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Artificial Intelligence And Controlled Environment Agriculture
As the role of controlled environment growing increases in agriculture, so does the opportunity for artificial intelligence. But can AI replace the human touch? Kent Gruetzmacher investigates
Kent Gruetzmacher | July 15, 2019
Takeaway: As the role of controlled environment growing increases in agriculture, so does the opportunity for artificial intelligence. But can AI replace the human touch? Kent Gruetzmacher investigates.
As both a process and vocation, controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is intimately entwined with technology. As CEA gets increasingly sophisticated through technological advancements, how these developments will affect horticultural processes and, in turn, world food supplies, remains largely unknown. At the forefront of new frontiers in CEA technology lies artificial intelligence (AI), which can potentially forever change the way humankind procures fresh produce, largely by replacing human labor with mechanized production.
We live in a world increasingly dependent upon, and defined by, technology. This notion rings true in almost every facet of day-to-day life in the 21st century, including communication, entertainment, and work. Similarly, for those living in the Western world, this same technology contributes to meeting our general human needs, as food is readily available for most people at grocery stores and beyond. Yet, our current food subsistence patterns are far from infallible and the technologies that make commercial agriculture possible are falling short on several fronts.
These shortcomings are evident in pesticide- and preservative-laden food sources as well as hungry human populations in less-fortunate regions of the globe.
Over the last few decades, CEA production has grown leaps and bounds in its scale and capabilities. Many believe CEA practices such as urban agriculture and vertical farming will eventually help resolve global food crises. This positive outlook is largely because of technological advancements in “smart” environmental controls and LED lighting, which have made CEA production viable, as well as profitable, on a commercial scale for the first time.
Sophisticated irrigation systems have also drastically reduced the amount of human labor required in propagating crops. For many CEA advocates and technology authorities, AI is the next phase in streamlining and sophisticating agricultural procedure as well as global subsistence patterns.
Why Artificial Intelligence?
There are several reasons why AI has so much potential in the world of CEA. These reasons mainly have to do with notions of horticultural processes and labor efficiency. Today, automation is already an essential element in most CEA growing, and its benefits are related to both consistency and efficiency in operations. For example, smart controllers take much of the guesswork out of troubleshooting environmental issues, while fertigation systems accomplish irrigation in a controlled and effective fashion.
Artificial intelligence has the capabilities to take these advancements even further.
Technology authorities postulate that AI can potentially circumvent human interaction with horticultural processes and garden maintenance almost in their entirety. According to agfundernews.com: “Hypothetically, it is possible for machines to learn to solve any problem on Earth relating to the physical interaction of all things within a defined or contained environment… by using artificial intelligence and machine learning.” The important take away here is the idea AI systems can learn as well as make choices based on the objective constraints that dictate rational human decision making.
Concerning both production and labor, this avant garde theory pushes notions of CEA automation to their absolute extremes. This AI learning concept postulates robots would be at the controls of environmental and irrigation systems that currently require human intervention in the way of fine tuning and decision making. Also, AI could circumvent human error from these processes by removing the human labor needed to grow CEA crops.
While these ultramodern appraisals of AI and CEA cultivation can seem somewhat alarming, many see a real potential benefit in the technology, namely because humans are, well, undependable. The industry is traditionally plagued by labor shortages in jobs that aren’t very attractive to even the most entry-level employees. Many companies, in CEA and beyond, understand the struggles of finding dependable help for their businesses, with tech retail giant Amazon currently employing more than 40,000 robots in its warehouse operations.
In agriculture, there are several robots being developed that can handle more rudimentary CEA garden chores such as leaf pruning. When it comes to AI learning applications and high-level jobs in CEA, it’s worth noting even the most rudimentary human error in fertilization or irrigation can have devastating effects on crops. Large vertical farming companies are aware of this and are currently implementing AI help in certain facets of their operations.
Read also: Automation Options for Outdoor Soil Gardens
Sensors and Data Analytics
Artificial intelligence applications in CEA are entirely data driven — machines both gather, as well as use, this information as the basis of machine learning. This sort of remote sensing, data compiling technology is already widely popular in more advanced CEA operations, especially regarding soil and air sensors. These technological advancements are used to measure moisture levels in grow mediums, and temperature and humidity levels in the air, and give cultivators real-time updates on the working analytics of their operations.
Commercial agriculture operations are taking notions of remote sensors and data analytics to the extreme by way of drone sensing. Some commercial farms use drones to fly over fields of crops and take precise readings of growth patterns and environmental conditions. This data informs growers, in real time, what sort of elements their garden is lacking or burdened with — allowing them to make proactive decisions in counteracting potential problems.
For the time being, drone technology in commercial agriculture is still being utilized to inform rational decision-making in the human mind — but many feel these processes would be integral with informing data matrices in the “minds” of AI machines.
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Potential advances, as well as drawbacks, of AI applications for CEA can be drawn from current mainstream research — such as with IBM — into the technology’s capabilities regarding commercial agriculture. agfundernews.com reports: “Interviews with some of the IBM project team members … revealed that the team believed it was entirely possible to ‘algorithm’ agriculture, meaning that algorithms could solve any problem in the world.”
While IBM’s claims are grandiose and positive in nature, they are not entirely unreasonable. Major computer tech companies such as Google and Pandora already utilize algorithms to isolate relevant data, make decisions, and cater to human needs. However, all these algorithmic applications depend upon objectively derived, predictable points of data in informing the machine learning process.
When it comes to creating algorithms for agriculture, researchers have been running into countless problems stemming from the unpredictability of the natural world. There are countless variables contributing to weather patterns around the globe; the nuances of these factors are far beyond the scope of human understanding. This notion is relevant because humankind cannot program machines to learn about environmental systems that we don’t yet understand, and AI cannot make the critical step in accounting for anomalous factors in weather or crop production. Therefore, our technology is only as strong as the data we supply it with via our own knowledge.
While issues with environmental predictability that plague AI applications in traditional agriculture may not seem to affect CEA production as intensely, there are still factors that make AI fall short in controlling CEA growing in its entirety. For instance, many greenhouse gardens are still largely at the mercy of Mother Nature and present challenges with anomalous weather patterns.
Similarly, indoor growing operations experience problems with such irregularities as equipment failure and power outages, which only human intervention can fix.
Controlled environment agriculture crop production is only as strong as the equipment and human labor supporting it, so the balance between these two continues to shift under the pressures of new advancements with technology such as AI. This notion presents an interesting crux in modern cultivation processes, as automation can provide a more efficient platform for consistency than with human labor. However, machines cannot account for the rhythms of the natural world or other operational variances.
Many accomplished horticulturists understand the intuitive touch it takes to produce exceptional crops — this intuition comes as a feeling rather than as a form of objective knowledge or data. AI and other technological advancements in CEA growing have their place in today’s horticultural processes, yet cannot match the capacity for creativity explicit in the human mind.
Written by Kent Gruetzmacher
Kent Gruetzmacher is a California-based freelance writer and the west coast director of business development at Mac & Fulton Executive Search and Consulting, an employment recruiting firm dedicated to the indoor gardening and hydroponics industries. He is interested in utilizing his Master of Arts in humanities to explore the many cultural and business facets of this emerging industry by way of his entrepreneurial projects.
Automation Sets Its Sights On Agriculture, With "Civilization" Hanging In the Balances
Indoor farms are now producing food at quantities that may have them competing with conventional farms in the near future
By Innovation & Tech Today | Jul 18, 2019
Arguably, the most vital science known to civilization is that of agriculture.
Even at its most primitive stages, society could not exist without a source of food for those in it. Likewise, cultures with the most accessibility to food historically tend to be the most prosperous. Given this plight, farming has always been a key area for the focus of scientific advancement, from Roman aqueducts to horse-driven plows. The high-tech 21st century is no exception, and moreover poses an unparalleled need for agricultural innovation.
7.5 BILLION AND COUNTING
With a global population of 7.5 billion people and rising, the farming industry must modernize not only to provide sustenance on such a scale, but also to do so economically. Opportunely, various means of improving the farming system are on the rise, most conforming to a field typically referred to as automated agriculture. Automated agriculture encompasses a hybrid of computer automation, robotics, and the traditional agrarian lifestyle, with the aspiration of increasing food availability while decreasing the cost of production.
The exact origins of automated agriculture are debatable, as some remotely controlled farming systems, such as automatic sprinklers, have been utilized for generations. The notion of automated agriculture as a standalone enterprise nonetheless began when manufacturing legend John Deere publicly released its AutoTrac tractor guidance system in 2002, the first commercially available GPS setup of its kind. This rudimentary system allowed for the automated planting and harvesting of fields based on predefined coordinate paths, though still required some manual command from a driver, and was scarcely as precise as desired.
In spite of its imperfections, the AutoTrac was a massive success and would go on to refine its ability to operate a tractor with little to no human control. Through the AutoTrac, Deere had begun popularizing the craft of precision agriculture (or precision ag), a term first coined to encompass the fusion of information technology and agriculture. In the years following, precision ag would grow exponentially, establishing new methods to automate duties that were previously burdensome and time consuming. Mechanization would eventually become commonplace for irrigation, soil analysis, application of nutrients (known as Variable Rate Farming), yield assessment, and countless other tasks critical to farm management.
Although the rapid realization of farming mechanization was unquestionably game changing, full-fledged automation had yet to be reached – that is, until the introduction of smart technology. Devices such as iPhones and tablets would finally give farmers a means of operating advanced systems in a convenient, all-in-one format that would at last give birth to true automated agriculture.
NOT JUST “SMART” TECH
The scope of automated agriculture has since gone far beyond its inception of using smart technology to optimize machinery. Rather, it’s now seeking to turn machinery itself into smart technology. At the forefront of this mission is the ongoing development of what is possibly automated agriculture’s most ambitious project yet: the autonomous tractor. A member of the up-and-coming family of autonomous vehicles, these tractors could further revolutionize the trade by removing the need for manual tractor operation in its entirety.
The usual big names such as John Deere and Case IH are particularly invested in this idea, delivering promises in recent years that fully autonomous tractors are on the near horizon. However, despite much promotion, there remains no sign of industry leaders releasing robotic tractors any time soon. This of course does not imply that autonomous tractors are completely out of reach, in large part due to the budding agricultural company Smart Ag and their flagship product AutoCart. Debuted at the 2018 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, AutoCart intends to deliver the first fully functioning autonomous tractor technology to the consumer market.
AutoCart is not a tractor in itself, but rather a system to modify preexisting equipment for complete automation. The mean unit price is set at $37,500, and those who placed the first available pre-orders in late 2018 should expect to receive theirs by the spring of 2019. As idealistic as the autonomous tractor may be, the concept has yet to face the ultimate test of what leverage it currently has to offer to the average farmer, leaving the future of the driverless tractor currently unclear.
Traditional farms, while having been responsible for devising automated agriculture, are not alone in enjoying the rewards of such innovations: in an ironic turn of events, automated agriculture would become responsible for enabling the rapid growth of indoor farming. Indoor farming, as its name implies, involves agricultural production in an indoor, and often urban, environment.
As farmlands far and wide reaped the benefits of precision agriculture, and eventually automated agriculture, these same technologies were being modified to raise crops in closets, garages, and warehouses. Predictably, the early days of modern indoor farming were often focused on the marijuana trade; however, it was not long before its larger potential for agricultural advancement was realized. Indoor farms are now producing food at quantities that may have them competing with conventional farms in the near future.
Furthermore, the employment of automation gives indoor farming an indispensible advantage in that every component of the process can be automated, some of which, including light exposure and climate, are fundamentally uncontrollable in an outdoor setting. With such prospects for growth and sustainability, regardless of evolving outdoor equipment such as autonomous tractors, the automated future of agriculture could very well be enclosed in walls rather than sprawling across plains.
Farming is an ancient industry, one that has undergone innumerable changes for millennia, always in the interest in allowing for food to become more abundant and affordable. These adaptations and innovations are undeniably always tied to the steady progression of humankind and how it chooses to organize itself. Much like how breakthroughs during the industrial revolution allowed for the development of the plow, it seems that the computer era has found its analogue in automated agriculture.
Farms are becoming more efficient thanks to automated technologies like robotics and GPS, enabling substantial quantities of crops to be produced at unprecedentedly decreased costs and labor. Amidst these current renovations are the looming future of automated agriculture: the inevitability of autonomous tractors and large-scale indoor farms. While the total supply of food on Earth remains relatively limited, the debut of automated agriculture indicates a great deal of both advancement and hope in the future of food production.
The post How Automation is Revolutionizing Agriculture appeared first on Innovation & Tech Today.
California: Inconsistent Lettuce Production Elevating Market
The California lettuce deal has been a challenge lately as growers battle with varying weather conditions and the consequences related to this
The California lettuce deal has been a challenge lately as growers battle with varying weather conditions and the consequences related to this. Right now prices are high with volume not consistent enough to maintain any decent momentum. Growers say the situation is not likely to be resolved for a few more weeks at least.
"The market has been elevated for the past couple of weeks and looks set to continue for at least the next two to three weeks," observed Mark McBride of Coastline Family Farms. "It's all related to the extremely hot days we had in early to mid June, when we reached 105 degrees here in the Salinas Valley. In addition to it being hot during the day, overnight temperatures were also very warm. So all the lettuce that was harvested and is still being harvested has shown signs of stress."
Small and large sized lettuce
One of the side effects of the heat has been the reaction of the plants. Some have grown "large and wild", as McBride described, while others are producing smaller heads. This is having a direct impact on yields and one of the primary drivers of the market right now. It's also causing a few problems for processors that are sourcing lettuce for salad and other products.
"The heat dramatically affected the plants," McBride said. "Some responded by making smaller heads, while some became large and 'wild'. Neither of these lend themselves well to packing and it has disrupted the pounds per acre measure for some of the processors. Volume has been up and down, with some weeks producing a lot of volume while other weeks are very light."
Prices are high
As mentioned, lettuce prices are quite high at the moment and the expectation is for it to stay that way for a few more weeks. As with most regions in the United States, California has been subject to some unusual weather patterns this year, which has created a challenge for growers.
"Out of all the lettuces, iceberg has probably been the most affected by the variable weather, followed closely by Romaine and also Green Leaf lettuce," McBride shared. "Right now, prices for Green Leaf are between $22 - $26. Romaine is similar, between $24 - $26, and for Icebergs, market prices are between $34 - $37."
For more information:
Mark McBride
Coastline Family Farms
Ph: +1 (831) 755-1430
mark@coastlinefamilyfarms.com
www.coastlinefamilyfarms.com
Publication date: 7/15/2019
Author: Dennis Rettke
© FreshPlaza.com
NatureFresh™ Farms Reveals New Unveiled Mini Cucumbers
The Unveiled Mini Cucumber is unique to its category, offering a new look with an extra crunch
Leamington, ON (July 12, 2019) - NatureFresh™ Farms takes their Cucumber lineup to the next level with the launch of the new Unveiled Mini Cucumbers.
The Unveiled Mini Cucumber is unique to its category, offering a new look with an extra crunch. A Cucumber highlighted by its pale complexion and the refreshing flavor expected from its class. These mid-sized beauties are ideal for snacks or appetizers adding a flash of color with a satisfying crunch in every bite.
NatureFresh™ Farms has always been focused on searching for new products that stand out in flavor, quality and appearance. By trialing unique varieties in our greenhouses, they continue to discover different levels of innovation within the industry. Dedicated to research and development, NatureFresh™ Farms is excited for their future with the continuous expansion of their team, their advancements in technology and product innovation allowing them to provide fresh produce all year round.
As a company that seeks to develop new products in produce categories, NatureFresh™ Farms believes there continues to be tremendous growth potential for retailers in North America on the entire Cucumber segment. “Retailers are always looking for exciting innovations and new ways to drive categories, sales and enhance the flavor offering for their consumers. Until now, most of the seed variety innovation has revolved around the Tomato category. Our new Unveiled Mini Cucumber will help deliver some excitement for consumers and retailers alike!” explained Executive Retail Sales Account Manager; Matt Quiring. “When our discovery team first saw the Unveiled Mini Cucumber, we were attracted to the unique complexion of the product, however after tasting it, we knew instantly that there was something more to it than just looks and wanted to take this variety to the next level and go to market.”
“This is the crunchiest Cucumber you'll ever taste!” shared Registered Dietitian Taylor Bailey. “Cucumbers are high in water, and a source of fibre and antioxidants, which makes them ideal for healthy snacking while standing out with its seemingly invisible skin and delicious crunch. The Unveiled Cucumbers are definitely a dietitian approved snack!”
Learn more here: https://www.instagram.com/tv/Bz0mbjBFvYq/
US, Massachusetts: Urban Agriculture: Keeping Worcester Fresh
What comes to mind when you think of agriculture? Do you envision sprawling tracts of land in a rural area farmed by generations of farmers? Or do you envision neighbors in a city tending a small parcel of land to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for friends and families? Why not both?
BY MARK A. BORENSTEIN • JUNE 24, 2019
What comes to mind when you think of agriculture? Do you envision sprawling tracts of land in a rural area farmed by generations of farmers? Or do you envision neighbors in a city tending a small parcel of land to produce fresh fruits and vegetables for friends and families? Why not both?
On January 30, 2019, the City of Worcester joined many other large U.S. cities when the City Council adopted urban agriculture zoning regulations aimed at promoting urban-scale farming and agricultural uses. With the input of passionate community members, the City’s Planning staff developed regulations to provide a comprehensive framework encompassing all stages of urban agriculture, from the siting of farms or gardens to the sale of products.
The zoning regulations’ greatest attribute is their flexibility. The regulations provide for both large and small operations and uses that are primary or accessory in nature.
The zoning regulations provide for three primary uses:
Community Gardens – Small-scale gardens (less than 5,000 s.f.) for the use of individuals, neighborhoods and non-profit organizations to grow produce for personal consumption.
Urban Farms – Larger agricultural operations (between 5,000 s.f. and 2 acres) intended for commercial purposes.
Farmers’ Markets – Temporary markets for local producers to sell their products.
In addition to the primary uses, the zoning regulations permit farm stands, yard gardens and on-site composting as accessory uses. Yard gardens (less than 2,500 s.f.) are required to be accessory to a residential use and primarily for personal consumption. Farm stands are permitted as accessory to urban farm and yard garden uses.
Despite the relatively permissive nature of the zoning regulations, the City included safeguards to protect neighbors and the community from being adversely impacted by these operations. For example, community gardens are permitted as of right in all zoning districts, while urban farms are generally permitted in all zoning districts except certain residential districts where the use requires a special permit from the Planning Board. The special permit requirement for urban farms provides an opportunity for the Planning Board and the City to examine the proposed urban farm use to ensure that the use remains in harmony with the surrounding neighborhood. Moreover, urban farms, community gardens and farmers’ markets are required to be operated in accordance with all food, health, soil safety, water and other applicable regulations.
While the enactment of these zoning regulations is a big step toward promoting urban agriculture in Worcester, it important to note that urban agriculture is not new to the City. Many of Worcester’s non-profit organizations, such as the Regional Environmental Council and Worcester Common Ground, have been operating community gardens for years and have experienced tremendous success within the community. By clarifying the standards for agricultural activities and farmers’ markets, the City has made it easier for urban farmers to begin operations and sell products, which will make fresh, healthy and sustainable food more accessible to residents of Worcester and the surrounding towns.
CATEGORIZED: Environmental, Policies, Zoning
TAGGED IN: community gardens, farmers markets, farming, urban agriculture, urban farms, zoning
About the Authors
Is Vertical Farming Really the Future of Agriculture?
Indoor, LED-lit growing operations produce food without soil or sunlight — but scaling up could prove difficult
Indoor, LED-Lit Growing Operations Produce Food
Without Soil or Sunlight — But Scaling Up Could Prove Difficult
By Steve Holt July 3, 2018
A vertical farming setup from farm.one | Photo courtesy of farm.one
This story was originally published on Civil Eats.
By now, the images of shelves full of perfect greens in hulking warehouses, stacked floor to ceiling in sterile environs and illuminated by high-powered LED lights, have become familiar. Food futurists and industry leaders say these high-tech vertical farming operations are the future of agriculture — able to operate anywhere, virtually invincible against pests, pathogens, and poor weather, and producing local, fresh, high-quality, lower-carbon food year-round.
That future seemed one step closer to reality last year when San Francisco-based indoor farming startup Plenty, which grows a variety of salad and leafy greens hydroponically (without soil) and uses artificial lighting in facilities in three locations, announced that it had raised a whopping $200 million in funding from the SoftBank Vision Fund, whose investors include Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.
Flush with cash, Plenty quickly opened a 100,000-square-foot indoor farm outside Seattle that promised to produce 4.5 million pounds of greens annually—and testing some varieties not yet grown for the masses at scale, such as strawberries and tomatoes, at its research and development farm in Wyoming. To Plenty’s leadership and many observers, the cash influx signaled the economic promise of growing food indoors without sunlight and with less soil and water than field farming.
“My reaction [to the $200 million round] was both that of validation, excitement,” said Matt Barnard, Plenty’s co-founder and CEO, over a manner of farming he says yields 350 times the produce per acre on one percent of the water used by dirt farming. “Now we must move with speed and efficiency if we’re to accomplish our mission of bringing people worldwide an experience that’s healthier for them and the planet.”
Not everyone is in agreement.
“My first thought was, ‘we could build a lot of greenhouses for $200 million,’” recalls Neil Mattson, a professor of plant science at Cornell and one of the country’s leading academic voices on indoor agriculture, who’s found that high-tech greenhouses that harness sunlight are more cost- and carbon-friendly than vertical farms that use artificial light.
Most vertical farmers are only hoping to claim a percentage of the conventional produce market, not replace it. To these founders and their investors, the market for lettuce and greens, especially — grown primarily in California and Arizona and shipped worldwide — is ripe for disruption. E. colioutbreaks like the one that hit Arizona-grown romaine lettuce earlier this year, killing a handful of people and sickening hundreds, only further their case.
But behind futurists’ fervent predictions about indoor agriculture, claims about product quality, and sexy technology lies a reality known by industry insiders but too often missing from media coverage: The future success of this nascent industry is still very much an open question.
The astronomical capital costs associated with starting a large hydroponic farm (compared to field and greenhouse farming), its reliance on investor capital and yet-to-be-developed technology, and challenges around energy efficiency and environmental impact make vertical farming anything but a sure bet. And even if vertical farms do scale, there’s no clear sense of whether brand-loyal consumers, en masse, will make the switch from field-grown produce to foods grown indoors.
Tricky Economics
Walking into any supermarket will reveal a small mountain of salad greens, carrying a price tag of between $9 and $12 per pound. They may be locally grown or organic, which will add $0.50 or $1 to the price tag. Meanwhile, a 4.5-ounce carton of Massachusetts-based FreshBox Farms’ spring mix—grown in the company’s hydroponic farm in Massachusetts—costs $3.99 for a 4-ounce box, or $15.96 per pound. Or kale: the conventional variety will run you $1.33 per pound at Walmart; organic kale costs around $4.99 per pound at Whole Foods; and vertically farmed kale grown at Newark, New Jersey-based AeroFarms will cost you a whopping $14.18 per pound.
That dramatic price gap is due to the millions of dollars currently needed to build one large indoor vertical farm — and that price is not going to drop until the industry scales up. Agritecture Consulting, whose clients include current and prospective indoor farms, estimates that a 30,000-square-foot vertical farm growing leafy greens and herbs in the tri-state area around New York City requires nearly $4 million in startup capital—not including labor.
They should know: In 2016, Agritecture built farm.one in Manhattan’s TriBeCa neighborhood, which supplies hydroponic greens and edible flowers to a number of the city’s top restaurants. Chefs have been quick to catch onto the value of consistent, year-round, locally grown produce.
In 2016, AeroFarms, now considered an industry leader, spent $30 million on its flagship aeroponic farm in Newark. The majority of these costs lie in the equipment needed to grow greens without soil or sunlight—heating and cooling systems, ventilation, shading, environmental controls, and lights.
All of these costs add up to a hefty electricity bill: According to models compiled for Civil Eats by Agritecture, a 30,000-square-foot vertical farm in metro New York City should budget upwards of $216,000 annually for lighting and power, and another $120,000 on HVAC systems; costs will vary region to region depending on what each state charges for electricity.
Energy and equipment costs are, by far, the largest drivers of expenses that can bring the price of operating a vertical farm close to $27 per square foot. By contrast, Agritecture’s models show that the cost to run a 100,000-square-foot smart greenhouse is roughly a third as expensive, thanks to the use of natural sunlight and more advanced automation.
An LED-lit indoor farming operation | Photo courtesy of Agritecture
Vertical farms’ energy usage carries a significant carbon footprint. While vertical farm companies promise more-sustainable produce by growing it closer to consumers and using renewable energy to power their operations, the industry still has a long row to hoe.
Industry leaders acknowledge the energy challenges in the short term, yet tout continually improving lighting technology that has brought down costs. But Mattson, whose Cornell team studies the way plants respond to different lighting, predicts a plateau coming for improvements to LED technology.
“The best LEDs are 40 percent more energy efficient than in 2014,” Mattson says. “There continue to be improvements; however, those improvements will start to slow down over time. There’s only a finite amount of light you can generate at a given wavelength, and in 2022, I’m not expecting new lights to be 40 percent more efficient than the current lights now.”
FreshBox Farms began shipping greens from its 40,000-square-foot hydroponic facility in Millis, Massachusetts, in 2015. The warehouse farm, located 30 miles outside of Boston, runs on a combination of renewable energy and non-renewables, and CFO Dave Vosburg admits his company is “not doing any better” than field-grown greens when it comes to carbon usage.
When it eventually expands outside of Massachusetts, Vosberg says that by introducing a cogeneration system—technology that recycles otherwise wasted heat into new energy—FreshBox Farms will eventually keep costs and carbon emissions down in expensive markets like Connecticut, where commercial users pay an average of more than 14 cents per kilowatt-hour. But Vosburg says the company’s priority is to use contextually appropriate renewable energy sources to power the farms, such as wind energy in the Midwest, hydro in the Northwest, and solar in the Southwest.
“Yes, it sounds crazy to take the sun and turn it into electricity and turn that electricity back into light. It sounds ridiculous, but that’s what we’ll be doing,” Vosburg says. “It’ll be really efficient and clean and create a better product, and it won’t have the same carbon impact that we’re having today.”
And energy isn’t even a vertical farm’s top ongoing expense. The companies Civil Eats spoke to say labor is actually their largest budget item. Vertical farms typically pay workers higher, more metropolitan pay rates than both dirt farms—many of which rely heavily on migrant labor—and the more automated smart greenhouses. The fast-food chain Wendy’s announced in June that it plans to source vine-ripened tomatoes exclusively from greenhouse farms by early 2019.
Moreover, no matter how automated the indoor growing system is, vertical farmers are discovering the constant need for a human eye—or several—on the process. In fact, some estimate that if indoor agriculture continues to grow at the pace it has in recent years, vertical farms will have to hire 100,000 workers over the next decade.
That continued growth is not a given, however. Because of the high cost to launch, operate, and scale up a vertical farming operation, the industry is highly leveraged, with each new farm requiring tens of millions of dollars in investor capital before it can grow a single plant. Between 2016 and 2017, investments in vertical farming skyrocketed 653 percent, from $36 million to $271 million. The lion’s share of that investment went to Plenty, but Newark-based AeroFarms has raised $80 million in recent years and New Jersey’s Bowery Farming added another $27 million.
Just last week, Manhattan-based BrightFarms announced it had raised $55 million. Shoppers can now find produce grown indoors by more than 23 large vertical farms in more than 20 supermarket chains in nearly every major metropolitan area in the country, according to Agritecture.
While industry leaders say scaling offers the best hope for profitability in this business, many vertical farms have encountered problems when they began planning to add additional production facilities. Before Atlanta-based PodPonics closed its doors in 2016, executives from the five-year-old hydroponic farm startup met with executives from supermarket chain Kroger.
A vertical farming operation from farm.one | Photo courtesy of farm.one
Kroger indicated that it was ready to purchase 25 million pounds of produce from PodPonics annually if it would build the facilities to support that kind of production, founder Matt Liotta told a crowd at the 2017 Aglanta Conference. According to Liotta, who said PodPonics had lowered the cost to produce a pound of lettuce to $1.36, Whole Foods and Fresh Market also expressed interest in bringing PodPonics greens into their stores nationally.
“This was our wildest dream,” Liotta said. “Then we realized how much capital that was going to require, how many people we were going to have to hire. Every retailer told us the same thing: ‘We will buy it if you will build it.’ We realized we were incapable of building everything that they wanted.”
Unproven Demand for Food Grown Indoors
In early 2016, researchers from the University of Illinois-Urbana set out to determine whether consumers would spring for produce grown indoors. They asked a panel of 117 participants a series of questions about their perceptions of and willingness to pay for lettuce grown in fields, greenhouses, and in vertical farms. While vertical farming ranked fairly high in terms of produce quality and safety, the tech-heavy production method was rated less “natural” than both field farming and greenhouse and ranked last in participants’ willingness to purchase it.
For the vertical agriculture industry to eat into the profits of field-grown products—a roughly $140 billion industry—Agritecture Consulting founder and managing director Henry Gordon-Smith says it will first need to prove consumers are demanding produce grown indoors. He points out that because of a lack of demand, many vertical farming operations are not yet at full production year-round—despite touting the 12-month growing season as a main benefit of the industry.
His sense is that indoor farms that have achieved the sales to produce continually—such as Gotham Greens has with its New York City greenhouses, for example—have a customer base that’s responding to strong “local” branding rather than the technology behind the food. That may include vertical farms selling their produce using the USDA Certified Organic label, which the National Organic Board reaffirmed in January, much to the dismay of many organic dirt farmers.
“I think the automation and economics are all improving,” Gordon-Smith says, adding that the question of “whether consumers are going to pay more or whether the products coming out of vertical farms are going to align with their values” is still an open question.
But while many of the East Coast vertical farms built their business models around replacing greens being shipped cross-country from California and Arizona, Matt Barnard of Plenty hopes to add to the global population consuming fresh produce. A 2015 report found that where USDA guidelines suggest each of us in the U.S. should eat up to three cups of vegetables daily, current U.S. production is only providing enough for 1.7 cups per person. Barnard extends that supply gap to the rest of the world, especially the Middle East and Asia, where a lack of water and high pollution have hampered agriculture.
Tending to a vertical farm from SF-based startup Plenty | Photo courtesy of Plenty
“We believe the industry will be five times larger when there is supply to meet the demand,” Barnard says. “With the field unable to deliver consistent supply, new forms of agricultural capacity like Plenty must be added to the global food system.”
But as vertical farming companies like Plenty go city by city attempting to dominate local markets, it may be that small farmers get hurt the most. Barnard drew the ire of Washington State dirt farmers last year when he told GeekWire that Plenty expanded to Seattle, in part, because it was the West Coast’s “best example of a large community of people who really don’t have much access to any fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally.”
Not so, according to Sofia Gidlund, Farm Programs Manager at Tilth Alliance, which advocates for and supports local agriculture systems in Greater Seattle.
“We work with many hardworking local farmers who supply Seattle with high-quality, delicious, and nutritious food while caring deeply for our land. These farmers use sustainable farming practices, nurse the soil, create beautiful open green space and provide wildlife habitat,” says Gidlund, who adds that she does not speak for all area farmers on the issue of vertical farming. “Many consumers in Seattle choose to support local farmers, both urban or rural, because of this deep connection to the land. Providing that support is a point of pride for many Seattleites.”
Actual Data Is Coming
Peer-reviewed research into the business of vertical farming has been sparse, partly because the industry is so new. That’s set to change, however, when Mattson and a team of researchers at Cornell University finish a comprehensive study into the viability of this approach.
A three-year, $2.4 million research grant, which is funded by the National Science Foundation and kicked off in January, will compare the vertical farming industry to field agriculture in a slew of categories, including energy, carbon, and water footprints, profitability, workforce development, and scalability. The study will include one of the first nutritional analyses of food grown indoors, as well as comparing the price-per-pound to deliver strawberries, lettuce, and tomatoes grown vertically and outdoors to five U.S. metropolitan areas: New York City, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Atlanta.
A 2016 study conducted by a few of Mattson’s colleagues at Cornell found that the energy consumption and carbon footprint associated with a vertical farm (the study calls it a “plant factory”) is significantly higher than that of a greenhouse. Vertical farming leaders counter that they use significantly less water than field farms, are more space-efficient, and do not produce emissions from trucking produce across the country. Mattson says these factors were not considered in Cornell’s previous research but will be included in the current grant.
“[Vertical farming] is not a fad,” says Mattson, who wants to use data to help the industry become more sustainable over time. “I’m not sure to what degree it’s going to scale up, but this is happening. So we need to understand the economic and environmental implications— both the good and the bad.”
Grocery Giant Kroger Updates Pesticide Policy
In effort to protect pollinators, Kroger will stop sourcing plants treated with neonicotinoids by 2020
Jacqui Fatka | Jul 01, 2019
In Effort to Protect Pollinators, Kroger Will Stop Sourcing Plants
Treated With Neonicotinoids by 2020.
Kroger released an update to its pollinator policy encouraging suppliers to move away from pesticides and adopt alternative pest management.
“We recognize the global honeybee population is vulnerable, with research indicating that causes may include the use of certain pesticides, including neonicotinoids. Due to the potential risk to the honeybee population, we support and encourage efforts to protect these pollinator species,” Kroger said in its updated policy.
Related: California bans pesticide chlorpyrifos
As part of the policy, Kroger said it is committed to eliminating the sourcing of live outdoor plants that have been treated with pesticides containing neonicotinoids in its stores and garden centers by 2020. This commitment is inclusive of outdoor plants known to be pollinated by honeybees or known to attract honeybees.
Today, the majority of live plant sales in Kroger’s garden center and outdoor floral selection are not treated with neonicotinoids during the growing process. “Our suppliers are actively seeking alternative options for the remaining products, and we are committed to working with them to ensure proper alternatives have been identified by 2020. We will also track, measure and report on our progress against this commitment,” Kroger said.
Related: EPA has 90 days to decide on chlorpyrifos ban
The grocer added that it supports the expansion of the organic food industry and will continue to offer its customers organic products.
Kroger also said it will keep informed of new science. “Kroger will rely on the expertise of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, other scientific experts and our stakeholders to evaluate further updates to this policy,” it said.
Friends of the Earth and other environmental, consumer, beekeeper and farmworker groups have pressured Kroger for more than three years to eliminate the use of the pesticides, and they called the announcement a “small but robust victory.”
“This is a step in the right direction to protect people and pollinators from toxic pesticides in Kroger’s supply chain,” said Tiffany Finck-Haynes, pesticides and pollinators program manager at Friends of the Earth. “However, this policy is non-binding and vague. We urge Kroger and other top food retailers to do their part in addressing the pollinator crisis by making clear, time-bound commitments to phase out chlorpyrifos, neonicotinoids, glyphosate and other toxic pesticides throughout their entire food supply chains.”
Costco similarly updated its pesticide policy to encourage suppliers of fruits, vegetables and garden plants to phase out the use of chlorpyrifos and neonicotinoids.
The Steep Climb Of Vertical Farms And Where Urban Ag Might Be Revolutionary
Will this technology revolutionize the way customers access fresh produce? Is this a big deal for sustainability?
By Marc Brazeau | June 13th 2019
Comes the news that the British online food retailer Ocado is making major investments in two vertical farming companies.
this week in a bid to become what it described as “a leader in the newly emerging vertical farming industry”. First, the company’s ventures arm has signed a three-way joint venture deal with 80 Acres Farms and Priva Holding. 80 Acres and Priva have been working together for over four years to design turnkey solutions to sell to vertical farming clients worldwide, with forecast revenues in 2019 of over $10m. The new venture will be called Infinite Acres. ... “We believe that our investments today in vertical farming will allow us to address fundamental consumer concerns on freshness and sustainability and build on new technologies that will revolutionise the way customers access fresh produce,” Ocado CEO Steiner explained.
Will this technology revolutionize the way customers access fresh produce? Is this a big deal for sustainability? A few years back in an essay titled: “Why I’m empowering 1,000’s of millennials to become #realfood entrepreneurs through Vertical Farming”, Elon Musk’s younger brother Kimball announced that he was going to invest in urban farm incubators in multiple cities. While there is certainly room for vertical farms in urban food systems to supply hydroponic greens and herbs to upscale grocers and restaurants, Musk’s ambitions go far beyond that.
The Kitchen’s mission is to strengthen communities by bringing local, real food to everyone. With our commitment to local food sourcing, our restaurants have become major catalysts for local food economies — across Colorado, Chicago, and now Memphis — serving real food to over 1 million guests a year. Meanwhile, our non-profit The Kitchen Community has built 300 Learning Gardens across the country — inspiring 150,000 kids each day as we get them outdoors and teach them about real food.
But the impact of those initiatives are a drop in the ocean compared to what’s needed. By 2050, 9 billion people will live on our planet, and 70% of them will live in cities. These people need food. And the data is clear: they will want local, real food.
The industrial food system will not solve this problem (more Deep Fried Twinkies, anyone?). Instead, finding the right solution presents an extraordinary opportunity for new entrepreneurs. As I’ve said before, “Food is the new internet.” I know the next generation is excited to join the #realfood revolution, and shape the future.
That’s why I’m thrilled to introduce a new company in The Kitchen’s family: Square Roots.
Introducing Square Roots
Square Roots is an urban farming accelerator — empowering 1,000’s of millennials to join the real food revolution. Our goal is to enable a whole new generation of real food entrepreneurs, ready to build thriving, responsible businesses. The opportunities in front of them will be endless.
Square Roots creates campuses of climate-controlled, indoor, hydroponic vertical farms, right in the hearts of our biggest cities. On these campuses, we train young entrepreneurs to grow non-GMO, fresh, tasty, real food all year round and sell locally. And we coach them to create forward-thinking companies that — like The Kitchen — strengthen communities by bringing local, real food to everyone.
The real and imagined impacts and potential of vertical farms had very much been on my mind. Just the week before, a friend on Facebook shared a story on the amazing ecological efficiencies of a new vertical farm and asked, “Is this stuff real or is it just hype?”
The article asked, “Considering it uses 95% less water than regular farms, could vertical farming be the future of agriculture?” and told the story of a vertical farm in Newark, NJ in an old laser tag facility.
At AeroFarms in Newark, New Jersey, crops are stacked more than 30 feet high in a 30,000 square foot space that was formerly a laser tag arena. They use aeroponic technology, which involves misting the roots of the plants, using an astonishing 95% less water than more conventional farming methods. David Rosenberg, CEO of AeroFarms told Seeker, “Typically, in indoor growing, the roots sit in water, and one tries to oxygenate the water. Our key inventor realized that if we mist nutrition to the root structure, then the roots have a better oxygenation.”
AeroFarms doesn’t use any pesticides or herbicides either. The plants are grown in a reusable cloth made from recycled plastic, so no soil is needed to grow them. They also use a system of specialized LED lighting instead of natural sunlight, reducing their energy footprint even further. “A lot of people say ‘Sunless? Wait. Plants need sun.’ In fact the plants don’t need yellow spectrum. So we’re able to reduce our energy footprint by doing things like reducing certain types of spectrum,” Rosenberg said.
IT’S ALWAYS SALAD GREENS
I would say that it’s mostly hype, certainly not revolutionary. These projects always center on salad greens and herbs, crops that sell at a premium and deliver very few calories, but a lot of water.
Crops require light, water, and a growing medium – three things in abundance at low prices on rural farms in the form of sun, rain, and soil. The economics of paying for light and rain, plus the economics of real estate are such that these projects cannot pencil out for any crops other than high end greens and vegetables. There is a reason why so much of the innovation in hydroponic growing systems came out of marijuana production. The ROI per square foot is far greater than for oats.
The future of urban farming is in crickets and other insects, mushrooms and other fungi, algae and yeasts, and in vitro meat. If you want to go beyond premium salad greens and herbs, you need to focus crops or herds that don’t require lots of space, water or sunlight. More importantly, if you really want to lower the impact of food production, urban farming needs be able to close nutrient cycles in dramatic ways.
[ For a more enthusiastic and rigorous take on the potential of vertical farms see this piece by Dan Blaustein-Rejto of the Breakthrough Institute.]
The exception might be in cities like Detroit, where a collapsing urban footprint changes the economics of the real estate. As a city economy grows, agglomeration increases the productivity per square foot, driving up rents which leads to the necessity of greater productivity per square foot. If urban farming catches on, it requires more square feet, driving up rents, requiring greater productivity per square foot, driving up the required productivity per square foot driving up the price required to be charged per square foot of product. TLDR: this model cannot work for barley, oats, canola, cowpeas, black beans, soybeans, pinto beans or any other serious sources of calories or protein in an urban setting. The revolution is not going to be powered by expensive salad greens.
Tamar Haspel helpfully chimed into that discussion to share an article she did for the Washington Post on the ledger of environmental challenges and benefit of vertical farming. In terms of growing lettuce greens she tallied the use of less land, less water, less fertilizer and less pesticides as four environmental benefits of vertical farming. On the down side, she pointed out that one of the biggest trade off was foregoing solar power for electricity.
However, unless the vertical farm is powered by nuclear or renewables or both there is one big sticking point: But before you shell out for the microgreens, there are a couple of disadvantages. The first is that you’ll have to shell out a lot, and the second gets at the heart of the inevitable trade-off between planet and people: the carbon footprint. If you farm the old-fashioned way, you take advantage of a reliable, eternal, gloriously free source of energy: the sun. Take your plants inside, and you have to provide that energy yourself. In the world of agriculture, there are opinions about every kind of system for growing every kind of crop, so it’s refreshing that the pivotal issue of vertical farming — energy use — boils down to something more reliable: math.
There’s no getting around the fact that plants need a certain minimum amount of light. In vertical farms, that light generally is provided efficiently, but, even so, replacing the sun is an energy-intensive business. Louis Albright, director of Cornell University’s Controlled Environment Agriculture program, has run the numbers: Each kilogram of indoor lettuce has a climate cost of four kilograms of carbon dioxide. And that’s just for the lighting. Indoor farms often need humidity control, ventilation, heating, cooling or all of the above.
… Let’s compare that with field-grown lettuce. Climate cost varies according to conditions, but the estimates I found indicate that indoor lettuce production has a carbon footprint some 7 to 20 times greater than that of outdoor lettuce production. Indoor lettuce is a carbon Sasquatch.
She goes on to explain that with more efficient lighting systems and access to nuclear and renewable energy sources, vertically grown lettuce can close a big part of that gap, but it’s still a steep climb.
Before moving on to the reasons why I’m enthusiastic about farming crickets and other insects, mushrooms and other fungi, algae and yeasts in urban settings, I want to circle back to the economics of real estate that serves as the stake through the heart of mass scale vertical farming of traditional crops.
A LITTLE PERSPECTIVE ON SCALE
First let’s put some things in perspective about scale. One of the larger well known urban rooftop farm in New York City is 42,000 square feet. 42,000 square feet sounds like a lot of square feet. But retail and office space are measured in square feet. Farms are measured in acres and 42,000 square feet is pretty much one acre. 0.964187 acres to be exact. New York state has 7 Million acres of farmland across 36,000 farms. That’s just the state of New York, which isn’t a particularly rural state. Urban real estate is denominated in square feet. Farms are denominated in acres.
Field corn (not grown for ethanol) accounts for over 50 million acres of farmland. Wheat, another 50 million acres. That’s 100 million acres just in two major grains. But let's put that aside. Nobody thinks were are going to grow corn and wheat in urban vertical farms, I just think it’s important to start with a baseline of the scale of the footprint of where most of our calories come from. And if you think we should be getting less of our calories from corn and wheat – and I’d agree with you – just keep in mind that no other crops come close on calories per acre, so any shift away from corn and wheat is going to drive that 100 million number upwards. Leaf lettuce is grown on just shy of 70,000 acres in the U.S. The acreage for herbs is so small it doesn't register in USDA reports and surveys outside of mint for mint oil (think spearmint chewing gum and peppermint ice cream). Total cropland in the U.S. is about 250 million acres. Nearly all domestic leaf lettuce is grown in either California or Arizona. Redistributing the production to regions with lower pressure on water supply and delivering fresher products to consumers can have some benefits, but it's hardly going to revolutionize vegetable production, much less the food system.
Let’s look at the crops that make up the core calories of a healthy diet. Barley accounts for 3.2 million acres. Lentils, dried beans and peas 2.7 million acres. Rice – 2.6 million acres. Vegetables – 4.1 million acres and half of that is potatoes, sweet corn and tomatoes. Orchards and berries – 5.4 million. 18 million acres total or 756 Billion square feet.
Let’s grant these vertical farms the wildly ambitious ability to increase yield by a third and say that shifting 10% of production into vertical farms would be a substantial impact. That would require 50 Billion square feet of urban real estate.
ECONOMIES OF AGGLOMERATION
Now let’s back up to the point we made about real estate prices and productivity. As cities grow bigger and denser productivity rises. Similar firms cluster and generate a base of workers who circulate among them increasing knowledge and competence. Travel times are lower, so a delivery van can make more stops per hour in a city than in a suburb or rural community. With more customers in their base, firms can grow larger and take advantages of economies of scale. This is what is called agglomeration in economics. Agglomeration makes for productive, vibrant cities, but it also drives up rents. Which further puts pressure on firms to increase the productivity out of each square foot of real estate that they own or lease. To increase productivity per square foot firms can either produce more units or charge more per unit. This is why expensive herbs and greens are the only products that currently make sense in vertical farms.
Now imagine what it would mean to add demand for another 50 billion square feet of real estate to US cities. Scaling up the operations of vertical farms would COMPOUND the pressure to produce crops that they can sell at high prices. While proponents often claim that as more vertical farms come online, prices will come down, for most crops the economics of cities tell us that the opposite is true.
So the economics of urban real estate are stacked against vertical farms except in places like Detroit where the urban footprint in shrinking and there is massive slack in the real estate market. But the economics for vertical farms are even steeper when we take comparative advantage into account.
COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGE
Comparative advantage is an economic concept that most people have heard of but very few understand and a vanishingly small number of people “get” on an intuitive level. That’s because it is one of the most counter-intuitive concepts in economics and I balk at the headache of even attempting to put it across when I think I’ve probably already made my case as to why I don’t expect vertical farms to catch on beyond expensive herbs and greens (and maybe some heirloom tomatoes and peppers). But it’s an important concept to understand in general and for the case I’d like to make for why I think the future of urban agriculture is in mushroom and cricket farming, black soldier flies, algae and yeasts, and in vitro meat production.
The economist Paul Krugman once called comparative advantage “Ricardo’s Difficult Idea” in an essay in which he explains why a concept formalized in 1817 by the philospher and political economist David Ricardo remains so poorly understood, if not outright resisted, even by economic sophisticates.
The idea of comparative advantage — with its implication that trade between two nations normally raises the real incomes of both — is, like evolution via natural selection, a concept that seems simple and compelling to those who understand it. Yet anyone who becomes involved in discussions of international trade beyond the narrow circle of academic economists quickly realizes that it must be, in some sense, a very difficult concept indeed. I am not talking here about the problem of communicating the case for free trade to crudely anti-intellectual opponents, people who simply dislike the idea of ideas. The persistence of that sort of opposition, like the persistence of creationism, is a different sort of question, and requires a different sort of discussion. What I am concerned with here are the views of intellectuals, people who do value ideas, but somehow find this particular idea impossible to grasp.
My objective in this essay is to try to explain why intellectuals who are interested in economic issues so consistently balk at the concept of comparative advantage. Why do journalists who have a reputation as deep thinkers about world affairs begin squirming in their seats if you try to explain how trade can lead to mutually beneficial specialization? Why is it virtually impossible to get a discussion of comparative advantage, not only onto newspaper op-ed pages, but even into magazines that cheerfully publish long discussions of the work of Jacques Derrida? Why do policy wonks who will happily watch hundreds of hours of talking heads droning on about the global economy refuse to sit still for the ten minutes or so it takes to explain Ricardo? Against that backdrop let me apply my meager talents to see if I can pound this into your thick skulls with any greater efficacy. Here goes.
Ricardo provided a simple two country model to show the math at work here. Consider two countries, England and Portugal, producing two identical products but at different rates of productivity.
In the absence of trade, England requires 220 hours of work to both produce and consume one unit each of cloth and wine while Portugal requires 170 hours of work to produce and consume the same quantities. England is more efficient at producing cloth than wine, and Portugal is more efficient at producing wine than cloth. So, if each country specializes in the good for which it has a comparative advantage, then the global production of both goods increases, for England can spend 220 labor hours to produce 2.2 units of cloth while Portugal can spend 170 hours to produce 2.125 units of wine. Moreover, if both countries specialize in the above manner and England trades a unit of its cloth for 5/6ths to 9/8ths units of Portugal’s wine, then both countries can consume at least a unit each of cloth and wine, with 0 to 0.2 units of cloth and 0 to 0.125 units of wine remaining in each respective country to be consumed or exported. Consequently, both England and Portugal can consume more wine and cloth under free trade than in autarky.
WIKIPEDIA: In this illustration, England could commit 100 hours of labor to produce one unit of cloth, or produce 5/6ths units of wine. Meanwhile, in comparison, Portugal could commit 90 hours of labor to produce one unit of cloth, or produce 9/8ths units of wine. So, Portugal possesses an absolute advantage in producing cloth due to fewer labor hours, and England has a comparative advantage due to lower opportunity cost.
To share an embarrassing story from my past, at the last union I worked for I had a boss who was a supremely talented union organizer and I was going through a personal rough patch and not firing on all cylinders, though I was still OK at my job. But he was constantly frustrated with me and just wanted to push me aside and do my job for me because he could do my job better than I could. And he could – he was just much more talented at union organizing than I was, especially during that sad chapter of my life. But he didn’t, because not only was he much better at my job than I was, he was much, much better at HIS JOB than I was. So it made more sense of him to concentrate on doing his job – supervising me and another ten organizers than to split his time doing his job and my job (and assigning me the minor parts of his job that he wouldn’t have time to do).
In the neighborhood I grew up in, software engineers frequently paid thirteen-year-old kids to mow a lawn in an hour that they could mow in 45 minutes. But if they were going to put in one more hour of effort that week, it was better spent working as a highly paid software engineer, not out-competing thirteen-year-old’s who mowed grass to buy grass.
So think of a simple economy composed of the city of Los Angeles and California’s Central Valley where both produce movies and tomatoes. Even if Los Angeles could produce tomatoes somewhat more efficiently than the Central Valley, the theory of comparative advantage tells us that they should still stick with movies and let Central Valley deal with tomatoes – they will both be better off. Likewise, if we imagine an economy of New York City and Iowa, where they both produce business services and corn, even if NYC can do corn better than Iowa, they should stick with business services, where they are heavyweight champion.
These are simple models and there are all sorts of situations and examples where comparative advantage doesn’t work in a clean, frictionless, straightforward way. But any narrative which attempts to make the case that vertical farms are the next big thing in agriculture needs to deal with comparative advantage rather than sidestep, ignore or dismiss the issue.
To beat this horse a bit closer to death, here is Krugman on trying to make a charitable interpretation of those who seem to be in denial about the power of comparative advantage:
Surely, we have argued, the problem is one of different dialects or jargon, not sheer lack of comprehension. What these critics must be trying to do is draw attention to the ways in which comparative advantage may fail to work out in practice. After all, economists are familiar with a number of reasons why the gains from free trade may not work out quite as easily as in the simplest Ricardian model. External economies may mean underinvestment in import-competing sectors; imperfect competition may lead to a strategic competition over industry rents; because of distortions in domestic labor markets, imports may reduce wages or cause unemployment; and so on. And even if national income rises as a result of trade, the distribution of income within a country may shift in a way that hurts large groups. In short, there are a number of sophisticated extensions to and qualifications of the model introduced in the first few chapters of the undergraduate textbook – typically covered later in the book.
Which is to say that, standard economics is not ignorant of all the reasons you may come up with for trying to dismiss the implications of comparative advantages just because you can’t shake the idea that vertical farms are a neat idea and wouldn’t it be cool if cities were self-sufficient in food production.
We’ll look at some examples of where cities would have comparative advantage going forward in terms of local food production. I think these are areas where Kimball Musk’s 1000’s of millennials will ultimately find greater success. But first, we need to look at the one big advantage an urban setting brings to agricultural production.
THE NUTRIENT CYCLE
When you grow a crop, the plant takes nutrients, most notably the old NPK – nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium out of the soil to feed and construct itself. When the crop is harvested a lot of those nutrients go with them and they need to be replaced in the soil. This creates a problem that is solved by planting nitrogen-fixing legumes and adding fertilizers, either synthetic fertilizers or manures. But they have to come from somewhere – and that somewhere is generally somewhere not on the farm.
Meanwhile, the nutrients have been shipped in our simple model economies from the Central Valley to Los Angeles and from Iowa to New York City. The people eat the nutrients and then deposit the nutrients into the trash, compost bins or their toilet. This creates a waste management problem.
Nitrogen management is a huge issue in agriculture, but the nutrient cycle problem that most keeps the deep thinkers up at night is phosphorus. It’s pretty easy and getting easier to pull nitrogen out of the air to fertilize crops. We have an effectively infinite supply of potassium. However, we are running out of phosphorus that we can mine. Eventually, and the sooner the better, we need to figure out how to close the nutrient loop that mostly ends when food reaches our cities.
The modes of food production that close that loop will be the ones that make the greatest impact, both ecologically and economically. That’s why I think the future of urban agriculture will be in crickets and other insects, mushrooms and other fungi, algae and yeasts, and in vitro meat.
CRICKETS: Crickets grow to maturity in 3-4 weeks, so they do not take a lot of space to produce prodigious amounts of protein. Protein per acre is a threshold measure in food security. Protein is ecologically expensive – carbs need carbon which is easily pulled from the air and converted into structure by photosynthesis – the nitrogen in the air is bound by very tight chemical bonds which require a lot of energy to break and put it to use. Lots of protein per square foot means cricket can pay urban rents in cities where heating costs are low (crickets like the temperature to stay above 25C).
And the reason urban rents make sense is that cricket thrive on food waste. Current cricket production is geared to a higher end consumer product, which also makes paying the rent easier, but that requires a more uniform diet to achieve a more uniform tasting cricket. The big breakthrough from an environmental perspective and the ability to achieve impactful scale will be when cricket producers start selling affordable cricket feed to livestock and aquaculture producers. That will allow cricket farms to be less fussy about what they feed the crickets and will create an economical way of cycling nutrients back to rural communities from cities that can complement the current practice of composting food waste and shipping the humus to farms from cities.
BLACK SOLDIER FLIES: Even better at turning waste into usable protein is the black soldier fly larvae. The larvae can feed on human solid waste and drastically reduce the volume and weight, allowing it to be shipped as a fertile soil amendment while transforming the nutrients into protein which is ideal for livestock feed. Black soldier flies can also feeding food waste and reduce it to a soil amendment much faster than composting without producing the greenhouse gases that make composting environmentally problematic.
One startup is taking the fruit and vegetable pulp waste from a local juicery and the day-old bread from a bakery using the grubs to transform it into high-quality animal feed. Cities are full of these waste streams in dense supply chains. This kind of waste is currently mostly going to landfills where it creates greenhouse gases emissions.
MUSHROOMS: Mushrooms are a vegetable crop that has one massive advantage over lettuces and hydroponic tomatoes and peppers in an indoor growing environment. Mushrooms don’t use photosynthesis and thus don’t require light to grow. This removes a major energy input in comparison. Another thing mushrooms have going for them is that they thrive in coffee grounds and our cities are producing massive amounts of spent coffee grounds that would be relatively easy to cordon off into new supply chains. After mushrooms are harvested, the mix of spent coffee grounds and mushroom roots makes a great soil amendment that can be marketed to suburban gardeners and peri-urban farms.
algae AND YEASTS: algae and yeasts are currently being used to produce previously expensive compounds and ingredients. Sometimes developed by traditional breeding, sometimes via the techniques of synthetic biology, algae and yeast have been used to produce replacements for palm oil which is environmentally disastrous by and large and for compounds like vanillin which we generally get from vanilla farms in environmentally fragile ecosystems. algae and yeasts are also used to produce pharmaceutical compounds. Currently, sugars are used as the input for their growth and as the substrate they convert to more useful and valuable compounds, but current research and development is fairly quickly moving to make using a wider range of cellulosic biomass as a substrate more and more viable. Be one the look out for vegan milk, cheese and butter from this sector.
IN VITRO MEAT: “Test tube meat” or cultured meat is still a ways out in it developing an economically viable product, but it’s certainly coming. I expect it to be used in sausage production before we get to a satisfying vat grown ribeye, but cultured meat meat production fits our criteria for successful urban agriculture. You can produce a lot of valuable product in a relatively small space, without the need for light as an energy source and you can use urban waste streams as a valuable input.
Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t going to be vertical farms that are successful in producing and selling high-end lettuces, herbs, peppers, and tomatoes. There will be. It will be a limited, upscale market, but that niche will work. What I am saying is that those kinds of vertical farms will not ever achieve the kind of scale necessary to transform the food system in consequential ways. Nor do they do much to tackle the biggest challenges in the food system, which have to do with waste management and the nutrient cycle.
The kinds of urban ag that will transform the food system and significantly reduce the environmental impacts of food production will be those that are not fighting against the economics of cities but are leveraging the economics of cities. That means leveraging comparative advantage rather than trying to dismiss it. Most of all, it means leveraging the dense supply chains and waste streams of valuable inputs that already exist in cities, rather than trying to replace the rain, sun, space, and soil that already exist on rural farms.
The Agromodernist Moment is a project of Food and Farm Discussion Lab. If you'd like to support this column and the other work we do, consider a monthly donation via Patreon or a one-time donation via Paypal.
Urban Agriculture’ Leads Off A 26-Episode Weekly Video Series on Vegetable Production
Linked by Michael Levenston
Mitchell assembled a team of professors from California’s public universities with agricultural programs – UC Davis, Chico State, Fresno State and CalPoly San Luis Obispo – to pull together a series of videos designed to spark the interest and begin training future farmers and ag workers in sound agronomic, economic and environmental stewardship skills.
University of California
UC Agriculture and Natural Resources (UC ANR) YouTube
Each Monday morning from May 13 through Nov. 4, a new video will premiere in the playlist.
(Must see. Mike)
From Video:
Urban agriculture is proliferating across the state of California on both public and private lands, taking the form of school, community, church and backyard gardens, vertical and rooftop farms, for-profit and non-profit enterprises, as well as a whole suite of other food production methods.
These urban farms are transforming the landscape of food production, helping to address urban food insecurity, creating opportunities for micro-enterprise development, and educating our youth and the public about the value of growing and eating healthy foods. The value of urban farming is indisputable, as studies provide mounting evidence of the myriad social, economic, ecological, recreational, therapeutic, and nutritional benefits of urban agriculture.
Urban farming is emerging at a growing number of sites. It is very much in flux with respect to its many forms and implementation. It addresses a wide range of goals and it represents a very broad array of motivations. This video provides a general introductory overview of some of the variety of urban farms in California today. It highlights the work of thirteen urban farmers from Los Angeles through the Bay Area cities of Oakland, Berkeley, and Hayward.
This video captures the creativity, innovation and dedicated work that is underway on a wide range of urban agriculture fronts at this time in California. This is indeed a very exciting and challenging time for urban farmers. With an estimated 50% of our nation’s farmland projected to change hands in the coming ten years, new farmers and new farming models are going to be needed to meet the needs for food that we will have. Urban agriculture is likely to play a role in meeting these huge challenges.
Veetaste Grows Microgreens With High Nutritional Properties
"Our company was established in 2017 and uses simple and extremely functional systems to produce over 60 varieties of innovative foods defined as microgreens," explains Francesca Palermo, CEO of Veetaste Urban Agriculture, a business located in Puglia that uses vertical farming as an alternative to traditional farming.
Microgreens require sunlight and their growth cycle ranges from 7 to 30 days depending on the species. The edible part is made up of the single stem, the cotyledon leaves and, often, the first real leaves.
"Micro-greens are grown in substrates and develop thanks to 3 essential factors - sunlight, a low humidity level and good ventilation. Veetaste products are grown on organic peat and are not chemically treated. This means the product is more resistant to heat stress and has a longer shelf-life."
"We use a sustainable indoor cultivation system based on the good practices of the American model. The indoor vertical cultivation of microgreens occurs in a controlled environment when it comes to sunlight, humidity level, ventilation and temperature."
"The system guarantees a deseasonalized growth of over 60 plantlet varieties obtained from untreated and/or organic seeds so as to guarantee the maximum microbiological safety. These factors are also monitored remotely through sensors that can be controlled via smartphone applications. The product is part of neither the packed unwashed nor the fresh-cut range, as no harvesting and/or cutting operations are performed before it is commercialized."
"Microgreens have an explosive flavor (sweet to hot) and high nutritional properties, as they contain up to 40 times the vitamin percentage found in normal vegetables. Recent studies showed how microgreens contain much more minerals (potassium and calcium in particular), vitamins (especially C, E and K) and antioxidants than older plants and vegetables."
Micro-greens are obtained from a large number of species part of various botanical families: Brassicaceae (cabbage, broccoli, red cabbage, purple cabbage, turnip greens, cress, radish, rocket, mustard), Asteraceae (red Batavian lettuce, red Lollo lettuce, curly endive, chicory), Apiaceae (dill, carrot, fennel), Amaryllidaceae (onion, leek), Amaranthaceae (amaranth,Swiss chard, chard from Bari, yellow Swiss chard, red Swiss chard), etc.
"Our market is currently limited to Puglia and the neighboring regions, but we aim at widening our range and destinations. We want to create an entirely automated cultivation system to obtain productions that are more abundant and have shorter cycles regardless of the season. In addition, we want to collaborate with other businesses to strengthen the entire productive sector and involve the common people, final consumers, starting with small suppliers and reaching the retail chains."
Contacts:
Veetaste Urban Agriculture
Corso Umberto I, 79
70127 Bari
Tel.: (+39) 389 954 4624
Email: info@veetaste.it
Facebook: facebook.com/veetaste
Website: veetaste.it
Publication date: 6/7/2019
© FreshPlaza.com
AgraME Launches AgraTech To Showcase Tech Innovations In Agribusiness
21 May 2019, Dubai, UAE:
The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionised the world we live in, pervading into our daily lives through our homes and businesses. Revolutionising agriculture, IoT has provided the industry with invaluable data that may have not been accessible previously.
AgraME has recently introduced ‘AgraTech’ – A platform for the display of technological advancements to the regional market and to promote knowledge sharing between global and local industry leaders.
With a variety of innovative products and services now available, including cloud solutions, farm automation, UAVs, soil sensors, farm management platforms, climate control, robotics and more, AgraTech will open a wealth of opportunity in the agricultural industry in the Middle East and Africa.
Governments in the region are also backing the move to modern farming techniques through various projects as well as investment in to the sector.
In the UAE, the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi has approved a series of incentive packages totalling up to AED1 billion ($272 million) for local and international AgTech firms.
The UAE has also seen a pilot project that used UAVs, commonly known as drones, to create a highly accurate agricultural database that supports decision-making and forward planning by enabling the best use of resources and determining the optimum areas for crop growth.
In Saudi Arabia, Red Sea Farms, another AgTech company, will utilise engineering and plant science to grow saltwater-tolerant crops with plans to produce 50 tons of tomatoes annually by 2020.
Commenting on the addition to the show, Sheetij Taneja, Exhibition Manager, AgraME said, ‘AgraTech is an overarching sector that covers all our present sectors – Animal Farming and Health, Aquaculture and Crop farming.’
‘By providing the industry with access to products, solutions and technical know-how to implement AgTech, we hope to help farmers in the Middle East and Africa automate processes, improve efficiency, increase monitoring, and capture meaningful, actionable data.’
In addition to the exhibition, the AgraME Conference will bring together local and international experts to discuss the AgTech landscape in the Middle East and Africa, best practises to improve the technical know-how of farmers within the region.
Key AgTech exhibitors at AgraME 2019 included Sage, Aritmos, Apisa, Certhon, Deep Trekker, Delta T Devices, Intravision Group, Roam Technology, Veggitech and more.
Focusing on the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, AgraME will continue to focus on goal 2, zero hunger through AgraTech. ‘By increasing analytics within farms, we can ensure sustainable food production systems and implement resilient agricultural practices that increase productivity and production, help maintain ecosystems and strengthen capacity’ noted Taneja
Taking place from the 3 – 5 March 2020 at the Dubai World Trade Centre, UAE, AgraME welcomes global leaders in Animal farming and health, Aquaculture and Crop farming to the UAE, providing the Middle East and Africa with valuable information and knowledge.
For More Information,
Please contact Sheetij Taneja at +971 4 336 5161
or info@agramiddleeast.com
New York City: Elected Officials, Urban Ag Coalition Rally for Development of Comprehensive Urban Agricultural Plan
Urban Ag Coalition Rally for Development of Comprehensive Urban Agricultural Plan
Council Member Espinal,
Brooklyn Borough President Adams,
Elected Officials,
Urban Ag Coalition Rally For
Development of a
Comprehensive Urban Agricultural Plan
WHO: Council Member Rafael Espinal, Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams, Urban Farmers, Community Gardeners
WHEN: Tuesday, June 11th, 10:30am
WHERE: Jacob Wrey Mould Fountain in City Hall Park, New York, NY 10007
WHAT: Elected officials, supporters of urban agriculture, environmental allies, along with leaders of the City's community gardens will rally in City Hall Park for the development of a comprehensive urban agriculture plan prior to the City Council Hearing on the legislation.
In lifting restrictions and clearing up land use policy, the plan will promote the expansion of large-scale urban agriculture, making it easier for the City to protect New Yorkers' health and the environment while bolstering the economy. Advocates have long argued that the expansion of green spaces and access to local food is necessary in closing the 'freshness gap’ in the under-served communities of the city.
US - OHIO - New 'Micro Farm' Model Tested At OSU Mansfield Urban Agriculture Project
During a recent project training session, growers gathered around their trial run beds of radishes and baby lettuce. [ideastream / Lecia Bushak]
AUTHOR: Lecia Bushak
PUBLISHED: May 20, 2019
During a recent training session, a group of urban farmers in Mansfield, Ohio huddled around a small raised bed of radishes, examining the crop’s growth after a cold spring week.
They aren't on your typical farm. Dozens of small beds of greens are lined up under tunnels in this “micro farm” on the Ohio State University Mansfield campus, which is built on top of a parking lot.
They’re being trained as part of a project at the school, which recently received a $2 million grant from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to create a new model for urban agriculture. The project connects and supports dozens of small micro farms so they’re both economically and environmentally sustainable.
The long-term goal is to expand the project to hundreds of micro farms and to bring healthy foods to urban food deserts — neighborhoods where access to grocery stores or fresh foods is lacking — all while researching and tracking the project's impact on the community, on green space, and on the environment.
Increasing Yield Per Acre
While urban farms have taken off in recent years, it’s difficult to keep them afloat. A study out of NYU found that about two-thirds of urban farmers were failing to make a living, with sales under $10,000 per year.
Project lead and assistant professor of environmental history Kip Curtis says the micro farm system is different from a typical urban farm because it maximizes the number of crops produced in a small space — in this case, only one-third of an acre — and takes a whole food system approach to be more profitable.
That involves training, growing the same things in the same way, and marketing and selling all the produce before it’s harvested.
The small, nimble size of the micro farm may also allow the model to complement city living well. Squeezing rows of crops into beds without needing the space between rows for the use of trucks can be 4 to 5 times more productive per acre than field agriculture.
“So it’s sustainable in kind of a systemic way,” Curtis said. “We anticipate being a positive part of the life of the community, and that’s really what sustainable means.”
Micro Farms and the Environment
Agriculture currently contributes 10 to 12 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a significant contributor to climate change. Fertilizer, for example, produces high levels of nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas; cattle produce methane during the digestive process.
Sustainable farming, meanwhile, aims to reduce the negative impact on the environment by incorporating practices like avoiding pesticides or chemicals, conserving ecological resources, and reducing soil degradation.
One of the main goals of the project is to be sustainable and environmentally sound, while still being efficient and profitable. Researchers will also be tracking if the micro farm model could reduce the carbon footprint.
“One, [the micro farms] are organic, so we’re not going to be using excessive amendments, toxic chemicals, none of that stuff will be in the garden so it won’t be washing out into the surrounding environment,” Curtis said.
He added that small, sustainable farms like this one provide food directly to the local community, cutting travel emissions.
“The second is, because these are production sites in the community where the food is being consumed, you’re shrinking your supply chain — which means instead of driving your vegetables from Arizona or California, you’re literally bringing them across the street," Curtis said. "So you’re reducing your carbon footprint of agriculture as well.”
Health Benefits
The 10 participating farmers, or producers, used their most recent gathering to check up on their first test run of crops — radishes and baby lettuce. Once more of their micro farms are up and running, they plan to expand to more participants and a diverse variety of vegetables.
“Over across the way we’ve got some bok choy, swiss chard, basil, tomatoes, carrots, beets, ocra, eggplant,” Curtis said. “You name it, we’ve tried to get some of it in there.”
Researchers will track the finances of the micro farms over the next three years but will also try to measure if they’ve had an impact on the health of the local community.
“It’s exposing people to local food, which we know is a subtle way of going, you know, you should eat better,” Curtis said. “And so, what if we saw diabetes reduction, we saw obesity reduction, we saw some of the health benefits of fresh food production. This is an effort to say, can we apply, and study, and leave something behind.”
Walter Bonham is one of the producers who was born and raised in Mansfield.
"We can try to take better care of ourselves in our own communities, versus needing to depend on other states, or even other countries sometimes to provide all of our produce," Bonham said. "Doing it locally would help our economy, and help our communities. By having this program and by them pursuing this ambitious goal, it allows other people to attach themselves to this, which makes it easier for the community to make changes."
This year’s pilot growing season will be a good indicator of the micro farm project’s potential to deliver on its goals.
TOPICS Health & Science
TAGS Be Well
How Urban Agriculture Can Meet Its Potential
New York City’s urban agriculture has not been found to provide benefits to either hungry people or the environment. How could city farms work better?
Eagle Street Rooftop Farm, Brooklyn, NY
By: James MacDonald
May 27, 2019
Interest in urban agriculture on both personal and commercial scales has grown in recent years. With land in short supply, and transportation carbon-intensive, why not place more farms in cities? It’s a way to improve land use, the environment, and food security all in one blow. But can it actually help?
According to a recent article in Anthropocene magazine, urban agriculture in New York City has provided few benefits to either hungry people or the environment. The main products are leafy greens for high-end restaurants. Moreover, a glut of indoor farms consume vast amounts of energy. New York, however, is not the only center of urban agriculture.
While the stereotypical city farmer might be a Brooklyn hipster tending to backyard kale, urban agriculture is not a new concept. Sustainability expert Milica Koscica writes in The Journal of International Affairs that cities have been incorporating farms almost as long as there have been cities. Ancient urbanites, from the Maya to the Byzantine Empire, maintained farms in urban centers as a backup in case of supply disruptions. During the world wars, the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and Germany encouraged citizens to keep Victory Gardens in order to supplement a food supply that was drained by the war effort.
Today, urban farming is widely practiced in the developing world, mostly by low income, food insecure urban residents. In some places, up to 70% of urban residents supplement their food supply with some form of agricultural. In parts of Africa, for example, a small urban plot can provide up to 60% of a family’s food supply. Urban plots produce everything from eggs to mushrooms, using space-saving methods such as hydroponics. Given the poor transportation in many developing countries, an agricultural side hustle allows access to fresh, nutritious foods that low-income urban residents could otherwise never afford. Surplus can be sold, providing critical income.
But this is difficult to scale up beyond subsistence level. Despite various ingenious workarounds, space is at a premium in urban areas, and vertical farms are mostly experimental. According to horticulturists Leigh J. Whittinghill and D. Bradley Rowe, the use of green roof technology might be the answer. Many areas are trying to encourage so-called green roofs to improve energy efficiency and wildlife habitat. Potentially, roofs could be adapted for urban farming, preventing the energy use problems of indoor farming and the contamination risks of marginal soil. Some analysis is required to make sure that the benefits of green roofs would carry over to a green farm roof.
So while urban agriculture may be off to a rocky start in New York City, it may meet its full potential yet.
Russia: Novosibirsk Scientists Grow Strawberries With Aeroponics
A startup from Novosibirsk is entering the international market. Soon the technology will be sold to Arabian agronomists. Until then, the scientists continue experimenting with strawberries in the basement of the campus
A startup from Novosibirsk is entering the international market. Soon the technology will be sold to Arabian agronomists. Until then, the scientists continue experimenting with strawberries in the basement of the campus.
The experimental greenhouse is as clean as an operation room. Special sensors monitor the humidity and the temperature levels. This is where the scientists conduct their experiments with strawberries. Some of the plants are grown in traditional soil, and the rest are grown in accordance with aeroponics.
“This is what the roots look like. As there is no soil, there are no pests either. Just the clean white roots hanging in the air”, shares Mr. Ivan Lapshin, the agronomist.
An automated system delivers all the substances required for plant growth. The agronomist uses switches on the machine: strawberries have much better conditions for growing on the shelves than in the open field.
The first crops grown according to the new technology are 20% taller than the regular ones. The result is due not only to aeroponics, the climate as well as the lighting strength and the length of the artificial light day have been carefully calculated.
The innovators are planning to give access to the technology to a wide audience so that anyone could grow fresh vegetables, berries and greenery in any free room all year round. The shelves are fully automated so no agronomist is required to assist them.
“We would like that people in Magadan have fresh strawberries in winter. And that they don’t fly from Egypt or Lebanon but have a proper flavor and freshness”, noted Mr. Timofey Pavlov, agronomist.
Soon the scientists will start mass production of their vertical farms. The technology raised big interest with representatives of the United Arab Emirates, where vertical farming is most pertinent. The scientists are preparing the equipment for delivery.
Source: www.nsktv.ru
Publication date: 5/9/2019
Rooftop Garden Takes Urban Agriculture To Another Level
Of all the places on campus you’d expect to find a garden brimming with kale, Swiss chard and collard greens, the second floor of University Crossing probably isn’t one
UNIVERSITY, MILL CITY GROWS PARTNER ON GREEN ROOF GARDEN AT UNIVERSITY CROSSING
Photo by Ed Brennen
PhA student walks past the new Green Roof vegetable garden at University Crossing. Photo by Ed Brennen
04/29/2019
By Ed Brennen
Of all the places on campus you’d expect to find a garden brimming with kale, Swiss chard and collard greens, the second floor of University Crossing probably isn’t one.
But thanks to a collaboration between the university and Lowell-based urban farming nonprofit Mill City Grows, there’s a new rooftop vegetable garden outside the windows of the busy second-floor landing at the student and administrative center.
“It’s such a wonderful use of this space. I love it,” said Senior Vice Chancellor for Finance, Operations and Strategic Planning Joanne Yestramski, admiring the freshly planted crops through the floor-to-ceiling windows during the university’s Earth Day celebration. “It shows our commitment to sustainability right here, front and center, in one of the busiest places on campus.”
The primary purpose of the rooftop garden, according to Director of Sustainability Ruairi O’Mahony, is to educate passersby about the university’s Urban Agriculture Program. A wall sign provides details about the “Green Roof” garden and other urban agriculture sites around campus. Producing fresh, leafy vegetables for the university community is an added bonus.
Photo by Ed Brennen
Macayla Cote of Mill City Grows helps transfer vegetables to growing containers at the new Green Roof garden at University Crossing.
“It helps tell the story about our program and shows people what the campus is about,” says O’Mahony, who notes that the project highlights the important campus-community connection.
The Office of Sustainability and Mill City Grows, working in collaboration with the Student Government Association, designed the 500-square-foot space, which is tucked between a conference room and elevator bay on the south-facing side of the building, overlooking Salem Street.
The modular garden consists of about 180 plants growing in individual milk crates filled with nutrient-rich compost. The compost, which originated from the university’s dining halls, was developed and donated by Casella Organics. The garden is watered by an efficient, on-demand smart drip irrigation system that adjusts to local weather data.
“I’m excited to see how much yield we get in a small space,” says Mill City Grows co-founder and UML alum Lydia Sisson ’12, whose organization will oversee the day-to-day operations of the garden and harvest the produce several times a week. Most of the produce will be made available to the community through Mill City Grows’ Mobile Market.
Mill City Grows manages nearly a dozen community gardens and urban farms around the city, including two others in partnership with UML, the Urban Agriculture Greenhouse on East Campus and the community garden on Dane Street. This is their first rooftop garden.
Photo by Ed Brennen
Student Society for Sustainability President Akbar Abduljalil helps transplant crops at the new Green Roof garden at University Crossing.
“We’ve visited a lot of rooftop farms, but this is our first rooftop experiment. It’s going to be fun,” says Sisson, who notes that there are several advantages to the elevated location. “You get the heat from below, which is good, and it will definitely get a lot of sunlight. There should also be a lot less pests. But we’ll have to be careful with the wind.”
The space is one of three green roofs originally installed on the second floor of University Crossing when the building opened in 2014 (the others still exist over the main entrance and on the Merrimack Street side of the building). Designed to mitigate stormwater runoff and provide a layer of insulation to enhance the building’s energy performance in summer months, the green roofs consist of a thick carpet of sedum, a hardy perennial that holds water well.
O’Mahony says the vegetable garden will make the space even more eye-catching.
“They’re the type of crops that come up like a fountain,” he says. “It’s going to be a beautiful visual.”
Sean Cloran, who completed his biology degree last fall and is now doing an internship with the Office of Sustainability, helped O’Mahony prepare the area for the new garden.
“Hopefully it inspires people to check out the greenhouse and community garden,” Cloran says. “I think it’s going to help break down the barrier between where food comes from and where people think food comes from.”
Philly Names First-Ever Farm Czar
Philadelphia has named city planner Ashley Richards as its first-ever urban agriculture director. Richards will direct the creation and implementation of Philadelphia’s forthcoming urban agriculture plan
The Philadelphia Orchard Project plants at Bartram's Community Farm.
APRIL 24, 2019
Ashley Richards (City of Philadelphia)
Philadelphia has named city planner Ashley Richards as its first-ever urban agriculture director. Richards will direct the creation and implementation of Philadelphia’s forthcoming urban agriculture plan.
Richards got their start as a planner in New York, where they facilitated the creation of an urban farm cooperative led by Black and Latinx Bronx residents. Most recently, Richards was working for the Philadelphia City Planning Commission on development issues in North Philadelphia.
Richards, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania’s city planning program, also served as co-chair of the city’s Food Policy Advisory Council Urban Agriculture subcommittee. Their new role will be based in the Parks and Recreation Department and linked to its urban agriculture program, FarmPhilly. Richards was unable to comment for this article.
“It’s very exciting,” said Jenny Greenberg, executive director of Neighborhood Garden Trust (NGT), a land trust affiliated with the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society that acquires and preserves community gardens in Philadelphia. “They’re very committed on these issues.”
Greenberg hopes the urban agriculture master plan will produce a better system for gardeners and urban farmers to secure the land they’ve been tending for years, sometimes generations.
The seeds for the plan were planted about three years ago at a city council hearing where residents asked the city to step up with a long-term strategy to support new and long-tenured community gardens and urban farms.
Nearly half of the city’s estimated 470 farms operate on formerly blighted land that the farmers don’t own or control. The squatter farmers often cleaned up vacant eyesore lots and turned them into safe places to grow food. These spaces have become green respites in neighborhoods with little access to fresh food and high rates of crime. Studies have shown such spaces reduce crime, improve health and increase land values.
But as real estate appreciates and some neighborhoods gentrify, many farmers have found themselves locked out of the land they made bloom. One North Philadelphia family recently filed a lawsuit against the city over a community garden behind their home that was sold at a sheriff’s sale, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The family transformed the abandoned land into a community space and tended it for nearly 40 years before the city sold it, the Inquirer reported.
For growers who don’t have a clear title to the land they are tending, acquiring rights can be complicated and costly. The planning process Richards was tapped to lead is intended to address this problem, among others.
Christine Knapp, director of the city’s office of sustainability, said she hopes the plan will help the city coordinate between agencies that work with community gardens and those that control public land such as the Philadelphia Land Bank, so the city can expand its urban agriculture practices in a way that works better for everyone.
In addition to creating a framework for expanding urban agriculture in the city, the plan will explore how “to better support those gardens that have been out there for a long time,” Knapp said.
The city expects to select a vendor to begin working on the plan in June and have it ready in 18 months or less for a budget capped at $120,000. A request for proposals closes on April 30.
More land earmarked for gardens
One year ago, Public Interest Law Center attorney Ebony Griffin was frustrated with the city’s process for transferring vacant land into the hands of community gardens.
“The Land Bank is not really responsive,” Griffin said. “It almost feels like it’s a facade.”
In a recent interview, Griffin said things have improved.
“I can tell that they've really put forth some effort into making sure that they're addressing the needs of the growing community. And I do think that a lot of our initial concerns could be attributed to the fact that they were in transition and they were a little short-staffed,” Griffin said.
Griffin’s organization recently updated a website — Grounded in Philly — with information about how to navigate the legal process to secure garden land. The online resource includes tools for growers to communicate and organize online.
It’s not only growers trying to get organized. Between last April and now, a few things have changed at the Land Bank. The staff grew by two, from a team of 15 to 17 — and they’ve begun to hit some of the agency’s internal targets. For instance, the agency acquired 20 properties for community gardens in the last fiscal year, meeting a goal.
But progress remains slow and incremental.
Last year’s goal was to transfer 33 lots to garden groups. Only four made the jump in ownership — all four going to the Neighborhood Gardens Trust.
This year’s goal is 40. But so far only one garden sale has been approved but not yet settled — the formerly at-risk New Jerusalem farm.
“The challenge is that the real estate market is moving faster than the city’s bureaucracy, and politics and policy,” said NGT’s Greenberg.“We are in a race, it feels like, in a lot of neighborhoods.”
The four parcels Greenberg’s group acquired from the Land Bank came in addition to 15 from the Philadelphia Redevelopment Agency and five from the city’s Department of Public Property. Another five tax-delinquent properties will soon be transferred from the Land Bank to the trust, according to Greenberg.
Justin Trezza, director of garden programs at PHS, said the numbers reflect progress.
“I think we're seeing a positive trend right now,” said Trezza, whose group already supports about 150 gardens around the city. “The Land Bank is making a concerted effort to make their processes clear for individuals. And then, beyond that, there has been a lot of other individuals and entities putting pressure on the City Council to be more supportive of community gardens.”
Kirtrina Baxter is with Soil Generation, a Black and Brown-led coalition of growers and the Public Interest Law Center. She said there is still work to be done.
“It hasn't gotten any better,” Baxter said. “The [Land Bank’s] strategic plan wasn't done in 2018 so we still don't have any transparency around how the Land Bank is being used to service gardens. Outside of the work that they do with NGT, there's really nothing to show for that.”
Last year, Baxter and her coalition organized rallies demanding community control of gardens, farms, and green spaces throughout Philadelphia. This year, they’re looking closely at the City Council election. Through Philly’s tradition of councilmanic prerogative, council representatives have a lot of control over how city-owned land is used or sold. Soil Generation is calling its followers to vote only for “green friendly” candidates, or those who have been supportive of gardens.
Baxter also has her hopes on the urban agricultural plan coming up this year.
“Once the city hears back and gets the strategic plan back from the community, saying these are the things and these are the services that we want, these are the supports that we want — then hopefully they'll move in a different way to support gardens better,” Baxter said.
About the author
Catalina Jaramillo, Reporter
Catalina Jaramillo is a part-time reporter for PlanPhilly and StateImpact PA. She covers community development issues, environmental/sustainability stories, and neighborhood narratives. For most of her career, she has worked toward social justice, writing about inequality and creating real and virtual spaces for people to communicate.
She is a freelance correspondent for Chilean newspaper La Tercera, collaborates with Feet in Two Worlds – a news organization that brings the work of ethnic media journalists to public radio and the web – and teaches journalism at the first Spanish-language program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism in New York City. She was born and raised in Santiago, Chile, and has lived in Spain, Mexico and the US.
She’s been living in Philadelphia since 2014, in front of Norris Square Park, in Kensington. She tweets as @cjaramillo and you can email her at cjaramillo@whyy.org.
Japan Plant Factory Association Announces Innovative Approach To Sustainability With Plant Factories With Artificial Lighting (PFAL)
Industry: Agriculture
A New approach to sustainability with plant factories was announced this month by Toyoki Kozai, Japan Plant Factory Association (NPO)
New York City, NY (PRUnderground) April 18th, 2019
Plant Factory is a facility that aids the steady production of high-quality vegetables all year round by artificially controlling the cultivation environment (e.g., light, temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide concentration, and culture solution), allowing growers to plan production. Japan leads the world in the cutting-edge technology contained in plant factories and it continues to motivate entrepreneurs and start-ups.
In the book “Smart Plant Factory: The next generation indoor vertical farms”, Toyoki Kozai has tried to provide readers with an accurate understanding of plant factories. The book presents an overview of the role of plant factories in the 21st century. Furthermore, it comprises of a lucid description of the concept, characteristics, methodology, design, management, business, recent advances and future technologies of plant factories with artificial lighting (PFAL) and indoor vertical farms.
According to the Shift, indoor farming is the future of urban farming as it allows vertical farms that grow all crops, in any place, at any time. It has been observed that there is an emerging interest around the globe in smart PFAL R&D and business and this book tries to cover smart solutions in PFAL et al.
In another book, “Light-Emitting Diodes, the readers can gain insight into the latest theories, technologies, and applications of LEDs based on III-V semiconductor materials. Jinmin Li and G.Q. Zhang describe the latest developments of LEDs with spectral coverage from ultra-violet (UV) to the entire visible light wavelength.
The book is a highly recommended read for all the researchers and students working with semiconductors, optoelectronics, and optics. It delves into the various novel ways LEDs can be used, for example, the benefits of LEDs in healthcare and wellbeing or the innovative solutions LEDs can provide in horticulture and animal breeding. The foreword of the book is written by Hiroshi Amano, one of the 2014 winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on light-emitting diodes. Overall, the book is an interesting, thought-provoking read.
In a research paper, “Benefits, problems, and challenges of plant factories with artificial lighting (PFALs), T. Kozai has discussed the potential and actualized benefits of the PFAL, the current unresolved problems of PFALs and the challenges for the smart PFAL. According to the Kozai, the global and local trilemma on foods, resources, and environment can be solved with the help of PFALs. According to Kozai et al., the benefits of the PFAL are high resource-use efficiency (RUE), high annual productivity per unit land area, and the production of high-quality plants without using pesticides.
However, high initial investment, electricity, and labor costs remain a challenge which has further led to a limited number of profitable PFALs. Kozai suggests that it is vital to understand the concepts behind the benefits and the methodology before designing and operating a PFAL to actualize the potential benefits of the PFAL. In addition to the above, a considerable amount of systematic research, development, and marketing with the appropriate vision, mission, strategy, and methodologies is also crucial.
The research on PFALs shows that actualization of potential benefits is relatively easy compared to a greenhouse in which the energy and material balance and the plant-environment relationship is much more complex. Hence, the straightforward approach with respect to the PFAL is helpful.
Tags: AI, artificial intelligence, factories, News, plant, Science
Will The Urban Agricultural Revolution Be Vertical And Soilless?
Over the last seven years, New York City has become an epicenter for urban CEA, offering planners an in-situ setting in which to evaluate its impact
A case study of controlled environment agriculture in New York City
Controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is an emerging form of farming increasingly found in cities worldwide. Advocates promote CEA as the future of food production, arguing for its potential to address challenges ranging from climate change to food insecurity. Detractors state that CEA’s narrow focus on high-end produce, along with its intensive capital and energy needs, limit its meaningful contribution to the urban food system.
Over the last seven years, New York City has become an epicenter for urban CEA, offering planners an in-situ setting in which to evaluate its impact. A new case study examines the current state of CEA in New York City, its composition, requirements, and future. The authors identify CEA’s relative contributions, which include providing a small number of green-sector jobs and increasing access to produce in low-income communities. In parallel, they question if CEA provides sufficient benefits to warrant public-sector support.
Recommendations for cities considering CEA include critically analyzing its purported benefits; evaluating the environmental, economic and social potential of projects located on publicly-owned rooftops and land; and focusing incentives on nonprofit and institutional production that show clear community benefits.
Access the full study at ScienceDirect.
Publication date: 4/18/2019
Can Indoor Farming Solve Our Agriculture Problems?
April 15th, 2019 by Erika Clugston
Food is central to our lives – that’s a given – but our relationship with it is problematic: agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change. With the world’s population growing rapidly in the next few decades, the global demand for food is expected to increase by 70%. However, the production of this food is costly: meat and dairy have the highest global carbon footprint and agriculture uses 70% of the world’s freshwater, to name just a few problematic aspects. This coupled with a higher demand and pressure from the effects of climate change creates a vicious cycle. How do we break it?
Photos courtesy of Bowery Farming
Bowery Farming believes it has a solution. The company’s high tech, indoor farms use a hydroponic system, requiring 95% less water than traditional agriculture to grow produce. Additionally, vertical farming requires less space, meaning that Bowery is 100 times more productive than a traditional farm on the same amount of land. Because the farms are indoors, in closely controlled environments, there is also no need for pesticides. These are just a few of the ways that Bowery is rethinking contemporary agriculture systems.
We wanted to know more, so we reached out to Bowery CEO and co-founder, Irving Fain, to discuss his vision for today’s farming practices and the role that technology can play in improving our relationship to food.
Bowery CEO and Co-Founder Irving Fain
What was your inspiration and mission for founding Bowery?
I’m a big believer in technology’s ability to solve difficult problems. After building my last company, I wanted to spend my time working on an area that I was personally passionate about and a set of problems that were broadly important. Agriculture sits at the epicenter of so many global issues today. Over 70% of our global water supply goes to agriculture, we use over 700 million pounds of pesticides each year in the US alone, and industrial farming practices have caused a loss of over 30% of the arable farmland in the last 40 years. At the same time, our global population is growing to 9-10 billion people by 2050 and we will need 70% more food in order to feed a population of that size, meaning that more food will need to be produced in the next 30 years than has been produced in the last 10,000. After becoming obsessed with the question of how to provide fresh food more efficiently and sustainably to urban environments, I teamed up with my co-founders David Golden and Brian Falther to build Bowery. Bowery combines the benefits of the best local farms with advances made possible by technology in large-scale commercial indoor farms to grow produce consumers can feel good about eating.
What sets Bowery apart from traditional farming?
While traditional farming methods waste resources and endanger our future food supply, indoor farming allows us to grow more efficiently and with fewer resources. Bowery farms use zero pesticides, 95% less water, and are 100x times more productive on the same footprint of land than traditional agriculture. We’re also able to grow a wide variety of crops twice as fast, more crop cycles per year, and more yield per crop cycles than the field, regardless of weather or seasonality. BoweryOS, our proprietary software system, uses vision systems, automation technology, and machine learning to monitor plants and all the variables that drive their growth 24/7, while combining software and automation with industrial process management to optimize production, fulfillment and distribution. By applying proprietary machine learning algorithms to millions of points of data collected by an extensive network of sensors and cameras, BoweryOS can make automatic adjustments to environmental conditions to improve crop quality, health, yield, and flavor.
Since we’re able to provide consistent conditions for crops (many which are tough to grow outdoors, especially with changing global climates), there are truly endless possibilities to what we can grow at Bowery. And because we’re close to the point of consumption and don’t have to worry about growing crops to withstand long travel distances or shelf life, we can grow more flavorful, less commodified crops.
Additionally, because we grow in a completely closed environment, we drastically minimize the risk of contamination from foodborne illness. Unlike outdoor farms, which are vulnerable to contamination from animal waste, tainted groundwater or irrigation run-off, Bowery produce is grown in a closed-loop indoor system that recirculates filtered municipal water free of contamination. And because we control the entire process from seed to store, our greens aren’t matriculated through large distribution and fulfillment centers that often lead to additional exposure to contaminants.
Technology and agriculture aren’t often thought of together. Do you see them as natural counterparts?
Agriculture and technology are historically deeply intertwined. While many people think of technology as purely digital, agriculture is actually one of the first major human technological breakthroughs, and is the basis for the creation of towns, cities and civilizations. Over the years, there has been constant innovation in agriculture, and it’s supported the growth of human populations through today. So tech and agriculture have always had a close relationship.
Today, agriculture is at the epicenter of many of our global challenges. At Bowery, we began with the fundamental conviction that technology is critical to developing both a scalable and sustainable solution to those global issues.
What kind of produce do you grow?
Our proprietary technology BoweryOS allows us to grow a dynamic portfolio of different crops on a smaller footprint of land. We currently offer 9 SKUs at retail partners, including spring blend, kale mix, baby kale, arugula, butterhead lettuce, romaine, bok choy, sweet & spicy mix, and basil. Beyond that, we’ve experimented with over 100 varieties. Right now we’re focused on delivering the best leafy greens and herbs possible to our retail and restaurant partners, but we’ve already started experimenting beyond leafy greens with root vegetables such as turnips, and plan to expand our offerings in the future.
How did you finance the company – which VCs or companies invested?
With Bowery, we were fortunate to have a number of world-class investors excited about Bowery’s mission, the technology we’re creating, the team we’re building and most importantly, the food we are growing. When we built our first farm, we were fortunate to work with Rob Hayes and First Round Capital who led our seed round, along with a number of other fantastic investors. To date, we’ve raised $122.5M from leading investors such as Google Ventures, General Catalyst, and GGV. Bowery has also welcomed noteworthy thought-leaders in the culinary industry as investors, including Chef Tom Colicchio, Chef José Andrés, Chef Carla Hall, David Barber, co-owner of Blue Hill, and the founders of sweetgreen, among others.
Where are you currently located? Plans for expansion?
We currently have two farms located in Kearny, New Jersey. This past December, we announced our Series B funding round of $90 million and we plan to use the capital to scale our operation in new cities across the country and expand our network of farms in 2019.
As CleanTechnica has already covered, Bowery has announced plans to use a microgrid that will run in part off of solar power to support an indoor farm year round. Can you talk a little bit about the benefits and challenges of using the microgrid and when this project will be underway?
We are working to incorporate a proprietary hybrid microgrid system that uses distributed energy resources, including a rooftop solar array, a natural gas generator equipped with advanced emissions control technologies and lithium-ion battery energy storage system. These solutions will help cover a meaningful amount of our energy consumption needs for this farm and will set us up with the knowledge and experience to install significantly more sustainable solutions in future farms. We will continue to meaningfully increase this percentage over time as we innovate on our electrical energy distribution efficiency.
What are the costs of urban farming like in comparison with traditional produce?
The existing food supply chain has a lot of inefficiencies. Because we’re located near the point of consumption, we cut out much of the waste and cost in distribution while delivering a fresher, better product. At the same time, the technology we’ve developed allows us to grow in a way that is 100x times more productive than traditional farming on the same footprint of land, which enables us to keep the cost of our produce competitive with organic products grown in the field.
Do you foresee urban farming as the solution to issues caused by growing populations, climate change and increasingly limited resources?
Yes, we view urban farming as one of the solutions to issues caused by growing populations, climate change, and increasingly limited resources including food and water supply as well as environmental degradation.
For one, there simply is not enough arable land in the world to feed the growing population using today’s conventional methods, and fresh produce loses 45% of its nutritional value when shipped. At Bowery, we solve for this by reappropriating previously unusable industrial space to grow crops indoors, closer to the point of consumption, at a rate that is 100x more productive per square foot of land than that of traditional agriculture. Produce is also typically grown in one central area, shipped to cold storage, then driven via long-haul across the country, and finally transported by last mile shippers to stores. In the U.S. alone, food trucking is responsible for 12.5% of total emissions. By locating close to the point of consumption, we drastically minimize the carbon footprint of food distribution. Additionally, while the agriculture industry uses 70% of the world’s freshwater and over 700 million pounds of pesticides in the U.S. alone, we use 95% less water than traditional farming and absolutely no pesticides.
What are your goals for Bowery in the next few years?
Our goal is to open more farms in new cities to give people access to fresher, safer, more sustainable produce. And, from a macro level, in order to provide food for a growing population, we need to feed the world with more than just lettuce and herbs. Getting these right is an important first step, but in order to keep up with current customer demand, we’re working on growing more types of produce as we build more farms, with an eye toward greater access for more people. There’s a huge opportunity to deliver a vast variety of fresh, delicious produce to people around the world with Bowery’s technology.
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Tags: Bowery Farming, indoor agriculture, vertical farming
About the Author
Erika Clugston Erika is a writer and artist based in Berlin. She is passionate about sharing stories of climate change and cleantech initiatives worldwide. Whether it’s transforming the fashion, food, or engineering industries, there’s an opportunity and responsibility for us all to do better. In addition to contributing to CleanTechnica, Erika is the Web and Social Media Editor at LOLA Magazine and writes regularly about art and culture.