore-based agrotechnology startup AbyFarm. Teaming up with technology service provider SPTel, Xie is building a smart hydroponics farm in a greenhouse that uses a plethora of IoT sensors, including video cameras, to keep the farm humming around the clock.
“To run a self-regulating farm at the optimal temperature with optimal water and nutrient supply, and to control the quality and taste of vegetables and fruits, we need IoT sensors,” she said, adding that the farm and its sensors collect and monitor thousands of data points, including humidity and temperature.
With the data and in certain environmental conditions, processes and actions are automatically triggered to protect crops from the elements. For instance, if the temperature or humidity gets too high, fans, water curtains, and roof shades are activated in the greenhouse.
Xie said the smart farm, located at a rooftop carpark in Singapore, is also equipped with sensors that monitor the pH and electrical conductivity levels of water. Among the sensors, which are connected to a Lora low-power wide area network, is a dozer that automatically releases acidic or alkaline nutrients to maintain optimal pH levels.
Whereas the farmers of old had to physically inspect their crops, AbyFarm’s agronomists and farmers can do so remotely using video cameras and image recognition technology to identify crops that might be succumbing to disease.
“If the image recognition finds that a plant is likely to be sick, the farmer will be alerted to go onsite to check how the plant is right now,” said Xie, adding that agronomists will also advise farmers on taking corrective actions to prevent disease or restore the health of their crops.
Like any machine learning system, AbyFarm’s algorithms get smarter over time. Each time a crop is affected by disease, data about the occurrence and corrective action is fed into the system, enabling its algorithms to formulate solutions for other farmers with similar crop issues – without consulting an agronomist.
With that, said Xie, even those who are new to the field can use the system to guide them on treating diseased crops, which can be isolated from other crops to prevent cross-infections.
AbyFarm’s automated farming system, which is hosted on SPTel’s private cloud, can also advise farmers on the best time to transplant their crops after germination and harvest them later for sale, said Xie.
Heng Kwee Tong, vice-president for engineering and customer solutions at SPTel, said the company has built up a software-defined platform to help companies like AbyFarm overcome the challenges of deploying applications such as IoT.
“The common struggle that companies like AbyFarm face with building an IoT solution is that it is quite intensive in terms of ICT infrastructure,” said Heng. “You’ve got to find the radio connectivity like Lora, subscribe to a service provider, and connect your sensors to a sensor collector.
“We make it easy by investing in a platform and because we are a service provider with edge hub assets for deploying radio connectivity, all AbyFarm needs to do is to bring their sensors onboard.”
Going forward, Heng said SPTel is looking to support next-generation video analytics capabilities through edge cloud services that can be used to crunch workloads closer to where they reside, reducing latency.
AbyFarm was one of six companies to win contracts from the Singapore Food Agency last year to build urban farms at nine rooftop carparks in public housing estates across Singapore.
The goal is to collectively produce about 1,600 tonnes of vegetables a year in a bid by the city-state – where less than 1% of the land is used for agriculture – to become more self-sufficient in meeting the nutritional needs of its people.
That could well be achievable with technology that makes farming more efficient, scalable, and less labor-intensive than before. “We are willing to train and educate the next generation in agrotechnology because now you don’t need 10 farmers to take care of one farm,” said Xie. “It’s just looking at the dashboard and, with the alerts, doing what is required.”
Infarm Raises $170M In Equity And Debt To Continue Building Its ‘Vertical Farming’ Network
That’s likely a testament to the speed of new retail partnerships over the last 12 months. They include Albert Heijn (Netherlands), Aldi Süd (Germany), COOP/Irma (Denmark), Empire Company’s Sobeys, Safeway and Thrifty Foods (Canada), Kinokuniya (Japan), Kroger (U.S.) and Marks & Spencer and Selfridges (U.K.)
September 17, 2020
Image Credits: Infarm
Infarm, the vertical farming company that has built a network of urban farms to grow fresh food closer to consumers, has raised $170 million in new investment in a “first close” of a Series C.
Leading the round — which is expected to reach $200 million and is a mixture of equity and debt — is LGT Lightstone, with participation from Hanaco, Bonnier, Haniel, and Latitude. Existing Infarm investors Atomico, TriplePoint Capital, Mons Capital, and Astanor Ventures also followed on. It brings the company’s total funding to date to more than $300 million.
That’s likely a testament to the speed of new retail partnerships over the last 12 months. They include Albert Heijn (Netherlands), Aldi Süd (Germany), COOP/Irma (Denmark), Empire Company’s Sobeys, Safeway and Thrifty Foods (Canada), Kinokuniya (Japan), Kroger (U.S.) and Marks & Spencer and Selfridges (U.K.).
With operations across 10 countries and 30 cities worldwide, Infarm says it now harvests more than 500,000 plants monthly, and in a much more sustainable way than traditional farming and supply chains. Its modular, IoT-powered vertical farming units claim to use 99.5% less space than soil-based agriculture, 95% less water, 90% less transport, and zero chemical pesticides. In addition, 90% of the electricity used throughout the Infarm network is from renewable energy and the company has set a target to reach zero emission food production next year.
Founded in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli, and brothers Erez and Guy Galonska, Infarm’s “indoor vertical farming” system is capable of growing herbs, lettuce and other vegetables. It then places these modular farms in a variety of customer-facing city locations, such as grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls and schools, thus enabling the end-customer to actually pick the produce themselves. To further scale, it also installs Infarms in local distribution centers.
The distributed system is designed to be infinitely scalable — you simply add more modules, space permitting — whilst the whole thing is cloud-based, meaning the farms can be monitored and controlled from Infarm’s central control center. It’s also incredibly data-driven, a combination of IoT, Big Data and cloud analytics akin to “Farming-as-a-Service.”
The idea, the founding team told me back in 2017 when I profiled the nascent company, isn’t just to produce fresher and better-tasting produce and re-introduce forgotten or rare varieties, but to disrupt the supply chain as a whole, which remains inefficient and produces a lot of waste.
“Behind our farms is a robust hardware and software platform for precision farming,” explained Michaeli at the time. “Each farming unit is its own individual ecosystem, creating the exact environment our plants need to flourish. We are able to develop growing recipes that tailor the light spectrums, temperature, pH and nutrients to ensure the maximum natural expression of each plant in terms of flavor, color and nutritional quality.”
On that note, I caught up with two of Infarm’s founders to get a brief update on the Berlin-headquartered company and to dive a little deeper into how it will continue to scale.
TechCrunch: What assumptions did you make early on that have turned out to be true or, more interestingly, not panned out as expected?
Osnat Michaeli: When we first chatted about four years ago, we were 40 people in Berlin, and much of the conversation centered around the potential that our approach to urban vertical farming might have for retailers. While for many it was intriguing as a concept, we couldn’t have imagined that a few years later we would have expanded to almost 10 countries (Japan is on its way) and 30 cities, with partnerships with some of the largest retailers in the world. Our assumptions at the time were that retailers and their customers would be attracted to the taste and freshness of produce that grew right in front of them in the produce section, in our farms.
What we didn’t anticipate was how much and how quickly the demand for a sustainable, transparent, and modular approach to farming would grow as we, as a society, begin to feel the impact of climate change and supply chain fragility upon our lives, our choices and our food. Of course, we also did not anticipate a global pandemic, which has underscored the urgency of building a new food system that can democratize access to high-quality, amazing-tasting food, while helping our planet regenerate and heal. The past few months have confirmed the flexibility and resilience of our farming model, and that our mission is more relevant than ever.
In terms of signing on new retailers, based on your progress in the last 12 months, I’m guessing this has gotten easier, though undoubtedly there are still quite long lead times. How have these conversations changed since you started?
Erez Galonska: While lead times and speed of conversations can vary depending upon the region and retailer. In mature markets where the concept is familiar and we’re already engaged, deal conversations can reach maturity in as little time as three months. Since we last spoke we are already working with most of the leading retailers that are well established in Europe, the U.K., and North America. Brands which in each of their markets are both forerunners in a retail industry rapidly evolving to meet the demand for consumer-focused innovation, while proving that access to sustainable, high-quality, fresh, and living produce is not only possible, but can be available in produce aisles today, and every day of the year, with Infarm.
I’m interested to understand where Infarms are installed, in terms of if the majority is in-store and consumer-facing or if the most scalable and bulk of Infarm’s use cases are really much larger distribution hubs in cities or close to cities, i.e. not too far away from places with population/store density but not actually in stores. Perhaps you can enlighten me on what the ratio looks like today and how you see it developing as vertical farming grows?
Erez Galonska: Today across our markets, the split between our farms in stores and in distribution centers is roughly 50/50. However, as you anticipate, we will be expanding our network this year with many more distribution hubs. This expansion will likely lead to an 80/20 split as early as next year, with the majority of our regions being served with fresh, living produce delivered throughout the week from centrally located hubs. This not only offers retailers and restaurants flexibility in terms of volumes of output, and the ability to adapt the presentation of our offerings to floor areas of different sizes, but it also allows us to begin to serve whole regions from our next-generation farms under development today.
Based in our hubs, these farms will deliver the crop equivalent of an acre or more of fresh produce on a 25 m2 footprint, with significant further savings in energy, water, labor and land use. We believe this technology will truly challenge ideas of what is possible in sustainable, vertical farming and we look forward to talking about it more soon.
Lastly, what are the main product lines in terms of food on the shelves?
Osnat Michaeli: We have a catalog of more than 65 herbs, microgreens, and leafy greens that is constantly growing. Our offerings range from the known and common varieties like Coriander, Basil, or Mint, to specialty products like Peruvian Mint, Red Veined Sorrel or Wasabi Rucola.
Because our farms give us excellent control over every part of a plant’s growth process and can imitate the complexity of different ecosystems, we will be able to expand the diversity of Infarm produce available to consumers to include root vegetables, mushrooms, flowering crops, and even superfoods from around the world in the near future. What you see today with Infarm is still only the beginning.
USA (CA) - Iron Ox Raises $20 Million To Grow Robotic Greenhouse Operations
The funding will be used to open additional robotic growing facilities in California and other parts of the U.S., according to company co-founder and CEO Brandon Alexander
Khari Johnson @kharijohnson
September 9, 2020
Robotics farming company Iron Ox today announced the close of a $20 million funding round. The funding will be used to open additional robotic growing facilities in California and other parts of the U.S., according to company co-founder and CEO Brandon Alexander. The funding will also be used to hire additional machine learning and robotics experts as well as growers and scientists who work with plants.
“We’re now competing on price with field farms, but we think we can do even better and take this to more people,” he said.
Iron Ox employs a 1,000-pound mobile transport system roughly the size of a car to move trays of growing vegetables and tend to plants using a robotic grasper while computer vision systems monitor the plant growth cycle. The semi-autonomous system still relies on humans for a part of its seeding, pruning, and inspection process, Alexander said, but the goal is for Iron Ox to someday be fully autonomous.
While startups like Bowery practice indoor vertical farming in urban facilities near New York and Baltimore, Iron Ox has turned its focus toward greenhouse farming since the company was founded in 2015 as a way to lower energy costs. Earlier this year, Iron Ox opened its first greenhouse, a 10,000-square foot facility in Gilroy, California, the company’s second location. Iron Ox currently provides produce to 15 Whole Foods stores in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Though Gilroy is known as the garlic capital of the world, Iron Ox does not currently grow any garlic. Instead, the company focuses on leafy green vegetables like lettuce and some herbs.
Alexander said Iron Ox’s biggest challenge is how to use data collected by sensors to train AI systems that produce higher yields at lower costs.
“I would say in agriculture as a whole it’s not just collecting data, it’s not just taking an image, but it’s actually how do you include that data into the decision making process?” Alexander said. “I would say that is the biggest challenge in ag is how do you respond to these each individual plants and the variety and all these little variables.”
The $20 million funding round was led by Pathbreak Ventures with participation from Crosslink Capital, Amplify Partners, Eniac Ventures, R7 Partners, Tuesday Ventures, and At One Ventures. Iron Ox is based in San Carlos, California. The company currently has 30 employees and has raised $45 million to date.
Field farming today is still the most efficient way to grow produce. However, concern about shrinking field yields and instability due to climate change has spurred interest in indoor farming. In 2018, international teams from companies like Microsoft and Tencent competed against each other to find out who could grow the highest yield of cucumbers inside a greenhouse using AI and automation. (Spoiler: The Microsoft team won.)
In other AI and agriculture news, last month the startup iFarm raised $4 million for its AI-driven urban farming solution, and in June the startup Burro began rolling out its autonomous farm robot in southern California to assist in grape harvesting.
Image credits: Iron Ox
IDTechEx Identifies Innovative Companies Changing The Face of Vertical Farming
Vertical farming, the practice of growing crops indoors under tightly controlled conditions, is continuing to expand rapidly
Sep 02, 2020
BOSTON, Sept. 2, 2020,/PRNewswire/ -- Vertical farming, the practice of growing crops indoors under tightly controlled conditions, is continuing to expand rapidly. By using LED lighting tailored to the exact needs of the crop, alongside advanced hydroponic growing systems, and growing crops in vertically stacked trays, vertical farms can achieve yields hundreds of times higher than the same area of traditional farmland.
Investors and entrepreneurs alike are excited about the potential of vertical farming to revolutionize the global food system and some vertical farming companies have raised dizzying amounts of money. Plenty, a San Francisco-based start-up, and the most well-funded vertical farm, has raised $401 million in funding, with backers including SoftBank, Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt, and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos. Fellow US start-ups AeroFarms and Bowery Farming are not far behind, with $238 million and $167.5 million in funding, respectively.
While there has been much attention on these companies and their exploits, there are dozens of other companies in the industry developing their own approaches to vertical farming. Here, we explore some of the most innovative vertical farming start-ups, based on the recent IDTechEx report, "Vertical Farming 2020-2030".
Freight Farms
Freight Farms is a Boston-based vertical farming company that manufactures "container farms", vertical farming systems installed into 40' mobile containers. Alongside its container farms, Freight Farms provides the farmhand software, a hydroponic farm management, and automation platform that also connects users with other Freight Farms customers. Container farms have many advantages - they are easy to transport, compact, and relatively cheap to set up in comparison to other vertical farming systems. Container farms are often turnkey systems, too, meaning that they require much less experience and expertise to operate than either a factory-scale vertical farm or indeed a traditional farm.
Freight Farms recently released its most advanced container farming system, the Greenery, which it believes is the most advanced container farming system in the world. The Greenery is a turnkey system that uses an array of sensors to continuously monitor the growing conditions inside the farm, with the farmhand software automatically making adjustments and planning watering cycles in order to provide the optimum environment for growing crops and allowing users to control their Greenery remotely from a smartphone.
80 Acres – Collaboration, Food Experience
Despite their potential, many vertical farming start-ups have struggled over the years with the labor costs and power requirements for running a high-tech indoor farm. This has often forced producers to sell their crops at a much higher price than conventionally farmed leafy greens. Additionally, many founders of vertical farming companies have little experience in the food industry and can struggle with the day-to-day realities of running a food production industry.
80 Acres is an Ohio-based vertical farming start-up aiming to overcome these challenges by constructing the world's first fully automated indoor farm. The company was founded in November 2015 by Tisha Livingston and Mike Zelkind, who between them have over 50 years' experience in the food industry. Collaboration is also important to 80 Acres. The company believes that vertical farming is a very multidisciplinary field, requiring collaboration between partners who are experts in their own discipline. Signify (formerly Philips Lighting) developed the LEDs used in the facility and Dutch greenhouse automation company Priva developed the control and fertigation systems, with 80 Acres using its experience in food to bring the system together and integrate the technology.
The company currently operates a 75,000 square foot facility in Hamilton, a suburb of Cincinnati, which is set to expand to 150,000 square feet in summer 2020 following a $40 million investment from Virgo Investment Group. When completed, 80 Acres claims this facility will be the world's first fully automated indoor farm. The farm will be automated from seeding to growing to harvesting, using robotics, artificial intelligence, data analytics, and around-the-clock monitoring sensors and control systems to optimize every aspect of growing produce indoors.
Jones Food Company
Jones Food Company is a British vertical farming start-up that operates Europe's largest vertical farm out of a warehouse in Scunthorpe, UK. It was founded in 2016 by James Lloyd-Jones and Paul Challinor, who wanted to build the largest vertical farming facility that they could in order to help overcome some of the operational problems plaguing the industry and bring vertical farming to the mainstream. After visiting several vertical farms in Japan, they decide that the only way to make vertical farming a success is to focus on scale and automation.
Jones Food Company focuses on maximizing automation and robotics in their facility to minimize operating costs, with its facility being modeled on a car factory, with the growing process resembling a production line - over the 25-day growing period, plants move from one end of the facility to another. Much of the work is done by machines, helping to reduce labor costs. Harvesting is carried out by bespoke machines and the heavy lifting is performed by a robot called Frank. This focus on automation means that only six employees are required to operate the Scunthorpe facility.
Jones Food Company has partnered with UK online grocery company Ocado, which currently owns about 70% of the business. Through this partnership, Jones Food Company is aiming to set up vertical farms next to Ocado's grocery depots, meaning that fresh produce could be delivered to shoppers within an hour of being picked.
Infarm
Infarm is a Berlin-based start-up that sells modular, hydroponic vertical farms for growing leafy greens and herbs in supermarkets, schools, and offices. A single two-square meter unit can grow 8,000 plants in a year, with the company claiming its farms use 95% less water than soil-based farms, take up 99.5% less space, use zero chemical pesticides, need 90% less transportation, and use 75% less fertilizer.
Infarm has partnered with several major supermarkets across Europe, where it has currently deployed over 500 farms in stores and distribution centers. The company is also beginning to expand in the USA, having recently partnered with Kroger to trial its indoor farms in two QFC stores in Seattle. In the UK, it has partnered with supermarket chain Marks & Spencer, which is trialing in-store urban farming in seven locations in London, growing Italian basil, Greek basil, Bordeaux basil, mint, mountain coriander, thyme, and curly parsley.
The company's business model is based around an "agriculture-as-a-service" model. The modular farms remain the property of Infarm, which receives income per harvested plant. Infarm then coordinates with clients such as retailers and takes care of the farm including installation, cultivation, harvesting, and maintenance. Aside from the regular visits by service personnel to plant new plants, the farms are controlled remotely. This modular, data-driven, and distributed approach — a combination of big data, IoT, and cloud analytics — sets Infarm apart from competitors. From a price point, Infarm is attractive for supermarkets, which get a better product at the same price. In addition, the plants, especially herbs, are harvested fresh, preserving color, smell, flavor, and nutrients.
For more information about the vertical farming industry and the innovative companies operating within the space, please see the recent IDTechEx report, "Vertical Farming 2020-2030", www.IDTechEx.com/VertFarm or for the full portfolio of related research available from IDTechEx please visit www.IDTechEx.com/Research.
IDTechEx guides your strategic business decisions through its Research, Consultancy, and Event products, helping you profit from emerging technologies. For more information on IDTechEx Research and Consultancy, contact research@IDTechEx.com or visit www.IDTechEx.com.
Swegreen Vertical Farm Goes In-Store in Gothenburg, Sweden
Swegreen's first automated farming unit takes place at ICA Focus in Gothenburg
Swegreen's first automated farming unit takes place at ICA Focus in Gothenburg
Swegreen inks contract with ICA Focus in Gothenburg, to become the exclusive producer of hyper-locally grown vegetables via an automated cultivation system inside the store itself. The agreement is based on Swegreen's subscription-based Farming-as-a-Service, which gives food retailers and restaurants the opportunity to offer their customers fresh crops all year round – harvested directly on-site or in-store.
From left: Andreas Dahlin, CEO at Swegreen. Elsa Adlersson, ICA Focus' responsible for the In-Store greenhouse. Marcus Petersson, chairman at Swegreen.
The contract between Swegreen and ICA Focus concludes that the Gothenburg-based store will be the first in Sweden to offer its customers hyper-locally produced greens grown from seed to fully-grown size inside a store itself. The cultivation facility, which is provided by the Swedish startup company Swegreen, is based on so-called hydroponic cultivation technology that is both resource-efficient and climate-smart. The technical solution also includes the company's special lighting and nutrient recipe, air conditioning system for control of heat, humidity, and CO2 content plus a complete digital monitoring – as well as a data-driven intelligent system for optimization of all cultivation processes.
Through Swegreen's subscription-based business model, Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS), the cooperation between the parties is based on a long-term commitment where Swegreen ensures efficient production at agreed volumes and quality.
- Our FaaS model means that every store and restaurant owner can offer hyper-local, fresh and high-quality crops that are fantastically nutritious and tasty – at very competitive prices, says Swegreen's CEO, Andreas Dahlin.
- We are very proud and happy to start this collaboration with ICA Focus. It is a store that has the will to be at the forefront, and we think there are going to be many who desire to follow their footsteps.
ICA Focus is located in the Gårda district in central Gothenburg, just a stone’s throw away from the famous amusement park, Liseberg, and the Swedish Exhibition and WTC. A flagship store that always has a large assortment of environmental-friendly products.
- Our customers have demanded more locally produced and sustainable greens in our assortment – and it will not be more local and greener than this! Says Daniel Åkerhage, Store Manager at ICA Focus.
- Now we look forward to our first on-site harvest, which we expect to take place later this month.
At full capacity, it is possible to deliver and harvest around 300 units of fresh salad heads and herbs per day in the cultivation facility in the ICA Focus store.
With hydroponic cultivation technology, where the crops grow without soil with lighting from special LED lamps, it is possible to grow vegetables in an urban environment – and thus produce food very close to the consumer. It also removes unnecessary, expensive, and climate-damaging transportations. In addition, the crops do not need to be sprayed by pesticides or herbicides – they are ready to be eaten directly off the growing system. Up to 95% of the irrigation water is reused via the recycling system. Nutrients are also recycled, while the plants receive carbon dioxide through a filtered air intake from the store itself.
Swegreen has developed the cultivation module to be able to create integrated plant environments together with partners in the food and restaurant sector. Therefore, Swegreen has developed a cloud-based control- and monitoring system to make production easy to manage. Through data collection of current factors in the cultivation environment, the system can continuously refine and further optimize the cultivation processes by the use of artificial intelligence.
For more information contact:
Andreas Dahlin, CEO of Swegreen, +46 70-924 00 32, andreas.dahlin@swegreen.se
Daniel Åkerhage, store manager ICA Focus, +46 76-117 16 20, daniel@icafocus.se
Swegreen is a Swedish FoodTech company that combines advanced technology, data science, and agricultural knowledge to be able to efficiently produce high-quality and climate-smart crops in an urban environment. The company offers a subscription-based cultivation service called Farming-as-a-Service (FaaS). It gives food retailers and restaurants the opportunity to offer their customers hyper-locally produced, fresh, nutritious, and tasty greens all year round. www.swegreen.com
ICA Focus is a unique grocery store that has been a rendezvous place for food-loving Gothenburgers for over 25 years. With an assortment of over 35,000 items, you have about twice as much to choose from as in an ordinary ICA store. ICA Focus also has its own bakery, charcuterie and restaurant. The store also has one of Gothenburg's best fish delicate retailers, Fisk i Focus. ICA Focus is located in Focushuset, Gårda, in central Gothenburg.
FarmERP Gears Up For The Future As Top Executives From Cognizant And SAP Join Them
FarmERP’s main focus lies in rigorous technology-intensive transformation of agriculture and agribusinesses, through the latest advancements including the Internet of Agricultural Things, AI, Blockchain and Machine Learning
FarmERP’s main focus lies in rigorous technology-intensive transformation of agriculture and agribusinesses, through the latest advancements including the Internet of Agricultural Things, AI, Blockchain, and Machine Learning. To enable revolutionary ease within the management system, FarmERP welcomed Mr. Abhijeet Dange and Mr. Vikram Metkari on board.
The team at FarmERP recently announced the appointment of Mr. Abhijeet Dange as the Associate Vice President for Delivery at the organization. With vast experience in banking and financial services, learning, and talent development for over 22 years while working for organizations like Cognizant and Silverline, he has immense knowledge about handling large offshore customer engagements.
On his appointment, Mr. Dange quoted, “With the knowledge I possess, I aim to help in maintaining FarmERP’s competitive advantage by effectively aiding the growth of agribusinesses through cutting edge technology platforms.”
Mr. Sanjay Borkar, the CEO of the Indian-grown 2001 brand believes that, apart from being a strong leader with excellent people management skills, with his expertise in streamlining digital IT transformations, Mr. Abhijeet will play a crucial role in uncomplicating complex product management for FarmERP.
The team also welcomed on board Mr. Vikram Metkari as the Head of Sales and Marketing, who shares the same passion that the co-founders of the organization do, for transforming the inner workings of agriculture through the use of tech platforms. Mr. Metkari, an MBA and BE professional with rich work experience in marketing, sales, and business strategy, is a self-motivated and confident leader. He is not only a keen planner and strategist, but also an articulate communicator offering high- caliber presentations, negotiations, and analytical skills.
Mr. Santosh Shinde, the COO of FarmERP believes that Mr. Metkari’s extensive experience of working for various companies- both smaller organizations and world leaders like SAP and Vodafone in the IT & Telecom domain will enable him to guide, innovate, build, and provide value to agribusiness' customers by strengthening FarmERP's existing leadership in the domain.
With the valuable addition of both these members to the team at FarmERP, striving to make a difference and create an impact in these testing times, and the immense experience and culmination of expertise that they bring to the table, the management is now stronger than ever.
FarmERP is a leading smart agriculture management ERP technology platform. It was incepted as a part of Shivrai Technologies more than a decade ago and is currently deployed in 25 countries, assisting a variety of agribusinesses.
FarmERP is a pioneered effort by engineers, classmates, and now partners, Mr. Sanjay Borkar and Mr. Santosh Shinde. Both coming from an agricultural background, they were and are well aware of the toils and troubles that the agricultural sector faces on a daily basis. They turned to technology as a helping hand and as a partner.
Due to the connection, both personal and professional that they have towards the agricultural sector, it makes each individual work that much harder towards achieving the long-term goals they stand for. Aiming at the revolutionizing of the practices the agriculture sector follows as of date, FarmERP strives to make considerable progress in the agri-sectors they work with, while actively trying to incorporate their offerings with additional sectors as well since they are a platform which can accommodate the personality of numerous agribusinesses.
US: MINNESOTA: North Market Installs Onsite Vertical Farm
Black-owned and operated by the nonprofit organization Pillsbury United Communities (PUC), the grocery store North Market has installed a hydroponic vertical container farm from Freight Farms onsite
Source: North Market
07.28.2020
By Emily Park
MINNEAPOLIS – Black-owned and operated by the nonprofit organization Pillsbury United Communities (PUC), the grocery store North Market has installed a hydroponic vertical container farm from Freight Farms onsite.
Built-in an upcycled shipping container and controlled by a data-driven IoT platform called farmhand, the 320-square-foot farm is located in the retailer’s parking lot.
Regardless of the season, it will provide the market’s community with fresh produce (all pesticide- and herbicide-free) year-round. Growing at commercial volume, the farm uses less than 5 gallons of water a day.
North Market will start by harvesting 11 flavorful crops: three varieties of mini compact romaine lettuces, green oakleaf, basil, Thai basil, rosemary, thyme, lemon balm, sage, and mint.
“At Pillsbury United Communities, our mission is to co-create enduring change toward a just society in which every person has personal, social, and economic power,” said Kim Pepper, chief engagement officer of PUC. “The closed-loop food ecosystem we have built around North Market is one of the ways we are working to realize this vision. Greens grown onsite in the Freight Farm are sold at North Market ensuring community access to fresh, affordable, local produce year-round. Produce that doesn’t sell is rescued, prepared, and served at our free community café."
Some of the added benefits of the onsite vertical farm include:
Elimination of food miles: the crops only travel steps from the parking lot to the store
Consistent reliability: store can produce its own line of crops for shoppers, with year-round consistency regardless of the weather or changing climate conditions in Minneapolis
Quality and freshness: by being grown hyper-locally (in this case, right onsite), produce stays fresh for far longer, reducing food waste for both the store and consumers
Cost reduction: in removing distribution costs from the equation, PUC is able to pass savings on to the consumer
Traceability & safety: the farm’s integrated IoT platform, farmhand, enables complete traceability of crops from seed to harvest
North Market also sells produce from the PUC’s other soil-based farms in the city. To get those crops to the store, bicycle couriers pick up freshly harvested food from PUC’s Southside gardens and deliver them to North Market to be sold. Completing the cycle, they also pick up surplus food and bring it back to the Southside to be distributed in community delivery meal programs. The remaining food is composted back at the Southside gardens.
UAE Agricultural Firm Uses Technology To Help With Food Security
Smart Acres aims to support the UAE’s food security program by using high-tech vertical farming to produce approximately 8,000 kilograms of lettuce per cycle
KATERYNA KADABASHY
July 13, 2020 | DUBAI
Smart Acres aims to support the UAE’s food security program by using high-tech vertical farming to produce approximately 8,000 kilograms of lettuce per cycle.“
In the expansion phase, we will have 78 modules, which comes to a total of 88,320 pots. Each lettuce, for example, will weigh 100 grams. So, that is approximately 8,000 kilograms of crops per cycle,” the company’s CEO Abdulla Al-Kaabi told Arab News.
The vertical farm — currently in the proof-of-concept stage — is expected to launch in the third quarter of 2020, producing 12 cycles of crops annually and expanding from Abu Dhabi to the rest of the country. In this type of farming, plants are stocked vertically, providing more produce per area and resembling something similar to the green walls sometimes seen in malls.
Smart Acres collaborated with South Korean vertical farming technology n.thing in their farming processes. (Supplied)
The company collaborated with South Korean vertical farming technology n.thing to employ the Internet of Things in their farming so as to efficiently use water and monitor humidity, temperature, and nutrients.“
Vertical farms, in general, save over 90 percent of water compared to traditional farming methods. There is constant water flow across all the little pots, and the water is filled with all the nutrients necessary for the plant to grow,” Lead Project Manager Aphisith Joe Phongsavanh said.
The high-tech design of the farm allows Smart Acres to produce clean crops without any pesticides and with minimal intervention.“
Since we are growing our crops in a 100 percent closed environment, we don’t have to use pesticides at all. That’s exactly what we mean by clean food: non-adulterated food products that go through minimal processing,” Phongsavanh said.
However, this closed environment in which the plants grow requires staff and visitors to wear protective gear before entering the premises in order to preserve the sterility of the area.“
It is almost like going into a very high-tech factory. You have to wear lab coats and go through an air shower, where one door is closed and the other door only opens after 10 seconds of disinfection,” Director of Smart Acres Sean Lea said.
Currently, the company does not have any investors, but Al-Kaabi said that the expansion phase “of course will require an investment,” expected to cost around AED16.7 million ($4.5 million).
It will not just include a larger number of crops, but also a research and development center with a vision to start cultivating baby spinach, mature spinach, baby arugula, strawberries, and potato seeds.
Earlier in July, Abu Dhabi’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan visited some local farms and met with agricultural entrepreneurs.“
I was pleased to meet some of the UAE’s aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs who are pioneering sustainable and resilient farming practices using modern technology,” Al-Nahyan tweeted.
The UAE is pushing for local production of crops and livestock.
According to Khaleej Times, the Abu Dhabi Agriculture and Food Safety Authority provided over $174 million to “138,000 families, 30,632 breeders and farmers, and 259 small-scale producers and commercial animal farms in Abu Dhabi” to support the industry in June.
Lead Photo: Smart Acres’ vertical farming technology enables it to produce approximately 8 tons of lettuce per cropping cycle. (Supplied)
NEW YORK: Vertical Farming Takes Root in Hudson Valley
Vertical Field launched in Israel in 2006 as an agricultural supply solution for the nation’s urban markets. Miner stated the firm began as a “green wall company” that took the horizontal aspect of rooftop gardens and switched it on its side
By Phil Hall
June 20, 2020
Among the more disturbing aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic involved food costs and supplies. The U.S. Department of Agriculture reported a 2.6% increase in food prices nationwide from March to April, marking the largest monthly increase in 46 years. These increases have been fueled by disruptions in the supply chain due to worker illnesses in processing plants.
For restaurants and food retailers, not being able to access materials or being charged higher-than-normal exacerbates an already acute problem of trying to maintain revenue streams during the pandemic.
However, a pair of regional businesses have begun using agricultural technology from the Israeli company Vertical Field that takes the farm-to-table concept and turns it into a container-to-table approach.
“The way it works is that we take a container, just the standard shipping container,” explained Sam Miner, Vertical Field’s U.S. launch manager.
“And the main thing that we do is we put these modules on the wall that have irrigation lines behind it. We simply fill those modules with soil and we put in the right lighting equipment. And once you put plants in there, they just grow fairly simple.”
John Lekic, chef and owner of Poughkeepsie’s Farmers & Chefs restaurant, poses in front of his Vertical Field container used for growing greens and herbs. Photo courtesy Vertical Field.
Vertical Field launched in Israel in 2006 as an agricultural supply solution for the nation’s urban markets. Miner stated the firm began as a “green wall company” that took the horizontal aspect of rooftop gardens and switched it on its side.
The company now has 400 projects around the world, including a massive installation in Vietnam that Miner described as being “tremendous, like a football field.”
This spring, Vertical Field made its way into the U.S. market through a pair of Hudson Valley installations. John Lekic, chef and owner of Poughkeepsie’s Farmers & Chefs restaurant, learned about the technology at a Culinary Institute of America symposium in late 2019 and was intrigued about operating his own food source.
“We were planning to bring in the container in March and we actually brought in a container days after the emergency thing was declared in New York,” he said. “It was a perfect timing. Ten days later, we planted our first crop, mostly salad greens, and in the middle of May we already had to harvest. We are going to have a third one this week.”
Lekic praised the technology for allowing several harvests per week, noting the ability to “harvest them the day of serving.” He also praised the user-friendly aspect of the 20-foot containers.
“It’s super easy to maintain,” he said. “Once the container is set up and the mechanism is in place, you have an app that does the irrigation and controls the temperature and the humidity. It’s not really complicated — after you do it once or twice, the planting and everything else becomes really easy to maintain. It does not require a lot of time.”
Lekic is now growing herbs and leafy vegetables in the containers, adding “it’s still a playground for us.”
Another Hudson Valley business that has Vertical Field’s technology in place is the Evergreen Kosher supermarket in Monsey, which installed its containers at the end of May. Menachem Lubinsky, president of Brooklyn-based Lubicom Business Consulting and marketing director for Evergreen, praised the product for creating a speedy supply of produce.
“If something takes normally three months to grow, the technology can accelerate that to three weeks,” he said. “A restaurant or a supermarket can be in control of their supply.”
Lubinsky said he reached out to Vertical Field following news reports during the pandemic of truckers not being able to deliver goods and farms destroying crops because they suddenly had no outlets for selling. Besides selling the harvested crops, Evergreen is planning to make the containers a visitors’ attraction.
“The customer will be able to see the process of how it grows because one of the walls of the container is glass,” he said. “It’s kind of like an educational experience just for a family to go over to see how this whole process grows. And there’s a very large kosher constituency there who are concerned about consuming insects. This eliminates that concern because of the way it grows — it is insect-free.”
Lubinsky said that Vertical Field is planning to build on its technology to accommodate the growing of a wider variety of items, including strawberries and vegetables.
UAE To Launch Hydroponic Vertical Farming in 2020
Set to launch in Q3 of 2020, the vertical farming company Smart Acres will be set up in Abu Dhabi, with an aim to expand across the UAE
With a mission to improve food security and support UAE local farms
Darragh Murphy
June 03, 2020
With the UAE making strides in agriculture, and now competing globally by marketing fresh local produce, it’s now adding to this by launching a new hydroponic vertical farm.
Set to launch in Q3 of 2020, the vertical farming company Smart Acres will be set up in Abu Dhabi, with an aim to expand across the UAE.
The new systems aim to develop the UAE’s farming capabilities, along with improving food security to potential socioeconomic threats, such as pandemics, and to help businesses locally source food produce from UAE farms.
The company has designed farm modules using an IoT-based technology system to grow and monitor their produce, a system that consumes less resources and generates ultra-high quality crops.
Smart Acres’ vertical farming method completely reduces water waste, depletion of nutrients in soil, and infestation of insects, along with the elimination of any pesticides.
Currently, the company is producing a variety of lettuce and herbs, such as green glace, oakleaf, lollo rosso, and shiso, with plans to eventually grow baby spinach, mature spinach, and baby arugula.
Looking for locally sourced greens and can’t get enough fresh fruit, vegetable, and more? Check out these organic markets to shop at.
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