Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
A Manufacturer and a Food Caterer Among New Players Feeding Singapore’s Urban Farming Boom
In a small room tucked away on the second floor of a precision engineering factory in Tuas, pots of kale and lettuce stacked in vertical racks grow under the glow of pink-purple lights.
August 10, 2021
SINGAPORE: In a small room tucked away on the second floor of a precision engineering factory in Tuas, pots of kale and lettuce stacked in vertical racks grow under the glow of pink-purple lights.
These light-emitting diode (LED) lights have been designed to shine at a customised spectrum that will help crops grow better. Smart sensors also keep tabs on temperature and humidity in the room, while a special water treatment system reduces bacteria growth.
In here, the goal is to find the best way to farm vegetables indoors, all with the use of technology.
“You can control everything, even how much nutrients or water is being used for each plant,” said Mr Nelson Lim, co-founder of I.F.F.I, which stands for Indoor Farm Factory Innovation.
“We want to bring indoor farming into something more precise, where you calculate the least input for the best output. That is precision farming,” he told CNA.
Mr Lim is also the chief executive of precision engineering firm TranZplus Engineering, which is the parent company of I.F.F.I. TranZplus’ two-storey office in Tuas now houses both a manufacturing facility for semiconductor components and a farming showroom.
“A lot of people ask me: ‘Nelson, are you crazy? You’re in engineering, why suddenly do farming?’ Actually, the two are not unrelated. We can put our engineering skills to good use in indoor farming,” Mr Lim said, while demonstrating the farming racks that can be adjusted according to height and size.
Robotics is another expertise that the company has incorporated into its farming solutions to not just improve the yield and quality of crops, but also workflow efficiencies.
For instance, automated machines that can perform seeding, transplanting, potting and harvesting tasks will be put to work at I.F.F.I’s mega indoor farm when ready at the end of this year.
(Left to right) I.F.F.I's general manager Veronica Lee, chief operating officer Kelvin Ng and co-founder Nelson Lim. (Photo: Tang See Kit)
SEEDING A DIVERSIFICATION
TranZplus’ venture into agriculture was first seeded in 2016 when it became one of the vendors for Panasonic’s indoor farm in Singapore.
“Initially, they just wanted to have a rack. Then we thought why not have racks that can be customised, why not put in an irrigation system and other types of automation?” Mr Lim recalled. “We worked out a prototype and they were impressed.”
The company kept on with research and development after that, while being involved in setting up three other small-scale farms. In 2019, it decided it had gained enough experience to give it a shot.
Mr Lim said the decision to venture into indoor farming was driven by “strong business potential”, partly on the back of Singapore’s “30 by 30” goal to produce 30 per cent of the country's nutritional needs locally by 2030.
The COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the potential, with global disruptions to the harvesting, shipping and sale of food making it even more important for the country to have its own resources. Indoor farms can be the solution, he added.
Last September, I.F.F.I. became one of the nine urban farms to secure grants totalling S$39.4 million from the Singapore Food Agency.
Its 38,000 sq ft indoor farm, which remains under development at the JTC Space @ Tuas, will be using a soil-based cultivation method that allows more vegetable varieties to be planted.
When operational, the mega farm will be able to produce 800 to 1,000kg of vegetables, like nai bai and spinach, per day, said Mr Lim.
Another new player on the field is food caterer Kitchen Haus, which co-founded “farm-to-table” concept brand Frux Earth a few months ago.
With its core business facing a slow recovery amid the pandemic, the company has been diversifying actively in search of new opportunities over the past year.
Agriculture is “not unrelated territory”, chief executive Patrick Chan said. “It’s still part of the food ecosystem so when the opportunity came, I agreed instantly.”
It teamed up with home-grown urban farming company Metro Farm for the new venture. With the latter’s expertise, the farms under Frux Earth – three sites spanning 60,000 sq ft – are powered by an aquaponics system that converts fish waste into nutrients for the vegetables.
For instance, its 12,000 sq ft rooftop farm atop an industrial building in Bendemeer has eight fish tanks with red tilapia and jade perch. These fishes were chosen for their hardiness and ability “to produce more waste”, said Metro Farm’s director Chris Toh.
“We have a filter to separate the fish waste, which is then broken down by bacteria. Our system will then keep the nutrients flowing to the vegetables 24/7,” said the farm’s other director Brandon Toh, who added that the system is “self-sustainable” and keeps costs low.
The Bendemeer farm, with its 720 vertical plant towers, can harvest more than 30,000 stalks of vegetables, including purple lettuce and kale, a month. The fish will also be sold once they reach table size.
Mr Chan said: “This is a breath of fresh air for us and we pivoted because we want to jump on the trend of food sustainability.
“I think Metro Farm sees the value in us having the know-how of food preparing, catering and retail. And we partner them because it’s not easy to set up a farm and they are the experts.”
Metro Farm’s director Chris Toh (left) and Kitchen Haus' chief executive officer Patrick Chan (right) joined hands to form a new urban farming company Frux Earth. (Photo: Tang See Kit)
OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES
Metro Farm, which started its first farm in Kranji almost nine years ago, noted that the local agriculture sector has become “much more vibrant”.
While the presence of new and bigger players means greater competition, the increased attention has also made it easier for businesses to secure farming sites in land-scarce Singapore, including vacant rooftops on both public and private buildings.
“In the past, we have to explain what is a rooftop farm and what we are doing but now, more landlords are opening up to the idea,” said Mr Brandon Toh, although he noted that not all rooftops are suitable given the need to take into consideration the additional loads of farming.
Frux Earth has plans to open three more urban farms over the next few months.
Its “farm-to-table” menu is in the works as it ramps up its crop production, while it is also gauging the interest for a weekly vegetable subscription service, said Mr Chan.
These “culture boxes”, as they are called, will be filled with 1 to 2kg worth of freshly harvested organic vegetables and delivered to the doorsteps of customers every week. For now, it has started supplying a few restaurants located near its farm at the Marina Country Club.
Frux Earth is planning to launch a weekly vegetable box subscription service. (Photo: Frux Earth)
Over at I.F.F.I, the protracted pandemic and its impact on labour and supplies of raw materials have caused some delays at its mega indoor farm which was initially scheduled to open in the middle of this year.
“We are catching up and hopefully we can have everything ready soon,” said Mr Lim. “Certainly, costs have also gone up with the increase in raw material prices, but we are managing that."
Meanwhile, the company is working on opening an “indoor farm pro-shop”.
“There will be a mini-farm set up for visitors to understand and raise awareness about indoor farming,” said I.F.F.I chief operating officer Kelvin Ng.
“If they like what they see and want to start their home cultivation system, they will also be able to purchase everything they need at the shop. We will even have consultants ready to guide you. It will be a one-stop shop about indoor farming.”
I.F.F.I. also sees opportunities beyond Singapore where they can serve as consultants or designers to those looking to set up indoor farms. For instance, in Russia where crop production is a challenge due to the cold climate.
Its technologies can also be deployed in “bite sizes” even in traditional food-producing countries as solutions to specific problems, such as water pollution.
Mr Ng said: “There are many opportunities emerging in the space of indoor farming, and we want to be bold and seize them.”
Lead Photo: I.F.F.I, an affiliate of precision engineering firm TranZplus Engineering, is looking to open its mega indoor farm in Tuas by the end of this year. (Photo: Tang See Kit)
Gigrow Urban Farms Invests $13 Million To Build Its First Farm
Gigrow Urban Farms, a new Québec company specializing in sustainable agriculture, announced an investment of $13 million for the construction of its first urban farm.
By Maryam Fang
August 6, 2021
Gigrow Urban Farms, a new Québec company specializing in sustainable agriculture, announced an investment of $13 million for the construction of its first urban farm.
Located in the Varennes industrial park, this initial 24,000-square-feet facility will become one of Québec’s largest urban agriculture projects.
“Horizontal rotary cultivation is one of the most sustainable solutions for the future of agriculture,” said André Tremblay, President, Gigrow Urban Farms. “We are proud to offer a greener alternative with a carbon footprint as much as five times smaller than other farming methods! Our farms will be operated in a controlled environment that is available 365 days a year. This means we are not dependent on the seasons or the weather. This is a significant step towards Québec’s food autonomy.”
Using their partner Gigrow’s innovative Québec-developed technology, called horizontal rotary garden, Gigrow Urban Farms will eventually produce up to four million heads of lettuce a year, and other plant products, with a system that reduces water use and produces a year-round, contaminant-free and stable crop.
“The City of Varennes wants to become a benchmark for sustainable development in Québec,” said Martin Damphousse, Varennes Mayor. “We are very pleased to welcome a company like Gigrow Urban Farms, whose mission is perfectly in tune with our city’s values.”
Garden City Brings A Breath of Fresh Air To Urban Paris
The project, Garden City of the Crescent Moon, seeks to showcase what the design of the future can look like. How can environmentally-friendly concerns be integrated into urban design? Garden City seeks to provide the answers to that question.
By KC Morgan
August 6, 2021
The project, Garden City of the Crescent Moon, seeks to showcase what the design of the future can look like. How can environmentally-friendly concerns be integrated into urban design? Garden City seeks to provide the answers to that question.
Urban agriculture is a big part of the design. This is a method of using space to create growing areas for herbs, spices and vegetables. Urban agriculture not only improves soil quality but also reduces air pollution. Most importantly of all, it produces food.
By providing spaces for farming and gardening within urban areas, the plan also provides opportunities for economic benefits. Produce, spices and other products harvested from these mini urban farms can become a source of supplemental income. Roof terraces and small urban greenhouses create space for urban agriculture and create a unique look.
The design also includes spaces for housing, offices, sports facilities and areas for cultural activities. The distinct silhouette of the project overall is made to resemble the shape of canyons. The Garden City design follows the natural bend of the Lac des Minimes and its natural islands.
In the Garden City, all yards, roofs and public spaces will be used for growing and livestock. In fact, cattle breeding and dairy production areas will be right in town at the heart of the action. Meanwhile, everyone will have the chance and the space to grow all sorts of commodities, including corn, beans and herbs.
This design shows how urban environments can become more eco-friendly and self-sustaining in the future. How can urban agriculture spaces like this impact society, climate and health? This project can serve as a case study to help answer these questions. The plan is a design created by architecture firm Rescubika. The firm describes Garden City as “created by man for man” and says it will improve the urban landscape by “adapting it to our new way of living in the city.”
Via DesignBoom
Images via RESCUBIKA Creations
Urban Farming Combats Food Deserts In Southeast Fort Worth With Community Empowerment
On the western edge of Glencrest Civic League in Southeast Fort Worth sits a property that soon could become an epicenter of education and agriculture for the community.
By Brooke Colombo
August 5, 2021
On the western edge of Glencrest Civic League in Southeast Fort Worth sits a property that soon could become an epicenter of education and agriculture for the community.
There sits a three-and-a-half-acre farm, Mind Your Garden, manned by husband and wife Steven and Ursula Nuñez, 38.
Several days a week, Steven heads to local grocery stores to pick up their unsold and undesirable produce. Much of it is still in edible condition while the rest is buzzing with flies and dripping with juice as the pair unload the crates to weigh them.
“It’s a lot of work. It’s hard work,” Ursula said. “But it’s good work and we like to work and it’s therapeutic.”
Today’s haul was on the high end for the farm. The most they’ve received is over 1,000 pounds. of discarded produce. The couple composts the produce to use as fertilizer.
They’ll add it to their terraced gardens to prepare the soil for planting in fall. For now, they’re sowing the seeds for an urban farm, with which they hope to combat food scarcity and promote healthy living.
Steven loads and unloads produce onto a scale. His truck bed was full with various fruits and vegetables, some still in edible condition. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
Cardboard from the discarded produce and recycled wood make up the terraced beds. The Nuñezes try to make the farm as sustainable as possible. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
Steven turns over the soil in the terraced garden beds to show how the compost enriches it. While they weren’t planting anything for the summer, some of the composted produce has sprouted new plants. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
In 2013, the Nuñezes bought the property, which once belonged to Steven’s parents. The house on the property eventually became their home. But Steven always planned to make the backyard into a garden.
Steven’s passion and expertise began when he studied abroad in Guatemala, where he learned about urban agriculture. He then attended a workshop from the National Center for Appropriate Technology designed to teach veterans about agriculture.
These experiences inspired him to pursue a master’s degree in landscape architecture from the University of Texas at Arlington. Steven and Ursula also received certifications in permaculture and Ursula has a background in education.
The Nuñez family sits in their backyard where they have coffee each morning and brainstorm ideas to serve their community. Steven said the farm is his greatest passion and they want it to be their lifestyle and business. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
While looking for a thesis topic, Steven learned about food deserts in Southeast Fort Worth, where some residents didn’t have sufficient access to food. The Nuñezes said they feel the best way to address this is through an educational shift in the community.
“Food is what brings all of us together,” Steven said. “We can be a facilitator for the community to come in and have healthy food options and the education and social community building aspect.”
Mind Your Garden is now one of a handful of community gardens in the Grow Southeast network, an independent initiative that helps farms reach success.
About Glencrest and Southeast food deserts
Not all of Southeast Fort Worth is a food desert, but some of its census tracts meet the federal definition for one. In order for a census tract to be a food desert, according to the USDA’s Food Access Research Atlas, it must meet two criteria:
The poverty rate must be 20% or higher, or the median household income must be at or below 80% of the median household income for the region.
At least 500 people and/or at least 33% of the households must live more than a half-mile from a large grocery store or supermarket in urban areas.
Food deserts usually have an abundance of convenience stores, fast-food restaurants and liquor stores.
A QT, Popeyes and Burger King sit on the Southbound side of HWY 287. The majority of food sources for the Glencrest Civic League are located in this area and are fast food, liquor or convenience stores. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report).
Save A Lot, located at 3101 E. Seminary Drive, is the only grocery store within the neighborhood’s boundaries. It’s considered a small grocery store and only part of its half-mile service radius extends into the neighborhood boundaries. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report).
Foodland is a large grocery store located at a Foodland at 3320 Mansfield Highway. It is the only large grocery store within a half-mile service radius of Glencrest Civic League. But just a small portion of the neighborhood is in this radius. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
Linda Fulmer, the executive director of Healthy Tarrant County Collaboration, who partners with Grow Southeast, has lived in Fort Worth since 1980 and remembers the shift of Southeast Fort Worth to a low-income area.
“(Southeast Meadowbrook) was an aging community with homes built in the 1930s and 1940s that were mainly occupied by aging original homeowners,” she said. “At that time there were eight grocery stores within three miles of my little house. Today only one of those stores remains in operation.”
Original homeowners in the area died or moved away, and the homes became available for rent by lower-income families. Many residents take their money to stores outside of the area, Fulmer said, which “erodes the shopper public for what stores remain.” Grocery stores are not a high-profit business, she said, so the stores look for a high density of residents with disposable income.
Glencrest Civic League is about five miles southeast of downtown Fort Worth and South of Highway 287. There is one small market (a Save A Lot food store at 3101 E. Seminary Drive) and one large grocery (a Foodland at 3320 Mansfield Highway) within a half-mile-service radius of the neighborhood limits.
Both are located at the southernmost edge of the neighborhood, making them less accessible to the majority of the neighborhood. Steven’s thesis, published in December 2018, found 70% of the neighborhood’s food sources are located at its southernmost tip. His thesis also found 9% of residents did not have at least one vehicle for their household.
“Part of understanding food insecurity is also understanding the demographics of the communities,” said Jesse Herrera, CoAct’s founder and executive director, who works with Grow Southeast. “Historically, there have been effects one could attribute to redlining or other systemic oppressions that have led our communities to the path they’re on.”
With 29% of households below the poverty line, Glencrest Civic League is considered a low-income neighborhood, according to census tract data. This is about double the poverty rate in Fort Worth (14.5%) and more than double the rate in Tarrant County (12%). Sixty-one percent of residents have a household income under $50,000.
The neighborhood is 56% Black, 36% Hispanic, 4% white, 2% Asian and 2% Pacific Islander. Of its 466 residents, 11.6% of the population has veteran status.
While lack of food options is an issue, so too is poor infrastructure. A lack of sidewalks, lack of exterior lighting and inefficient or insufficient bus routes can make it difficult to access food, Herrera said.
“If your food takes you an hour, two hours, three hours to get to and from there — that’s assuming these routes would actually be open by the time an individual gets off work— that’s part of what leads to food scarcity,” Herrera said.
The area’s economy affects food insecurity. Herrera said it’s harder to come across well-paying jobs in the southeast. Money goes toward rent first, and putting food on the table can be difficult with a minimum wage job.
The effects of food insecurity and little access to nutritious food have greater implications for the residents’ health, as Steven and Ursula have experienced.
“Steven’s family has a history of diabetes, and my family has a history of heart disease, which are both food-related diseases,” Ursula said. “I didn’t understand that with the food you consume, there are effects to unhealthy eating.”
A healthy diet can lead to a longer life, lower risk of obesity, heart disease, diabetes and some cancer, as well as help with chronic diseases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Steven and Ursula said despite exercising and training for marathons, it wasn’t until they changed their eating habits — cutting out alcohol and turning to a plant-based diet — that they saw a difference in their health.
How community urban farms address food scarcity
Though putting more grocery stores with healthy, affordable options in a more accessible place seems like the obvious solution, Nuñez suggests in his thesis this would have little effect on the buying choices of residents. The biggest factors are cultural background, tradition, education, custom and habit, his thesis argues.
“The whole nutritional education is extremely important,” Steven said. “It’s a long and tough journey to live a healthy lifestyle. For our community, some people just don’t know how to cook or eat healthily. They see fast foods and convenience as their only option. They need that strong support from their community to be successful.”
Community farms aren’t just about selling produce to residents, Herrera said. Rather, the farms also empower residents and boost the local economy to lift these communities out of poverty.
Once the farmers are equipped with successful business models, the farms could create opportunities for secondary and tertiary markets like neighborhood composting services and niche restaurants or cottage industries, he said.
“We’re looking at this through the lens of entrepreneurship and trying to create resources that support,” Herrera said. “These farms have the ability to create a lot of jobs.”
The future of Mind Your Garden
Steven points to a map they’ve created for the future layout of the farm. This includes plans for an orchard, a chicken coop and additional terraced garden beds. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
Ursula and their daughter Alejandra walk across their backyard from their home. The house, built in 1948, was the first property on the block. This space behind it will serve as a workshop and classroom to educate residents when the farm opens to the public. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
A retention pond is on the Northside of the property. The pond existed before they purchased the property. They plan to deepen it with the money they won in the Fort Worth Hispanic Chamber of Commerce’s pitch competition. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
Though it’s not open to the public yet, Steven and Ursula have already planned how they want to get the community involved on the farm.
They have a handful of volunteers helping build infrastructure to ready the farm for planting and a public opening. Preparing for the fall has been more than just physical labor, he said. Farming has allowed him and the volunteers to dig deep with each other.
“It’s a therapy session when we’re out here,” Steven said. “We’re out in nature. We’re working, sweating, talking about food insecurity and health. By the time they leave, we’ve had a pretty deep conversation. That’s definitely the community outreach aspect of it.”
To provide that experience to other residents, they intend to have gardening spaces where the community can get their hands dirty, as well as outdoor classroom space.
They will have a “healthy hour,” which will be like a happy hour focused on inviting the community over to eat and discuss their health.
“When we went plant-based and stopped drinking alcohol, we realized almost every social thing revolves around eating or drinking,” Steven said. “There’s a need for people looking to have a healthy lifestyle but still want to socialize.”
The Nuñezes said it’s an honor to be able to provide for their community and share what their farm will have to offer.
“This is a lifestyle business, not a part-time business or hobby. This is our life,” Steven said. “It means so much to us to get to express ourselves, our creativity, and be of service.”
Lead Photo: Ursula and Steven Nuñez unload hundreds of pounds of discarded fruit from local grocers to weigh. This fruit will get composted in the pile behind them to create nutrient-rich soil for planting. (Brooke Colombo | Fort Worth Report)
World’s Largest Urban Coffee Farm Tucked Away Amid Sao Paulo’s Skyscrapers
Brazil’s most heavily populated metropolis also is home to the world’s largest urban coffee farm, a 10,000-square-meter (2.5-acre) plantation that is nestled amid skyscrapers and hearkens back to the city’s origins
By Alba Santandreu
August 6, 2021
Sao Paulo, (EFE).- Brazil’s most heavily populated metropolis also is home to the world’s largest urban coffee farm, a 10,000-square-meter (2.5-acre) plantation that is nestled amid skyscrapers and hearkens back to the city’s origins.
Although it is situated just a few meters from the famed Ibirapuera Park in the heart of Sao Paulo, that oasis of around 2,000 coffee shrubs is unknown to most inhabitants of Latin America’s biggest urban center.
The plantation has an annual production of 600 kilos (1,321 pounds) of arabica coffee, primarily the catuai and “mundo novo” varieties, which are harvested over a short stint between late May and early June.
Once they are collected, the beans are dried on a net, ground into smaller particles and later donated to a social solidarity fund, the project’s coordinator, agronomist Harumi Hojo, said in an interview with Efe.
“The plantation has already served for research (purposes), and the proposal now is to produce coffee in a sustainable manner. Starting this year, we’ll be renovating the coffee plantation, bringing in other coffees to monitor the behavior of other varieties in the same conditions,” she added.
The coffee farm has been in operation since 1950 at the nearly century-old Instituto Biologico agricultural research hub, an institution founded during the early 20th-century heyday of Sao Paulo state’s coffee sector with the purpose of combating the coffee borer beetle, a harmful pest that was threatening the region’s plantations at that time.
The plantation today is one of the few remaining vestiges of Sao Paulo’s golden coffee era, when so-called coffee barons used the profits from their farms in the state’s interior to erect luxurious mansions in the city.
Among the last of these decaying mansions is one located on the city’s iconic downtown Paulista Avenue, a major thoroughfare where thousands of people and vehicles come and go every day.
An 850-square-meter (9,140-square-foot) building constructed on 2,000 square meters of land, that mansion built in 1905 is conspicuous amid a sea of modern glass office towers and may be converted into a culinary museum.
Coffee was synonymous with progress and wealth for decades in Sao Paulo, a one-time poor and isolated village that ended up overtaking Brazil’s former capital, Rio de Janeiro, as the country’s leading industrial hub. That crop also was primarily responsible for the modernization, urbanization and development of what today is the South American nation’s wealthiest and most-populated state.
Arriving from Central America in 1760, coffee was the main basis of Brazil’s economy between the mid-1800s and mid-1900s and at one time accounted for 80 percent of the nation’s exports.
Despite its subsequent decline and the rise of other crops such as soybeans, Brazil remains the world’s leading coffee producer and exporter and the second-biggest consumer of that beverage after the United States.
Brazil’s “economic, social and cultural development was financed by coffee, as were its big infrastructure and public works projects, including railway lines. Even Sao Paulo’s financial system, which had been very precarious” thrived due to coffee-industry profits, Marcos Matos, director of the Council of Coffee Exporters of Brazil (Cecafe), which represents and promotes the development of that sector, said in a telephone interview with Efe.
“Coffee was Brazil and Brazil was coffee,” he said. EFE
The Farmory: Is Indoor Fish Farming A Viable Way of Tackling Declining Fish Populations?
The Farmory, an urban farming nonprofit, is the only indoor fish hatchery in Wisconsin. The nonprofit focuses on sustainable growing practices for both greens and gills
By John McCracken
August 6, 2021
For decades, Green Bay Wisconsin National Guardsmen stored munitions and trained new recruits in a stucco-clad, Chicago Street building built in 1918.
Now, the building is home to hundreds of fish babies.
The Farmory, an urban farming nonprofit, is the only indoor fish hatchery in Wisconsin. The nonprofit focuses on sustainable growing practices for both greens and gills. When it was founded in 2016, the focus was on growing produce indoors using aquaponic systems to both teach and provide a new source of food in the state’s harsh winters. As the program grew, they introduced percids such as yellow perch, walleye and sauger into their arsenal.
Executive director Claire Thompson said most aquaponic operations use tilapia because of its cheap price point due to massive global exports.
“There’s also some perceptions about (tilapia) here, especially in the Midwest, that it’s not as good of a fish,” said Thompson.
The Farmory settled on growing yellow perch to complement their vegetable production because of its beloved place on Wisconsin plates and its volatile population over the years.
They soon discovered a problem. No one was growing perch indoors yet.
“That led us down the road toward ‘more research needs to be done,’” said Thompson. “We need to be able to set up our own hatchery to produce a steady and consistent supply of year-round, feed-trained fingerlings that are grown from the egg in an indoor environment.”
In the bottom level of The Farmory, budding fish are separated by a bio-secure room and health protocols. Volunteers and entrepreneurial and technician students take turns monitoring temperatures in the complex hatchery. Each separate tank mirrors life cycles and seasons of growing yellow perch and their walleye cousins. During a late June visit, an insulated tank is sealed shut and a quick peak inside shows adolescent perch huddled together for warmth. The fish don’t know about the humid Midwest summer outside because their faux-winter hovers around a chilly 30 degrees Fahrenheit.
The Farmory (Photo Credit: John McCracken for Great Lakes Now)
Schools in session
Being a nonprofit allows The Farmory to not have to worry about mass production or profit margins as much as for-profit hatcheries that already exist on slim margins. Instead, they worry about being a stepping-stone for future fish farmers.
The Farmory offers 12-week technical programs that provide hands-on trainings and lectures from researchers and ichthyologists. Since The Farmory launched both pathway programs in 2020, they have had 34 graduating students.
Thompson said that for students interested in aquaculture there are only two options in the state. Students can go to a four-year program at either University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point or UW-Milwaukee.
For the students coming through The Farmory’s doors—who range from recent high school graduates to retirees—fish-wrangling fares better than test-taking in the growing industry.
“There’s a lot of jobs in the aquaculture industry that don’t require a four-year degree,” Thompson said. “You have to have people with basic technical skills.”
The Farmory’s students are much like their customers. Their interest and aspiration range from basement or backyard hobby farming to scalable commercial production. The Farmory grows fingerling perch until they are between 2 to 4 inches and then customers take them to grow them to adult size for spawning or frying.
In 2020, they had 60 customers and sold fish across state lines to Michigan, Ohio and Minnesota. Thompson said most customers bought between 100 and 500 fish, but a handful purchased thousands of perch pounds to fuel their own commercial fishery endeavors.
“We want to be able to secure a local food supply. We also want to teach people about aquaculture as a viable business opportunity,” said Thompson.
The Farmory (Photo Credit: John McCracken for Great Lakes Now)
Problems come with being new
Being the only indoor perch hatchery comes with its challenges though.
The COVID-19 pandemic hindered The Farmory’s first hatching year. They weren’t able to get brood stock up to full capacity due to supply-chain complications. The urban farm is working on getting their population to a sustainable level.
Additionally, Thompson said that there is a lack of research and applied standards when it comes to growing perch indoors.
“It’s not like any other agricultural commodity product like dairy or chickens,” said Thompson.
Thompson said yellow perch have an innate biology barrier, where survival is harder to come by—something that is important for an organization focused on producing and spreading young perch. Perch also don’t have a set diet. As of now, The Farmory feeds their perch a trout diet, which Thompson said is slightly fattier.
“We have to find a way to get enough people into the business of (indoor fisheries) to we can work with feed companies to be able to develop affordable feed,” said Thompson.
On the other end of the process chain, Thompson said a decline in the perch population since the booming years of yore has led to a lack of skilled fish processers and sustainable operations.
“Because of the decline of Great Lakes commercial fishing, we’ve also seen a decline in processors to clean and process fish,” said Thompson.
Smaller, sustainable scale
Sharon Moen echoed a lot of Thompson’s observations of the industry at large.
Moen is an outreach specialist with Wisconsin Sea Grant— a statewide research and stewardship program dedicated to the resources of Great Lakes—in charge of the Eat Wisconsin Fish Initiative. Eat Wisconsin Fish was established in 2013 to become a hub for information and resources for the state’s fish producers and consumers.
Moen said the many people in the industry believe the future of fish farming is heading indoors because of the effects of climate change on the industry, its habitats and the fish themselves.
“Algae blooms and invasive species can’t get into the water,” Moen said of indoor, contained aquaculture systems.
Moen also said that the way consumers and producers import and export massive numbers of commodities has a continued effect on the planet due to gas emission.
“We have to stop carting things around the globe in order to really truly cut down on carbon emissions,” said Moen. “We need to learn to eat and grow our food more locally.”
In the past year, Moen observed how breaks in the supply chain—caused by global catastrophe such as the COVID-19 pandemic—make everyone and every supplier vulnerable. Just as the majority of The Farmory’s students are scaling down, many suppliers are focused on local, small-scale consumption.
“I think most (fisheries) are very modest people raising for their local community consumption,” said Moen.
Moen said to alleviate stress on perch’s floundering population and high price point – which she observed at upwards of $20 a pound last year – consumers could switch to a more abundant species like whitefish.
Both Moen and Thompson pointed out that adjusting to problems in the industry, whether you’re growing fish in a bedroom tank or in cavernous outdoor ponds, takes agility and a love for fish.
“It’s like gardening,” Moen said. “You have to have a knack for it and take care of what you’re growing.”
Infarm Appoints Crop Genetics Specialist
Berlin-based urban farming specialist Infarm has appointed plant geneticist Pádraic Flood to lead its crop genetics team and help adapt various staple crops for vertical farming.
By Fred Searle
August 4, 2021
Berlin-based urban farming specialist Infarm has appointed plant geneticist Pádraic Flood to lead its crop genetics team and help adapt various staple crops for vertical farming.
A former research scientist at Wageningen University and the renowned Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research, Flood will spearhead Infarm’s ongoing efforts to improve the quality, flavour and freshness of its vertically farmed produce.
Flood has a PhD from Wageningen in natural genetic variation in plant photosynthesis, and over the past decade he has used genetics to understand a range of key scientific questions ranging from photosynthesis to how plants adapt to extreme environments.
At Infarm he will lead the development of a breeding programme to adapt grains, legumes and other staple crops for vertical farming.
The company said the aim of the programme is to help return the land currently devoted to these staples to nature and biodiversity, while trying to have a positive impact on both people and the planet through more sustainable agriculture.
Infarm was founded in Berlin in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and brothers Erez and Guy Galonska.
With a multinational team of more than 1,000 people globally, the vertical farming business has partnered with more than 30 major food retailers around the world.
To date, it has deployed more than 1,300 ‘in-store ‘farms’ as well as large-scale Growing Centres, producing various herbs, micro greens and leafy greens.
It claims to have saved more than 60 million litres of water and 60,000 square metres of land when compared with conventional production.
Lead Photo: Pádraic Flood will lead development of breeding programme to adapt grains, legumes and other staple crops for vertical farming
Babylon Micro-Farms Partners With Harvest Table, Providing Fresher, Hyper-Local Food Options To Top Universities Across America
Babylon Micro-Farms, the intelligent, accessible and market-leading indoor micro-farm company, is excited to announce their partnership with Harvest Table Culinary Group, the pioneering collegiate food service company.
July 30, 2021
Babylon Micro-Farms, the intelligent, accessible and market-leading indoor micro-farm company, is excited to announce their partnership with Harvest Table Culinary Group, the pioneering collegiate food service company. To kick off the partnership, Babylon installed their micro-farms in Harvest Table colleges and universities, including University of Virginia, Wake Forest University, Elon University, and Springfield College, serving over 40,000 students.
With the food hall climate continuing to evolve year to year, several universities are beginning to increase the amount of sustainable and healthy food options for their students across campus. Babylon is stepping in to help make university life more sustainable and healthy, with the installation of their micro-farms in the food halls. These micro-farms produce the freshest, high-quality selection of crops for kitchens to use in preparing their menus. Food from Babylon Micro-Farms is not only good for your health, but also for the environment, as they grow food locally with few pollutants, less water, food waste, and is pesticide free.
Harvest Table Culinary Group has a track record of culinary excellence, taking pride in their fresh and responsibly-sourced ingredients. President of Harvest Table, Mary Thornton comments, “Our partnership with Babylon Micro-Farms enables us to bring the Harvest Table effect to life for our students and their guests across the country. As we return to a new normal in the fall, there is a ripe opportunity for collaboration with student groups to further support the cause of local foods.”
Since 2017, Babylon Micro-Farms has delivered a simple, yet engaging indoor growing experience, helping companies such as hospitals, senior living communities and universities showcase their commitment to providing fresh, nutritious produce and sustainability to their students and other customers. The goal through their on-site farming service is to make growing simple for anyone. Babylon is the most affordable, efficient, and advanced vertical farming platform available, remotely managed through the cloud with unparalleled customer service. To date, the company operates a network of 45 farms in the Mid-Atlantic region of the USA with a further 106 farms due to be installed by Q1 2022.
Babylon’s CEO, Alexander Olesen shares, “Harvest Table represents the thought leader in the education space and we're extremely happy to partner with them. This partnership demonstrates how we can grow at scale and this is the first step in our plan to get into as many universities as possible.”
15 of The Coolest Urban Farms Around The World
But many cities have amazing urban farms within their city borders. They not only offer an amazing break from busy city life, but they’re also often really sustainable!
July 23, 2021
When we think of farms, we usually think of the countryside. But many cities have amazing urban farms within their city borders. They not only offer an amazing break from busy city life, but they’re also often really sustainable! On top of that, it’s also a powerful tool against world hunger. We have listed our favorite Urban farm that our spotter wrote about from around the world down below.
Amsterdam – Amsteltuin
Workshop at the vineyard (by RTVA)
Amsteltuin is a vineyard in Amsterdam! Okay, a vineyard is not exactly a farm, but plants still grow and the grapes can still be harvested. They offer a little vacation right out of the city center. They sell picnic baskets with local products that you can enjoy in between the vines! How cute is that?
Berlin – Charlottenburger Ziegenhof
Goats at Charlottenburger Ziegenhof (by Rainer Jensen)
Charlottenburger Ziegenhof is located in a backyard in Berlin. They are a community-based farm that wants to motivate anyone who is interested to take care of the animals and produce on the little farm. They teach people about sustainability through their work on the farm and host workshops for those who don’t want to get their hands dirty.
Florence – Orti Dipinti
The beds in which the crops are grown at Orti Dipinti (by Laura Pirovano)
Orti Dipinti is located in Florence and one of the smallest urban farms on this list. It’s located on an old running track so they had to bring the soil in. The crops are grown in wooden crates by the volunteers from the neighborhood. But their work doesn’t stop at planting and harvesting! They also have a mission to educate about nutrition, sustainability, and the role that urban farming can play in those subjects. If you don’t have the green fingers you can always check out their little shop to buy fresh products.
Glasgow – North Kelvin Meadow
Children building a treehouse at North Kelvin Meadow (by North Kelvin Meadow)
North Kelvin Meadow is a beautiful communal green space in Glasgow. It used to be a football field! Today they have fruit trees, over 30 raised beds that people can rent to grow their own crops, 2 honey beehives, and 6 bumblebee homes. The space is used by the whole community almost daily.
London – Mudchute Farm
Sheep at Mudchute Farm with a view of London (by Helen Graves)
Mudchute Farm is London’s biggest urban farm. They have plenty of animals you would expect at a farm (pigs, sheep, chickens) and some you might not (hello llamas). They spin their own wool and your kids can cuddle with the animals! Interested in finding out more about keeping chickens, laying hedges, spinning wool, or other countryside activities? They offer courses on all of them!
Milan – Cascina Cuccagna
People at the bar of Cascina Cuccagna (by Radio Mamma)
Cascina Cuccagna is a true hidden gem in Milan. It’s a whole concept that features way more than just an urban farm. You’ll find a very good restaurant, a self-service bar with homemade bakery snacks, a wonderful garden growing vegetables, a hostel, bike and wood workshops, a wine shop, a farmer’s market offering selected local produce, and various events. It’s the perfect spot to leave the hustle and bustle of the city behind.
Oslo – Losæter
Losaeter creative greenhouse (by Monica Løvdahl)
Losæter is located in Oslo. It all started in 2011 as an art project and has since grown into a lush green mix of Oslo’s unique urban farm, a cultural meeting point, a knowledge exchange platform, and a funky wild park. They literally brought soil into the city and have been thriving ever since then.
Rome – CoBrAgOr
People eating at the restaurant of CoBrAgOr (by CoBrAgOr)
CoBrAgOr in Rome combines an amazing restaurant with an urban farm. The acronym means ‘Cooperativa braccianti agricoli organizzati’, a cooperative of the farmers who cultivate the 40-hectare area surrounding this agritourism in the Insugherata Natural Reservation on Monte Mario, the highest hill in Rome. They also have a shop where you can shop their fresh products daily.
Rotterdam – Op Het Dak
Yoga class at Op Het Dak (by Gianni Tahamata)
Rotterdam is a pioneer when it comes to urban farming. Op het dak is one of many urban farms in the city. Op het dak means on the rooftop in Dutch. And that’s exactly where this farm is located! The rooftop is filled with flowers and plants, organic vegetables, edible flowers, and herbs. They are all used in the dishes that their little restaurant serves. They also have beehives that produce honey on a yearly basis!
The Hague – Pluk! & De Heemtuin
Plants for sale at Pluk! (by Sanne Verhoef)
Pluk! De Heemtuin is a small farm located a little out of the city center of The Hague. They combine the small farm with a café and the Heemtuin where kids (and adults) can run around freely. Their animals all found their home at Pluk after being abandoned by their previous owners. You can come and pick your own fruit and vegetables, your kids can learn more about food and the animals or you can just enjoy a coffee on their terrace.
Toronto – Riverdale Farm
Riverdale Farm entrance (by Mother Goose)
The Riverdale Farm is located in Toronto, smack in the middle of downtown. The small farm is open year-round and it specializes in pioneer breeds of farm animals like horses, cows, goats, and sheep that are hard to find on commercial farms. Y0u can also find the oldest building in the city here!
Vancouver – Southlands Heritage Farm
A rider is getting her horse ready at the Southlands Heritage Farm (by Art Zaratsyan)
Southlands Heritage Farm is located within the border of Vancouver. this farm has made it their mission to guide us all into making healthier, more sustainable choices. Take a stroll through their gardens, hand-feed their chickens and goats, walk through the barn to greet the ponies and horses, and stop by their farmer’s market on the way out for some fresh produce, eggs, honey, and jams. They also offer several programs to educate on the topic of urban farming and nutrition.
Zurich – Frau Gerolds Garten
The bar at Frau Gerolds Garten (by Dimitri Burkhard)
Frau Gerolds Garten is more than just an urban farm. It’s a whole concept of a community located in Zurich. It’s a restaurant, bar, shopping area, and urban gardening project all in one. The food for the restaurant is partly grown on-site, with the rest being organic and locally sourced. There is a community thread running throughout, and locals are invited to grow their own veg on site.
Converting Urban Areas Into Indoor Pesticide-Free Farms For Year-Round Food
Indoor farming addresses the concern of limited arable land and water wastage. In vertical farming, the need for land can be reduced by a hundred-fold, and by recirculating and reusing water, an average of 95% less water is required for growing the same crops when compared to outdoor farming
By Li Yap
July 14, 2021
Concerns With Traditional Farming
Traditional farms typically rely on herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers to grow crops, which can pollute the environment if used in excess. Up to 98% of a chemical spray will bounce off a crop instead of staying on the plant, resulting in chemicals accumulating in the soil and, eventually, waterways.
Biodiversity loss is another concern of conventional farming as the conversion of wild spaces to farmland has resulted in less space for wild plants and animals to live in. With the global population predicted to reach 9.7 billion by 2050, the agriculture industry is under pressure to scale up to meet these demands, which could potentially affect the natural environment further if nothing is done to rethink current farming practices.
With 40% of available global land already occupied by fields of crops and pastures for animals, it would be difficult to completely eliminate the impact that farms have on the natural environment. However, part of the answer could lie in indoor farming where growing conditions can be better managed, reducing the environmental impact of growing produce.
Indoor Farming Technology Market
The indoor farming technology market was valued at $14.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach $24.8 billion by 2026.
The contained facilities used in indoor farming allow farmers to better control and optimize growing conditions. This results in higher yields compared to traditional farming methods whilst using less land area. For example, the average yield of tomatoes grown using traditional methods was reported in 2016 to be 1.85 pounds per square foot, while the average yield of tomatoes grown from greenhouse hydroponics was 10.59 pounds per square foot. By increasing the growing area by stacking additional planting layers, the overall crop yield can be increased.
Indoor farming addresses the concern of limited arable land and water wastage. In vertical farming, the need for land can be reduced by a hundred-fold, and by recirculating and reusing water, an average of 95% less water is required for growing the same crops when compared to outdoor farming.
Vertical farming is one of the techniques used to grow crops within indoor environments. By using artificial light and vertical growing systems such as aeroponics, aquaponics and hydroponics, crops such as kale, lettuce, strawberries and herbs can be grown within a clinically clean indoor system without the need for soil, sunlight and pesticides. This technology allows vertical farms to be set up close to populous areas or urban hubs, where harvests can be distributed locally.
80 Acres Farms
80 Acres Farms operates vertical farms in eight locations across four states. Its farms produce crops using zero pesticides and consume 97% less water compared to traditional farms.
Using 100% renewable energy and being completely indoors, 80 Acres’ operation is capable of producing various crop varieties all year without the need to rely on favorable weather.
Sophisticated technologies, including AI sensors, are incorporated into its operation to ensure that growth environments are optimized according to the plants’ genetics and that harvests are at the peak of ripeness. By relying on a smaller delivery radius, customers are able to access the produce within a day of picking.
“80 Acres' farms are, on average, 300 to 400 times more productive than field farming”, says co-founder Mike Zelkind. This is due to the vertical structures used for growing produce, which allows room for more crops in less space as well as faster-growing produce.
Current Limitations of Indoor Farming
Apart from the high energy costs associated with operating vertical farms, there are also high investment costs for urban land and for the technologies and devices needed to carefully control and monitor the growing environment – these include aspects such as temperature, lighting, and pollination.
The high initial investment compared with traditional farming is a drawback for indoor farms, but this also invites the opportunity for innovation and the development of more cost-effective technologies.
Transforming Agriculture for the Future
Transforming farming in a way that does not affect the natural environment will be no small task, given the sheer scale of the world’s agriculture. With a growing demand for food, there is an ever-increasing pressure for high-yielding and sustainable farming techniques.
In addition to being a great use of spaces not traditionally utilized for agriculture, the high yields of pesticide-free indoor farms show great promise. Although indoor farming is unlikely to completely replace traditional field farming right now, it still has the potential to answer, at least in part, the question about food security in the years to come.
Lead Photo: With the ever-growing demand for food placing increased pressure on the Earth’s resources, innovators are re-examining the fundamentals of farming to create a new and sustainable food system. With the hopes of potentially transforming global food systems, many emerging start-ups have identified urban indoor farming as a viable alternative to conventional farming.
mage Credit: Nikolay_E/Shutterstock.com
Video Credit: 80 Acres Farms/YouTube.com
USA - VIRGINIA - Urban Farm In Newport News Aims To Reduce Food Insecurity. It’s Not A ‘Handout,’ It’s A ‘Hand Up.’
Graham was gardening on a recent Saturday morning in a farm run by Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture, which wants to create a healthy, sustainable food system in the neighborhood. The farm is a partnership between the church and the Newport News-based nonprofit, which is working to reduce food insecurity through farming and educational programming.
By Sonia Rao
July 20, 2021
NEWPORT NEWS — Judge Graham knelt over a row of bare soil and the occasional yellow marigold, planting seeds. In a little over a month, he hopes, the bed near Zion Baptist Church will be bursting with ripe tomatoes. The tomatoes, and the rest of the food Graham and other volunteers are growing, will go to the surrounding community.
Graham was gardening on a recent Saturday morning in a farm run by Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture, which wants to create a healthy, sustainable food system in the neighborhood. The farm is a partnership between the church and the Newport News-based nonprofit, which is working to reduce food insecurity through farming and educational programming.
On Aug. 14, the farm will open its first farmers market, which will take EBT and SNAP payments.
“The ones that can afford to pay, fine, but I’m not gonna turn anybody away,” said Graham, who helped start the group. “Anybody that shows up is gonna go home with some groceries.”
The area around Zion Baptist is a food desert, said Renee Foster, founder of Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture. It has only one grocery store, a Piggly Wiggly, and many residents are low-income and don’t have transportation to drive elsewhere.
The garden has been around for four years and Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture has managed it for two. All of its workers are volunteers, including high school students, veterans and service members. This year, the farm is expected to grow about 3,500 pounds of produce. Graham and Foster also deliver food to older adults who can’t come out because of health concerns or a lack of transportation.
Graham said the farm is also a teaching garden, so he treats it as a place for visitors and volunteers to get hands-on experience.
On June 25, a group from the Coast Guard came to volunteer. This was the first time Petty Officer 2nd Class Stacey Maine gardened. But by the end of the hour, she was explaining how to weed and cut asparagus.
Coast Guard Petty Officer 2nd Class Stacey Maine weeds a vegetable bed in the urban garden near the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and 21st Street in Newport News. (Kaitlin McKeown/Virginia Media)
Some people drive from Norfolk, Chesapeake or Virginia Beach to volunteer.
On the left of the 34-by-100-foot garden is an orchard of peach, plum, apple, fig, pear, cherry and nectarine trees. Next to the orchard are rows of tomatoes, butternut squash, strawberries, asparagus and radishes, and a garden of herbs with basil, sage, lemongrass and stevia. At the back is a collection of chili, tabasco, habanero and ghost peppers. A sign says “Judge’s ’HOT Pepper Zone’ ” with an image of a skull and crossbones to warn children away. Children, Graham said, often mistake the peppers for strawberries.
Interspersed between the crops are bright pink, purple, red and yellow flowers. They bring in pollinators like bees and hummingbirds, Graham said.
The farm also has more than eight types of sweet potatoes, all donated by Clifton Slade, who owns Slade Farms in Surry. Slade donated 270 slips of sweet potatoes. Other donors include The Virginia Small Farm Resource Center, Tidewater Community College’s horticultural program and the Hampton Roads Agricultural Research and Extension Center. The farm gets the rest of its supplies from Norfolk Feed and Seed or Slade Farms. Everything the garden grows is organic, Graham said.
Foster said she’s excited to start hosting more events now that more people are vaccinated and pandemic restrictions have been lifted. The farm has been having movie nights when children can come to have fun and learn about the garden.
She hopes the market will turn enough of a profit so that she can put more food back into the ground. She’s also raising $10,000 to start a “Drones in Agriculture” program to introduce children to careers in agriculture, science, technology, engineering and math. Children will learn how to code and fly drones, which will be used for agriculture scanning — mapping out the layout of the garden and recording plant health.
Foster hopes eventually to raise enough money to hire a part-time farm manager and create more urban farms across Hampton Roads. She and the other board members of her group work full-time jobs, so managing even one is difficult.
“It takes many, many hands,” she said.
At the end of the day, the goal is to empower food-insecure communities to create and maintain access to healthy food.
“We don’t want to give them a handout,” Graham said. “We want to give them a hand up.”
Lead Photo: Volunteers weed a vegetable bed in a garden on Friday, June 25, 2021, near the intersection of Jefferson Avenue and 21st Street in Newport News, Va. The garden is a partnership between Hampton Roads Urban Agriculture and Zion Baptist Church. (Kaitlin McKeown/Virginia Media)
Farm.One Cuts The Ribbon on New Urban Farm In Prospect Heights
Farm.One, a pioneer in New York City’s urban farming scene, opened the doors on its first neighborhood farm in Prospect Heights last Thursday. Located in a 10,000 square foot warehouse space on Bergen Street, the new farm will grow a wide variety of species including many microgreens, herbs and flowers available for purchase
By Jackson Ferrari Ibelle
June 29, 2021
Farm.One, a pioneer in New York City’s urban farming scene, opened the doors on its first neighborhood farm in Prospect Heights last Thursday.
Located in a 10,000 square foot warehouse space on Bergen Street, the new farm will grow a wide variety of species including many microgreens, herbs and flowers available for purchase.
The crops are grown using vertical farming techniques, where plants grow indoors, under artificial light, using water-based methods such as hydroponics. These practices allow for a controlled environment conducive to an urban setting, and have skyrocketed in popularity in recent years.
Scenes from Thursday’s ribbon cutting. Photos: Farm.One.
“When we started, vertical farming was really new,” Rob Laing, founder of Farm.One told BK Reader. “Nobody really knew if it was going to actually be a thing.”
Still, he isn’t all that surprised by the industry’s growth. “New York has acres of rooftop space, thousands of unused basement spaces. We have a lot of resources here and a lot of smart people — I think it’s inevitable that we have become a hub for urban agriculture,” he said.
In addition to the new farm, there is also an event space with a glass wall, allowing for a full viewing experience of the crops. This space will be used for tasting tours where over 100 unique plants can be sampled, as well as lectures on food and agriculture. There are also talks of a cocktail menu and daytime cafe service.
This ambitious undertaking was born out of changes made within Farm.One out of necessity during COVID-19. Originally founded in 2016 to grow rare and unusual plants for chefs at high end restaurants looking to locally source their menus, Farm.One saw its operations slow when the restaurant industry shut down in March 2020. As a result, last summer it began growing for consumers.
“Obviously it’s more difficult and time consuming, but it was something we really believed in,” Laing said.
He was particularly concerned about making operations even more sustainable than they already were. In October the team began selling plant products in reusable containers, which were delivered by bike and then picked up to be repackaged again. They sold out before the end of the month.
Greens are now being sold in reusable containers. Photo: Farm.One.
This left Laing and his team with a growing waitlist and a need for new farm space. They settled in Prospect Heights where they hope to establish themselves in the community and offer good paying jobs to people interested in careers in agriculture. Farm.One even recently hired a young person who had been trained by Teens for Food Justice (TFFJ), an organization that teaches kids hydroponic farming techniques in local schools.
Laing said he hoped to continue these types of connections with Brooklyn organizations, perhaps even formalizing the connection between TFFJ and Farm.One.
A rendering of the new farm. Image: Farm.One.
And TFFJ is right there for it.
“TFFJ looks forward to its continuing partnership with Farm.One as it brings good food and good urban agriculture jobs to New York City’s residents and creates a workforce pipeline for students who complete the TFFJ program at their schools,” Katherine Soll, founder of TFFJ, said.
Soll, along with Latoya Meaders, CEO of Brownsville’s Collective Fare, spoke at Thursday’s ribbon cutting, signalling the communal nature of urban farming.
“We are trying to make New York City a place where urban agriculture is really happening and is thriving and is helping people get access to good food,” Laing said. “It’s obviously not just one organization that can do that. It takes a bunch of different voices.”
Farm.One will begin planting seeds at the Brooklyn farm in the coming weeks, with the first deliveries going out in August.
Lead Photo: The 10,000 square foot Bergen Street farm marks another addition to Brooklyn's growing urban agriculture scene.
Singapore Shows What Serious Urban Farming Looks Like
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted just how susceptible countries are to turmoil in the global food supply
MAY 3, 2021
As recently as 1970, nearly one in 10 Singaporeans was engaged in farming or fishing. Now, most of the island is urbanized. The vast majority of apartment complexes in Singapore are public housing, which allows the government to designate their rooftops as agricultural spaces in the public interest.
From what was once Singapore’s largest prison complex — the Queenstown Remand Prison, housing about 1,000 inmates at its peak — an 8,000 square meter urban farm, Edible Garden City (EGC), now bursts with colorful vegetables and fragrant herbs. Co-founded by local resident Bjorn Low in 2012, EGC is one of Singapore’s first urban https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/singapore-shows-what-serious-urban-farming-looks-like initiatives and is located inside the former prison compound. It is one of several efforts in the city-state to strengthen the island’s food security at a grassroots level. “Our goal was and is to encourage more locals to grow their own food and thus help strengthen the city’s food resilience,” says Sarah Rodriguez, EGC’s head of marketing.
RELATED STORIES
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted just how susceptible countries are to turmoil in the global food supply. This is an issue of particular concern to Singapore, which imports almost 90 percent of its food from more than 170 countries. For several years now, the city authorities have been preparing for just such a crisis. The Singapore Food Authority (SFA) launched its ambitious “30 by 30” initiative in 2019, with the objective of producing 30 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs locally by the year 2030. Supported by a mix of government grants and incentives, 30 by 30 will test the limits of urban food production. At last count in 2019, the city had 220 farms and was meeting 14 percent of its demand for leafy vegetables, 26 percent for eggs, and 10 percent for fish.
Vertical farms feed an island
As recently as 1970, nearly one in 10 Singaporeans was engaged in farming or fishing, either directly or indirectly. Orchards and pig farms dotted the island, and many residents grew fresh vegetables and raised backyard chickens. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, however, most of these occupations disappeared from the rapidly urbanizing city-state. Competing demands for land use led to agriculture being limited to about one percent of the land. Singapore’s food supply grew increasingly reliant on imports.
That began to change about a decade ago amid serious concerns about Singapore’s heavy reliance on imports. In response, the government backed efforts to shore up the nation’s food security with urban farming. In 2014, the authorities announced a SG$63 million (USD$47 million) Agriculture Productivity Fund to support farms in increasing their outputs by using innovative technologies. Over 100 local farms have benefitted so far.
But with COVID-19 threatening to disrupt the city’s imports, the fear that essential food items may not be available became very real. “People have started to resonate with the need for reliable access to food in their own homes and neighborhoods,” says Cuifen Pui, co-founder of the Foodscape Collective, which works with local communities and natural farming practitioners to transform underutilized public spaces into biodiverse edible community gardens. “Many Singaporeans are connecting with the concept of food security at a personal level.”
EGC, which has designed and built over 260 small produce farms for restaurants, hotels, schools and residences in Singapore, also experienced an increased interest in their foodscaping service. “Our foodscaping team saw a 40 percent increase in inquiries from homeowners between April and June last year,” says Rodriguez.
Pre-pandemic, EGC supplied produce to about 60 restaurants in the city and shipped produce weekly to 40 local families that had signed on to their Citizen Box subscription service. When restaurants shut in April last year, EGC quickly converted its restaurant-supplying beds and systems to grow crops for Citizen Box instead. “A bed that was previously used to grow tarragon for restaurants was repurposed to grow something like kang kong (water spinach) that is more suitable for home cooking,” explains Rodriguez. “We were able to supply three times more households through Citizen Box.” EGC uses natural farming methods like composting for soil regeneration and the use of permaculture techniques, to ensure that the impact on the environment is minimal and the soil remains healthy and productive for future generations.
Currently, EGC also grows kale and chard using hydroponics and microgreens in soil, all of it in a climate-controlled, indoor environment. “We strongly believe that there should be a balance between agritech and natural farming,” says Rodriguez. “We prefer to focus on the wide variety of veggies that grow well in our climate.”
EGC’s focus on natural farming is shared by the Foodscape Collective. It’s co-founder Pui had the opportunity to start a community edible garden in 2013, along with her neighbors. More recently, at the invitation of the National Parks Board and The Winstedt School, the Foodscape Collective, together with the local community, is transforming land in two locations using permaculture techniques. “These gardens are multi-functional spaces — to grow edibles, to grow plants for biodiversity, to nature watch, to enhance the soil ecosystem by composting food scraps, or simply just spaces to relax in a busy city,” says Pui.
Edible Garden City, once the largest prison in Singapore, is now an urban farm helping to bolster the city-state’s food security. (Photo courtesy of Edible Garden City)
But with less than one percent of Singapore’s land available for agriculture, 30 by 30 is increasing demand for tech-based solutions that can produce large volumes of food in small spaces. “Technology plays a huge role in Singapore’s food security,” says Prof. Paul Teng, food security expert and Dean of the National Institute of Education International. Rooftop farms like Comcrop — one of the recipients of the government’s SG$30 million (USD$22 million) 30X30 Express grant — and Citiponics are growing greens hydroponically on rooftops.
Since the vast majority of apartment complexes in Singapore are public housing, the government can designate their rooftops as agricultural spaces in the public interest. In 2020, the rooftops of nine multistory car parks in public housing estates were made available for farming by the government.
Other farms like Sustenir are using climate-controlled agriculture to grow their greens entirely indoors. “Singapore will always have to maximize its land and labor productivity for self-production, and this means technology,” says Teng. “It doesn’t make economic sense to produce food in Singapore when there is no comparative advantage, such as with rice and other large area-requiring crops.”
In line with its focus on highly-productive farming, SFA plans to redevelop Lim Chu Kang — an area in the northwest of Singapore covered with traditional farms — into a high-tech agri-cluster, which would triple the output of the area. The redevelopment work is expected to begin in 2024.
Egg production and aquaculture are also being ramped up. Chew’s Agriculture, a household name in Singapore for its farm-fresh eggs, received a 30X30 Express grant to build additional hen houses equipped with technologies to minimize egg breakage and maximize production.
As of 2019, Singapore had 122 sea- and land-based fish farms, with the majority of its offshore fish farms located in the Johor Strait to the north of the island. With these fish farms reaching maximum production levels, potential sites in the southern waters of Singapore are being assessed for suitability and environmental impact. Vertical aquaculture on land is also being viewed as an alternative to increase fish production. Land-based fish farm Apollo Aquaculture recently made news with its upcoming eight-story, state-of-the-art farm.
On the public-facing side, the SFA is encouraging citizens to buy locally farmed food, emphasizing its freshness and nutritive value. A new logo SG Fresh Produce was launched to make all locally grown produce easily identifiable in supermarkets.
As Singapore moves ahead with its 30 by 30 plans, it will still need to import the majority of its food. Not far from Lim Chu Kang is Sungei Kadut, one of Singapore’s oldest industrial estates, which will be redeveloped in a phased manner into an agri-tech innovation hub. “The government is hoping to develop the country into a regional agrifood tech hub for innovations that can offer technology exports to the region,” says Teng. “By helping other producing countries with technologies that can up their production, they will have more for Singapore to import.”
This story was originally published in Reasons to Be Cheerful. It is reprinted here with permission.
Next City is one of few independent news outlets covering urbanism’s efforts to achieve a more equitable city; including how to bring people out of poverty, empower business owners of color, connect us with sustainable technology, center community-based cultural knowledge, house the homeless, and more. Ultimately, it’s about how we care for each other, and we need your support to continue our work.
Anne Pinto Rodrigues is a Netherlands-based freelance journalist, writing on a broad range of topics under social and environmental justice. Her work has been published in The Guardian, The Telegraph, CS Monitor, Yes!, Ensia, and several other international publications.
Lead Photo: (Photo courtesy of Comcrop)
Advances In Hydroponic Cultivation of Floriculture Crops
Advances In Commercial Hydroponic Cultivation of Floriculture Crops for International Markets
ITALY: Zero Farms Delivers Its Salads To Regional Supermarkets
This launch is proof that Zero farming is the solution to enable access to quality products for a wide range of consumers
After years of R&D by the company team, they're now aiming to create an ideal environment, combined with software and technologies for the aeroponically growing salads, arugula, aromatic herbs, and packaged microgreens. All crops are grown in a Pordenone-based production site. The formerly abandoned warehouse has a capacity of producing up to 30 tons per year.
"This launch is proof that Zero farming is the solution to enable access to quality products for a wide range of consumers." This is how Zero's CEO Daniele Modesto explains the entry into the Italian market. The company now presents its first products on the shelves of the Eurospesa supermarkets in Friuli Venezia Giulia and Veneto.
"We entered large-scale distribution starting with local groups, because we needed to take measures with some processes that were new to us. The processes had to be refined before going into national distribution groups," explains Daniele.
"It all started with a visit to the Expo Milano in 2015. What struck me most was a small glass cube that contained basil, arranged in multiple layers, illuminated by LED lights: the embryonic prototype of a vertical farm. From there on, I tracked down the designer and contacted him."
This appeared to be Paolo Battistel, one of Europe's greatest experts in soilless cultivation and today's scientific supervisor of Zero. He then told me what vertical farming comprised and that it would be a new frontier of agriculture. He said that it often clashes with the economic unsustainability of the project." Modesto then shared his idea with Andrea Alessio, owner of a company that deals with industrial photography with a strong passion for the product and the management of production processes."
In 2018, Zero was born in the Italian commune, Pordenone. Initially self-financed with the first partners, it later saw the first investments of other industrial companies in the area. At the beginning of 2021, the company entered the national and international agritech market as Zero Modular Architecture. This is a proprietary hardware-software technology to mass-produce, on an industrial scale, production plants in vertical farms. Namely, a transversal technological platform that involves the combination of standardized components, all produced independently by Zero, which is quickly assembled in disused industrial spaces regenerated into farms powered by clean energy.
Read more at Fruitbook Magazine (in Italian)
8 Apr 2021
USA: FLORIDA - The Villages Grown Passes On Expertise
By Michael Salerno
Daily Sun Senior Writer
April 20, 2021
The intersection of agriculture and wellness is now expanding. The Villages Grown, the community’s farm-to-table initiative, is building on its relationship with the University of Florida through its agricultural, health, and culinary programs. Villages Grown Executive Director Jennifer Waxman recently announced The Villages Grown became the local produce supplier for UF’s campus in Gainesville. Both The Villages Grown and UF’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences
(UF/IFAS) are working together on research concerning controlled-environment agriculture, which involves crops growing in climate-controlled settings for the best possible growing conditions. Waxman described The Villages Grown as a leader in this practice.
She also revealed plans are in the works to train master gardener volunteers from UF/IFAS’s extension office, who would pass on expertise to residents on how to use hydroponic gardening to cultivate nutrient-dense produce.
“This is really going to help us grow the most nutrient-dense crops you can have access to, to strengthen the food as medicine approach,” Waxman said. “The partnership with UF will help extend our educational offerings with health and gardening to fulfill that thirst for knowledge that we don’t have the bandwidth for.”
Fresh and Local on Campus
The Villages Grown’s produce is now a part of the menu offerings of UF’s on-campus dining through a partnership with the university’s Gator Dining Services.
Diners may expect the full line of produce including microgreens, lettuce, herbs, tomatoes, and cucumbers, Waxman said.
“It’s really bridging agriculture, culinary, and health together, which is what The Villages Grown’s model was built after,” she said.
Gator Dining’s partnership with The Villages Grown builds on a food service program that already was Florida-centric.
Its other Florida suppliers include the Hilliard aquaponics facility Traders Hill Farm, Orlando milk factory T.G. Lee Dairy, Ormond Beach plant-based food producer PAOW! and Lake Mary sausage maker Nettles Sausage.
Agriculture Industry Research
The Villages Grown’s position as a leader in controlled-environment agriculture, also known by its acronym CEA, allows it to be at the forefront of research on the subject.
And that’s what’s happening now, as UF/IFAS researchers seek to learn more about the processes involved and whether it’s economically viable for large farms.
There’s a great interest in controlled-environment agriculture in the private sector, said Jeanna Mastrodicasa, UF/IFAS associate vice president of operations. That interest translates to abundant research opportunities with The Villages Grown and other CEA agribusinesses.
“I’d like to see how well it works,” she said. “We simply don’t know well enough about it, most of agriculture in Florida has been in open fields.”
The Villages Grown depends on controlled-environment greenhouses utilizing vertical hydroponics — a process that uses vertically stacked towers to plant and grow more crops on less land — to grow its line of crops.
It also operates a nutrient tank system that sends a recipe of nutrients from a tank in a utility room through a drip irrigation system, said Adam Wright, The Villages Grown’s director of operations.
Waxman described The Villages Grown as the Southeast’s largest controlled-environment agriculture operation of its kind, made possible by the diversification of its crop offerings.
“There’s a lot of large CEAs that only grow lettuce,” she said.
Expanding Education
But people don’t need large greenhouses to grow vegetables and herbs hydroponically.
That’s something Waxman thinks master gardeners could teach residents. She said she’s working with UF/IFAS on training master gardener volunteers about concepts such as hydroponic growing to cultivate nutritious food.
The commercial needs of The Villages Grown don’t allow its staff much time to teach residents about hydroponic gardening. That’s where trained volunteers would come in, Waxman said.
“We want them to be an extension of The Villages Grown and help them get info out to them on their behalf,” she said.
It’s a philosophy echoed by local UF/IFAS staff, who see trained master gardeners as an extension of themselves, on a mission of helping their communities.
“Having volunteers associated, that will be a great part of it,” said Jim Davis, extension director with the UF/IFAS Sumter County Extension Office.
It helps that involvement in the master gardener program historically has been very strong in The Villages, Mastrodicasa said.
“New people to Florida want to learn about what they can grow in Florida,” she said. “There’s so much opportunity. Just the idea you can have more than one growing season in a year is different. Most places in the country have one.”
Building a Healthier Community
The ultimate goal of The Villages Grown and UF’s expanding relationship is simple: building a healthier community.
That may mean supplying the freshest and most nutrient-rich vegetables possible, or teaching people how they can grow them themselves.
It also explains why The Villages Grown develops blends of microgreens for hospitals, for example, to help those suffering from cardiovascular issues, Waxman said.
For The Villages Grown’s staff, relationships like those with UF make it possible to cultivate nutrient-dense produce in an affordable and accessible way, Waxman said.
“You can’t be a lone ranger,” she said. “Or you’ll be out of business.”
Senior writer Michael Salerno can be reached at 352-753-1119, ext. 5369, or michael.salerno@thevillagesmedia.com.
Lead photo: The Villages Grown assistant director of production, Rachel Skiles, checks the tomato plants to make sure everything is on track inside a greenhouse at the facility. Michael Johnson, Daily Sun
Underground Agriculture In London Is Gearing Up
By 2022, Growing Underground aims to produce 60 metric tons of vegetables across an area of 528 square meters. That should be enough for 10,000 households and is 12x more than what is produced on a regular farm
Growing Underground In London Is One
of The Largest Underground Vertical Farms
In the World That is Controlled Entirely
By A Digital Twin At The University of Cambridge.
29 March 2021
All the good things an old World War II bunker can bring, right? Thirty meters below ground, near the London New Covent Garden food market, two entrepreneurs have been working together for several years with the British University of Cambridge on an underground farm that has great ambitions.
Their intention is not only to significantly increase production on-site over the coming years. The project also serves as an example for the whole world, according to co-founder Richard Ballard,
By 2022, Growing Underground aims to produce 60 metric tons of vegetables across an area of 528 square meters. That should be enough for 10,000 households and is 12x more than what is produced on a regular farm.
Energy and water
Vegetable cultivation takes place without soil, as the plants thrive on a kind of ‘woolen carpet’ that uses very little water. “70% less than on a conventional farm,” claims Growing Underground. Energy consumption is also low due to the great depth – which ensures few temperature fluctuations – and thanks to the energy-efficient LED lighting.
Nevertheless, energy is the one thing that still stands in the way of a global breakthrough. Ballard: “Vertical agriculture is on the verge of exponential growth due to ever-improving LED technology, the Internet of Things, cloud computing, and wireless sensors. But the really big breakthrough will come once more and cheaper renewable energy becomes available that can also be stored.”
Ballard believes vertical agriculture can make a significant contribution to the food problem we undoubtedly have in store as a result of an ever- growing global population. For a techie, the fun part is that it also requires a lot of high-end sensor technology.
Melanie Jans-Singh
A digital twin
There are 25 sensors in the underground farm that constantly track how the plants are doing. E.g., whether something needs to be done with the amount of CO2 in the air, nutrients, temperature, humidity and light. In total, 89 variables are involved. Even the speed at which the plants grow is measured, says researcher Melanie Jans-Singh from the University of Cambridge.
Jans-Singh: “The digital twin provides us with a 3D representation of the situation in London here in Cambridge. That image is even better than if you were there on site yourself. The digital twin can do much more than a human being. It can monitor, learn, give feedback and make predictions. All factors that will help increase productivity.”
A great deal of research into vertical farming is also being done in the Netherlands, such as by the company Plantlab.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Maurits Kuypers graduated as a macroeconomist from the University of Amsterdam, specializing in international work. He has been active as a journalist since 1997, first for 10 years on the editorial staff of Het Financieele Dagblad in Amsterdam, then as a freelance correspondent in Berlin and Central Europe. When it comes to technological innovations, he always has an eye for the financial feasibility of a project.
US: INDIANA - Hi-Tech Indoor Farm In South Bend Taking On Lettuce Market
inside a new six-acre building on West Calvert Street in South Bend, Matt Gura is keeping a close watch over a sea of baby plants that fill a greenhouse about the size of two big-box retailers, or 174,000 square feet
By ED SEMMLER South Bend Tribune
March 27, 2021
SOUTH BEND — It’s a chilly, wet, and windy day – enough to remind us that winter still isn’t too far in the rearview mirror.
But inside a new six-acre building on West Calvert Street in South Bend, Matt Gura is keeping a close watch over a sea of baby plants that fill a greenhouse about the size of two big-box retailers, or 174,000 square feet.
It’s like a warm day in early summer inside the building, which uses computers and monitors to control light, liquid nutrients, temperature, humidity, and even plant-loving carbon dioxide.
Gura, director of operations at Pure Green Farms – a hydroponic indoor farm on the city’s southwest side – touts it as the “most technologically advanced leafy green greenhouse in the world.”
“And it’s in South Bend,” he says.
Though it might seem odd to build a massive indoor farm in northern Indiana – considering the cold weather and the perma-cloud that seemingly hangs over the region each winter – leaders at South Bend-based Ceres Partners, an agricultural investment firm, studied the project for years.
They believe there is an opportunity to disrupt the lettuce trade, which is largely dominated by growers in California who ship products to markets in the Midwest.
There’s more sunlight here than most of us realize, and the fact that it doesn’t get too hot in the summer means that the cost of trying to keep the building cool won’t be out of line, Gura said.
A combination of LED and high-pressure sodium lights will supplement the light needs of the plants, and there’s an automated shade that can be used to cut down on light coming in or out of the greenhouse as needed.
In the winter, the indoor farm will use offal heat from the nearby South Bend Ethanol plant, and discussions are underway to possibly use carbon dioxide produced by the facility if it makes economic sense for both businesses.
Ceres also liked the location because it’s near its headquarters near the University of Notre Dame as well as major transportation links that will be crucial to getting the leafy greens produced by Pure Green Farms to grocers, restaurants, and other customers throughout the region, said Brandon Zick, chief investment officer for the firm.
“There’s 55 million people within a 300-mile radius,” said Joe McGuire, a seasoned produce distribution executive who was brought in to serve as CEO of Pure Green Farms. “There’s 75 million people within 400 miles.”
That distance gives Pure Green a significant shipping advantage over traditional leafy green producers that are located in California, Arizona and other far-away locations.
By the time lettuce is harvested and processed in California, for example, it might take 10 days to reach store shelves in the Midwest. Conversely, the romaine, arugula and leaf lettuces grown at Pure Green could be on store shelves in a couple of days or even less.
“We think there’s going to be strong demand for fresher produce that’s grown in the market,” McGuire said.
The first shipments have gone out to Kroger stores in Indiana, and it won’t be long before Pure Green is available at Martin’s Super Markets and other grocers.
Beyond the freshness factor, Pure Green believes it can separate itself from other salad providers because it is not using pesticides or other sprays that might be needed to control bugs and plant diseases outdoors.
Plant protection and eliminating chances for contamination are of paramount importance at the South Bend facility, which currently has 20 workers.
Employees crossing into the greenhouse walk through a tray of shoe sanitizer and wear gloves, coats and hairnets.
After seeds are inserted into a blend of sanitized peat and wood fiber by machine, the planting trays move into the greenhouse, where they are given a nutrient drink while germinating under less intense light and then growing up under full light.
Depending on the variety, it will take about 25 days for the romaine, arugula and leaf lettuces to reach the stage where they are harvested by lightning-fast cutters, blended together, packaged and boxed for shipment.
“From planting to packaging, it’s never touched by human hands until it’s opened by the consumer,” McGuire said.
Nothing is wasted. The nutrient mix that isn’t consumed by the plants is collected, cleaned, tested and reused; the peat material in the growing trays will be composted and used for other agricultural purposes.
“We use 90 percent less water than field-grown lettuces,” said Gura, who previously served as director of operations at Ceres-owned Hop Head Farms in Baroda, Michigan, before joining the team at Pure Green. “I believe it’s the future of growing.”
Though current laws don’t allow the lettuce to be labeled as organic, Zick and McGuire indicated there could be court challenges as controlled-environment growing facilities continue to spring up around the country.
“It’s not classifiable as organic because we don’t put it into the ground,” McGuire said.
Though indoor facilities have been used to produce tomatoes and other crops, producing leaf lettuces at a significant volume is a more recent phenomenon, brought about by shipping distances, food safety and the push for locally produced food.
Beyond the freshness factor, lettuces produced at Pure Green Farms could eliminate 500,000 truck miles annually and up to 300,000 pounds of food waste each year, according to figures provided by Ceres.
Ariana Torres, an assistant professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University, said the timing is right for ventures such as Pure Green because people are consuming more salad and insisting on higher quality produce.
“Consumers want something that is local and fresher,” Torres said. “People also are more aware of food safety, and the pandemic showed that there can be disruptions in the supply chain.”
Though there are competitors in the market – such as Gotham Greens in New York and Chicago, and Little Leaf Farms in Massachusetts – Pure Green is still at the front-edge of a what could be an enormous trend in the future, Zick said.
“The market is huge and only a tiny fraction is grown indoors,” said Zick, the Ceres executive. “Though we won’t be the first to do it, we’re still getting into it early and gaining important experience.”
Looking ahead, the business needs to dial in its efficiencies by fine-tuning its highly-automated growing, harvesting and packaging processes, Gura said.
About $25 million already has been spent on the project, but up to three additional phases are planned. Eventually, Green Farms could have about 16 acres of enclosed greenhouse and about four acres under roof for planting, processing, and packaging.
With 64 acres owned by Green Farms and an additional 280 adjoining acres owned by its parent organization – Ceres – there’s plenty of room for growth, including the possibility of bringing in other operators that are experienced in growing tomatoes, strawberries, and other produce.
“We’ve been interested in developing an ag-tech campus there,” said Zick, adding that partnerships could be developed with Purdue, Notre Dame and other universities to work on problems associated with controlled-environment agriculture.
South Bend Mayor James Mueller was impressed by what he saw during a tour of Pure Green Farms on Friday.
“A lot of people would be surprised by what’s going on there and the level of technology,” Mueller said. “It’s part laboratory, part agriculture, and part advanced manufacturing.”
And he said he’s looking forward to seeing the South Bend-produced lettuces on store shelves.
“Their farm will serve as a model for sustainable and advanced farming techniques,” he said.
CANADA: Vertical Urban Farm 'Ortaliza' Opens Kingsville Storefront
A Kingsville farm is celebrating its grand opening Friday, but it’s not your typical, sprawling set-up. Ortaliza is what’s called an urban vertical farm, growing microgreens right in the store — so you can watch your crop before it lands on your plate
An urban farm has popped up in a Kingsville storefront where fresh microgreens are grown. CTV Windsor's Rich Garton with details.
WINDSOR, ONT. -- A Kingsville farm is celebrating its grand opening Friday, but it’s not your typical, sprawling set-up.
Ortaliza is what’s called an urban vertical farm, growing microgreens right in the store — so you can watch your crop before it lands on your plate.
The new venture is the brainchild of Carina Biacchi and Alvaro Fernandes, who moved from Brazil to Canada five years ago, bringing with them a passion for entrepreneurship and farming.
“We’ve been dreaming and researching not only dreaming but panning about this idea for years, doing research, traveling,” says Biacchi, who is the founder and CEO of the company.
On Friday, Mar. 19, that dream becomes reality — with the launch of Ortaliza, which is Spanish for vegetable garden.
“We fell in love with microgreens because they are such an easy way to eat healthy food,” Biacchi says. “They’re convenient, packed with nutrients, and you can use them, not only in a salad but sometimes you want to enjoy yourself a little bit.”
The vertical urban farm has a main street location in Kingsville — where the fresh microgreens are grown right behind the sore counter.
“People are hearing about vertical farming, but they can’t see it. They are not being there. So we wanted to allow them to come and see what it is,” says Biacchi. “It is still a farm, yes, we’re more tech, more modern, but we wanted to give that feeling to people.”
Vertical Urban Farming — takes traditional farming techniques — but creates density in space.
Ortaliza’s store is only 850 square feet, but rows of stacked shelves utilize six times the space.
“For vertical farming, the sky’s the limit, literally, you can grow as tall as you want,” says Alvaro Fernandes, the company’s chief operating officer.
Much like a greenhouse, Fernandes says growing conditions are optimal — regardless of what’s happening outside.
“I fell in love with indoor agriculture because we have full control of what we do. We can control the lights, the wind, humidity, temperature, everything,” he says.
According to WE-Tech Alliance, which is assisting the business in the start-up process — urban vertical farming provides food security and sustainability, adding significant value to the food system.
Each shelf of microgreens at Ortaliza can feed 20 families, according to Fernandes.
The new business owners also believe the most important aspect of their operation is freshness — so they will only deliver and cater to people in Windsor-Essex.
“We want to be close to our consumers, we want to sell directly to our consumers, we are as urban as we can be,” says Biacchi.
Hand-watered and lit up 14 hours a day, the 25 varieties of micro-greens take 10 days to grow in Canadian Pete-moss and are harvested daily for in-store purchases and deliveries.
The couple hopes this Kingsville store is their first of many across the country but Fernandes promises they will stay true to the business model of by local, for local.
“We don’t want to lose our identity, our proximity to customers.”
You can learn more about the new store here.
US-VIRGINIA: Arlington’s Only Commercial Farm To Expand, Double Production
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced this afternoon that Fresh Impact Farms will be getting a $30,000 grant — half from the state, half from the county — that will help it double production and create six jobs.
Believe it or not, Arlington County has a working commercial farm.
The farm, which is located in a commercial building along Lee Highway, uses hydroponic technology to grow a variety of edible plants indoors. And it’s about to expand.
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced this afternoon that Fresh Impact Farms will be getting a $30,000 grant — half from the state, half from the county — that will help it double production and create six jobs.
Fresh Impact, Arlington County’s only commercial farm, is banking on its restaurant customers ramping up purchases as vaccinated customers flock back to the indoor dining. It also launched a direct-to-consumer Community Supported Agriculture program last year.
County Board Chair Matt de Ferranti hailed the business and its expansion.
“Governor Northam’s award to Fresh Impact Farms, Arlington’s only commercial farm, is an innovative way to celebrate unique uses of technology to help a small business pivot during the pandemic,” de Ferranti said in a statement. “I am thrilled that Fresh Impact Farms is growing and looking to the future of a sustainable food supply.”
More on the company’s expansion, below, from a press release issued by the governor’s office.
Governor Ralph Northam today announced that Fresh Impact Farms will invest $137,500, create six new jobs, and more than double production at its Arlington County indoor facility. Operating since 2018 as Arlington’s only commercial farm, Fresh Impact Farms uses proprietary hydroponic technology to grow a variety of specialty herbs, leafy greens, and edible flowers for sale to customers in the Greater Washington, D.C. metro area.
Like many companies, Fresh Impact Farms has pivoted its business model amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Seizing the opportunity created by more people cooking at home, the company initiated a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program targeting area residents. The CSA program, which focuses on leafy greens and home kitchen-friendly herbs, has grown steadily since its establishment in April 2020 and now includes smaller wholesale clients. Now, with vaccinations underway and the restaurant industry poised to rebound, Fresh Impact Farms is expanding, which will allow the company to resume supplying their restaurant customers, while also meeting new demand through their CSA program.
“Agriculture continues to be a key driver of our economic recovery in both rural and urban areas of our Commonwealth,” said Governor Northam. “Innovative, dynamic businesses like Fresh Impact Farms are demonstrating how exciting new opportunities can grow out of pandemic-related challenges. I congratulate the company on their success and am thrilled to award the first-ever AFID grant to Arlington County to support this expansion.”
This expansion by Fresh Impact Farms will include a second grow room, larger production facility, and an educational hub where, post-pandemic, customers will be able to see how their food is harvested. Over the next three years, the company expects to grow an additional 10,500 pounds of Virginia-grown leafy greens, herbs, and edible flowers for restaurant and CSA customers.
“Agriculture is Virginia’s largest private sector industry and the Commonwealth continues to be on the forefront of emerging agriculture technologies,” said Secretary of Agriculture and Forestry Bettina Ring. “I am inspired by Fresh Impact Farms’ commitment to not only bringing fresh, local produce to Virginians, but also for its commitment to educate our community about how local food is grown.”
“2020 was undoubtedly one of the hardest years in recent memory for many people and businesses, but I’m heartened by the strength and flexibility the entire Fresh Impact Farms team has shown in our deep pivot to consumers and a CSA model to help us get to the point where we are ready to expand our business,” said Fresh Impact Farms Founder Ryan Pierce. “The support and generosity from the Commonwealth and Arlington County will be valuable as we expand our production and move towards a hybrid model of serving both the needs of restaurants and consumers. As the owner of a local food business, nothing gets me more excited than seeing the community come together in support of local food. The future is bright for urban agriculture and this grant will help us make an even greater impact in our community.”
The Commonwealth is partnering with Arlington County and the Arlington County Industrial Development Authority (IDA) on this project through the Governor’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development (AFID) Fund, which is administered by the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS). Governor Northam approved a $15,000 grant from the AFID Fund to secure the project for Virginia, which Arlington County will match with local funds.
“The Arlington County IDA’s match of the Governor’s AFID grant to Fresh Impact Farms represents an important investment in urban agriculture, sustainability, and technology,” said Arlington County IDA Chair Edwin Fountain. “This project will advance the County’s innovative and forward-thinking approach to developing new sectors of economic activity in Arlington.” […]
“Congratulations to Fresh Impact Farms,” said Senator Janet Howell. “This expansion not only supports our local economy, but also has a significant impact promoting healthy families and vibrant communities as a whole.”
“I am delighted Governor Northam has approved a grant from the AFID Fund to deliver this project for the Commonwealth and Arlington County,” said Delegate Richard Sullivan. “Fresh Impact Farms has been a pivotal resource for providing fresh food to the community. This expansion shows a commitment not only to homegrown produce, but to a healthier community and local economy in Arlington.”