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Up On The Roof, Residents at Allegheny General Hospital Tend Vegetable Garden
Up on the roof of the hospital’s Hemlock Parking Garage, doctors and residents have planted eight raised garden beds as part of an initiative designed to relieve stress for residents and provide food to patients in need.
By Anya Sostek
July 19, 2021
Fresh off a morning seeing patients in clinic, resident Deanna Huffman started her afternoon shift at Allegheny General Hospital with a list of tasks: sweep around the garden beds, prune the tomatoes, harvest the snap peas.
Up on the roof of the hospital’s Hemlock Parking Garage, doctors and residents have planted eight raised garden beds as part of an initiative designed to relieve stress for residents and provide food to patients in need.
“It’s pretty well known that there’s a burnout crisis in medicine, and we’re a residency program, training future doctors,” said Dr. Anastasios Kapetanos, director of the residency program. “It was an opportunity to get our residents outside the building, get some sunlight and some wellness benefits of gardening, and we could tangibly give something back.”
Dr. Kapetanos first proposed the idea in an email in February 2018. From there, it was a two-year journey to find the right spot in the hospital’s North Side campus. A courtyard that was identified — and even leveled during the wintertime — ended up being too shady during the summer. A rooftop that looked promising turned out to need tens of thousands of dollars in reinforcement to work as a garden.
“The chief operating officer would go on like, three, four hour walks with us, just on campus,” said Dr. Kapetanos, describing the search for a plot. “Finally he said, why don’t we go check out the parking garage, and that’s how we ended up here.”
Dr. Deanna Huffman, left, and Divya Venkat and other doctors at Allegheny Health Network harvest vegetables from their garden atop the Hemlock Street parking garage at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side.(Post-Gazette)
For busy residents, the parking lot ended up being the perfect spot, he said, because they can park their cars on the top floor and check in on the garden as they come and go from work each day. And the vegetables couldn’t be happier.
In late June, residents had already begun to harvest lettuce and kale. Plump sugar snap peas hung from a trellis ready to go.
“It’s thriving even more than our home garden,” said Dr. Kapetanos. “I am so jealous,” added his wife, Dr. Yenny Cabrera-Kapetanos, who is also an internal medicine doctor at Allegheny General Hospital. Dr. Cabrera-Kapetanos was instrumental in developing the garden and planning out the plots, even starting seeds for the garden over the winter at the couple’s house in Cranberry.
Dr. Cabrera-Kapetanos gives a tour of the garden, pointing out zucchini, cherry tomatoes, melons, basil, and edible flowers to bring pollinators up to the top floor of the parking garage.
Dr. Huffman pulls peas and cuts lettuce with scissors, placing it in a bag that will be delivered to the hospital’s Healthy Food Center, which distributes food to patients along with nutrition lessons.
“I’ve seen so many patients who have told me they’ve gotten vegetables from our garden and they’ve been so happy about it,” said Dr. Divya Venkat, a physician with AHN’s Center for Inclusion Health. Dr. Venkat, who grew up gardening with her parents in Las Vegas, started a community garden plot on the North Side when she was a resident at AGH to grow vegetables with other residents.
Dr. Divya Venkat, left, and Dr. Yenny Cabrera-Kapetanos harvest vegetables from their garden atop the Hemlock Street parking garage Monday at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side.(Post-Gazette)
The garden plot on the parking garage has now been formalized into a curriculum for the residents, where they learn not only about tending the vegetable garden but also about how to talk to patients about diabetes and hypertension.
They are also working with the Healthy Food Center to develop simple recipes to accompany the garden foods, such as a recent one for vegetable chili using garden zucchini.
“The plan is for residents to think of a patient they are taking care of in their own clinic and say, oh, this is a patient who has food insecurity. I would like to bridge that divide,” said Dr. Venkat, “and physically hand them the food that is grown here with an accompanying recipe.”
Other hospitals, such as Boston Medical Center and the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, also have vegetable gardens that produce food for patients, although they are not run by residents.
In addition to producing vegetables and educating residents, the garden has had other benefits, helping to develop a new community within the hospital. “Once you start talking about gardening, all the gardeners come out of the woodwork,” said Dr. Kapetanos. “Like there’s a lady that works in cytology. I met her up here last week, and we’re exchanging seeds. She just emailed me and said I have those seeds, and I said, ‘I’ll get you my mom’s tomato seeds from Toronto.’”
Allegheny Health Network doctors, from left, Dr. Deanna Huffman, Dr. Divya Venkat, Dr. Yenny Cabrera-Kapetanos, Dr. Paige Langhals-Totino and Dr. Anastasios Kapetanos pose for a picture near their garden atop the Hemlock Street parking garage at Allegheny General Hospital on the North Side. (Post-Gazette)
And while it wasn’t in the plan when the garden was envisioned in 2018, it also became a sanctuary for doctors and residents during COVID.
“Indoors we were always wearing our masks and shields around the clock and spending long hours and taking care of COVID patients as well, which was very stressful,” said Dr. Cabrera-Kapetanos. “It’s therapeutic, sometimes, just to come and start plucking weeds or pruning some of the plants. It’s nice and quiet up here.”
As COVID intensified in the hospital, Dr. Venkat and other residents could take solace in the garden.
“COVID was so scary because you just watch so much death, right, there’s so much uncertainty,” she said. “I think everyone was pretty scared because no one knew what was going on with COVID, but this is a place that was outside, it was not contaminated, and no matter what, it is always living. It doesn’t matter if it’s raining, if it’s snowing, there’s always life in the garden, and it was a nice thing to have.”
USA: DENVER, COLORADO: Is Urban Farming The Next Big Condo Trend?
Lakehouse is home to a 3,000-square-foot urban farm, from which residents can pluck herbs and lettuce for dinner
May 17, 2021 | By: LX Collection
Judy Weingarten doesn’t live in a rural cottage, but in a newly opened condo at Lakehouse in Denver. Aside from the perks, you might expect from a development like this—70-foot lap pool, yoga studio, elegant residents’ lounge—Lakehouse is home to a 3,000-square-foot urban farm, from which residents can pluck herbs and lettuce for dinner.
Photo Credit: Lakehouse
“I love looking out my window at the garden, contemplating what vegetable I am going to have with my dinner tonight,” Weingarten says. “I enjoy trying new recipes based on what is harvested at the time, as well as having fresh-cut flowers throughout the summer!”
The Condo with Its Own Urban Farm
Flourishing with green beans, poblano, oregano, carrots, and eggplant, Lakehouse’s raised vegetable and herb beds are overseen by Agriburbia. The company describes itself as “an innovative and growing design movement that integrates aspects of agrarianism with land development.” While Agriburbia oversees planting, irrigation, and harvesting, residents can weigh in on what gets planted—and are encouraged to chip in with the farming too.
Brian Levitt, co-founder and president of NAVA Real Estate Development, which developed Lakehouse, tells LX Collection: “Notices will go out on harvest days inviting residents to come to the harvest room and help themselves. They are able to cull herbs from the farm for their cooking at any time. Crops are also used for community events and cooking demonstrations.”
In 2020, Lakehouse’s urban farm turned over 1,600 pounds of produce. That’s enough to provide almost four Americans with their vegetable quota for the entire year.
The Growth of Condo Gardens
Outdoor space is increasingly desirable for potential condo buyers, and while this partly stems from the pandemic and the demand for residential space en plein air, the trend began before 2020 and made outdoor space a precious commodity.
Innovative outdoor spaces have been finding their way into condominiums for years. Sky gardens have shot up from London to Ho Chi Minh City. Courtyards, lawns, and pergolas are now commonplace. In New York City, condos like 70 Charlton and 565 Broome maximize greenery with living walls. Architects and designers are looking at every last inch of space, asking, “could this be a garden?”
Until now, designers of these spaces have focused on aesthetics and creating outdoor entertaining areas, but a movement in growing vegetables, fruits, and herbs is now underway. You can see it in the sheer number of articles and explainer videos showing how to grow microgreens on the windowsill or dwarf apple trees in patio containers.
In response, some new condo developments are sowing the seeds for a genre of urban gardening where edible produce is grown and harvested in a community environment.
Ambitious Plans in Europe
In the Netherlands, a particularly ambitious urban farm concept is in the offing. MARK Green Vertical Village is a proposed complex of three towers in the city of Utrecht. Taking its inspiration from the traditional Dutch villages in the area, plans for this Vertical Village show roofs with greenhouses growing the likes of tomatoes, cucumbers, mushrooms, and apples. These year-round gardens would be owned and operated by a collective of farmers and financed by inhabitants of the 1,128 apartments via a monthly service fee. An on-site restaurant and area residents would also have access to harvests.
As with Lakehouse, MARK’s residents needn’t dig for their supper: “Participation is encouraged but not vital to the food production,” says Darius Reznek, a partner at Karres en Brands, the firm behind the plans.
But vertical villages face steep challenges. The biggest, says Reznek, is competing with traditional and industrial farming practices on cost and yield. “The farming concept/system needs to have additional benefits,” Reznek says, “community spaces, community building, soundproofing.”
While MARK is on track for completion by 2025, the urban farming aspect of it remains up in the air: “It is a vital part of the entire concept but currently under feasibility studies,” explains Reznek. He is in no doubt that a condo garden like this can happen—and be self-sustaining, too—but in the first instance, it requires an initial financial investment.
An Enhanced Sense of Community
Lakehouse’s success shows that baby steps will get you places. And while its urban farm doesn’t produce enough crops to feed residents at every meal, Brian Levitt explains it has already grown something else in abundance: community spirit.
“Our goal was to create an enhanced sense of community through education and access to good food that is grown on-site,” says Levitt. “It provides a way for residents to come together either to help in the garden or to cook together in the collaborative kitchen and outdoor grills.”
Reznek agrees that community farms and gardens sow the seeds for healthy relationships, as well as sustainability: “Common spaces are the places that tie these communities together,” he says, “where you meet your neighbors, get to know them, and are more likely to share things such as food, energy, and space.”
The urban condo farm isn’t a trend just yet. But Lakehouse is a beacon of what can be achieved, while MARK Green Vertical Village is an ideal of what might.
As residents seek sustainability, wellbeing, and community in their daily lives, expect to see the green shoots of more urban farms appearing in condos near you.
Lead Photo: Photo Credit: Chuttersnap
GERMANY: New 'Supermarket of The Future' Has A Greenhouse On Top
It is the first supermarket with a rooftop greenhouse in Europe and it combines retail with a basil farm and fish farm
What will the shopping centre of the future look like? How do you build sustainably? According to REWE, it is one with a greenhouse on top. Last Friday, the German retail giant opened their first Green Farming pilot store in Wiesbaden-Erbenheim. It is the first supermarket with a rooftop greenhouse in Europe and it combines retail with a basil farm and fish farm. "Since 2009, we have already built over 200 Green Buildings in Germany. The new store with integrated rooftop farm is the logical next step for us," says Peter Maly, Divisional Director REWE Group and responsible for REWE stores in Germany.
Supermarket and production facility
"The Green Farming store is not just a supermarket, but also a production facility in the middle of the city. On the rooftop farm, which is operated by our partner ECF Farmsystems, 800,000 basil plants grow each year using aquaponics, which receive excrement from the fish that we breed on site as fertilizer. No pesticides are used in the process," shows Jürgen Scheider, Chairman of the Management Board REWE Region Mitte. Rewe is Germany's second-largest supermarket chain.
"Our vision is to provide people with sustainably produced food. That's why I'm pleased to be able to help realize the dream of a self-producing supermarket here in Wiesbaden," adds Nicolas Leschke, founder and managing director of ECF Farmsystems. The company created a technique to couple aquaculture fish production with the hydroponic production of leafy greens. "Perch and basil are part of two resource saving cycles. The fish fertilize the basil plants with their excreta. These in turn clean the water from the fish tanks, which can then flow back to the perches. The use of this cycle system enables food production with 90 percent less water consumption compared to conventional agriculture, as the water is used twice."
Basil supplied locally
The basil is already available at the opening and will also be delivered to 480 REWE stores in Hesse and parts of Rhineland-Palatinate. Around 14,000 pots of basil are packaged plastic-free on site every week and according to the REWE team, the sustainable packaging saves 12 tonnes of plastic per year.
At the same time, about 20,000 cichlids are bred in basins on about 230 square metres under sustainable conditions and processed on site. This produces about one tonne of fish meat per month. The fish is expected to be on sale by the end of 2021.
ECF Farmsystems uses LED lamps for their herb cultivation, supplied by Fluence. They've gained experience with these lamps in their urban farm ECF Farm Berlin, which they constructed earlier and currently operate and of which the products are also sold to Rewe. Their other projects include planning and construction of the rooftop farm ecco JÄGER in Bad Ragaz in Switzerland and the rooftop farm on the Ferme Abattoir in Belgium.
Construction and operating
"With Green Farming in Erbenheim, we are ushering in a new generation of green stores at REWE," says Peter Maly with REWE, adding that holistic sustainability not only includes product ranges but also construction and operation.
Wood is the core element of the supermarket: around 1,100 cubic metres of the renewable raw material were used here. "The indigenous coniferous wood stores more than 700 tonnes of CO2. In 30 years, the wood will have grown again and the CO2 balance will be balanced." Columns made of stacked wood form the supporting structure for the glass roof farm and form a vaulted structure that extends into the store. Inside, customers look out onto a glass atrium, the greenhouse on the roof. "A natural marketplace ambience with lots of daylight was created," Peter reveals.
A lot of daylight can be used through the glazed east and west facades and the atrium. In addition, intelligent cooling and heating technology, 100 per cent green electricity and the use of rainwater for the roof farm, sanitary facilities and cleaning of the store ensure that resources are conserved.
Also the assortment focuses entirely on freshness with a large fruit and vegetable section including a salad bar, many regional and organic products as well as a glass butchery with a show kitchen and meat from animal welfare farms. In front of the store, local suppliers can offer their products in specially produced market stalls.
"The new REWE store in Erbenheim is a milestone in the development of modern supermarkets. I am very pleased and also a little proud that this special project has been realized in our region," says Jürgen Scheider, Chairman of the Management Board of REWE Region Mitte. "We are particularly proud of the wide range of products from over 100 regional and local suppliers."
Publication date: Fri 4 Jun 2021
Author: Arlette Sijmonsma
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
CANADA: Feeding a City From The World’s Largest Rooftop Greenhouse
Can you grow enough produce for an entire city in rooftop greenhouses? Two entrepreneurs in Montreal, Canada, believe it might be possible.
May. 08, 2021
By Sean Fleming
The world's largest rooftop greenhouse is in Montreal, Canada.
It measures more than 15,000m2 and produces more than 11,000kg of food per week.
The company behind it had to hire 200 new employees due to pandemic-driven demand.
Can you grow enough produce for an entire city in rooftop greenhouses? Two entrepreneurs in Montreal, Canada, believe it might be possible.
Lauren and Mohamed Hage cofounded Lufa in 2009. The company has four urban gardens in the Canadian city, all in rooftop greenhouses. Lufa's most recent sits on top of a former warehouse and measures more than 15,000m2 – larger than the other three greenhouses combined. Its main crops are tomatoes and aubergines, producing more than 11,000kg of food per week. It is, the company says, the largest rooftop greenhouse in the world.
An Ambitious Goal
Rathmell says the new greenhouse will accelerate Lufa's mission to grow food where people live and help it to meet an "ever-growing demand for fresh, local, and responsible foods".
The company – which says it's not trying to replace local farms and food makers, acknowledging that not everything can be grown on rooftops – follows what it calls 'responsible agriculture' practices. These include capturing and recirculating rainwater, energy-saving glass panels, and an absence of synthetic pesticides. Any waste is composted and reused, and food is sold directly to customers on the day it is harvested. Lufa also has a fleet of electric vehicles to make those deliveries.
"Our objective at Lufa is to get to the point where we're feeding everyone in the city," Hage said in an interview in Fortune. Lufa's fifth greenhouse is due to open later in 2021.
At the moment, Lufa grows food for around 2% of the city's population. While that might sound like a modest proportion, interest in urban agriculture is on the rise. Presently, agriculture in urban areas tends to be more common in developing countries. But the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) favors an increase in urban agriculture, saying it can have "important benefits for food security."
Urban farming is often more common among poorer members of society. UN FAO
A Growing Global Trend
Lufa produces more than 11,000kg of food per week, including tomatoes and aubergines. Lufa
Urban agriculture has been taking off in other parts of the world in recent years, too – from shipping containers in Brooklyn, New York City, to allotments in unused spaces in Brussels, Belgium.
And at 14,000 m2, there's Nature Urbaine in Paris – which claims to be the world's largest urban rooftop farm. Nature Urbaine rents out growing space to Parisians who want to grow their own crops. Tenant farmers pay around $450 per year per 1m2 sized plot. They get a welcome pack with everything they need to start growing, as well as regular access to the Nature Urbine gardening team who are on hand to offer advice and support.
Lufa's first greenhouse was opened in 2011, in Montreal's Ahuntsic-Cartierville borough, to grow herbs, microgreens, cucumbers, and peppers. Two more were added in 2013 and 2017, with the fourth joining last year. It sits on top of a former Sears warehouse in the Saint-Laurent area of the city.
In addition to its own produce, Lufa also sells a selection of other locally made or grown food, including bread, cheese, and drinks to its customers. Rising demand for its service, in the wake of the pandemic, led to the company hiring an additional 200 people, and partnering with 35 new farmers and food makers.
Lead photo: The new greenhouse will accelerate Lufa's mission to grow food. Lufa
Lufa
Food Trends Suppliers Should Know to Stay Ahead of the Curve in 2021
With growing concerns about climate change, sustainability and healthy living, 2021 will bring new trends to the food industry. Plant based foods are expected to increase in popularity as more people try to consciously live a more sustainable life.
From insects and pumpkin-seed oil to Brad Pitt-branded wine and transparent packaging, these are the food trends expected to take the U.S. by storm in 2021.
What Will People Be Eating in 2021?
It’s predicted that Americans will be consuming a lot more of the following foods and drinks in 2021:
Insects — According to Forbes, 2.5 billion people around the world eat cooked or raw insects regularly. Many in the U.S. still consider the concept of insect consumption a little grotesque, but attitudes are expected to shift in the coming months with several startups, including Exo cricket protein bars in New York, securing significant funding from investors.
Boxed wine — It’s hard to believe that boxes of wine were considered classy before they were tacky. But in 2021, consumer appreciation for boxed wine is predicted to return. It’s easier to store, cheaper to transport, generates half the carbon dioxide emissions, and has a longer shelf life than its glass-bottled counterparts.
Alternative oils — Whole Foods Market predicts that consumers will become more experimental in their use of oil, choosing walnut, pumpkin seed, and sunflower seed oil over traditional options like olive oil.
Celebrity alcohol — There was an arguably better time when everyone knew someone who wore the Britney Spears perfume. But in 2021, it’s all about Brad Pitt’s rosé and Cara Delevingne’s prosecco, as alcohol brands and vineyards look to drive revenue through partnering with big-name celebrities.
Kombucha — Kombucha is a fermented, lightly effervescent, sweetened black or green tea drink that first hit the mainstream in 2018. Since then, its health benefits have been lauded, and the drink has been growing in popularity. It’s gluten-free and can be filled with live probiotic cultures.
Sweet and Umami — The Green Seed Group suggests that the big flavor combination of 2021 will be umami and sweet. Think rice infused with fish sauce caramel and nori and pork floss.
How Will People Be Eating in 2021?
It’s not just what people eat and drink that will change in 2021, but the entire culture surrounding it.
COVID-19 has contributed to a rise in passionate amateur chefs. With so many people spending much of 2020 stuck at home with extra time on their hands, cooking has become something of an outlet. Indeed, 74% of respondents to a Sensodyne/OnePoll survey said they used cooking as a coping mechanism to manage the stress of being at home, 44% have learned a new recipe, and 32% have taken online cooking classes.
Reduced access to on-the-go, takeout food has seen breakfast truly become the most important meal of the day, and the demand for interesting and diverse breakfast recipes will increase into 2021. Cooking enthusiasts are also investing more time and effort in making baby food and looking for creative takes on staple meals.
Coupled with this newfound enthusiasm for cooking is, unsurprisingly, a newfound enthusiasm for health and wellbeing. Forbes reports that 54% of American consumers care more about the healthfulness of their food and beverage choices in 2020 than they did in 2010. This will see demand for superfoods, probiotics, and supplements grow in 2021, with many food suppliers already incorporating functional ingredients like vitamin C which promise to support the immune system. In a June 2020 survey conducted by GlobalData, 23% of global consumers confessed to stockpiling vitamins and supplements.
COVID-19 has certainly driven Americans to evaluate the relationship they have with food and drink but, fortunately, extreme diets and food fads are expected to lose popularity in 2021. Instead, people are expected to take a healthier and more sustainable approach to healthy living by embracing balance and moderation.
How Will Food and Drink Be Packaged in 2021?
Before COVID-19, food and drink packaging was headed in a very sustainable direction, with consumers increasingly concerned about excess waste and ocean-bound plastics.
But the pandemic has led to increased concerns about biosafety, particularly surrounding the packaging of food and drink. In recent years, many retailers have committed to eliminating unnecessary packaging, but some of these efforts will likely be undone in 2021 due to health and safety concerns and retailers’ desire to reassure their customers. Starbucks, for example, banned the use of reusable cups at the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.
Despite these setbacks, developments in sustainable and environmentally friendly packaging will continue in 2021.
Other trends will include an increase in transparent windows within food packaging that allow consumers to assess product quality, and QR codes, which can verify product and ingredient claims.
How Will Attitudes to Sustainable Living Change in 2021?
More than two-thirds of consumers want to ensure their everyday actions have a positive impact on the environment. This includes an interest in sustainably produced items, and a shift towards the consumption of plant-based proteins: in 2020, 28% of Americans ate more proteins from plant sources than they did in 2019. Another sustainability trend will see food suppliers up-cycling underused ingredients in a bid to reduce food waste.
Although the year 2021 won’t include a country-wide shift to veganism, retailers can expect increased demand for plant-based food as consumers commit to a more balanced diet and look to reduce their meat and dairy intake.
Image Credit: Rido / Shutterstock.com
Laura Ross Dec 15, 2020
AppHarvest’s Mega-Indoor Farm Offers Economic Alternative To Coal Mining For Appalachia
AppHarvest is taking advantage in the new wave of high-tech agriculture to help feed a growing population and increase domestic work opportunities in a sustainable manner.
Inside AppHarvest's 60 acre state-of-the art indoor farm in Morehead, KY.
In the first year of business, Jonathan Webb and his growing team at AppHarvest are riding high on what he calls the “third wave” of sustainable development: high-tech agriculture, following the waves of solar energy and electric vehicles. Since launching the concept in 2017, Webb and AppHarvest have raised more than $150 million in funding while building and opening one of the largest indoor farms in the world on more than 60 acres near the Central Appalachian town of Morehead, Kentucky.
For Webb, who grew up in the area and has a background in solar energy and other large-scale sustainable projects, AppHarvest is both a homecoming and a high-profile, purpose-driven venture that addresses the need for additional production to feed a growing population and reduce imported produce.
Webb’s vision for AppHarvest was inspired in part by a National Geographic article on sustainable farming in the Netherlands, where indoor growing is part of a national agriculture network that relies on irrigation canals and other innovations. He traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to see the farmers in action, then decided it was a venture he wanted to pursue — in his home state of Kentucky, where the coal industry is in decline and unemployment levels are on the rise.
“Seeing that the world needs 50% to 70% more food by 2050, plus seeing that we’ve shifted most of our production for fruits and vegetables down to Mexico — produce imports were tripled in the last 10 to 15 years,” he says. “I would go to a grocery store, pick up a tomato, and it could be hard, discolored. That’s because it’s been sitting for two weeks on a semi truck, being bred for transportation. So first it was seeing the problem, then asking, ‘How do we solve the problem?’”
As part of my research on purpose-driven businesses and stakeholder capitalism, I recently talked with Webb about AppHarvest’s whirlwind initial year in business, successful investor fundraise, plans to go public, and B Corp Certification.
Good for Business, Good for Community
Jonathan Webb, founder and CEO of AppHarvest
“Where we’re doing what we’re doing is incredibly important. One of our biggest competitive advantages, frankly, is doing it here,” he says. “Some of the hardest-working men and women are the people in this region that power the coal mines, and all we’re trying to do is tap into that and harness that passion. It’s good for our business, but it's good for communities.”
The location has been central to AppHarvest’s benefit in another way, Webb says, as local enthusiasm for the project enabled swift construction that likely would’ve been a challenge in some other regions.
“It's all about economies of scale. We have to build a really big facility to get our costs on materials down so that we can compete with products that are being imported into the country from Mexico,” he says. “We built one of the largest facilities in about a year, so speed and scale are definitely advantages for the company, and a lot of that’s possible based on where we’re operating here in this region.”
While the Bluegrass State has been a good home for AppHarvest, Webb wants the business to be a resource for nearby communities and a beneficial workplace for residents.
“A fundamental part of the way we’re building and growing this company is that every entry-level employee gets full health care, full benefits, living wage, paid time off. So we’re not just creating jobs, we’re creating a lifestyle for your career path,” he says. “We want to see people with high school degrees in this region grow with the company and be assistant growers and head growers three, four years from now. I know this region, and I know what people can do here. Those are the success stories that I look forward to having happen.”
Creating Positive Stakeholder Impact
Producing needed food and building a stronger workforce aren’t the only goals at AppHarvest; Webb says growing produce sustainably, with minimal impact on the environment, also is paramount.
“We’re land constrained in the world, and water constrained. And we have to grow a lot more food and use fewer resources,” he says. “It’s simple in theory; it’s complex in scale. Just the fact that the place is so big is what makes this challenging. But we’re collecting rainwater on the roof and using it directly on the root of the plants. We’re growing hydroponically, and as a result we can use 90% less water than open field agriculture.
“The way we treat water and handle water and how we use rainwater efficiently is the really biggest driver of resiliency long term for us.”
In building a business to have a positive impact on workers, community, and environment, Webb also created a company that is a natural fit for the B Corporation community made up of businesses that achieve a certification based on how well they incorporate all stakeholders into their policies and practices.
“The impact side of this is incredibly important. We didn’t chase certifications,” he says. “We just did the right things: We’re paying a living wage, we're offering health care. It’s the right way to do business. And as a result, we get a huge ROI on our dollar.”
Thanks to its bottom-line success and future promise, AppHarvest has found favor with investors, including Martha Stewart and venture capitalists; and is part of a growing cohort of businesses with a social purpose that are finding traction in the public markets. The company announced in September that it’s going public through a combination with special purpose acquisition company Novus Capital Corp. (Nasdaq: NOVS).
“Why are we going public now? Because full transparency in agriculture is desperately needed,” Webb says. “We want the people who buy our fruits and vegetables to also have the ability to buy into our company. We want the record. We want the institutional rigor. It’s hard to have this spotlight this early, but it’s making us stronger.”
Christopher Marquis, Contributor
AUSTRALIA: A Brilliant Plan To Turn Parking Garages Into Rooftop Gardens
“It’s the third-largest land use in the city,” he says. Community space, on the other hand, ranks dead last. Bates Smart crunched the numbers and found that, in total, parking takes up nearly 1,200 acres of space, or more space than New York’s Central Park
Sourced from Fast Company
There are more than 41,000 parking spaces in the central business district of Melbourne, Australia. Many of them could be put to better use, says Julian Anderson, a director at the large Australian architecture firm Bates Smart.
“It’s the third-largest land use in the city,” he says. Community space, on the other hand, ranks dead last. Bates Smart crunched the numbers and found that, in total, parking takes up nearly 1,200 acres of space, or more space than New York’s Central Park. And if it’s not bad enough that these parking spaces take up so much space and encourage more driving, they also sit empty most of the time. “You think, my god, there’s one and a half times Central Park wrapped up in car parking in central Melbourne,” Anderson says. “What can we do to unlock this?”
One potential solution, he says, is to convert some of that parking into much-needed community space such as playgrounds, community gardens, and rooftop parks. And with a new mechanism his firm is developing in consultation with the city government, there may be a way to incentivize the owners of these parking spaces to make that happen.
Anderson says there are at least 20 standalone parking garages in central Melbourne that would be good candidates for reuse. Bates Smart has developed concepts for a few garages to serve as models for how this conversion could work, with some minor structural revision. One, located near the city’s main sports stadium, imagines the space converted into a series of playgrounds and gymnasia, with basketball courts and other recreational spaces. Another, in the city’s Chinatown, uses the ground floor as a market space and the rooftop as an outdoor eatery with open-air cinema. Anderson calls these potential projects a new kind of “vertical urban space.”
Source:https://www.fastcompany.com/90579163/a-brilliant-plan-to-turn-parking-garages-into-rooftop-gardens
Tagged: green roof, green roof benefits, living roof, living roof benefits, rooftop parks, rooftop garden, Melbourne, sustainability, resilience
This Sustainable Neighborhood of The Future Is Designed To Manage Both Climate Change And Pandemics
A proposal for a new city in China is designed to be as green as possible—and also makes it easy to isolate in the case of another outbreak
09-04-20
A proposal for a new city in China is designed to be as green as possible—and also makes it easy to isolate in the case of another outbreak.
[Image: courtesy Guallart Architects]
Eighty miles southwest of Beijing, the Chinese government is planning a new five-million person city as a model of sustainability—powered by clean energy, featuring huge green spaces, and unsullied by many cars. A new design shows what neighborhoods in the city, called Xiong’an New Area, might look like.
City blocks would surround courtyards with native plants and garden plots. Apartments, designed for people of all income levels and ages, have large balconies with built-in boxes for gardening; greenhouses with vertical farms sit on the roofs, next to rooftop homes with gardens of their own. The wooden buildings, designed to use 80% less energy than typical buildings, use on-site solar power. Most streets are designed to prioritize people on bikes and on foot, not cars.
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Urban Farming: Four Reasons It Should Flourish Post-Pandemic
Since lockdown, public interest in growing fruit and vegetables at home has soared. Seed packets are flying off shelves and allotment waiting lists are swelling, with one council receiving a 300% increase in applications
Since lockdown, public interest in growing fruit and vegetables at home has soared. Seed packets are flying off shelves and allotment waiting lists are swelling, with one council receiving a 300% increase in applications. Fear of food shortages will have motivated some, but others with more time on their hands at home will have been tempted by the chance to relieve stress doing a wholesome family activity.
The seeds of enthusiasm for home-grown food may have been sown, but sustaining this is essential. Urban farming has much to offer in the wake of the pandemic. It could help communities boost the resilience of their fresh fruit and vegetable supplies, improve the health of residents and help them lead more sustainable lifestyles.
Here are four reasons why food growing should become a perennial feature in our gardens, towns and cities after COVID-19.
1. Growing greener towns and cities
More than half of the global population lives in urban areas, and this is expected to rise to 68% by 2050. For the UK, this is even higher – nine out of 10 people are expected to live in towns and cities by this time.
Weaving food growing into the fabric of urban life could bring greenery and wildlife closer to home. The COVID-19 lockdown helped reawaken interest in growing at home, but one in eight UK households have no access to a garden. Thankfully, the opportunities for urban farming extend beyond these: rooftops, walls – and even underground spaces, such as abandoned tunnels or air raid shelters, offer a range of options for expanding food production in cities while creatively redeveloping the urban environment.
Edible rooftops, walls, and verges can also help reduce flood risk, provide natural cooling for buildings and streets, and help reduce air pollution.
Paris hosts the largest urban rooftop farm in Europe. EPA-EFE/Mohammed Badra
2. Resilient food supplies
Diversifying where and how we grow our food helps spread the risk of disruption to food supplies.
The UK’s reliance on imports has been growing in recent decades. Currently, 84% of fruit and 46% of vegetables consumed in the UK are imported. Brexit and COVID-19 could threaten the steady supply, while the problems created by climate change, such as water scarcity, risk disrupting imports of food from abroad.
Growing fruit and vegetables in towns and cities would help resist these shocks. The harvest labour shortages seen during the pandemic might not have been felt as keenly if urban farms were growing food right where people live.
Vertical and underground crops are more resilient to extreme weather or pests, indoor growing environments are easier to control than those in the field, and temperature and humidity is more stable underground. The high start-up costs and energy bills for this type of farming has meant that indoor farms currently produce a small number of high-value crops, such as leafy greens and herbs. But as the technology matures, the diversity of produce grown indoors will expand.
À lire aussi : Vertical farms offer a bright future for hungry cities
3. Healthier lives
Getting out into nature and gardening can improve your mental health and physical fitness. Our research suggests that getting involved in urban food growing, or just being exposed to it in our daily lives, may also lead to healthier diets.
Urban growers may be driven to make healthier food choices for a whole range of reasons. They have greater access to fresh fruit and vegetables and getting outdoors and into nature can help reduce stress, making people less likely to make unhealthy food choices. Our study suggested that urban food growing can also help change attitudes towards food, so that people place more value in produce that’s sustainable, healthy, and ethically sourced.
4. Healthier ecosystems
While urbanization is regarded as one of the biggest threats to biodiversity, growing food in towns and cities has been shown to boost the abundance and diversity of wildlife, as well as protect their habitats.
A recent study found that community gardens and allotments act as hotspots for pollinating insects, because they tend to contain a diverse range of fruiting and native plants.
Vegetables, like this courgette, can produce flowers for pollinators to enjoy. Natakim/Shutterstock
If designed and implemented properly, allotments and community gardens can really benefit biodiversity. Not only should barren spaces be converted into green and productive plots, it’s also important that there are connections between these environments to help wildlife move between them.
Canals and cycle paths can act as these wildlife corridors. As we begin to diversify the spaces used to grow food, particularly those on our rooftops and underground, an exciting challenge will be finding novel ways of connecting them for wildlife. Green bridges have been shown to help wildlife cross busy roads – perhaps similar crossings could link rooftop gardens.
All these reasons and more should compel us to scale up food production in towns in cities. COVID-19 has given us cause to reevaluate how important local urban green spaces are to us, and what we want from our high streets, parks, and pavements. Judging by the garden center sales, allotment lists, and social media, many people have decided they want more fruit and veggies in those spaces. The opportunity is there for urban planners and developers to consider what bringing farming to urban landscapes could offer.
Lead photo: Joshua Resnick/Shutterstock
Déclaration d’intérêts
Senior Research Associate in Physical Geography, Lancaster University
Does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Chair Professor in Sustainability, Lancaster University
Receives funding from the UK Research and Innovation Council and the European Commission. The research described here was funded under the Global Food Security’s ‘Resilience of the UK Food System Programme’, with support from BBSRC, ESRC, NERC, and The Scottish Government (BB/S01425X/1).
10 Projects From KADK Graduates Offer "Solutions to The Major Challenges of Our Time"
Dezeen staff | July 9, 2020
Students from the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design, and Conservation (KADK) are sharing projects that aim to create a healthier, more sustainable, and democratic society as part of their VDF school show.
They were created as part of the school's graduate programmes in Architecture and Design, which are focused on addressing the UN's Sustainable Development Goals as a means of considering "how we should design and build in the future".
The 10 projects showcased below were selected from a pool of 280 students and include a modular timber school, bacteria-dyed textiles, and a "hydroponic cultural landscape".
The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design, and Conservation
University: The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture, Design and Conservation
Course: MA Architecture and MA Design
KADK Graduation 2020 – Solutions to the major challenges of our time:
"Climate. Health. Democracy. Sustainability. 280 MA Architecture and MA Design graduates have addressed a number of the challenges we face as a global community today. How do we ensure a sustainable cooling of our cities and how can we use carbon-neutral building materials? Or how can design solutions help accelerate a better recovery for the benefit of each individual and society in general?
"The curriculum at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Schools of Architecture Design and Conservation (KADK) is rooted in research, practice, and artistic development. For the past four years, KADK has added a strategic focus on the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). We believe that the SDGs can inspire our students to consider how we should design and build in the future, using a holistic perspective to provide new, original, and necessary global solutions to these pressing concerns.
"Their projects demonstrate how architecture, design, and conservation can create visions, new knowledge, and solutions to complex problems in compelling and attractive designs. Future generations of architects and designers – like those we educate at KADK – must be capable of releasing this vast potential."
The Green Structure of Copenhagen by Agnes Josefin Hekla, MA Architecture
"What would Copenhagen look like if the city had to be self-sufficient in terms of its food supply? This project creates solutions for a scenario in which the city is forced to feed itself, due to changed global conditions caused by changing climate and food shortages.
"A hydroponic cultural landscape is established across the city's rooftops, between blocks of flats, across car parks and railway beds for raising vegetables in water without soil. Besides supplying the city with vegetables and collecting large volumes of precipitation, the urban landscape is ideal for movement, recreation, and working together to grow vegetables."
Studio: CITAstudio – Computation in Architecture, Institute of Architecture and Technology
Tutor: Paul Nicholas
Press contact: Inge.Henningsen@kadk.dk or hbay@kadk.dk
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Farm to Fork: This Millennial Urban Farmer Grows Vegetables On Carpark Rooftops in Singapore
The ongoing battle against the COVID-19 outbreak and the resultant lockdowns imposed in many countries worldwide have put the spotlight on Singapore’s dependence on food imports and its vulnerability to global supply shocks.
Singapore Announced New Measures in April Aimed At Speeding Up Local Food Production Over The Next Six Months To Two Years.
By Vulcan Post
June 25, 2020
The ongoing battle against the COVID-19 outbreak and the resultant lockdowns imposed in many countries worldwide have put the spotlight on Singapore’s dependence on food imports and its vulnerability to global supply shocks.
The government has repeatedly assured its citizens that Singapore has sufficient food supplies, amid bouts of panic buying that gripped the country when Singapore raised the DORSCON level to Orange.
Although the panic buying has now eased, another cause for concern is that Singapore has a population of about 5.7 million people but it only produces about 10% of its food needs.
To tackle this food crisis, Singapore announced new measures in April aimed at speeding up local food production over the next six months to two years.
This includes providing a SGD 30 million grant to support production of eggs, leafy vegetables, and fish in the shortest time possible, and identifying alternative farming spaces, such as industrial areas and vacant sites.
As part of that project, the Singapore Food Agency (SFA) and the Housing Development Board (HDB) have launched a tender in May for rooftop farms on public housing car parks.
This means that the rooftops of a handful of multi-story carparks in Singapore will be converted for use to farm vegetables and other food crops from the later part of this year.
Farming hits the roof
The move to find alternative farming space in land-constrained Singapore is part of their strategy to meet the country’s 30 by 30 goal, which is to produce 30% of its nutritional needs locally by 2030.
Local agritech startup Citiponics did not take part in the tender this time round, though it piloted SFA’s multi-story carpark rooftop farm project in Ang Mo Kio last year.
According to Danielle Chan, co-founder of Citiponics, its 1,800 square metres farm atop the carpark at Block 700 in Ang Mo Kio Avenue 6 can grow between three and four tonnes of vegetables a month.
They grow up to 25 different types of vegetables naturally without the use of pesticides.
“We currently specialize in growing our own crossbreed of lettuces—Georgina Lettuces—and have also been growing other varieties such as nai bai, Italian basil, and Thai basil based on customers’ requests,” said Danielle.
Sharing more about the Ang Mo Kio site, she said they have been steadily producing pesticide-free vegetables on a monthly basis, supplying to nearby residents and consumers islandwide.
Rooftop farm in Ang Mo Kio. Photo courtesy of Citiponics via Vulcan Post.
Beyond contributing to local food production, this pilot project has also generated “positivity,” which stems from community involvement when visitors get to know and see their food source.
“It brings us great joy to see the senior citizens enjoying their time as they work on farming activities as well as the support we have received from visitors who come to our community markets to self-harvest their produce,” said Danielle.
She added that they hire senior citizens from AWWA Community Home as well as part-time workers to help with farm maintenance.
“We believe that even if one does not have the technical agriculture know-how, they should be able to contribute to food production as well.”
Citiponics is a Singapore-grown urban farming company that started in 2016, which aims to grow safe produce through its zero-waste farming process.
It is co-founded by Danielle and her family friend Teo Hwa Kok, who has a “rich experience in agriculture.”
When agriculture meets tech
The 26-year-old is a National University of Singapore (NUS) graduate, who has worked in technology startups across Singapore and New York, as well as technology consulting companies such as IBM.
But with her tech background, why did she choose to be a ‘farmer’?
“I grew up in an agricultural environment and as such, the farm was always my playground. Growing up, I never had to worry about buying vegetables from the supermarket or doubting my food source. I had the blessing of getting all my vegetables supplies directly from the farm,” explained Danielle.
“Having personally witnessed the wastage as well as the inefficiencies in the traditional farming industry, I knew I wanted to go back to the farming industry to change the way farming is done traditionally as well as to share the blessing of the farm-to-table experience with others.”
Her tech background didn’t go to waste though. She made it a point to integrate technology into Citiponic’s farming processes.
Citiponics at NTUC FairPrice. Photo courtesy of Ministry of Trade and Industry via Vulcan Post.
They have a proprietary vertical farming technology called Aqua-Organic System (AOS). It falls under a solid-based soilless culture, which is different from the likes of traditional farming and hydroponic farming system.
As every drop of water is kept in a close loop within the growing system, it helps to minimize water consumption, using one-tenth of hydroponics water consumption and one-hundredth of traditional farming water consumption.
Due to its vertical nature, it is also able to be seven times more productive than traditional farming.
As it is specially designed to provide a natural farming environment in order to preserve the nutrients value and natural taste of the vegetables, the technology is also pollutant-free and pesticide-free. It’s also anti-mosquito breeding, which makes it very suitable for farming within community and neighborhood areas.
“The AOS farming technology removes the complex technicalities of farming and we wanted to keep it that way to allow people of all ages and backgrounds to have a great experience when they get to farm with our systems,” said Danielle.
COVID-19 does not pose a huge business challenge
All of Citiponic’s farmed produce are segmented to home deliveries, nearby residents, and selected NTUC FairPrice outlets.
Despite their limited farming space, Danielle said that they see a constant stream of supply and sales.
It’s not so much a business challenge, she added, but the need to adapt to the new normal, hence the introduction of home deliveries and engaged logistics channel.
Although COVID-19 does not greatly impact its business, it serves as a timely reminder on the importance of accelerating our local food production.
This pandemic serves a time for us to reflect on how we can enhance our food resilience strategies.
Singapore steps up to be more food resilient
As Singapore is still largely dependent on food imports, the rooftop farming tender and local food production grants are definitely the right steps forward.
According to SFA, Singapore currently secures food supply from about 170 countries.
For instance, Singapore now imports oranges from Egypt, milk powder from Uruguay, eggs from Poland and shrimps from Saudi Arabia as part of its efforts to broaden food supplies.
Danielle is well-aware that food security, food sustainability and food safety are global issues, so she hopes to bring Citiponics’ farming solution to more countries.
Citiponics’ Georgina lettuce sold at NTUC FairPrice. Photo courtesy of Citiponics via Vulcan Post.
“We are not only focused on food production, but also becoming an agritech solution provider. We have developed agriculture technology and designed farming solutions that are suitable for tropical countries, and hope to extend the applicability of our expertise and farming technology to temperate countries as well,” she added.
Citiponics is also looking at scaling its operations to enhance its contribution to local food resilience and grow more communities through the introduction of hyperlocal Citiponics urban vertical farms in various neighborhoods of Singapore.
“We envision Citiponics as a supportive environment that is able to cultivate the next generation of urban farmers and agritech innovators.”
This article was first published by Vulcan Post.
The Indoor Farm Revolution
Coronavirus chaos has spurred a grow-your-own food movement — and space-age hydroponic technology is rising to meet it.
Coronavirus chaos has spurred a grow-your-own food movement — and space-age hydroponic technology is rising to meet it.
NOTE FOR 2020 READERS: This is the eleventh in a series of open letters to the next century, now just 80 years away. The series asks: What will the world look like at the other end of our kids' lives?
Dear 22nd Century,
For all the pain, grief and economic hardship the 2020 coronavirus pandemic has sown, a handful of green shoots seem to have taken root in its blighted soil.
Green being the operative word, because many of these developments could be a net positive for the planet. In lockdown, many of us are seeing what our cities look like without smog. Office workers are experiencing office life without the office; just last week, Twitter announced that most of its employees could work from home forever, while much of Manhattan is reportedly freaking out about what could happen to commercial real estate. Thousands of companies just discovered they can still function, and maybe even function better, when they don’t chain employees to desks or force them to make a soul-crushing, carbon-spewing commute 10 times a week.
And what do more people do when they’re spending more time at home? Well, if you’re like my wife, you start literally planting green shoots. Our house is filling up with them as I write this: lettuce, chard, tomatoes, basil, strawberries, to name the first five shoots poking out of dozens of mason jars now taking up residence on every windowsill. She’s hardly alone; garden centers and seed delivery services are reporting as much as 10 times more sales since the pandemic began. Even the mighty Wal-Mart has sold out of seeds. If viral Facebook posts and Instagram hashtags are any guide, pandemic hipsters have moved on from once-fashionable sourdough starters to growing fresh fruit and veg.
Another one of our cyclical “back to the land” movements seems to be underway, just like during the 1960s and the Great Depression before that. Only this time, we don’t need land. We don’t need soil. We don’t need pesticide of any kind. We don’t even need natural light. Thanks to giant leaps forward in the science of hydroponics and LED lighting, even people in windowless, gardenless apartments can participate in the revolution. With a number of high-tech consumer products on the way, the process can be automated for those of us without green thumbs.
In previous letters I’ve discussed the inevitable rise of alternative meat, a process that has been accelerated by the pandemic. I talked about the smaller, more nutritious plant-based meals we're going to need for life extension; I assumed such meals would be delivered by drone. But now I see a future with no food deserts, in which every home is filled with rotating space-station-like hydroponics run by artificial intelligence — a cornucopia of push-button farming providing the side salad to your plant-based meat.
Even if you don’t grow your own, robot-run vertical farms and community “agrihoods,” now springing up everywhere, will make amazing-tasting produce abundant and cheap. The “locavores” of our era like to boast about their 100-mile diet. Yours will look more like a 100-yard diet.
Green, not soylent
It’s worth remembering that it wasn’t supposed to be this way. The 2020s, in fact, is when we were slated for starvation, food riots, and big business quietly processing our corpses into food.
That’s the plot of the 1973 movie Soylent Green, set in the year 2022. Fruit and veg have all but vanished. In one scene, Charlton Heston's detective hero smuggles home a single tomato and a wilted stick of celery, enough to reduce his roommate Sol (Edward G. Robinson) to tears. On the other end of the future, in a lighter but equally depressing vein, the 2006 comedy Idiocracy showed the Americans of 2500 running out of crops because they couldn’t figure out that water, not "Brawndo" (a spoof on colorful sports drinks), is “what plants crave.”
But these dismal future visions are receding thanks to the science of hydroponics — which dates back to the 19th century, no matter its present-day association with growing marijuana. By the 1930s, we’d figured out that what plants crave is surprisingly minimal: nitrogen, a handful of minerals, something to anchor the roots like rock wool or coconut husks, and H2O. Early hydroponic farms helped feed U.S. soldiers as they hopped through the Pacific during World War II.
Minimalist methods multiplied, and are still multiplying. We’re tweaking the spectrum of LED lights for maximum growth, and figuring out ways to use progressively less water and nutrients. My wife’s mason jar seedlings use something called the Kratky method, where you don't even need to change the water. It turns out this method was invented by a Hawaiian scientist as recently as 2009. And it’s the closest science has yet given us to a free lunch.
Reinventing the wheel
I’m nowhere near as excited by hydroponics as my wife is. But during our quarantine time, even my head has been turned — by the Rotofarm, which I’ve come to think of as the iPhone of gardening. It’s a beautiful device inspired by NASA research on growing plants in space. It uses anti-gravity — literally, when the wheel rotates around its LED light source and the plants are hanging upside down — to grow plants faster. A magnetic cover reduces the glare and increases the internal humidity. You manage it via an app.
Humankind’s oldest technology turns out to be the most efficient use of space for growing plants; even in this 15-inch-wide wheel, you can really pack them in. At the bottom of the wheel, plants dip their roots into the water and nutrient tanks. An owner’s only job is to refill the tanks every week or so, and to snip off their dinner with scissors a few weeks after germination. Some leafy greens, like my favorite salad base arugula, can be regrown without replanting.
Still, to be fully self-sufficient, a future apartment is going to need to have multiple Rotofarm-style devices on the go at once — but they’re designed to live anywhere you can plug in, on coffee tables, on desks, on walls, as eye-catching as artwork.
The main problem with the Rotofarm: It isn’t actually on sale yet. “It feels like we’ve done everything in reverse,” Rotofarm creator Toby Farmer said when I reached him via video chat from his home in Melbourne. “We’ve got the patents, we’ve got the design awards, we’ve got the customers. Now we need to finish the prototypes.” (One key tweak: reducing Rotofarm’s energy requirements, which as it stands could double many users’ household electricity bills.)
Still, orders have come from as far afield as Japan and the Netherlands, from retailers and regular users alike. Farmer’s biggest regret: When Ron Howard’s production company called, hoping to use eight Rotofarms in an upcoming Nickelodeon show set in space, Farmer didn’t have enough to spare.
Rotofarm has been in the works for a few years, but a crowdfunded Indiegogo campaign that closed last month exceeded its $15,000 goal by a third of a million dollars. Farmer, despite his name, had no experience in this area; just 23 years old, he had been a web designer since the age of 12. But he’s scaling up fast, hiring teams in LA and Singapore, soaking up their knowledge (he was keen to assure me he’d hired a lot of 40-somethings for this very reason).
After a projected 2021 release date, Rotofarm’s business model involves making money on proprietary seed pods — though Farmer admits that “there’s a DIY aspect” where customers can make their own. His hope is that official Rotofarm pods will be competitive because they’ll have fewer germination failures, but he'd rather see a world where more people own the device itself. In that spirit, he’s making it modular — the LED light bar can be upgraded separately, for example, rather than making customers buy a whole new device. (As for cost, Farmer says he can't comment yet — though Indiegogo backers were able to secure one for $900 a pop.)
Might the Rotofarm fail? Of course, just like any other crowdfunded project. Much depends on its price point, as yet unannounced. But it’s far from the only next-level, set-it-and-forget-it hydroponic station taking aim at your kitchen. There’s a Canadian Kickstarter called OGarden that also grows food on a wheel, albeit a much larger wheel. The OGarden was funded in its first six minutes online and is set to cost around $1,000 per unit. There’s Farmshelf, a $4,900 pre-order hydroponic device that looks like a see-through refrigerator, backed by celebrity chef Jose Andres. Users will pay a $35 monthly subscription to get all the seeds they need.
One of these models is the future; maybe all of them are. Right now, these are high-end devices aimed at early adopters (and restaurants, which get a lot of benefit out of showing off how fresh their produce is as customers walk-in). But with scale, with time, and with the growing desire for grow-your-own food that Rotofarm and its brethren have revealed, they will get cheaper and more widespread.
After all, the first Motorola cellphone, in 1983, cost $4,000. It looked like a brick and had 30 minutes of talk time. Now sleek, supercomputer-driven smartphones are accessible to pretty much everyone. The same process will happen in-home hydroponics.
Rise of the vertical farm
Give it 80 years, and I can see apartments with built-in hydroponic farms provided as a standard utility, much as a fridge is seen as a standard feature today. As more humans move to urban environments — two out of every three people will be in cities by 2050, according to the latest UN estimate — the need for such devices will only grow.
“We strongly believe the future of gardening is indoor gardening and more individual gardens,” OGarden CEO Pierre Nibart told us last year. “Stopping mass agriculture and starting to produce their own little stuff at home.” He said this while demonstrating his family's daily OGarden routine: His kids harvest most of what they need for dinner from the spinning wheel.
Mass agriculture hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory where produce is concerned. And in the post-coronavirus age, we are surely going to become less tolerant of the disease its intensive farming methods have caused.
Food poisoning caused by romaine lettuce, which makes up a quarter of all leafy greens sold in the U.S., has become depressingly familiar. The 2018 E Coli outbreak was the worst — it sickened 240 people in 37 states, hospitalized almost half of them, and killed five. But the CDC has logged 46 E Coli outbreaks since 2006 and says that every reported case of infection is likely matched by 26 unreported ones. And they’re only just starting to figure out the most likely cause: groundwater contaminated by nearby cattle manure. There could also be an infection from passing birds, another major vector of bacteria.
Never mind the wet markets of Wuhan that likely caused the coronavirus pandemic. We’re already sickening ourselves on the regular with a problem that is baked directly into our food system — and it’s affecting vegans as much as meat-eaters.
I have no doubt you’ll look at our barbaric farming methods and shake your heads. Why did they use so much water? Why did they transport produce an average of 1,500 miles? Why did they grow it outdoors, where it’s vulnerable to pests, and then use pesticides that had to be washed off? Why did they think “triple washing” did anything to remove bacteria (it doesn’t)? Why did they bother using soil, for goodness’ sake? Didn’t they know what plants crave?
The force of legacy agriculture is strong, but an increasing number of companies are figuring out a better way: the vertical farm, so named because they can stack hydroponic produce in shelves or towers. As I write this, there are more than 20 vertical farm operations being constructed and tested around the country. They use around 90 percent less water than regular soil farms, can grow roughly 10 times more food per acre than regular soil farms, and using precision software they can harvest their produce 30 percent faster than regular soil farms.
Sure, they’re spending more on electricity, but they’re also spending nothing on pesticide. The economics seem irresistible.
Last year, less than 20 miles from where I write this, in highly urbanized South San Francisco, a company called Plenty unveiled its flagship operation, a vast vertical farm named Tigris. Its sheer scale invites the correct usage of California’s favorite word, “awesome.” Tigris can grow a million plants at once, harvesting 200 of them every minute. With $226 million in funding, Plenty says it has already farmed 700 varieties of produce. Right now, the cost to consumers is comparable to non-hydroponic products (I can get their baby arugula at my nearest Safeway for a dollar an ounce); in the long run, it should be cheaper.
And they are far from the only success story. A Chinese startup, Alesca Life, is turning disused parking lots into vertical farms as well as selling plug-and-play shipping container farms. Back in Silicon Valley, a company called Iron Ox is developing robot arms for indoor farmwork. The future looks green and bountiful, and mostly automated (which is yet another reason you’re going to need Universal Basic Income).
Fresh future: Inside Plenty's vast vertical farm in South San Francisco.PLENTY
Which is not to say that outdoor agriculture is going away completely; it’s just going to shrink to the size of a community garden. That’s the basis of new urban developments called “agrihoods,” or multi-home communities centered around a professionally managed farm; a just-published book called Welcome to the Agrihood represents their first directory.
Rooftop organic farms, urban allotments: These are places where city dwellers can connect to the land and feel the satisfaction of nurturing their seeds from scratch. Soil may not be necessary to feed us, but sometimes it’s good to feel the dirt in your fingers. Similarly, farmer's markets are unlikely to go away. In a world where grocery stores are increasingly becoming delivery centers for services like Instacart, there will still be value in meeting and buying direct from the growers of high-end produce.
With big agribusiness heading indoors, with our apartments growing much of what we need and vertical farms providing backup in every city, we’ll also be able to let most of our present-day farmland go fallow. That in itself should take care of a chunk of climate change, considering the amount of carbon-soaking vegetation that springs up on fallow land. Lab-grown and plant-made meat will remove the need for those disease-ridden feedlots. Aquaponics, another discipline where the science is expanding by leaps and bounds, may even let us grow our own fish for food, reducing the strain on our overfished oceans.
No doubt it won’t be all smooth sailing. No doubt we, as humans, will stumble upon fresh ways to mess up the planet and make life worse. But from where I’m sitting, surrounded by soilless germinating jars, the future looks very green and nutritious indeed.
Yours in leafy goodness,
2020
TOPICS: Tech, Tech, Food, Health & Fitness, dear 22nd century, Internet Of Yum, Indoor-gardening