How 300 Years of Urbanization and Farming Transformed the Planet

Humans are transforming the Earth through our carbon emissions. Arctic sea ice is shrinking, seas are rising, and the past four years have been the hottest since record-keeping began. But long before the first cars or coal plants, we were reshaping the planet’s ecosystems through humbler but no less dramatic means: pastures and plows.

Environmental scientist Erle Ellis has studied the impact of humanity on the Earth for decades, with a recent focus on categorizing and mapping how humans use the land—not just now, but in the past. And his team’s results show some startling changes. Three centuries ago, humans were intensely using just around 5 percent of the planet, with nearly half the world’s land effectively wild. Today, more than half of Earth’s land is occupied by agriculture or human settlements.

“Climate change is only recently becoming relevant,” said Ellis, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “If it keeps going how it is, it will become the dominant shaper of ecology in the terrestrial realm, but right now the dominant shaper of ecology is land use.”

In contrast to the typical division of the world into ecological “biomes,” Ellis and his team at the Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology map what they call “anthromes,” or “anthropogenic biomes.” These show the intersection of ecology and human land use.

Using a range of sources, Ellis’s team mapped out that land use, dividing the planet into grids and categorizing each cell based on how many people lived there and how they impacted the land. The densest areas were cities and towns, followed by close-packed farming villages. Less populated areas were categorized by their dominant land use—crops, livestock pasture, or inhabited woodlands—while other areas were marked as largely uninhabited.

Below is an animation using a simplified version of Ellis’s data:

Even with only one snapshot per century, the animation makes some of the trends obvious. Large swaths of Russia and the United States become cropland over the 19th century, while livestock occupies increasing amounts of previously semi-wild land in Africa and Asia.

“Asia is pretty much the dominant transformed area, and transformed the earliest,” Ellis said. “Europe is also pretty dense ... The rest of the world has a different trajectory. Much slower, less dense.”

All of this is a mixture of estimates and approximations. One reason Ellis and his team only looked every hundred years and divided the world into cells that stretch for miles was to avoid giving a false impression of precision.

People ask Ellis, “‘What was my backyard like?’” he said. “Well, we don’t have any solid evidence … The further back in time you go, the more you have to consider [this], in a sense, educated guesswork.”

Even more recent data can have issues, based on political decisions that countries make about how to self-classify their land. Saudi Arabia, for example, reports “almost every part of their country as being rangeland” even though much of that arid land is seldom if ever grazed.

Humans shape even “seminatural” biomes

Significant portions of the world, both now and in the past, have been what Ellis’s team terms “seminatural.” These are areas—frequently forests—with low but real human habitation. This could reflect a large cell of the grid that has a farming village or two but mostly natural forests. But frequently, Ellis says, humans have taken a much bigger role in shaping seemingly natural wilderness than people think.

Take the “pristine myth”—the idea that the Americas before European colonization were dominated by pristine wilderness untouched by human hands. In fact, modern researchers believe that indigenous tribes had actively shaped their landscapes through agriculture and regular burning of American forests.

Because of this, the devastating spread of epidemics among indigenous populations after 1492 also had a huge impact on climate—and not just locally. Some scholars believe disease-ravaged peoples significantly cut back on their management of American forests, which meant far less carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere from fires and far more absorbed into newly grown forests. The combination could have played a significant role in the “Little Ice Age” that lowered global temperatures for several centuries between around 1500 and 1850 C.E.

This kind of active land management was done not just by sedentary populations, but by hunter-gatherers, too. This, Ellis says, is a shortcoming in the data.

“There’s no direct mapping of hunter-gatherers’ land use in these datasets. That’s something we’re trying to rectify now,” he said, noting that evidence suggests even non-agricultural people have major effects on the environment.

The data also shows the massive impact made by cities, the most dramatic way humans transform their environment. In 1700, a negligible portion of the Earth’s surface was covered by cities. Over the three centuries that followed, this boomed by around 40 times. Cities are still just half a percent of the planet’s land area, but they have had the most dramatic increase in impact of any of Ellis’s “anthromes.”

Densely populated farming villages—which often have similar concentrations of people per square mile as American suburbs—are also big, especially in the developing world. (Ellis’s team don’t map any urban areas in the Americas or Australia before 1900, and never apply the “villages” category to those continents, because those areas didn’t have “histories of intensive subsistence agriculture.”)

Huge portions of India and China are occupied by these kind of villages. So, too, were the hinterlands around major European cities before improvements in transportation enabled produce to be brought from farther away. Paris, for example, used to be surrounded by suburban “market gardens” which, historians André Jardin and André-Jean Tudesq note, could produce five or six harvests per year and had a “virtual monopoly of the Parisian market” for food until the second half of the 19th century.

How cities drive land-use changes

That kind of intensive agriculture to feed a demanding urban market is part of the huge impact that cities have on the use of land even well outside their boundaries. Those thousands or millions of urban dwellers aren’t producing their own food, and thus need more food produced elsewhere in order to eat.

Ellis describes two different ways that cities impact far-away anthromes through their demands for food—one of them devastating to natural ecosystems, the other surprisingly beneficial.

The first sees new land being put under the plow, as societies try to produce more food for a growing population. This is often low-productivity agriculture, reflecting the marginal quality of the farmland: If it was good for farming, it would have been farmed already. But later, as populations grow, comes an “intensification” process as technology increases the yields on low-productivity farmland.

Agricultural expansion has a massive impact on natural biomes, and has for millennia. But the second process, intensification, has the potential to restore some of the natural biomes that humans previously plowed under.

“Dense cities actually have the potential to help areas recover, because dense populations in cities often are basically pulling people out of the rural areas where they’re farming low-productivity land,” Ellis said. The increased production on good land means the marginal farmland is no longer needed.

Author Charles Mann described this process taking place in New York’s Hudson River Valley in his 2018 book, The Wizard and the Prophet. In the late 19th century, this region was dominated by “hardscrabble farms and pastures ringed by stone walls.” Now many of those “hardscrabble farms” are gone. Six counties in the lower Hudson Valley had around 350,000 people and 573,000 acres of timberland in 1875; today those same counties have more than 1 million people but three times as much forest.

“Many New England states have as many trees as they had in the days of Paul Revere,” Mann writes. “Nor was this growth restricted to North America: Europe’s forest resources increased by about 40 percent from 1970 to 2015, a time in which its population grew from 462 million to 743 million.”

But while this intensification of agriculture is allowing the return of nature in parts of developed countries, the first phase—expansion—is still playing out in the developing world. Erle’s maps show the expansion of crops and livestock into areas like Africa’s Sahel and South America’s Amazon rainforest over the past century.

“Land transformation is the big story of biosphere transformation so far,” Ellis said. “If you’re trying to understand how we produced the ecology we have now, it’s the story of land-use transformation.”

What’s next for Earth

So what will a future mapmaker show for the world’s land use in 2100? Ellis said he expects urbanization to continue, at least doubling the share of the planet’s land devoted to urban areas over the next century.

Similarly, he expects developed countries to see an intensification of agriculture that enables marginal land to be returned to the wild—a process already under way in newly developed countries like China. Poorer countries, on the other hand, may continue to convert marginal wild land into farmland.

“It’s only poor farmers without much investment that can make that work,” Ellis said. “When you’re investing large amounts of money in farm equipment and fertilizers, you don’t invest that in marginal land.”

Much depends, however, on political, economic, and technological changes that will unfold over the next 80 years. For example, Ellis said, the United States has recently seen “a huge shift from beef to chicken” in consumer demand. “That changes the kind of land that’s in demand, from grassland to production of maize and soy.”

Among the factors that could affect the future of Earth’s land use are political decisions in Brazil, where new President Jair Bolsonaro wants to open up more of the Amazon rainforest to agriculture, and technology, where a potential breakthrough in electrical generation such as fusion power could enable transformative changes such as vertical urban farming. Conservation efforts, or lack thereof, could also impact areas of intensive agriculture in developed countries.

“The future of the biosphere… depends partly on economics, partly on politics, but also partly on vision,” Ellis said. “It depends on what people’s values are.”

Bulgaria is the Largest Producer of Herbs in the European Union

Nieuwsbericht | 08-01-2019 | 14:59

Bulgaria is the largest producer of herbs and spices in the European Union. According to Eurostat, in the year 2017, a total of 81,000 tons of aromatic and medicinal plants and spices were grown in the country. The quantity of Bulgarian herbs is almost double to the second largest producer of herbs in the EU - Poland, where 44,000 tons were harvested. Spain ranks third with 32,000 tons.

Bulgaria is one of the largest producers of sunflower seeds. The country ranks second with close to 2.1 million tonnes and is ahead of Hungary. The first is Romania with 2.9 million tons.

The harvest of 7.5 thousand tons of raspberries in 2017 places Bulgaria fourth in the EU. The largest raspberry production in Poland is 104 thousand tons. Spain and the UK occupy second and third positions respectively by 43.5 thousand tons and 15.5 thousand tons respectively.

Bulgaria ranks fourth in growing sweet cherries. The fruit harvest is 48,000 tons, with Italy, Spain and Greece ahead of the country.

Bulgaria is the fifth largest tobacco producer in 2017. A total of 13,000 tonnes have been grown in the country. Italy and Poland are leaders with 48,000 and 32,000 tons.

In the production of rice, lucerne, watermelons, peaches and apricots, Bulgaria is sixth in the EU, according to the Eurostat study.

Source: Novinite.com

Hacking Photosynthesis

13 January, 2019

We will all be dead without the Sun. That we all know. But even if the sun shone 24 hours a day, we will all be dead without plants. Really. Plants keep the world going. We eat a lot of plants – and the animals from which we obtain meat for consumption also consume plants. Furthermore, plants inhale Carbon Dioxide and produce healthier air. The process through which plants get the energy for sustenance (and all other stuff) is called Photosynthesis which means something like ‘producing with light’.

This is fundamental to the life cycle on Earth. But how does photosynthesis work? There’s a big molecule, a protein, inside the leaves of most plants. It is called Rubisco. It is probably the most abundant protein in the world. Rubisco has one job.

It picks up carbon dioxide from the air, and it uses the carbon to make sugar molecules. It gets the energy to do this from the Sun. This is photosynthesis, the process by which plants use sunlight to make food, the foundation of life on Earth.

But Rubisco is not perfect. It has one almost fatal flaw. Unfortunately, Rubisco does not know how to grab only Carbon Dioxide from the air. It also picks up oxygen. But this poses a huge problem for the plant as this leads to the formation of a toxic compound in the plant. It has to do extra work and spend extra energy for detoxification, a process called Photorespiration. This has in fact been called ‘one of the biggest mistakes’ of evolution.

Ripe

Plants have a complicated ‘chemical assembly line’ in their cells to carry out this detoxification, but the process uses up a lot of energy. This means the plant has less energy for actually making food. However, some crops including corn and sugar cane have developed a workaround for Rubisco, making them much more productive. Photorespiration is anti-photosynthesis in the sense that it costs the plant precious energy and resources that it could have invested in photosynthesis to produce more growth and yield.

Many scientists around the world have been trying to ‘hack’ photosynthesis for years, but a team from the University of Illinois has emerged first. There, a research program called Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE), has run for the last five years trying to fix Rubisco’s problem.

They first experimented with tobacco plants, because tobacco is easy to work with. The researchers inserted some new genes into these plants, which shut down the existing detoxification assembly line and set up a new one that is much more efficient.

Photorespiration normally takes a complicated route through three compartments in the plant cell. Scientists engineered alternate pathways to reroute the process, drastically shortening the trip and saving enough resources to boost plant growth.

This resulted in super tobacco plants that grow faster and up to 40 percent bigger than normal tobacco plants. And yes, this was not confined to the laboratory.

These measurements were done both in greenhouses and open-air farm plots. Their research has been published in the prestigious Science magazine.

These scientists now are trying to repeat the process with plants that people rely on for food, such as, tomatoes and soybeans.

They will also be working with cowpea, or black-eyed pea, which is a staple food crop for a lot of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa. One can indeed imagine the effects of more efficient photosynthesis in the poorest regions of the world. The funders of this project include the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

It will be many years, though, before any farmer anywhere in the world plant crops with this new version of photosynthesis. Researchers will have to find out whether it means that a food crop actually produces a bigger harvest, while convincing Government regulators and consumers that the crops are safe to grow and eat.

There is an irrational fear regarding Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) food, even though there is no conclusive evidence that they cause disease or deformities. The public however should be assured that the plants with the photosynthesis hack pose no danger to people and animals.

Precision Agriculture

In any case, photosynthesis is just one component of a plant’s needs. Plant growth, in man-made fields or in the wild, depends on the availability of water, nitrogen and phosphorus, not on photosynthetic capacity alone. Farmers generally add water and NPK fertiliser to their crops, though wild plants have to find these on their own. And lest someone think that the sun is essential for photosynthesis for all plants, plenty of plants grow well under artificial light. In fact, indoor agriculture has been proposed as one solution to the impending food crisis in some parts of the world. Moreover, soil-less and artificial light plant growth will be essential for future manned space missions being planned for Mars.

Agriculture is ripe for modernisation in many developing parts of the world where crop yields are still low compared to those of the developed world. Boosting crop yields is essential with the world predicted to have 10 billion people by 2050.

That is three billion extra mouths to feed and a possible 70 percent extra demand for food, but arable land is not getting any bigger. The solution is to improve crop yields and also adopt innovative methods of agriculture such as vertical farming, soil-less farming and indoor farming.

And there is a whole new revolution coming to traditional agriculture too – including self-driving tractors and harvesters, crop-spraying drones, robots, Artificial Intelligence and satellite sensing. There is even a name for agriculture that combines the best elements of technology - precision agriculture.

Internet of Things

The goal is to use automated driving technology, computer vision, telematics, and cloud-based mobile applications to help farmers double or triple their yields—a feat that will be key to keeping up with global food demands as the Earth’s population grows over the next 30 years.

The Internet of Things (IOT) will also help agriculture. Some machines are stuffed with sensors and software that gather data, process it with machine learning, and beam it into mobile apps. The sensors are the eyes of the machine. The software and mobile apps bring the data to life.

The other major challenge is Climate Change, which has the potential to cause a severe disruption to our crop cycles. A Recent analysis that looked into the climate impact on crop yields produced sobering results.

The study’s authors said that for each 1° Celsius rise in global mean temperature there would be a 7.4% decrease in yields of corn, a 6% decrease in yields of wheat, and a 3% yield decrease in rice. It is thus vital to keep Climate Change in check as other advances could be nullified if it reaches unmanageable levels.

“Sea Kale - A Fast-Growing Niche"

Hans Elenbaas, Elenbaas Zeegroenten:

Sea kale lives up to its name. It grows as easily as kale. This means the market can grow along with it. It is one of the few vegetables that are freshly available in the Netherlands in winter. In the coming months, this delicate variety of ocean vegetable will be available for a short time. This makes it a real seasonal product.

"It will be available until about May or June," estimates Hans Elenbaas of the Dutch company, Elenbaas Zeegroenten. “This depends on the weather and the influence this past hot, dry summer had on the product."

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Grower, Jean-Pierre van Wesemael from the Dutch company, Saeftinghe Zilt, and Elenbaas Zeegroenten's Hans Elenbaas. Here, they are standing at the sea kale's cultivation boxes.

Grower, Jean-Pierre van Wesemael works at Saeftinghe Zilt. In 2006, He was the first to cultivate sea kale in the Dutch province of Zeeland. As this product name indicates, it grows in the Dutch coastal areas. It can also be found in Belgium, France, England, and Denmark.

Sea kale's roots are not permanently in the sea water. It grows in the so-called 'splash water zones'. Nowadays, sea kale can also be found in places along the slopes of the Zeeland sea dikes. Jean-Pierre has managed to establish a commercial crop. He did so by constantly increasing his crop's sparse parent material. He does not need to use any pesticides to grow his sea kale.

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At Saeftinghe Zilt, they have managed to start cultivating sea kale.

The supply of sea kale usually starts in December. Demand is at its highest in that month. "However, the dry summer meant cultivation started a little later," says Jean-Pierre. "The product's quality is, however, perfect," The current crop can be compared to chicory or forced rhubarb. In the past, people living in the coastal areas already forced the growth of these wild plants.

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Wild sea kale on a pebble beach. Only the young shoots are good to eat.

“Sea kale grows naturally mostly near the flood line on pebble beaches or sea dikes. It grows into a plant during the summer months. The plant's tough leaves are not very good to eat", explains Jean-Pierre.

"The leaves die in the winter, and the roots absorb the valuable nutrients again. During this time, people would cover them up with large stones. They did so to prevent the sea kale from getting any light."

"They could then pick the first, tender, purple shoots. These appear in spring. They then allowed the plant to grow out into a fully-grown plant again. In this way, the cycle could start anew," he says.

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A sea kale root, seen after years of propagation from the first sea kale plants obtained in 2006.

Wild sea kale is currently endangered. It may no longer be harvested. Jean-Pierre has, however, managed to cultivate the delicacy. He did this by introducing salt water into outdoor cultivation. He then mastered the art of this sea vegetable's unlit indoor cultivation.

"It is completely different to growing potatoes, which we also do. Potato cultivation is very mechanized. In this type of cultivation, there is far more hands-on work," continues Jean-Pierre.

Through the years, Jean-Pierre has managed to double the number of sea kale plants he has. This sea vegetable's roots can be obtained through outside cultivation. This cultivation area is now 1 hectare in size. The indoor cultivation of these roots takes up about 100m2.

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A lot of manual labor is needed for both the cultivation as well as the processing of this product.

Jean-Pierre's raw harvest of seal kale is sorted and trimmed at Elenbaas Zeegroenten. This company also puts the sea kale in protective, yet permeated packaging. The product can then last for between 10 and 14 days.

Hans says, "We are now at a production level of 55 to 60kg per week. A lot of this sea kale is sold to restaurants, and then especially in Belgium. Belgians love this product."

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Contrary to what the name suggests, sea kale is not salty. "It has a full, fresh flavor. Some people think it tastes similar to asparagus while others taste a radish-like flavor, without the sharpness," explains Hans. 

"The stalks can be eaten raw, cut into thin strips. Or they can be briefly stir-fried in some oil or butter. Blanching is a great way to prepare the larger parts of the stalk. It is important that the stalks be fresh and crunchy. They must also not contain any stringy bits."

"We have a good, mutual partnership with Saeftinghe Zilt. This collaboration has been in place for years. Thanks to this, we can continue providing a good product," Hans concludes.

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Workers at Elenbaas Zeegroenten sort and trim the sea kale stalks to size. It can then immediately be processed.

Sea kale can be bought per kg in 100g boxes. Ten of these boxes can be packed with outer packaging. They can also be packed, loose, in a box. This sea vegetable must be kept refrigerated between two and seven degrees Celcius.

This product's ideal storage temperature is at three degrees Celcius. Sea kale should also, preferably, be stored in the dark. If not, it will discolor.

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Sea kale is carefully packaged using perforated material.

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Hans: "In the near future, sea kale will be available in sufficient quantities."

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For more information:
Hans Elenbaas
Elenbaas Zeegroenten B.V.
14 Ampereweg
4338 PT Middelburg
The Netherlands
+31 (0) 118 602 200
+31 (0) 651 122 106
www.zeekraal.nl 

Publication date : 2/21/2019 
© FreshPlaza.com

What Plantagon’s Bankruptcy Could Tell Us About the Future of Large-Scale Vertical Farming

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By Jennifer Marston

March 1, 2019

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Following last week’s declaration of bankruptcy, Swedish urban agriculture company Plantagon has spoken publicly about what went wrong. In an interview with Swedish website AGFO, Plantagon’s vice president, Owe Pettersson, cited cash flow problems and indicated it had been difficult to attract enough capital to remain financially sustainable.

Its ambition alone made Stockholm-based Plantagon a company to watch in vertical farming, a space predicted to be worth $9.9 billion worldwide by 2025. Plantagon’s aim was to move food production into high-density cities on a large scale by integrating farms into existing city infrastructure. Via a mix of agriculture, technology, and architecture, the company planned to build farms in office towers, underground parking garages, and on the facades of existing buildings.

This rendering of its World Food Building “plantscraper” shows the sheer scale on which Plantagon was thinking:

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As of this writing, the company had one facility already open for production, under the famous DN Skrapen tower in Stockholm. Plantagon also intended to roll out 10 more farming locations in the city by 2020, and has 55 approved international patents.

“This will be one of the most advanced food factories located in a city that we have today,” Pettersson said in an interview last year.

Business in real life, however, rarely happens as neatly as a well-executed rendering. Plantagon had raised $4.5 million SEK (a little less than $500,000 USD), but the company was, according to insiders, having trouble selling the produce it grew. Within two months of production starting on the DN Skrapen farm, the CEO left the company. “The company has a clear idea and view, but hasn’t been able to get it into business,” said Henrik Borjesson of Fylgia, the company handling the bankruptcy.

Pettersson said (translated from Swedish) in this most recent interview that outside financial issues, a project of this scale might be a little ahead of its time.

Vertical farming itself is a hot topic, if you go by what the headlines say. Companies large and small are bringing new visions for this indoor farming concept to market. In Europe, Agricool is growing fruit and just raised another round of funding. And German retailer METRO is experimenting with in-store farms via its Farmlab.One initiative.

In the U.S., Crop One Holdings raised $40 million last year to build “the world’s largest vertical farm. Boston, MA-based Freight Farms is architecting proprietary all-in-one farms in shipping containers. AeroFarms has a 70,000-square-foot facility backed by IKEA and Momofuku’s David Chang.

But as Princeton’s Paul P.G. Gauthier, who leads the Princeton Vertical Farming Project, suggested last year, there are dozens of failures out there that get far less attention than the mega success stories. We need to hear about those failures, to see the data behind them, in order to understand what went wrong and avoid making similar mistakes in future — whether those mistakes are in the operating of the farm or, as may be the case with Plantagon, in trying to scale too high too soon instead of starting with something smaller, like a shipping container. Only when we know the facts behind these stories does vertical farming have a chance on a scale as large as the one Plantagon envisioned.

Plantagon may indeed have been ahead of its time in terms of the size of its project, and the speed at which it wanted to get there. The gap between promising innovation and actually delivering on it is something that trips the tech industry up again and again. Plantagon’s past interviews have shown the company had plenty of optimism and vision for the future. What got mentioned less were the complications the vertical farm industry is still grappling with as it tries to scale — business models, energy consumption, the cost of not just building but running a facility that relies on software and machine-generated light to function.

The existing Stockholm farm’s future is currently unclear. Plantagon is currently looking for new owners. Where the company’s massive existing project stands in six months’ time will give us a good indication of whether moving large-scale farms into existing city spaces is a reality we should plan for, or if it’s time to pick up a new playbook and find a different way to spread the benefits of vertical farming.

Topics Business of Food Foodtech Startups Vertical Farming

Evolution of Commercial Aquaponics in India

Evolution of Commercial Aquaponics in India

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Anubhav Das | February 22, 2019

Change is happening, and it’s shaping the new age farming in the country. The Fourth Industrial Revolution is here with an exponential pace of technology. Digital innovation is making its roots in every industry & sector, and not to forget – agriculture industry – the lifeline of the Indian economy. Agritech, urban farming, farm to table – are some of the buzz words that have been around lately.

Change agents have come forward and taken up initiatives to introduce technology & digital devices in farming – to help the farmer keep a track of weather forecasts, plantation & harvesting patterns and to enhance the yield. Initiatives have also been taken up by the government to integrate rural farmers with the wider market and to enhance their access to information, services and trade. 
    
But still, we are left with no answers when questions like these arise – Will farm output keep up with the demands of the growing population? Will farm produce offer the quality that is essential for healthy living? How can we use our scarce & depleting resources efficiently? 
    
What we are missing is the transition in our approach – transition from traditional to modern farming practices & techniques. Existing farming techniques in India follow the traditional route. The only way we know how to grow food is in open fields and we grow what the weather allows us to. Thus the current agricultural scenario in India is season dependent. Because of that, not everything can grow at a place at all times. The hub of production of a particular crop changes every few months. As a result the food has to travel increasing number of miles before it reaches the consumer. 
    
Globally this is changing. How the food is grown, how much time it takes to grow food, what time of the year can the food be grown – it’s all changing. Crops are becoming available throughout the year and slashing the food miles for every customer. With the integration of technology in farming, a shift in the way farming is done is being observed. One such shift is being brought about by Aquaponics. It is a method of food production that combines raising fish (aquaculture) with soil-less growing of plants (hydroponics) by creating a symbiotic ecosystem. Aquaponics works in a re-circulating water system which reduces the water use by over ninety percent as compared to conventional soil-based agriculture. To add to that, it is a chemical-free mode of farming and also allows the possibility of going vertical with minimal effort.  
    
On the internet we see information and videos talking about how people are saving resources and growing high quality produce with aquaponics, globally. They talk about enhancing ‘food security’, reducing the ‘food miles’ and how one can get fresh produce, all the year round. However in our country, we have very limited people who are doing aquaponics and succeeding. When one wants to learn about aquaponics in India, 99% of the case studies are based on international growers.

Their systems cannot easily be replicated in India just yet because they are based on inherent assumptions about availability of resources and infrastructure which does not hold true for our country. So while such farming techniques are spreading rapidly in developed countries, they just beginning to be introduced to developing countries such as India. These technologies are developed in an American or European context need to be adapted to the local context before they can be successful here. 

Nevertheless, steps are being taken to ensure sustainable production & consumption patterns. Over the last decade, a few growers have started using novel and innovative farming techniques – growing food inside a greenhouse, on the rooftop, in the basement and inside shipping containers. However, most of these growers practice soil based organic farming and only a selected few have tried their hands on commercial aquaponics. And for these selected few, there is no dearth of growing space options. This is a group of individuals who believe in ‘ditch the dirt’ concept – which is soilless growing of food and without the use of any chemicals/pesticides and contributing to the environment. Red Otter Farms is among the first of them. 

Anubhav Das is Founder of Red Otter Farm

Join Us for Our Third Annual Fresh in February Event in NYC Tomorrow!

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 The NYC Agriculture Collective would like to invite you to the third annual Fresh in February event, hosted by us and taking place on Thursday, February 28th, 2019 from 6:00-9:30 pm at Project Farmhouse. Where else can you find fresh, local produce in below freezing weather? Luckily, New York is chock full of urban farms that grow all year round.

Join the NYC Agriculture Collective to celebrate our winter harvest for the third year in a row at Fresh in February and observe why New York strives to become another large agriculture economy, second to California!

Our diverse collection of urban farms, urban agriculture service companies and NYC-based agtech businesses invite you to taste fresh local food as part of a unique food experience at Project Farmhouse in Union Square.

The evening will consist of an exclusive venue where local, year-round farmers will display how they are making agriculture possible in the wintertime in NYC. See the technology in action, meet farmers and indulge on local produce.

Enjoy hyper-local and delicious snacks, as well as locally sourced beers and wines - delicately curated with our Collective's produce, and products from other fine local purveyors.

We're able to give our community 20% discount (Promo Code: "WELOVEOURMEMBERS") on all tickets to the event here.

RE-NUBLE IN THE COMMUNITY

How do we turn plastic into reusable building materials? How do you design products to be infinitely recyclable? How can we turn food waste into a fuel source? Clean Energy Connections presents an introduction to the Circular Economy and the exciting new technologies and businesses that will produce a sustainable future. Speakers include Mayor's Office of Sustainability, Trust of Governors Island,  Center for the Circular Economy and Re-Nuble.

Interested in hearing the latest challenges in need of circular business solutions from our perspective? Register for tickets here and use Promo Code: "Friends" for a 25% discount.

INTERESTED IN OUR UPCOMING NEW PRODUCT?

Re-Nuble is 100% committed to plant-based only technologies that help us meet the growing fertility, and pest and disease suppression challenges in agriculture. We have a few new tools and solutions underneath our belt that we'll soon be releasing. Most recent is a topical solution that can be directly applied to plants to help mitigate, and, if wildly successful, eradicate the common pest and disease issues that both indoor and outdoor farms currently manage using alternative such as, microbes, genetically modified enzymes, and/or traditional pesticides and herbicides. If you are a farmer interested in testing a product to help with managing aphids, thrips, powdery mildew and/or fungus gnats, to name a few, email us at wecare@re-nuble.com and drop us an email with the subject line: "We're Interested". In the next 4 weeks, we plan to engage farmers for feedback on this new product and you may be the first to receive it before its formal public release. Your feedback makes us better.

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Re-Nuble

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Does AI Hold the Key To A New And Improved “Green Revolution” In Agriculture?

Producing enough healthy food to feed the world—on a changing planet—is going to be a steep challenge. These researchers are giving farmers AI-driven techniques and tools to find solutions.

BY JACKIE SNOW | FEBRUARY 19, 2019 | NOVA NEXT

Automation in agriculture may soon make robots as common in greenhouses as they are on factory floors. Photo credit: Shutterstock

On a stretch of highway in the Netherlands not far outside of Amsterdam, a row of greenhouses at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) poke up like knuckles along the flat landscape. The Dutch university is known for its cutting-edge agricultural research, but some of these greenhouses recently ran an experiment that’s novel even for them: autonomous growing.

Stepping into a humid box from a brisk autumn day, you hear the noises of machines adjusting themselves mixing with the sounds of leaves rustling. The amount of light, water, fertilizers, and carbon dioxide—along with the temperature of the greenhouse—are all set by deep learning algorithms and executed by machines. Humans are still responsible for moving vines up the lattices as they grow, as well as pruning and harvesting.

But it’s pretty clear who—or rather, what—is calling the shots.

The Future of Farming?

By 2050, we’ll need to feed nine billion people with about a third less arable land than we had in the 1970s, experts estimate. Farmers will need all the help they can get, including insights gleaned from artificial intelligence, or AI. Developed carefully—and with the people who will be using it taken into account—AI can be part of the solution to feeding a growing world, according to the Refresh report, a document put together by researchers from Google, university professors, nonprofits, and farmers. And as an added bonus, some of the unsustainable practices developed over the past 70 years could be reversed with more efficient, AI-driven technology.

The Green Revolution was a set of advances that started in the 1950s in areas like high-yield crops, synthetic fertilizers, and irrigation technology that greatly increased food production, especially in developing countries—saving an estimated one billion people from starvation. But it left in its wake a culture of pesticides, reduced agricultural biodiversity, and overuse of chemical fertilizers that deplete the soil and poison waterways.

“It was never meant to be used in the long term,” says Danielle Nierenberg, the president of Food Tank, a non-profit working to build a better food system that also worked on the Refresh document. Farmers were supposed to transition back to organic, Nierenberg adds: It just never happened because increased yields generated by industrial-scale farming put pressure on smaller farms to follow suit.

One of the main ways AI could help agriculture transition out of practices forged in the Green Revolution and into a more sustainable future is with precision farming. Until now, there hasn’t been an easy way for farmers to learn from historical or real-time data. But AI-powered programs can combine data on weather patterns, crop yields, market prices, and more to guide farmers to planting at the right time, adding the appropriate level of fertilizers, and harvesting at peak ripeness.

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In a greenhouse at Wageningen University & Research (WUR) in the Netherlands, cucumbers grow with the help of deep-learning algorithms and machines. Photo credit: Dr. Silke Hemming, WUR

WUR is one of the places where big data approaches to growing food are being tested. Last fall, five teams of AI researchers and biologists from around the world competed in growing cucumbers in separate 96-square-meter greenhouses, with a sixth grown manually as a reference. Each team trained its own algorithm, although the teams had the ability to decide how closely to follow the solutions that their AI models came up with. The teams kept an eye on their crops with sensors and cameras, and could feed the algorithms new data and tweak them as needed. To win, teams had to maximize total yield and net profits while minimizing the use of resources.

The winner was a team called Sonoma, made up of Microsoft Research employees and students from Danish and Dutch universities. According to Silke Hemming, head of the scientific research team for greenhouse technology at WUR, Sonoma’s plan used more artificial light earlier and kept carbon dioxide levels higher than a typical gardener might. But other teams also discovered counterintuitive ways to increase yield, such as pruning smaller cucumbers close to harvest or letting bigger ones have a chance to grow a little more.

Like all problems in AI, growing cucumbers and other crops by algorithm demands a food source of its own: data—and lots of it. The cucumber contest was a start at putting information together that other researchers can build on with future projects.

“You have a dataset you would never have,” Hemming says. “You can learn so much from that.”

The researchers organizing the competition chose cucumbers because they are a fast-growing crop cultivated worldwide, and problems like blight show up in them immediately. But this project could transform how other indoor crops are grown. It’s a first step in finding ways to combine humans and AI technology to produce more food, more efficiently.

“It’s not all about winning.” Hemming says. “It’s also about learning.”

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FARMWAVE Founder and CEO Craig Ganssle uses its smartphone app with an automated kernel count feature to assess corn yield. Photo credit: FARMWAVE

AI on the Farm

“Farming is a lot more complicated than other industries,” says Joshua Woodard, an agricultural business and finance professor at Cornell and founder of the farming data company Ag-Analytics. “It’s a really complex system of environment and management practices."

Ag-Analytics’s wants to bridge that gap with easy-to-use data analysis tools to help farmers plan and monitor their fields. Their farm management platform takes data from sensors in John Deere farm equipment and combines it with other datasets, like satellite imagery and weather forecasts, to develop predictions for individual farms.

Algorithms working from afar could make a huge impact for less tech-heavy farms, too. Farmers in the developing world are working with minimal data and stand to make leaps in productivity with algorithms in the cloud instead of expensive machinery in their fields. According to the United Nations, 20 to 40 percent of crop yields are lost each year due to pests and diseases. AI tools like Plant Village and FARMWAVE allow farmers to take photos with their phones of sickly plants, bugs, and weeds, and then have computer vision-powered algorithms diagnose the problem from afar in seconds. FARMWAVE is already working with farmers in countries across the world, who, despite their distance, are all dealing with similar problems that AI can spot.

"Army worm in corn looks the same in Africa versus the U.S.,” says Craig Ganssle, the founder and CEO of FARMWAVE.

In India, a team at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) is working on providing real-time pest predictionsto help Indian farmers take specific actions to protect their crops. ICRISAT uses cloud computing, machine learning, and data from IoT (short for the “Internet of Things”) sensors to come up with personalized predictions about pest risks.

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Dr Avijit Tarafdar of ICRISAT converses with chickpea farmer Mr Srinivasa Boreddy in Adilabad District, Telangana. Photo credit: D Chobe, ICRISAT

“Whenever [farmers] see the pests in the field, they simply go for pesticides,” says Dr. Mamta Sharma, a principal scientist at ICRISAT. “It will help them reduce the amount of sprays that farmers are applying."

ISCRISAT has offices in Africa that could eventually use the tool, with interest coming from South America as well. As these offices collect more data, Sharma says, it could be used to spot new risks due to climate change.

“It helps us recognize emerging threats,” she says.

Robot Green Thumbs

Indoor farming currently occupies around 2.3 million square feet worldwide. But based on information from growers, the analysis firm Agrilyst predictsthis number will balloon to 22 million square feet over the next five years. Despite the expense of setting up these spaces and the limited types of produce that can currently be profitably grown, much of AI research is being done in greenhouses and other indoor spaces because, with the reduction of arable land, these production methods will become more critical. Indoor farming can also produce up to 20 times as much fruit and vegetables per square foot as outdoor farming, while using up to 92 percent less water, according to one study, with one company claiming it needs 99 percent less water.

In San Carlos, California, two robots cruise within a hydroponic farm developed by the start-up Iron Ox. These robots, which plan, care for, and harvest produce, are overseen by a computer program affectionately nicknamed “the Brain.” Even before the advent of AI, hydroponic systems were known to use less water, need fewer pesticides, grow faster, and produce more plants in less space. However, hydroponics are notoriously labor-intensive, requiring plants to be moved to different vats throughout the growing phase. Training robots for this monotonous task could make razor-thin profit margins a little less tight.

“A lot of things that weren’t feasible outside of a lab five years ago are possible now,” says Brandon Alexander, the CEO of Iron OX.

In the end, improved agricultural processes lead to better food options. And making small indoor farms more efficient could open up the possibilities of food grown closer to city centers. Most produce travels an average of 2,000 miles from farm to shelf in the U.S., which forces farmers to plant fruits and vegetables that can handle being transported—not necessarily those that taste good.

“Fresh produce isn’t that fresh,” Alexander says.

After improving its robotic systems, Alexander says, Iron OX’s long-term plans include breeding plants using data currently being gathered on its farm. Algorithms crunching this data and other local information, like what sells best, could replace tasteless, homogenized tomatoes and lettuce with more varieties suited to different communities’ tastes.

“We could make delicious, extra healthy things that people want to eat,” Alexander says.

California Rain Affecting Arugula Supplies

Growing conditions for arugula in parts of California have not been ideal after the heavy, consistent rainfall over the last few weeks. Production remains steady though and growers are expecting that the effects from the rain will be short-lived. Moreover, the rainy conditions are something growers say they are accustomed to during winter and therefore plan accordingly.

"We grow both flat leaf and the more popular wild arugula year round," said Mark Lopez of Kenter Canyon Farms in Sun Valley. "At the moment, it has been very difficult because there has been more instances of mildew due to the rainy and humid conditions over the past month. For the most part, supplies have remained consistent. We plant in two-week cycles, so if there are any problems, they never lasts long. As a result, we are hoping the issue with the presence of mildew will disappear very shortly."

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Multiple packaging options
Kenter Canyon Farms grows a wide selection of salad greens including Baby Kale, Tatsoi, Mizuno as well as ingredients that make up the spring mix blend. The company supplies a diverse mix of customers from high-end restaurants to retailers, mainly in the Los Angeles area. Consequently, they also have a varied selection of packaging options to suit each market.

"Arugula is always in high demand for salad mixes, gourmet burgers, restaurant menus and for family meals," Lopez shared. "Kenter Canyon Farms has multiple packaging options from as small as a 5oz clamshell for our retail customers, up to a 4lb bulk case for foodservice. We only deliver to the LA produce district, however our products do appear nationally."

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"We are a California family farm producing year round crops of certified organic lettuces, herbs and leafy greens," he concluded. "Seasonally, we produce Valencia oranges, navel oranges, Meyer lemons and heirloom avocados. We also grow a selection of heritage tomatoes for our local farmers markets."

For more information:
Mark Lopez
Kenter Canyon Farms
Ph: +1 (818) 768-5545
mark@kentercanyonfarms.com
www.kentercanyonfarms.com

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Publication date : 2/19/2019 
Author: Dennis Rettke 
© FreshPlaza.com

Where And How Will Farmers Grow Our Food In 2040?

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02/11/19

By Jonathan H. Harsch and Sara Wyant

Editor’s note: This is the second in our seven-part in-depth editorial series where we take a long look ahead at “Farm & Food 2040.” We’ll explore the trends shaping not only production agriculture but the supply chain, food companies, exporters, and more. Part two looks at how and why there may be changes to come when it comes to where food is produced.

“Adapt or die.”

That saying, made famous in the early 1970s by then-Agriculture Secretary Earl Butz as he encouraged farmers to look for ways to be more efficient and responsive to market signals, still rings true for many in agriculture today.

Butz, who grew up on a small Indiana farm and graduated from Purdue University during the depths of the Great Depression, understood that farmers would need to change to stay in business. He didn’t advocate for farmers to necessarily get larger but maintained they would need to adopt new business models to be more efficient. During his lifetime (he died in 2008 at the age of 98), Butz witnessed significant advancements in plant and animal breeding, mechanization, specialization, the advent of biofuels and the rise of organic agriculture, as well as increased urbanization and globalization – just to name a few trends.

Indeed, throughout the last century, U.S. farmers have adapted in response to market demands, new technologies, government decisions and the weather.

"Agriculture is getting incredibly more sophisticated," notes Barry Flinchbaugh, Kansas State Professor Emeritus. "You have no choice but to adapt and change with the times if you are going to survive." He also foresees "less and less commodity production" and "more crops grown with specific attributes desired by customers."

Consider just a few key changes in U.S.cropping patterns over the last 100 years:

Oats: One of the first major U.S. crops, oats initially were grown primarily as feed for horses and mules pulling farm equipment. Acreage peaked at 45.5 million and continued in the 35-40 million range until 1955, according to USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. By 2018, growers planted less than 3 million acres.

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Soybeans: Soybeans were first planted in the U.S. in the early 1920s and reached 1 million acres by 1930. But as interest grew in the plant’s ability to fix nitrogen in the soil and market demand ramped up, growers again responded. Last year, farmers sowed over 89 million acres with the oilseed. At the same time, new seed varieties have enabled production to move north. North Dakota growers planted almost 7 million acres in 2018, compared to only 44,000 acres in 1950.

Grapes: Before Prohibition made alcohol illegal in 1920, Iowa was the nation’s sixth-largest wine producer. A movement toward the production of more row crops, the development of new herbicides in the mid-1900s, coupled with a severe blizzard in 1940 all knocked down the amount of grapes grown in Iowa, according to the Iowa Wine Growers Association. Now the industry is making a comeback, with about 100 commercial wineries across the state. Still, the majority of U.S. grapes are grown in California, Oregon and Washington.

California changing: Until the 1950s, Los Angeles County was the top agricultural producer in the U.S, with an estimated 10,000 farms raising cattle, wheat and a variety of other crops, according to an oral history of California Agriculture.  As the county’s population grew, agriculture moved to other parts of the state. The growth of irrigated farming in the Central Valley and Imperial Valley, watered by the Colorado River, bumped California to first place among all states in value of agricultural products in the 1950s, a position it holds to this day.                                                                                       

Hemp: Used primarily for its fiber and seed oils, hemp was a prominent crop in the early years of the U.S. According to the February 1938 issue of Popular Mechanics magazine, hemp, which is related to marijuana, could be used in 25,000 different products and was on the verge of becoming “the billion-dollar crop.” However, lawmakers proposed prohibitive tax laws in 1937 and hemp production was banned later that year. Lawmakers reversed course in 1942 when they needed hemp for the war effort and released a documentary called Hemp for Victory, encouraging farmers to grow hemp to support the war. This led to over 400,000 acres of hemp being planted during 1942-1945. Last year, hemp production was legalized in all 50 states as part of the 2018 farm bill, and more U.S. growers are expected to enter the market.  In 2018, global hemp retail sales reached $3.74 billion, with an annual growth rate of 15 percent, according to New Frontier Data.

These historical trends provide important perspectives on how growers have adapted in the past and will continue to adapt with new crop varieties and production methods as they make room for a new generation in 2040. As the amount of U.S. cropland continues to decline due to urbanization, there will be a focus on growing more on less acreage and doing so in a sustainable fashion.

New technological innovations, like precision breeding, artificial intelligence and robotics offer promise for solving labor and environmental challenges and, increasingly, meeting consumer demands. Public researchers, combined with private investors, seem eager to provide solutions. According to the latest AgFunder annual report, a total of $2.6 billion was invested in agrifood tech startups in 2017. 

The need for new research and innovation is a message the current Secretary of Agriculture has also embraced as he looks ahead to the future.

“As a former farmer, agribusinessman, veterinarian, state legislator, and governor – I have always appreciated the value of ag research. Research is an essential tool that allows America’s agriculture and agribusiness sector to create jobs, to produce and sell the foods and fiber that feed and clothe the world, and to reap the earned reward of their labor,” noted Secretary Sonny Perdue.

Of course, making changes in agriculture – whether it’s a move to new types of crops, a transition to organic farming or new alternatives like urban farming – isn’t usually cheap or easy.

But, if Agri-Pulse interviews with six trailblazing farmers in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Montana, North Dakota and Washington are any indications, we can expect larger-scale conventional farming by 2040 along with more diversification into new geographic areas along with organic production and more non conventional approaches like soil-less urban farming.

The six farmers – Allen Williams, Bruce Rastetter, Tim Raile, Doug Crabtree, Gregg Halverson and Dan Albert – all have prepared well in their respective ways, so that their operations can prosper in 2040 and beyond.

The conventional farmers, who are focusing on economies of scale, market-driven diversification, and incorporating the latest technology, expect to significantly expand their production, efficiency, yields and profitability by 2040.

The urban growers expect their high-tech rooftop, warehouse, basement, high-rise tower, or soil-less shipping-container farms to profit from rapidly increasing demand for fresh produce often grown within a few city blocks from the end-consumer sitting at home or in a restaurant.

The organic producers expect that their production methods will be key to reducing inputs, limiting market volatility, improving environmental performance and sustainability, and increasing their net profit. They also expect that over the next 20 years, a growing number of farmers will make the shift from lower-margin, chemical-intensive conventional production to organic and other innovative practices.

The six farmers, along with the other stakeholders we interviewed about what’s ahead for agriculture in 2040, converged on a single point – they say the best way to cope with a soaring global population and an increasing demand for better diets and more meat is through diversification.

“Traditional producers need to be merchants who keenly analyze customer demand and develop markets and logistics to satisfy what the customer wants – not what we think they need because we have a huge pile of product to sell,” says Clarkson Grain Company President and COO Ken Dallmier. The 2040 winners, he predicts, will be producers with “a diverse operation encompassing conventional production methods and organic or specialty products to capture market value margin.”

For Dallmier, “Going all-in to organics may be just as bad a business plan as remaining stagnant in the current market. Diversity in response to demand pull will be key to thriving in a 2040 economy.”

So, expect large conventional farming operations to get larger and more productive thanks to breakthroughs in precision ag, robotics, and data-driven decision-making. But also expect organic production and other alternative practices to continue to grow significantly in response to consumer insistence on knowing what’s in their food, how it was raised, and which specific farm, ranch or indoor artificially-lighted repurposed downtown warehouse it comes from. At the same time, smaller niche operations selling directly to consumers will continue to thrive.

Allen Williams – Straddling the production fence

Allen Williams certainly diversifies. He divides his 2,000-acre operation between organic farming on the 500 acres that he owns and conventional farming on 1,500 acres of leased land to respect landowners’ preferences.

The Illinois farmer says his long-time commitment to organic is based on “sound historical growth for organic demand” and because “data suggests the demand for organic is among all economic levels.” He notes that organic production has been around since agriculture began but now is better than ever because “organic can utilize most modern techniques in agriculture . . . other than GM (genetically modified) technology and the use of unapproved pesticides and plant foods.”

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Illinois corn, soybean and organic grains farmer Allen Williams

After considering other options, Williams says he transitioned one of his farms to organic in 1994 because, “Organic production was generating much more margin than conventional agriculture. I had barely survived the 1980s and was looking for a sound production technique to avoid any future economic downturn.”

The result, he says, is that “organic not only rewarded me with larger net returns but also reduced my footprint towards agricultural pollution and seemed to keep the funds spent closer to my home base than my conventional production system.” He expects more conventional producers to shift toward organics “with hope of increased profits” and with new organic provisions in the 2018 farm bill.

But Williams is no zealot. He says “there should be no animosity between these different groups. From my standpoint, there is no need to claim superiority between methods, and all involved just want the best for their family and farm.”

For 2040, Williams expects to see “huge commercial agriculture because of the economies of scale” along with the continuing growth of organic production. “I don’t see any reason they can’t both survive together,” he says. “They’re just meeting different goals.” He adds that because organic and conventional largely use the same technologies, both are integrating the latest methods “to control pests and problems without expensive commercial inputs.”

Doug and Anna Crabtree – Putting CRP back into production

Montana farmer Doug Crabtree is especially committed to helping other growers transition to organic because he witnessed his parents lose their family farm in Ohio during the 1980s. He’s determined to build a stable base of profitability for the dryland organic operation – Vilicus Farms – he and his wife Anna launched in 2009, taking the name from the ancient Roman word for farm manager.

Crabtree plans to expand his 7,400 acres in organic production to 9,000 acres this spring as more area landowners let their Conservation Reserve Program contracts expire at a time of less attractive CRP payments. “The majority of what we farm was once enrolled in CRP,” he says. As the program became less attractive, he says, it has allowed the couple “expand our stewardship whenever we can.”

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Doug and Anna Crabtree (Photo: Vilicus Farms)

He’s also pleased that the 2018 farm bill’s new “Urban, Indoor, and Other Emerging Agriculture Production” provisions will enable innovative enterprises to put neglected urban resources to work and seize market opportunities in the same way that Vilicus Farms is making former CRP land more productive in environmentally beneficial ways.

Those opportunities spring from the same surge in consumer demand for organic products, whether it’s grain from the Midwest or city-based local produce grown without chemicals. “I think agriculture needs to diversify itself,” Crabtree says, “whether that be more crops on a given farm or more production systems or more locations that can produce food” such as urban vertical farms.

Crabtree predicts that by 2040 “we are going to continue to have large-scale commodity production of corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton – the traditional products – and of the traditional livestock . . . The farms that are now 20,000 acres in our neighborhood are probably going to be 50,000 or 100,000 acres and there are going to be fewer of them.”

But Crabtree adds that simultaneously, “we will continue to see an increasingly differentiated type of production that is first and foremost diverse – farms like ours that grow a dozen or more crops, that respond to market demand . . . where people are able to take underutilized resources, meet local demand, and make a living for themselves.”

Gregg Halverson – Optimizing economies of scale

North Dakota’s Gregg Halverson and his three actively engaged children still farm the 10-acre potato field that Gregg’s grandfather started with in 1928. They’re now farming some 25,000 acres, mostly in potatoes, stretching from their home farm near Forest River, N.D., down to Texas and Florida.

Halverson, having passed the CEO baton to his son Eric while John and Leah respectively head up operations and marketing, tells us he expects fourth-generation, family-owned Black Gold Farms, based in Grand Forks, N.D., to continue its steady growth over the decades ahead.

With Frito-Lay as Black Gold’s top customer and diversification as a key risk-reduction strategy, Black Gold delivers chip, seed and table-stock potatoes from its farming and packing operations in 11 states.

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Black Gold Farms CEO Eric Halverson (left) and Board Chair Gregg Halverson (right)

Along with geographical diversification to manage risk so that “we can be wiped out in one area and be OK in another,” Halverson says Black Gold also keeps expanding its customer base, its branding, and introducing new products like individually wrapped sweet potatoes for microwaving.

By growing potatoes in 11 states, Black Gold supplies local supermarkets with the 5-pound bags of fresh, locally grown red potatoes that consumers prefer. Committed to growing food “close to where it needs to be,” Halverson predicts that “large scale conventional farming will continue to be a very powerful force in agriculture.” Stressing the importance of constantly improving efficiency, he says that “in many cases, scale equals efficiency” and that he expects consolidation to continue in pretty much all phases of farming.

“I think that’s been going on for years and will continue,” he says.

By 2040, he says, Black Gold “may not be that many more acres, but I’m certain that in order to be efficient, there’s going to be more production per acre.” He concludes that “being efficient will be what separates the really successful producers from the also-rans.”

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Black Gold Farms has production in 11 states.

As part of his drive for greater efficiency, Halverson says Black Gold is “integrating the new technologies,” but, with farming’s tight margins, “we really have to look hard at these new technologies to make certain that there is a positive ROI (return on investment).” He already is using new technology like data acquisition on his tractors and predicts that “there will be more electronics and robotics, more sensor-driven technology, as a result of the high cost of labor.”

Halverson also expects to see more diversification of the entire ag sector, to include increasing roles for “growing crops on the rooftops of some supermarkets,” urban vertical farming, hydroponics, and high-tech greenhouse ag for “certain very high-value crops” like leafy greens, herbs, tomatoes, and berries. “But to me,” he says, “it’s quite limited as to how many people those farms are really going to feed, so I think you’re always going to need traditional agriculture.”

Tim Raile – Having tried it all, going all organic

“We raised our last non-organic crop this last year,” says dryland wheat farmer Tim Raile. His 8,000-acre operation in western Kansas and eastern Colorado has a third of the acres certified organic with the rest in three-year transition, on track for certification by 2020.

A major blow came this year when Raile’s entire certified organic crop was destroyed by hail. “All we had this year was transitional crops to sell, so it was a tough year.” Fortunately, federal crop insurance softened the blow. Other offsets to the high costs of transitioning came from a contract with Kashi, a Kellogg subsidiary, that provided “premiums on some transitional wheat acres,” and from Clarkson Grain, which provided expert advice on making the switch.

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Wheat farmer Tim Raile, right, with his son and grandsons

Raile says he is switching his whole farm to organic because previously “we were in a wheat/corn/sunflower very intensive rotation, with chemicals, herbicides, pesticides. We did that for about 15 years. But we could see that it just wasn’t sustainable. It worked really well for the first 10 years, but then the last five, we could see that the weeds were just evolving as quick as our farm was to be resistant to weeds. It just made it where our expenses were getting out of hand trying to control the weeds and it still wasn’t working so we had to look into something different.”

Raile says he’s among the first in his area to go organic but that “I’m seeing more and more interest and more and more large farms switching to organic.” He’s points to the “many hurdles to go into organic” – such as having to increase his bin storage from about 100,000 bushels up to 250,000. Also, he says, “You don’t get paid near as quickly… Where in conventional ag, you can deliver to the local elevator and get a check the same day . . .  In the organic world, it seems to be spread out over time, so there is a lot more management that’s involved in the organic world.”

Beside organics’ extra record-keeping requirements, Raile says, “from the standpoint of growing crops, that wasn’t a difficult transition at all.” That’s because after his 38 years in farming, he’s returning to the low-input, high-management practices he used in his early years. He acknowledges, however, that for newcomers or for conventional farmers who’ve always depended on glyphosate and other chemical quick fixes from local input suppliers, they may have a steeper learning curve.

Like Illinois farmer Allen Williams, Raile is confident organics will continue to thrive in 2040 but that “organic and conventional can all work together.” He adds that organics’ growth will benefit conventional producers.

“Right now, I can drive to two or three elevators within 20 miles of here and there’s piles and piles of wheat under tarps. I’m no longer putting wheat into that system. I’m delivering into a different pipeline. Where we’re importing almost 70 percent of our organic grains into this country to supply the organic market, it shows you there’s really a demand for organic. In conventional ag, I think it’s just the opposite. They export 70 percent and only 30 percent is used in this country.” He’s convinced organics will help the conventional market by reducing oversupply going into the conventional pipeline.

Bruce Rastetter – Investing in the Midwest and Brazil

Bruce Rastetter is aggressively investing both in the Midwest and in Brazil as well.

As CEO of Summit Agricultural Group based in Alden, Iowa, Rastetter sees the Midwest’s solid track record of steadily increasing yields and Brazil’s opportunities for double cropping and triple cropping as a joint guarantee that these two powerhouses of world agricultural production will be able to meet surging global demand that he expects to double by 2040.

As a firm believer in diversification, Rastetter has established Summit as a leader in grain, beef and pork production, renewable energy and international agribusiness development. His Midwest operations include a base of Summit Farm’s 14,000 acres in row crops, 350,000 head of contract hogs, and “the capacity to feed about 10,000 head of cattle.”

Seeing U.S. and Brazilian ag production as complementary rather than in competition, Summit also has 20,000 acres on its two farms in Brazil, with 10,000 acres of cropland rented out and the other 10,000 under native forest. As well, Summit is more than doubling capacity to 140 million gallons at its first corn-ethanol plant in Brazil. It also broke ground on its second 140 million-gallon plant in the South American country last fall, and will launch a third plant this summer.

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Bruce Rastetter, Summit Agricultural Group

Rastetter also sees “a place for more organic production” and other specialty crop operations to cater to people “in the urban areas on the coasts” who “want more all-natural, all-organic” and “want to know where their food was produced, how it was produced, and how (a food animal) was cared for.”

At the same time, Rastetter says he believes that large-scale modern production using GMOs is sustainable.

“If you are going to be in large-scale production, you have to be a low-cost producer” and “you’ll have to be a good marketer.” Low-cost, he adds, “means you’re utilizing the best technology, proven technology, you’re having maximum yields, and you’re an innovator at pushing forward with proven genetics and modern production technology.”

Rastetter says he’s “made a small investment” in developing driverless tractors, although he’s always concerned about maintaining profitability. He says he’s sticking with “proven technology” in Summit’s own operations because “there just isn’t the profitability to try things, to be a test farm” and because it’s hard to figure out “what technology that we can put to work that actually delivers lower cost or greater production.”

Rastetter also concludes that to succeed in 2040 and beyond, large-scale producers will need to “be involved in protein production in one form or another, to help diversify the operation.”

Dan Albert – Returning to his ag roots

After growing up in an upstate New York farming community, Dan Albert had no intention of pursuing a career in agriculture. He earned a graduate degree in Landscape Architecture and became interested in the field of sustainable design. Shortly after graduating, he worked on a project called the Eco-Laboratory which “brought me back to my ag-roots,” Albert says.

In 2011, he and his wife, Lindsay Sidlauskas, started Farmbox Greens - a small farm in a converted office space which was about 200 square feet. When they bought a house in 2014, they moved the business into the garage with about 400 square feet of growing room. Equipped with LED lights, vertically stacked trays and a hydroponic growing system, they started growing arugula, radishes and other microgreens

“It was super tiny-scale but we were able to build our customer base, process and reinvest in the business to the point where we had a fairly substantial operation at our house. We were serving about 60 customers including restaurants, farmers market and retailers in the Seattle area,” Albert says.

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Farmbox Greens General Manager Dan Albert with his wife Lindsay Sidlauskas

“We are super local in that we grow our greens and deliver them to you within hours,” Albert explained in a video. “That means longer shelf life. They are fresh and more flavorful. We can do this because we are in a controlled environment system. That means we provide the perfect nutrition for the plants, we provide the right lighting and we are pesticide and herbicide free.”

Albert initially began growing with an aeroponic production system but transitioned to a self-designed vertical farm with LED lighting and recirculating nutrient film technique (NFT) irrigation.

“We are working on becoming the most sustainable farm we can be by minimizing our carbon footprint, reusing and recycling our nutrients, not having waste products and trying to minimize our overall footprint on the environment as a farm,” Albert adds.

Unlike many vertical farm startups, Albert started small and learned the ropes along the way.   But as his company grew, retailers took notice. In 2016, he was approached by Charlie’s Produce, one of the largest independent produce distributors on the west coast with distribution centers in Seattle, Spokane, Portland, Anchorage, Los Angeles, and Boise.

Alberts says he basically faced two future paths: “Be a “farmer” and focus on growing products and developing technology and the process to produce it. Or focus on sales, marketing, and a distribution network (in addition to the “farming”) to move the products we were growing.” He decided to focus on the Farmbox road and let Charlie’s focus on produce sales and logistics.

“I started this business with the idea that we are here to ‘Scale to make a difference.’ We chose to scale by acquisition and doing so with the help of Charlie’s made it faster that I could have done it on my own.”

Albert is still in charge of Farmbox, but as part of the move, Farmbox was housed in a much bigger and better facility on the Charlie’s Produce campus.

“Everything from the lights, to the growing system, to the water treatment system has been improved. Perhaps the biggest improvement was to our food safety plan. When I was on my own, I just didn’t have the scale or resources to implement rigorous GAP (Good Agriculture Practices) and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) plans.”

Now he’s able to serve thousands of customers instead of the 50-100 customers he could fulfill from inside the garage.

When asked about his top advice for others interested in urban, vertical farming, he admitted that it was tough to boil it down to a sentence or two.

“There’s a lot of optimism with the ability for technology to solve the challenges of agriculture. In reality, it’s still farming and the most important thing to remember is that you need to sell the product at a price for more than it cost you to make it,” Albert advises.  “At any scale in agriculture, you must have a strong process and be mindful of how big the market is and set realistic goals and make realistic assumptions about how you can build a business in the overall produce market.

Just because it's vertically farmed doesn’t mean all the other vendors aren’t in the market competing. So, all the marketing hype around vertical farms isn’t going to make the market, grow the product, or sell the produce. There have already been many failures in this emerging industry and its frustrating to watch these companies miss the boat when it comes to the core business, which is still farming.”

The Promise and Pitfalls of Urban Farming

The promise of soil-less indoor Controlled Environment Agriculture has attracted young people enthused about both high-tech and agriculture to venture into CEA. One ag design, production, and marketing consultant with broad experience in advising entrepreneurs, investors, cities like Atlanta, and even countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia about CEA is Henry Gordon-Smith, the founder and managing director of Agritecture Consulting.

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Agritecture Consulting Managing Director Henry Gordon-Smith

Gordon-Smith is encouraged by his fellow millennials’ interest in agriculture, hoping it will solve the problem of the aging U.S. farmer, with an average age of over 58, too near retirement age for a vibrant industry. But he cautions eager beginners that despite the increasing importance of high-tech precision ag, automation, and data-driven decision-making to agriculture, these new tools “won’t allow a non-farmer to run a farm independent of a true farmer, and I don’t think we’ll be there by 2040.”

Gordon-Smith also warns that despite vertical farming’s success in attracting investment as a rapid growth, high-tech play, vertical farming still faces steep cost hurdles that have caused some major ventures to fail. “Vertical farming is not the solution,” he says. “It is part of a toolbox of solutions” that must be sorted through carefully to pick the combination that’s the right fit for each specific farm venture and each specific market.”

Picking the best new practices is tough, Gordon Smith says, and requires expert coaching. So, he hopes USDA will offer increasing support for beginning farmers including urban farmers. He also predicts that “every farm in 2040 will need a clear automation plan.” With labor costs and availability already major concerns for U.S. agriculture as a whole, he’s advising his clients to “invest in automation now” and finalize plans for where they need to be with automation within the next five and 10 years.

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Gordon-Smith adds that the new technology already in place in high-cost urban vertical farms and in high-return marijuana operations has begun to “trickle down to more traditional farmers,” benefiting the ag sector as a whole. That’s great news, he says, because “obviously you can’t grow everything with urban agriculture.”

Gordon-Smith sees “urban agriculture as a gateway to the agricultural system” and says one reason USDA should encourage urban agriculture “is that it can create a new pathway for young farmers to get into traditional agriculture.” He points out that even a small urban farm is an important training ground, teaching basics like food safety, maximizing production, marketing to the customer, and managing waste in innovative ways.

So, he says, urban ag today may create a new generation of ag sector winners by 2040.

For more news go to: www.Agri-Pulse.com

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KEYWORDS ALLEN WILLIAMS ANDY VOLLMAR ANNA CRABTREE BLACK GOLD FARMS BRUCE RASTETTER DOUG CRABTREE FARM & FOOD 2040GREGG HALVERSON HENRY GORDON-SMITH KEN DALLMIER LAURA BATCHA TIM RAILE

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Eight Agri-Food Tech Entrepreneurs From Around The World to Compete Tor $250k in Funding From Radicle Growth At World Agri-Tech Pitch Day 2019

The World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit partnered with acceleration fund Radicle Growth on the second annual Radicle Challenge taking place at the upcoming World Agri-Tech Pitch Day on March 18 in San Francisco. Today, eight startups from around the world have been announced as the finalists to compete in the Pitch Day competition: US-based Agrospheres, Aromyx, Napigen, Traive, Brazil-based AgTrace, Australia-based EscaVox, Turkey-based Tarfin and Kenya-based Tulaa. All eight finalists will benefit from pre-pitch coaching ahead of the summit from Radicle Growth, who will invest $250k in the Pitch Day winner. 

Hundreds of seed-stage startups representing diverse technology offerings for the agtech and foodtech sectors applied to participate in the Pitch Day. A panel of judges, including Radicle’s Kirk Haney, Arama Kukutai (Finistere Ventures), Geoff Kneen (Bayer, Crop Science), Mai Komatsu (Corteva AgriScience) and Adrian Percy (Independent Advisor), evaluated the submissions and selected the finalists. The Pitch Day winner will be announced on the first day of the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit (March 19) and will present within the start-up Technology Showcase on March 20 to over 1,200 global agribusinesses and investors, unlocking powerful opportunities for growth.

Commenting on the entries, Kirk Haney, Managing Partner of Radicle Growth, said: “Once again, we saw a fantastic response for participation in the Pitch Day competition, with hundreds of entries from innovators around the world. Now is an exciting time for agtech innovators and investors, and we’re delighted to support their route to market with this platform to showcase their solutions and to benefit from our $250k investment and mentoring. We look forward to the presentations and to working with the selected winner.”

The eight finalists:

Agrospheres (US) has developed a platform technology for encapsulation of biomolecules and synthetic chemicals. It is developing biological-based crop protection products for the control of thrips and fungi, also working with partners to improve the delivery and efficacy of pesticides and the delivery of double-stranded RNA.

AgTrace (Brazil) is a traceability solution that ensures transparency and information reliability, reducing response time to issues within the food value chain. Based on deep knowledge of farming processes and advanced IoT and blockchain technologies, AgTrace guarantees information security about agriculture processes, using sensors and equipment to register information from inside and outside the farm.

Aromyx (US) enables the creation of quantitative digital representations of taste and smell, by isolating natural human olfactory receptors and converting them to a standardized diagnostic format.  Its olfactory database provides a basis for machine learning to analyze flavors and fragrances, offering revolutionary precise quality control diagnostics to compare crops from different locations or production times, and to resolve issues of off-flavors or contaminant.  

EscaVox (Australia) has the ambition to help transform the food supply chains to allow better decisions to be made, allowing waste to be reduced and food safety increased. It uses cleverly designed software to import and connect various data sets, then analyses and identifies problem areas. It combines this with tracking data to give the full end to end impact on the product – the ‘voice’ of the product.

Napigen (US) offers mitochondrial CRISPR genome editing, with the goal to create a new platform for hybrid wheat seed production by providing elite male sterile and restoration lines that are uniquely produced by our genome editing tools, introducing robust, non-GMO, male sterile and restoration lines.  The hybrid wheat platform will stack valuable traits such as herbicide tolerance and biotic/abiotic stress tolerance without losing their value by undesirable self-propagation.

Tarfin (Turkey) provides farmers with instant, competitive point-of-sale credit terms for their farm inputs purchases. Using proprietary algorithms and an expansive retail network, Tarfin’s machine-learning-based credit algorithms instantly assess a farmer’s likelihood of repayment. Transactional as well as farm level data are taken into account, helping the company convert more leads into sales. 

Traive (US) is an ag-fintech solution that unlocks credit to farmers by connecting them to lenders and providing ML-based credit risk assessment and monitoring. Traive brings farmers state-of-the-art technology to offer a novel and fair credit risk assessment, opening the door for affordable funding for their businesses. For lenders, Traive provides a differentiated analysis applied over alternative farming and individual data, while allowing access to a much larger and diversified portfolio of borrowers.

Tulaa (Kenya) is a marketplace for smallholder farmers in Africa to access inputs, credit, training and buyers. Using mobile technology and artificial intelligence, Tulaa enables farmers to buy inputs like fertilizer on credit, receive training on good agricultural practices, and to find buyers at harvest time.

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 For more information on the challenge, finalists and the summit,

Please visit: https://worldagritechusa.com/radicle-challenge/

World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit:

www.worldagritechusa.com

The World Agri-Tech Innovation Series gathers the industry twice a year in London and San Francisco. Taking place March 19-20, 2019 at the Hilton Union Square in the heart of San Francisco’s business district, the 5th US edition of the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit welcomes 1200+ agribusinesses, entrepreneurs and investors to a two-day conference, networking events, workshops, tours and cocktail receptions. The event is complemented by the Animal AgTech Innovation Summit (March 18) and Future Food-Tech Summit (March 21-22) at the same venue, together making Rethink Agri-Food Innovation Week (RAFI Week).

Radicle Growth:

www.radicle.vc

The Radicle Growth acceleration fund focuses on the areas of Digital Agriculture, Biologicals, New Farm Systems and Seed Technology. Its goal is to transform the speed of innovation in agriculture by ensuring seed stage companies have the right amount of capital and resources, supporting their growth through expert advisory services and introductions to partners, VCs and investors. 

Rethink Events

www.rethinkevents.com

UK-based Rethink Events organizes international, world-renowned business summits for entrepreneurs, businesses and global investors in sustainable food, agriculture, energy and water.

Further contact:

Tate Slyfield, Marketing & PR Executive, Rethink Events tate.slyfield@rethinkevents.com

Rebecca Lincoln, Business Analyst, Radicle Growth                            rlincoln@radicle.vc

Heatwave Conditions Takes A Toll On Australian Fruit And Vegetable Growers

Most parts of Australia have sweltered through a heatwave over the past fortnight, with daily temperatures regularly in the high-thirties to mid-forties.

On Thursday, South Australia's Port Augusta reached 49.5 degrees, just 10 days after it created international headlines for reaching around 49 degrees at the same time as temperatures were below minus 56 degrees in parts of Russia. It is a similar picture across all states, with conditions topping 45 degrees plus in nearly all areas.

The hot weather has taken a toll on Australia's farmers, with many regions still in drought, and for Australia's fruit and vegetable growers, many are battling through these conditions still getting the fruit to market, although it is still having an effect.

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Picture: Temperatures taken on Jan 15 (source:Weather Obsessed/Jamie Lyons‎)

The Australian Mango Industry Association reported: "We have had the extreme heat in North Queensland and some rain that brought forward some of the harvesting in North Queensland and resulted in some fruit becoming ripe on the trees and unable to be marketed. But overall, growers have managed those ups and downs."

Further south, in Central Queensland's Rockhampton region, Lush Lychees were expecting production to be nearly double on last year, although there were some issues with the weather this summer.

"We had periods of drought, which made watering difficult with our river system, and we had high temperature days which lasted for a week," co-owner Krystal Caton said. "So that was a bit difficult on the fruit causing heat stress and fruit drop. But other than that, we got through and got them all picked this week. The high temperature and heat it caused a lot of fruit drop - so we lost a lot of fruit and it caused some heat stress on some of our varieties. But that's farming - working with the weather."

Brisbane Produce Market report also noted: "This week, the heatwave continues to impact supplies on vegetables. We’re seeing a limited supply of broccoli, cauliflower and celery but tomatoes are bouncing back, particularly the grape and cherry varieties."

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Photo: Vegetable crops in East Gipplsand

While it is the same story for vegetables in Victoria. The East Gippsland Food Cluster says that this year production has been variable due to the weather conditions.

"It depends on the crop and we have had a few hot, above 40-degree days, and naturally that takes a toll," Industry Development Officer Shayne Hyman said. "With baby leaf (lettuce) there has been some tip-burn. There has been early beans and they are pretty good. But it is all weather dependent, meaning this week's crop is good, while next weeks could be tipped-in. People are wanting broccoli, and brassicas are a winter crop. But because people don't follow seasonality of vegetables, they want it now, so broccoli production has been down, and that has been because of the weather - not very much rain and long hot periods. I was talking to the biggest cauliflower producer, and they are going to turn it all in (for the season), because it was coming along beautifully, and on that particular crop the heads burst, which meant it was un-sellable."

Production wise, Budou Farms, in Merbein in the Victoria’s south, is behind harvest time slightly between a week to 10 days. But the table grape grower is looking at a slightly above average year in terms of volumes, despite some issues with the weather.

"With the weather we have had a few heatwaves and the next few days are meant to be very intense," co-owner Enrique Rossi said. "From tomorrow we have two days of 45 degrees, which is not good. We are a little down on rainfall throughout the year. In winter, during one month we only got 4 millimetres of rain, which is very worrying. But we have to take the good out of the heatwaves - and this extreme weather we have got in Australia, makes the fruit have exceptional flavour."

Publication date : 1/25/2019

Author: matthew@freshplaza.com

© FreshPlaza.com

A New Study Claims Eating Organic Reduces Pesticide Intake. It’s Totally Misleading

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The study doesn't test for the kinds of pesticides permitted on organic foods. And that suggests it's more about selling a worldview than good science.

February 13th, 2019
by Patrick Clinton

Flash! A new study published Tuesday in the journal Environmental Research reveals that people who switched from a conventional to an organic diet reduced their intake of pesticides by 60 percent in just one week.

Well, that’s it. Game over. The evidence is all in, and organic wins.

Yeah, right.

If you’ve been reading about the study (I have, in a mini-explosion of coverage that hews remarkably close to the press release sent out by Friends of the Earth, which sponsored the research and employs one of the authors of the study), you may have formed the opinion that it’s kind of a big deal. Take the word of someone who reads press releases every day and has even written a few: Never trust them. RTFD. Read the document.

So I read the study. (You can, too, here.) Here’s what I got out of it. The researchers wanted to prove that going organic reduces pesticide exposure. That’s something that’s been proven before for certain pesticides, but they wanted to expand the list. So they got together four “racially and geographically diverse” families comprising 16 people and had them eat their regular diet for five days before switching to organic food (which the researchers provided) for six days. They collected lots of urine samples and tested them for the metabolites produced when the body is exposed to 40 of the most commonly used pesticides. The metabolites themselves aren’t toxic. They just tell you how much of the pesticide the subject has been exposed to over the preceding few days.

It’s kind of like taking a bunch of people who’ve been drinking, wresting away their booze, then testing to see if their blood alcohol drops.

Now, roughly half of the food supply contains traces of pesticides, though virtually always at levels the U.S. government deems acceptable. Organic food is permitted to have small traces of conventional pesticides (typically from unintentional cross-contamination), and organic farmers are permitted to use a small number of pesticides, mostly naturally derived. They aren’t allowed to use any of the pesticides tested for in the study. (Organic food, in general, has lower levels of pesticide residue than conventional produce.)

So basically, the Environmental Research study took people who had been eating food that was likely to contain traces of certain common pesticides, then fed them food that by law was supposed to be grown without the use of those particular pesticides. And they discovered that their test subjects were indeed consuming less of those particular pesticides. It’s kind of like taking a bunch of people who’ve been drinking, wresting away their booze, then testing to see if their blood alcohol drops. It might be scientifically useful, but it doesn’t merit the kind of press campaign that Friends of the Earth has been waging for it, complete with 20-page brochure, FAQ, and website. And it certainly doesn’t merit the kind of slavish (and occasionally plagiaristic) coverage I’ve been watching pop up all day online.

You might in fact be persuaded by the study results. That’s fine. But let’s be clear about some of the things the study may seem to prove but doesn’t.

First, it doesn’t prove that organic food is lower in pesticide residues than conventional food. (In any case, we already knew that.) It just shows organic eaters take in fewer of the 40 pesticides measured by the researchers. That’s 40 out of something like 900 pesticides on the market, and includes none of the pesticides that are permissible in organic farming.

Pesticides are not the point. What we want to look at is risk.

And it doesn’t show that organic food is safer, though that is certainly what Friends of the Earth wants you to come away believing. The fact is that there’s no way you can reduce your exposure to toxins to zero. The world’s a messy place. Chemicals drift from field to field, equipment and storage facilities get contaminated, and some people inevitably cheat and use products they’re not supposed to use. And plants themselves produce toxins. The trick is to keep your exposure to a safe level. The conventional food supply overwhelmingly meets the safety standards set by the U.S. government.

And what if the standards are wrong? I have no doubt that some of them are wrong. And there have been and will be battles over how the standards need to change. We’ll never see an end to re-evaluating the evidence and rewriting the regs. But the errors aren’t all going to be on the side of products favored by big agribusiness. Take the case of rotenone, a natural plant derivative that is used for things like controlling (that is, killing) invasive fish populations and as an insecticide. Because it is natural, it was acceptable for use in organic farming.

Take the word of someone who reads press releases every day: Never trust them.

It’s pretty toxic stuff, however, and in 2004 it was banned for use in the U.S. except for killing fish. But it continued to be used abroad, and it remained on the list of acceptable substances for use in organic farming for several more years, which meant that a foreign organic farmer could legally export produce that had been treated with rotenone to the U.S. and still have it meet the standard for certified organic. Several other pesticides that are permitted in organic farming are currently under fire in the EU—notably methyl eugenol in Canada and copper sulfate in Europe.

It may sound like I’m trying to argue that organic food presents just as many dangers as conventionally produced food. I’m not. I don’t know one way or another, and, after experiencing the hype and questionable intellectual honesty of the Friends of the Earth press kit, I’m persuaded they don’t know either, or they wouldn’t have had to oversell their work so much.

But pesticides are not the point. What we want to look at is risk—not just the risk of a specific class of chemicals, but total risk. That necessarily includes more factors than toxins. Some studies suggest that organic produce is more likely to be contaminated with E. coli than conventional produce. How much weight should that carry when we’re choosing between organic and conventional food? How much should access to food or environmental protection weigh compared to incremental individual risk?

Here’s a pretty basic question: What if a relatively poor person becomes persuaded that only organic food will do, but then drops a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables from their diet because organic food is so expensive? What happens to that family’s risk profile? I’m betting that in this circumstance, organic is the worse choice, but I could certainly be wrong.

It would make a great experiment, wouldn’t it? I wonder if Friends of the Earth would like to sponsor it. Do it, guys. I’ll even help write the press release.

Tell Kellogg’s To Stop Hiding GMOs!

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Big News:

The USDA responded to our lawsuit and has issued the final GMO labeling rules. Unfortunately, the final rules allow for companies like Kellogg’s to label GMOs using QR codes. These codes require consumers to use their smartphones on every coded product to try and find out if they contain GMOs.  And even if the Wi-Fi is working in the store, they then often just get a website where they have to search further for this information. Labeling through QR codes adds countless hours to weekly shopping trips and the companies using GMOs are counting on customers not to be able to afford that time, and stay in the dark about their products.

Even worse 1/3rd of Americans do not have smart phones or access to reliable broadband connection. They cannot even use these QR codes to find out if a product is genetically engineered. The population that wouldn’t have access to this information would be disproportionately low-income, rural, minority, and elderly. That’s not transparency that’s discrimination against more than 100 million Americans. Everyone should have access to the truth about their food. Not just those of us who have smart phones. All GMO labeling should be on the package!

We’ll be taking USDA to court about these QR codes and other problems with the GMO labeling regulations that show these rules have been designed to hide and confuse rather than inform. Stay tuned for updates!

In the meantime, you can help recruit companies to stand up for transparency and commit to on package, text or symbol labeling of GMOs. We’ve already gotten commitments for this on package labeling from companies like Campbell’s and Mars. However, the Kellogg Company is still planning to use QR codes for its GMO labeling.

Let’s all take to Twitter to demand that Kellogg’s stop being anti-consumer and discriminatory and label GMOs on package with text or symbol!

California Rains Continue To Play Havoc On Markets

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BY DAVID ROBIDOUX | FEBRUARY 12, 2019

As the rain continues in California the markets also continue their march higher. All commodities currently coming from the coastal regions of California have seen excessive rain over the past month leading to decreased supplies and major issues with quality. Strawberries, broccoli, cauliflower, radishes and celery have all seen prices rise again this past week due to the heavy storms over the weekend — and there is more rain to come this week.

“The biggest impacts from these rains is damage to ripe strawberries, which turn to mush when they get that wet and can’t be sold for fresh fruit," according to John Krist, chief executive officer of the California Farm Bureau. "That damaged fruit ends up getting stripped and sold for juice or jam, which is a money-losing proposition at this time of year, but one that can’t be avoided — if left in the fields that damaged fruit will spread fungus.

“We also had harvest delays in just about everything, including citrus, which can’t be picked when wet. And there’s a heightened risk of fungal disease in vegetables, too, particularly celery," said Krist.

“It’s worth remembering, however, that this is what a normal year used to look like," said Krist. "Our frame of reference has been skewed by nearly seven years of drought or below-average rainfall. Dealing with these issues is par for the course."

This year is more in line with historical norms. The historical average combined rainfall for January and February in Oxnard, CA, is approximate seven inches. Over the last seven years, when California has been in a drought cycle, the average combined rainfall for these two months is less than four inches. This year nine inches of rain have already fallen in Oxnard and we have two more weeks to go in February.

This next shot coming on Wednesday and Thursday will drop another 1.5 inches of rain and bring the total close to 11 inches. It’s no wonder harvests are being delayed.

Santa Maria and Salinas will also see another inch-plus of rain this week.

The National Weather Service issued freeze warnings for yesterday morning and this morning in the San Joaquin Valley as temps dropped below freezing for up to six hours the last two nights. Some locations, such as Visalia, saw temps drop down to 28 Monday morning and 29 this morning. 

Rain is coming to all current growing regions in Florida today. From Plant City all the way south to Homestead, all growing locations can expect approximately 0.25 inches of rain today. Behind this storm expect one day of cooler temps on Wednesday. Temperatures will drop by about 10 to 15 degrees across the board tomorrow. On Thursday temperatures will be back to normal in the low 80s during the day and the low 60s at night. There is another opportunity for light rain on Friday and Saturday.

Starting Sunday Florida will be feeling the effects of a heat wave. Up and down the state expect maximum temps close to 90 and minimum temps in the mid- to upper 60s. These temps will last at least through Wednesday of next week. Expect production to heavier as we head into next week.

Tomato supplies out of Mexico have tightened a bit and prices have moved off the minimum where they had been for the past several weeks, which could be a result of bloom drop caused by the cold temps back in the late December.

Temperatures in Culiacan will get progressively hotter throughout the week, peaking this Friday with a max temp of 94 and a minimum temp of 61. On Saturday Culiacan will begin a cooling trend, and by Wednesday, Feb. 20 they will see a minimum temp of 50. This should slow down production somewhat by the end of next week.

The Weathermelon app offers consolidated lists of global growing regions for each commodity; a 10-day detail forecast for each region; current radar maps (U.S. only); estimated harvest start/end dates for each commodity; monthly average high/low temps for each region; and custom daily alerts for temperature, precipitation and severe weather based on 10-day forecasts.

(David Robidoux is a co-founder Weathermelon)

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The event will sell out, as it did last year. So secure your place now for World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco on March 19-20 and take advantage of our discount code IG400 to save $400 on a delegate pass.

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A FULL WEEK OF AGRI-FOOD INNOVATION

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Taking place the day before World Agri-Tech on March 18, the Animal AgTech Innovation Summit explores emerging opportunities in precision nutrition, smart livestock farming, gene editing and disease-prevention, bringing together industry leaders, innovators and investors from around the world.

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Future Food-Tech (March 21-22) connects food brands and their supply chain, entrepreneurs and investors, uncovering topics from personalized nutrition, alternative distribution channels and AI, to plant-based proteins and the role of food in health. They will define the most effective routes to market and the collaborative partnerships needed to scale innovation and deliver the next generation of nutritious, affordable foods to all.

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5 of The Most Valuable Crops You Can Grow In The US & How To Grow Them

5 of The Most Valuable Crops You Can Grow In The US & How To Grow Them

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Brian Barth

These easy-to-grow and profitable crops are great for small farms.

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Photography

Saffron

The North American Center for Saffron Research and Development, a new program at the University of Vermont, hopes to make New England the new hotspot for this ancient Mediterranean herb. Selling for $5,000 to $10,000 per pound, saffron is the most expensive culinary herb in the world, mainly because it is composed of the tiny, thread-like stigmas of the crocus flower. Roughly 50,000 flowers are needed to produce a pound of the dried herb, though this requires just a quarter acre of land, hinting at just how lucrative this crop can be.

Saffron (pictured above) crocuses grow best in dry regions with mild winters, such as coastal California. To help expand their viability, the University of Vermont recommends planting them in high tunnels, a simple protective structure made of plastic sheeting over a frame of PVC pipes, which allows saffron to be grown in much of the country. Crocuses are bulbs and cannot easily be reproduced from seed, so growers plant corms, the fleshy tuberous roots. A list of corm sources for crocus varieties that are suitable for commercial spice production is available here.

Ginseng

Wild ginseng root, a medicinal herb which is found in forests throughout much of the northern and eastern United States, is harvested on a commercial scale and sold for astonishing prices, largely to Asian buyers. It is also planted in open fields, though ginseng cultivated this way commands a fraction of the price, as it is not considered as medicinally potent. Wild ginseng is becoming increasingly rare, however, to the point that many states have severely restricted its harvest. “Wild-simulated” ginseng, which is planted as an understory on tree plantations and in naturally-occurring forests, has emerged as a popular, and profitable, alternative to true wild ginseng: it sells for $300 to $700 per pound.

Most native hardwood trees are suitable as a canopy for growing ginseng. The forest needs to be mature enough to cast full shade; moist, well-drained soil is ideal. It is typically planted in the fall from seed, which costs up to $200 per pound. Rake back the leaves and plant them directly in the native soil – no fertilizer necessary. The crop is so valuable that a growing guide from Purdue University recommends protecting your investment by “installing security cameras, keeping guard dogs, and embedding microchips” in the roots. The ginseng market varies from year to year, but when the price is high it’s possible to net up to $50,000 per acre. There is one drawback: it takes from five to 10 years for the roots to reach a marketable size.

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Ginseng growing in a forest. PHOTO: Shutterstock / Kirsanov Valeriy Vladimirovich

Lavender

This common garden plant has various commercial uses, including essential oil and value-added products like soaps and lotions. Profitableplantsdigest.com reports that one eight-acre lavender farm in the Northwest grosses more than $1 million per year from it’s various lavender products. But the simplest way to sell lavender, which requires minimal investment in time and equipment to produce, is as dried flower bouquets. A one-acre planting can produce about 12,000 bouquets per year, which are worth $10 each or more on the retail market.

Lavender grows in a wide variety of climates, but requires well-drained soil. Irrigation and fertilizer are generally not needed. The disease-resistant, fast-growing plants are easily propagated in a greenhouse by cuttings and will grow big enough to produce a sizable spray of flowers in their second year; lavender will continue to flower for 10 years or more after planting. Simply tie bunches of the flower stems together with twine and hang in a barn, shed, or other well-ventilated structure to dry for at least one week before bringing them to market.

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Lavender growing in a field. PHOTO: Shutterstock / Katarina Bockova

Goji Berries

This “superfood” is grown primarily in China, but the plant is equally well-adapted in North America. Dried organic goji berries regularly sell for $20 or more per pound, with the fresh fruit fetching a significantly higher price at farmer’s markets. With yields up to 7,000 pounds per acre in fresh berries, this is potentially a lucrative cash crop for American farmers.

Goji berries, a close relative of tomatoes, grow on head-high shrubs. They are disease-resistant and adapted to a wide range of soil and climatic conditions. In fact, the plants are so robust that they’re considered an invasive species in some regions of the country. For optimal fruit production, grow one of the named cultivars, like ‘Crimson Star‘ and ‘Phoenix Tears‘ (named varieties are not typically invasive). Light harvests can begin in the second year after planting, though it takes four to five years of growth before full production is reached. Planting goji shrubs “bare root” (when they are dormant) in late winter gets them off to fast start.

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Goji growing in a garden. PHOTO: Shutterstock / KVF

Bamboo

The most lucrative crops are not always edible. Bamboo, which is used for everything from flooring to fishing poles (and occasionally in Asian cuisine), is one shining example. Each of the many uses of bamboo comes with its own set of constraints; some applications require special processing, while others are only feasible in particular regions. However, it’s quite straightforward to grow bamboo for sale as nursery plants. Simply plant a grove, let it spread, and then pot up small clumps to sell to local nurseries or direct to consumers. A large clump of bamboo in 25-gallon tub can sell for $200 to $300 dollars. Thousands of tubs can be harvested annually from a single acre of mature bamboo.

The first step is to identify which species of bamboo grow best, and are most in demand by consumers, in your area. This is easily accomplished by asking for advice at local nurseries. Bamboo is not grown by seed, but by transplanting small clumps of roots from an existing patch. Since many landowners consider it a pest, consider advertising locally to find people who will let you come remove their bamboo for free – a win for both parties. Since bamboo can spread aggressively, avoid planting it close to other crops or adjacent to natural areas (since it doesn’t spread by seed, you don’t have to worry about it escaping into the wild). Bamboo thrives on heavy irrigation and nitrogen fertilizer – any animal manure will do. Still, you’ll have to be patient. Depending on the variety, it may take anywhere from three to ten years to establish a patch large enough to start digging out clumps for sale.

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Bamboo growing in suburban New Jersey. PHOTO: Shutterstock / Kovtun Oleg

Seeking Fresh Produce, Mumbai Duo Quits Jobs To Grow Over 1,000 Plants Soil-Less!

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by Jovita Aranha January 23, 2019

When Joshua and Sakina decided to quit their well-paying jobs and switch to farming, everyone, including their parents, thought they were wasting their time and efforts with a dead project.

“Who in their right frame of mind decides to leave a comfortable job in a city like Mumbai and get their hands dirty with farming?” naysayers asked.

Today, amid the chaos of the city, the duo is successfully running, what they call, Mumbai’s first hyperlocal farm!

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Herbivore Farm in Andheri East

In a room less than 1,000 sq ft, with over 1,000 plants, they grow seven varieties of lettuce (lollo rosso, oakleaf, French romaine, summer crisp, butterhead), three varieties of Swiss chard (red, yellow and white), two types of rocket (wild and cultivated) and four varieties of kale.

All using hydroponic farming!

Operating from a warehouse in an old industrial estate that they transformed into an indoor farm in the Andheri suburb of Mumbai, the duo is growing pesticide-free, healthy and flavourful leafy greens, and delivering them at the doorsteps of their customers mere hours after harvest.

The Better India got in touch with the urban farmer duo to document their journey.

This journey towards growing their own food has its roots in a trip they took to Auroville in June 2017.

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Joshua Lewis and Sakina Rajkotwala

“Our jobs were good. The money was flowing in, but there was no greater meaning to what we were doing. We wanted to do more with our time. We had goals, but didn’t know what to start with,” confesses Joshua.

He continues, “Besides, it felt like each day was passing by in a monotonous routine. It was a never-ending loop where we were neither living to the fullest nor giving enough. And so, on a whim, we decided to pack our backs and travel to Auroville in Puducherry. We spent three months there working at a natural farm and getting our hands dirty.”

This is the same Solitude Farm run by musician and organic farmer Krishna McKenzie, who moved to Auroville from the UK 25 years ago. Over 140 varieties of plants, ranging from wild greens, flowers, fruits, vegetables, oilseeds, cereals, grains, grams, and pulses, are grown across six acres of land. Read more about it here.

“The farm had a beautiful concept where the lunch for a particular day would be prepared using veggies harvested the same morning and served at the cafe. We would work at the farm in the morning and relish a heavy lunch cooked with the fresh veggies we harvested ourselves,” says Joshua.

Not only were these veggies at their maximum level of nutrition when consumed fresh but they gave them the energy to continue working in the farm without getting tired.

“We realised how food back home in Mumbai was sedative, doused with pesticides. Besides, the vegetables we consumed were off the shelf and at the very least, a week old, considering the harvest-to-transportation time,” says Sakina.

“When I ate lunch at the office, I felt sleepy at my work desk. Back in Auroville, we could work tirelessly even after lunch. This highlighted the crucial need for fresh food,” Joshua agrees.

After their return to Mumbai, the duo could hardly find anyone around them who grew and delivered fresh leafy green veggies.

And so, they decided to start growing their own leafy greens.

Joshua continues, “We are big-time lovers of salads. But we could hardly find any suppliers of clean, pesticide-free, leafy greens which could be consumed raw. Even the ones we consumed lacked flavour, often alternating between bland and bitter. And so, we decided to test hydroponic farming on Sakina’s terrace.”

The idea behind hydroponics was to avoid moving to the outskirts in search of land suitable for organic farming.

The goal was set. They wanted to grow fresh leafy greens in the middle of the chaotic city and consume them fresh.

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Varieties of Swiss Chard

The classic trial-and-error method ensued for months. Whoever they sought guidance from had nothing more to share apart from the basic principles of hydroponics.

But the duo did not give up. They conducted extensive researched and kept trying. This was coupled with the pressure from home about trudging down an unconventional road.

Once they succeeded in growing three varieties, they invited their parents for a tasting session. Although their labour was appreciated, the parental units were unsure how the youth would be consistent.

But they decided to support the youngsters and gave them initial capital to kickstart their indoor commercial farm in Andheri East.  

“I still remember how we made a 16-slide presentation to convince them to invest in our project. I don’t think they were convinced, but they had no option than to agree,” she laughs.

“With the customer base we have gathered and the farm that we have set up, they are now convinced we did not make the wrong choice,” says Joshua.

Christened Herbivore Farms, the concept behind the initiative is to make freshly harvested leafy greens available to their customers.

You May Also Like: Exclusive: UP’s Award-Winning Banana King Earns Rs 48 Lakh/Year, Becomes Idol For Farmers!

How is it beneficial?

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Hydroponic farming is water-efficient

The climate within the greenhouse is artificially controlled, so the crops are protected against the weather outside.

Hydroponics is soil-less farming, where macro and micronutrients dissolved within a water solution directly facilitate plant growth. The system uses 75-85 per cent less water than conventional farming!

Growing plants in a vertical system allows them to grow five times more. The only challenge currently is that since the food is delivered within hours of harvest, the locations they cater to are limited.

When I ask them how their venture stands apart from their competitors, Sakina quips, “We consider our USP to be that our produce is delivered to the customer’s home a few hours post-harvest. So it is always at its peak of freshness, nutrition, and flavour. Our indoor farm enables a clean, sterile environment, which has zero pesticides, so it’s 100 per cent safe. We use 80 per cent less water to grow our produce with a recirculating irrigation system.”

To market their produce, the duo also gave away free samples which received an amazing response.

Every week, they harvest 350 plant heads which cater to 150 customers who have a monthly subscription.

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Lettuce

A Herbivore Harvest Box (Monthly Subscription) costs Rs 1,500 (with extra delivery charges for South Mumbai) for one month. The deliveries are staggered over four weeks–one per week on a decided day–depending on the location of the subscriber.

Every week, this subscriber gets one box containing two to three varieties of leafy greens harvested the same morning.

“Most people who tried our produce conveyed how fresh and flavourful the leafy greens were, how different their texture was. Many of them subscribed to us soon after. It helped change their age-old perception of leafy veggies being ‘bitter’ or ‘bland’. And that was certainly morale-boosting for us. To be honest, I myself wasn’t such a big fan of greens until we started growing them ourselves,” signs off Sakina.

Also Read: Heights of Hydroponics: Meet the Chennai Man Who Grows 6,000 Plants in 80 Sq Ft Space!

To all the aspiring urban farmers who want to grow their own food, but often find excuses not to, Joshua has a message.

“Every time you wake up in the morning, you often have things on your bucket-list that you want to achieve before you die. You might often overthink about how much time you’d be wasting in pursuing those goals. In the process, you do not land up doing anything about them. So our message simply is–if you are passionate about what you want to do and know that you will enjoy it, just do it. The universe will conspire to remove all the obstacles in your path and everything will fall in place.”  

To know more about Herbivore Farms, contact them on 89280 94239. Check out their Facebook and Instagram accounts. To sign up for a monthly subscription of their produce, click here.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

Like this story? Or have something to share?
Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com
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Written by Jovita Aranha

A lover of people, cats, food, music, books & films. In that order. Binge-watcher of The Office & several other shows. A storyteller on her journey to document extraordinary stories of ordinary people.

Thorilex, LTD. Wants To Bring Aquaponic Innovations To The World

• JANUARY 23, 2019 | KYLE BALDOCK

From Fishermen To Commercial Scale Aquaponic Suppliers And Beyond

THORILEX is a testament to the evolution of food production. With a background in fishing and fish farming, the team came together in 2010 to bring aquaponic farming to the Czech Republic and then the world. Starting out as a consultancy firm, they soon developed into a more full-scale provider of services. By 2015, THORILEX, Ltd. was established as a designer and builder of turnkey fish farms, aquaponic and hydroponic farms.

Having scaled their business from fish farming to aquaponics with a proprietary recirculating aquaculture system, they looked around at the market and saw a big opportunity in vertical farming. I spoke with Marek Hrstka, THORILEX’s Business and Marketing Director to discuss the company’s success and plans for scaling business in the future.

THORILEX Aquaponic Design

THORILEX is making aquaponic innovation more accessible

2018 was a year of progress for THORILEX, as they designed and delivered new patented products. The THORILEX Hydroponic System, a modern vertical farming system that is adjustable and scalable for commercial-scale growing, is now available on their website. They are also offering a long-life hydroponic basket that is compatible with their growing system, as well as a stainless steel, self-cleaning fish tank.

THORILEX designs products with the “IKEA-model”: because they are designed to be highly modular, they can be easily packed, shipped and delivered with minimal costs. In this way, Mr. Hrstka says that THORILEX can bring these modern aquaponics innovations to markets across the world. Since last year, they have been busy implementing their hydroponic system in a pilot project in a 2ha glass greenhouse. This showcase farm allows them to produce food in a highly controlled environment, generating and collecting data to be made available in future case studies.

Aiming for the world

THORILEX thinks in the global scale. Already well-established as leaders in the Czech Republic, they are now anticipating interest from the rest of Europe, China and North America. Yet Mr. Hrstka remains humble: “We are proud of our know how but without our partners, supporters and distributors, we wouldn’t be doing what we are doing now.” That could give a clue to why THORILEX joined the AVF: “We are open to any cooperation or partnership. We are looking for really good partners and distributors; feel free to get in touch.”

Current case studies and a product catalogue can be found on their website here:

http://thorilex.com/

Their special product website is here:

http://www.a-verticalfarming.com/

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KYLE BALDOCK 

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Indoor Ag-Con Asia, Enterprise Singapore Announce 2019 Indoor Ag-Ignite Winners

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Three Startups Take Top Prizes at Indoor Agriculture Pitch Competition Held During 4th Annual Indoor Ag-Con Asia Event

SINGAPORE, SG (JANUARY 22, 2019)  – Indoor agriculture startups Biteback, Farmers Cut and Growers Agritech, LLC won top honors at the Indoor Ag-Ignite competition finals held during Indoor Ag-Con Asia, the premier event covering the technology of growing crops in indoor systems using hydroponic, aeroponic and aquaponic techniques, January 15-16, 2019 at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore. Designed to support entrepreneurs and find the most innovative new ideas globally in the fast-growing indoor agriculture industry, the competition was co-hosted by Indoor Ag-Con and its lead sponsor, Enterprise Singapore.

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Enterprise Singapore awarded a Startup SG Grant of S$50,000 to each winning team, including: (1) S$25,000 non-dilutive cash grant which can be utilized to accelerate commercialization efforts; (2)a further S$25,000 which can be converted into equity shares at the next round of fundraising. 

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Each winning team will also receive substrates and technical advice from Indoor Ag-Con Asia sponsor and exhibitor, Smithers-Oasis. The company's global expertise of the plant and flower business stretches from propagation to presentation --offering Indoor Ag-Ignite winners the chance to tap into a wealth of industry insight and knowledge.

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Pictured (L-R) -Indoor Ag-Ignite Judges Sarai Kemp, Trendlines Agtech; Michael Dean, AgFunder; Isabelle Decitre, ID Capital; Indoor Ag-Ignite Winners Mark Korzilius, Farmers Cut; Ser Yong Quek, Grower Agritech; Daniel Reigler, Biteback; and Edwin Chow, Enterprise Singapore

“New technologies and approaches are transforming indoor agriculture at a rapid clip and we want to do everything we can to help emerging entrepreneurs bring their ideas to market,” said Indoor Ag-Con Founder Nicola Kerslake. “This was our 2nd annual competition and we were especially pleased to see how interest has grown as evidenced by the number of entrants. Most important, we were thrilled to partner once again with Enterprise Singapore to unearth each of these incredibly promising startups."

“The agility and high-risk appetite of agri-food tech startups put them in the driver’s seat of disruptive technologies. Indoor Ag-Con Asia is a great place for these companies to connect with global agriculture experts, researchers and investors – for knowledge exchange and co-innovation opportunities. Enterprise Singapore is pleased to continue our support for Indoor Ag-Con Asia and Indoor Ag-Ignite in building a network of like-minded entrepreneurs who aspire to transform Asia’s agriculture landscape,” added Ms. Kee Ai Nah, Executive Director of Lifestyle & Consumer Cluster, Enterprise Singapore.
The Indoor Ag-Ignite competition was open to any team or company of under 40 employees developing or deploying innovative technologies for the indoor agriculture industry. Applicants were able to make their pitches via video chat for the initial round of the competition. Five finalists -- AlgaHealth, Biteback, Farmers Cut GmbH, Grower Agritech LLP, Growflux --received stipends towards travel to Singapore to participate in the finals. The judging panel included Michael Dean, AgFunder; Isabelle Decitre, ID Capital; Sarai Kemp, Trendlines Agtech and Edwin Chow, Enterprise Singapore
Indoor Ag-Ignite 2019 Competition winners are:

BITEBACK -- Biteback is an Insect Bio-refinery company aiming to meet an increasing global demand for palm oil by creating a healthier and more sustainable alternative with 40 times more yield per ha. Biteback has developed a processing technology that allows extraction of more than 90% of fats from insect body mass which is refined into various functional ingredient like cooking oil, butter, fatty alcohol, and bioenergy. 

FARMERS CUT GMBH -- Farmers Cut has started tackling the challenge of year round local food production by designing a sustainable system impervious to outdoor environmental conditions resulting in pesticide free, nutrient rich greens. The Farmers Cut vision is to provide local, healthy, fresh, pesticide-free produce to the urban population all year round

GROWER AGRITECH LLP – Specializing in the cultivation of high-value crops, Grower Agritech is a Singapore incorporated company with its management, agritech science team and executives from Singapore and Thailand. The company’s flagship project – Truffle Vertical Farm (TVF) – is a revolutionary technology to cultivate in- vitro, truffles species, indoors.
Indoor Ag-Con returns to  Las Vegas from  May 22-23, 2019 for its 7th Annual Indoor Ag-Con. which will be held at the Red Rock Resort & Conference Center.  For more information visit www.indoor.ag

ABOUT INDOOR AG-CON
Indoor Ag-Con was founded by Newbean Capital in 2013, and has since grown to the premier event in indoor agriculture, the practice of growing crops, raising fish and insects in indoor systems, using hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic techniques. Its events are tech-focused and crop-agnostic, covering produce, legal cannabis, alternate protein and non-food crops. It hosts events in Las Vegas, Singapore and the US East Coast. In December 2018, three event industry professionals – Nancy Hallberg, Kris Sieradzki and Brian Sullivan – purchased Indoor Ag-Con LLC from Newbean Capital, so setting the stage for further expansion of the events globally. More information -- www.indoor.ag

ABOUT ENTERPRISE SINGAPORE
Enterprise Singapore is the government agency championing enterprise development. Its vision for Singapore is a vibrant economy with globally competitive Singapore enterprises. International Enterprise Singapore and SPRING came together on 1 April 2018 as a single agency to form Enterprise Singapore. The mission is to grow stronger Singapore companies by building capabilities and accessing global opportunities, thereby creating good jobs for Singaporeans. Enterprise Singapore works with committed companies to build capabilities, innovate and internationalize. The agency also also supports the growth of Singapore as a hub for global trading and startups. As the national standards and accreditation body Enterprise Singapore continues to build trust in Singapore’s products and services through quality and standards. More information -- www.enterprisesg.gov.sg 

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