The Collaborative Farm: Where Agriculture Meets The Entertainment World

By GetNews

July 13, 2021

The Collaborative Farm is an emerging destination in Milwaukee that survives as the rebrand of an organization formally known as Growing Power. The Farm is redefining urban agriculture and how the entertainment industry can impact its operations remarkably to sustain several communities. The new and improved organization was made possible by Tyler Schmitt, best known to his peers as Tymetravels. His phenomenal vision to put together agriculture and music to expand urban farming has been making waves, making his novel initiative an extraordinary breakthrough. 

Schmitt majored in Entrepreneurship with a minor in Sustainability at the University of St. Thomas then later moved to live in the national parks in Wyoming. When Growing Power collapsed, Schmitt came home from Jackson Hole to lend a hand to Will Allen and his father Tom Schmitt to solve the intricate issues involved in urban farming—from solar aquaponics to increasing food production while keeping operations sustainable. 

Schmitt developed Ultimate Farm Collaborative to redesign not just farms but also cities in the near future. Collab Official, on the other hand, is the record label he created in order to unite various music artists under the umbrella of an extraordinary cause. The Farm Music Festival is its annual event, which is designed to generate funds to sustainably operate the farm. 

This coming October 1–3, Milwaukee’s last remaining farm will be hosting a music festival to create awareness on the value of urban farming through hip-hop and EDM music. Schmitt hopes that the upcoming event will make a difference in the lives of urban farmers. The upcoming event will also give the good people of Milwaukee an opportunity to experience The Collaborative Farm up close. When music meets agriculture, the possibilities are out of this world. 

The Collaborative Farm has a whole lot of surprises in store for the future as it is in the process of developing and recruiting a solid and hardworking team that will help it realize its goals. In the coming months, it will open an art studio, which will also be a coffee shop. The coffee shop will be the front store to increase foot traffic day in and out long-term. Additionally, it is working on establishing the vertical farm that Growing Power was positioned to pursue in the past. 

Moreover, the founder of Ultimate Farm Collaborative sees the company staying with The Collaborative Farm long-term. In the next couple of years, it will either purchase or design a second facility. The annual music festival at The Collaborative Farm will continue and expand as a creative label through the efforts of Collab Official. 

The novel idea behind The Collaborative Farm serves as an inspiration to those who have been supporting urban farming and those who wish to try sustainable living by growing their own produce. As the entertainment aspect of the whole operation continues to fund the needs of the farm that provides produce for locals, Tyler Schmitt hopes to continue to make promising collaborations that will impact the community significantly in the coming years.

Media Contact
Company Name: Ultimate Farm Collaborative Inc.
Contact Person: Tyler Schmitt
Email: Send Email
Phone: 4145874320
Country: United States
Website: http://www.ultimatecollab.com

Controlled Environment Agriculture Funding Breeds Optimism For Post-Pandemic Growth

Carrie Meadows

July 9, 2021

Back in 2019, LEDs Magazine published a feature on investment pacing and market prospects for horticultural solid-state lighting (SSL) and products and systems for controlled environment agriculture (CEA) operations. We were really just beginning to see how venture capital funds and research grants were being distributed among CEA growers themselves in a wave hot investment for advanced farming methods. Indeed, as chief editor Maury Wright wrote regarding the early planning days of the former Horticultural Lighting Conference, “We suspected the primary interest would be investment in the companies supplying technology that could be deployed in vertical farms around the globe. Instead, the sector would soon witness huge investment in the farms themselves.”

Although the pace of announcements slowed slightly amid the coronavirus pandemic, we have covered quite a bit of research on plant science, optimization studies for horticultural lighting, and capital investment alike. And I am pleased to see prospects are growing for companies working toward technology integration in this sector.

For example, the Wells Fargo Foundation’s Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), which is co-administered by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), just announced the latest cohort of startups that will benefit from its funding and partnerships with NREL and an independent research institute, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, MO. All of the companies in this phase are focused on enabling sustainable indoor agriculture.

GrowFlux CEO Eric Eisele was kind enough to point me to the program news, which you can read in the linked release on our site. For background, GrowFlux is a 2021 LEDs Magazine Sapphire Awards finalist for its GrowFlux Dimmer lighting controller. That product is designed with ease of use in mind to allow an end customer to easily deploy intelligent controls without programming experience or a technician to set up.

“With the growing complexity and evolving practices around horticultural lighting control, our user-friendly setup experience and app eliminates a lot of the frustration,” said Eisele. “We've been building out compatibility for all of the major manufacturers of horticultural lighting to make this energy-saving control technology as accessible as possible, especially for the many small and medium-sized businesses in the controlled environment agriculture industry.”

Each participating company in the IN2 cohort will receive $250,000 and will work at NREL and the Danforth center on R&D. When asked what GrowFlux plans to do with its funding, Eisele said that the company will partner with a sensor manufacturer to combine wireless controls and PAR sensors to determine real-time PAR levels in the indoor environment. The idea is to analyze the PAR data and program the lighting control system to evaluate and manage a Daily Light Integral (DLI) target.

The word “automation” came up. GrowFlux is not the first organization to explore the concept of bringing software intelligence, lighting, and systems controls together in a way that delivers both streamlined and adaptable operations to reduce energy consumption in a greenhouse or other CEA setting (refer to the Automatoes challenge and a presentation from AgEye in our past HortiCann Light + Tech insights). However, Eisele explained, the GrowFlux wireless dimmer is compatible with offerings from many well-known horticultural lighting providers (e.g., Fluence, GE Current, BIOS, Heliospectra, and more), and the company intends to maintain out-of-the-box installation and interoperability with the next generation of technology development, rather than pursue customized designs.

Funding placements like this will propel advances for CEA and AgTech, increase technology uptake, and prove out the return on investment for integrated horticultural systems.

Lead Photo: It’s an exciting time to watch engineers, scientists, and horticultural experts in the field receive the support and resources to collaborate and put new knowledge and technologies into action.

European And Asian Expansion For Equilibrium

July 9, 2021

Equilibrium, the company that this week closed the industry’s largest Controlled Environment Agriculture Fund at $1.022 billion, has established an office in Singapore and has Dutch master grower Godfried Dol and former Rabobank Asia & career agricultural investor John Baker manning it. Currently, the company is trying to develop the first high-tech glass greenhouse in Singapore. And there’s more. In the next year, Equilibrium is expecting to get several European greenhouse companies onboard.

“As the industry grows, capital and expertise are what’s needed. We’re in a great position to aggregate and consolidate as this industry matures,” Dave says. “In many countries in South East Asia, it is about food safety. In Singapore for example it is about food security: a small island nation that has little agricultural space. Yet, if it is safety, security, consistency, quality or the ability to manage climate volatility that is in demand and regardless of the order, they all contribute to the same demand for CEA facilities.”

David explains that he believes there to be plenty of opportunities in Asia – something that hasn’t developed at all since the industry grew out of Holland, and the current greenhouse crops mainly reflect the European diet. “Or as one policymaker said ‘We do not eat a lot of kale here.’ But they do eat a lot of vegetables. Bitter ones, different ones. There’s plenty of room to grow and innovate and that’s exciting.”

European market
And there’s more. Also in markets where the CEA industry has matured, Equilibrium sees opportunities. Earlier Dave shared his belief that access to capital is a competitive advantage and with this in mind, the company is also for operators in Europe. “We’re setting the tone for the Dutch industry,” Dave confirms. “When AppHarvest went public, we jokingly said that we listed a farm. When that happens, the family business balance sheet being the support for growth is likely no longer to be adequate. By now several companies have announced their listing, often through De-SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company), and have seen also a significant rise of private capital. This will happen in Northern Europe in 2021 and 2022.”

Dutch greenhouse suppliers
Over the last couple of years, private equity found its way towards the Dutch greenhouse suppliers, yet with some exceptions in place, still, growers mainly relied on Rabobank as their capital plan. “It’s also evidence of the fact that many of the growers in the Netherlands are coops, and coops are tough strategic vehicles,” David says. “Then again, before the expansion was measured in 5 hectares or 10 hectares. What we see now in the North American projects are routinely 25 hectares or 50 hectares expansions. We polled the Dutch venture industry and asked them if they were able to meet the capital industry in the growth of construction in North America. Only a year ago all of them said, without hesitation, that it wasn’t a problem. If you would poll them today, they would look at each other and say there’s no manpower.”

Equilibrium has, David, adds, and confirms that the company is on the lookout to work with Dutch growers. “We’ve been working on long-term relationships with Dutch suppliers for a longer period by now – but we’re their clients. That’s not the case for the operators. Over the course of the next year, you’ll see us increasing our exposure working with European operators and operators in the Netherlands that have a desire to expand their footprint.”

He is assured that the company’s reputation as a collaborative, dedicated, and a domain-o-where investment firm will help them gain ground in the European industry. “Vendors know that when we commit to a project, it is fully capitalized and that they can play with security and certainty. We always came with capital, we weren’t developers that were raising capital for each project – we’ve committed capital to each project. People want to work with us because they know that. Then there is our team with Nick (Houshower), Gave, and also with Marco and Godfried. They are either experts in the industry or in construction or in the case of our team, have taken the humility to learn and learn again. Vendors know that we’re not the company to make crazy requests. We may push hard, but nothing crazy.”

So why does the company want to invest in the Dutch industry? David explains he continues to see opportunities there, despite the coops. “The Netherlands, and to some degree Israel, have built these industries out of necessity. Innovation took place to solve very practical problems, and got to grow these industries. Where it was a curiosity for the rest of the world, it was practical for the Netherlands. Under the radar, the Dutch grew expertise and dominance and while everybody looked at in the broad daylight, there wasn’t much invested in it. 2020 / 2021 made the ‘Americanisation’ of the Dutch industry visible. And now that Silicon Valley technology and the capital industry has started to look at the industry like mainstream agriculture, funny things happen.” He explains how larger operators like AppHarvest have a Chief Technology Officer for example. “Continuous absorption of technology platforms for productivity is a way of life. If you do not have the dollars to afford a technology operation, you are at a competitive disadvantage.”

Will it result in further upscaling and eating or being eaten in the Dutch greenhouse industry? David adds a third option. “Increasingly we’re seeing small farms not being the eater and being too small to be eaten. Stranded assets,” he says. “Not just in the Netherlands. Some of the small ones will have to decide: will they focus on a niche, or will proximity be their unique point – something that enables them to thrive in that scale and differentiate. Otherwise, a number of small-scale facilities are to question their future.”

"Resilience Is Going To Become A Key Element of Food Security"

July 5, 2021

When it comes to rethinking agriculture to create better products with much less impact 365 days a year on a large scale, Cristián Sjögren and Pablo Bunster, two professionals from the renewable energy sector, left their jobs behind to bring sustainable farming to cities.

A little over two years ago they formed AgroUrbana, a startup dedicated to vertical agriculture, which consists of producing food in vertically stacked layers, in their case using LED lights and hydroponic cultivation, to provide the light and water necessary to harvest vegetables with nutrition. very accurate in spaces with controlled climates. 

In 2020, despite the fact that its creators consider that much more work needs to be done to advance in a country where traditional agriculture prevails, they have managed to expand their distribution channels. “Our investors and clients are excited. We have seen a very positive reception from the markets ”explains Bunster, who points out that last August they began to sell their vegetables in Jumbo, and since last week they have been in the North American multinational Walmart. 

“The new generations read the label in the supermarket more than any other. The sophistication of the consumer is demanding more from the producers, and the way agriculture has been done until today has not been able to cope with these consumption conditions. This is part of the value of bringing vertical agriculture to Chile ”, says Pablo Bunster, who sees in the startup a possible solution by automating food production.

In March 2020, AgroUrbana closed its second round of financing, which was led by the CLIN fund of ChileGlobal Ventures, the Venture Capital area of ​​Fundación Chile. To date, the startup adds USD 1.5 million in financing, in which funds from Venture Capital, Family Offices, and individuals have participated, which has allowed them to reach an advanced stage of the AgroUrbana Series A round for USD $ 4 million, to finance the construction of a much larger scale vertical farm. 

Read the complete article at: Vertical Farm Daily

VIDEO: Is the Future of Agriculture Micro-Farms?

July 2, 2021

Is the future of agriculture micro-farms? When the pandemic hit, the retail food landscape changed dramatically. With “big food” supplying most restaurants and grocery stores, they faced numerous challenges— from labor shortages, redistribution challenges to distribution sites with long travel times— causing many individuals to turn to smaller, local farms.

In this week’s episode of TheSquare Podcast, we have a curious conversation with Jeff Bednar, Owner and founder of Profound Microfarms and Profound Foods. The Profound family business started as a 2.6-acre farm in Texas growing leafy greens, edible flowers, culinary herbs, and microgreens in 17,000 sq ft of hydroponic greenhouses.

Source: Vertical Farm Daily

Vertical Farming: Disrupting Agriculture

A New Agricultural Revolution Could Forever Change The Planet

ROBBY BERMAN

24 May 2021

• Vertical farming leverages cutting-edge technology to grow food in a new and better way.

• One of its many benefits is that it can increase crop yield by 700 percent.

• Vertical farming can help relieve pressure on scarce resources and boost Earth's biodiversity.

One day soon, you could eat bananas grown in downtown Manhattan.

It's a way of growing food that turns traditional agriculture on its head. With the required technologies now rapidly maturing, vertical farming is sprouting across the globe.

While there are still unresolved issues with this marriage of technology and agriculture, its promise may be irresistible. If it gets off the ground — literally — in a major way, it could solve the problem of feeding the Earth's 7.9 billion people. And that's just one of the benefits its proponents promise.

Vertical farms could take over the world | Hard Reset by Freethink www.youtube.com

Agriculture through time

When humankind began planting crops for nutrition about 12,000 years ago, the nature of our hunter-gatherer species fundamentally shifted. For the first time, it's believed, people began staying put.

With agriculture as their central mission, communities formed, with the now-familiar arrangement of residential areas surrounded by land dedicated to growing food. Even today, with modern transportation making the widespread consumption of non-local foods common, this land-allocation model largely survives: population centers surrounded by large areas for growing vegetables and fruit and raising livestock.

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Credit: Genetics4Good / Wikimedia

Challenges facing traditional agriculture

As our population has grown, traditional agriculture has begun facing some big challenges:

• Farmland takes up a lot of space and destroys biodiversity. Our World in Data reports that half of all habitable land is used for agriculture. As Nate Storey of Plenty, Inc., a vertical farming startup, puts it, "It is probably one of the most defining acts of humanity: We literally changed the ecosystem of the entire planet to meet our dietary needs."

• The demand for farmland — both for produce and livestock — has led to a dangerous deforestation in several parts of the world. This also results in biodiversity loss and contributes to an increase in the greenhouse gases that drive climate change.

• Degradation of farmland, such as through soil erosion, poses a threat to agricultural productivity.

• Agriculture consumes copious amounts of water, which exacerbates water shortages. (Obviously, water shortages also reduce agricultural productivity.)

• Fertilizer run-off causes substantial environmental damage, such as algal blooms and fish kills.

• Pesticides can degrade the environment by affecting non-target organisms.

• The effects of climate change are already making agriculture more challenging due to significant shifts in weather, changes to growing seasons, and realignment of water supplies. Our climate is continuing to change in unexpected ways, and the only predictable aspect of what lies ahead is unpredictability.

Vertical farming proponents expect that a re-think of how we grow food can ultimately solve these problems.

What is vertical farming?

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Credit: Freethink Media / Plenty, Inc.

Vertical farming is a form of agriculture that grows plants indoors in floor-to-ceiling, tower-like walls of plant-holding cells. Instead of growing plants in horizontal fields on the ground, as in traditional farming, you can think of vertical farming's "fields" as standing on the edge and extending upward toward the ceiling. The plants need no soil or other aggregate medium in which to grow; their roots are typically held in a cell lining, often composed of coconut fiber.

Vertical flora is grown either aeroponically, in which water and nutrients are delivered to plants via misting, or hydroponically, in which plants are grown in nutrient-rich water. These are incredibly efficient systems, requiring 95% less irrigation than soil-grown plants. With vertical farming, Storey says that 99 percent of the moisture transpired by plants can be recaptured, condensed, and recirculated.

Plants, of course, also need light to grow, and vertical farms use increasingly efficient LED bulbs to keep plants thriving.

Vertical farms can increase crop yields by 700 percent

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Credit: pressmaster / Adobe Stock

If vertical farming takes off the way its supporters believe it should and will, it may solve many of the aforementioned challenges facing agriculture.

Crop yields with vertical farming far exceed what's possible with traditional agriculture. Plenty, Inc.'s Shireen Santosham notes that the highly controlled growing environment of vertical farming has allowed her company to reduce the growing time for some crops to as little as 10 days. Without needing to consider whether or even sunlight, combined with the ability to operate 365 days a year, their system increases the potential annual yield by about 700 percent.

The land requirement for vertical farming is a mere fraction of that for traditional agriculture. Santosham says it can be done in a building the size of a big-box retail store that can be built pretty much anywhere that has adequate utilities, including within major urban centers. The tightly controlled environment of a vertical farm should also eliminate the need for applied pesticides.

Yet another benefit of vertical farming is the return of land currently needed for food production back to the planet. This could help facilitate Earth's recovery from deforestation and return much-needed habitat to threatened or endangered species. Of course, if we ever colonize the moon or Mars, vertical farming will be the go-to option for feeding the colonists.

Several vertical farming company pioneers are already getting their high-quality crops into the hands, and mouths, of consumers. Plenty, Inc. has an eponymous line of greens, and Aerofarms has their FlavorSpectrum line. Both companies claim that their products are exceptionally tasty, a result of their carefully controlled growing environments in which computer-controlled lighting can be optimized to bring out the most desirable qualities of each crop.

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Credit: Alesia Berlezova / Adobe Stock

The history of vertical farming

The idea of vertical farming isn't new, and experts have been questioning its viability since the term was first coined in 1915 by Gilbert Ellis Bailey, who was obviously way ahead of the available technology at the time. The first attempt to grow produce in a constructed environment was a Danish farmhouse factory that was built to grow cress, a peppery green related to mustard, in the 1950s.

The modern concept of a vertical farm arose in the New York classroom of Columbia University's Dickson Despommier in 1999. He presented the idea as a theoretical construct, a mental/mathematical exercise imagining how to farm in an environmentally sound manner. His class began with the notion of a rooftop garden before considering a "high-rise" version that might theoretically be able to grow enough rice to feed two percent of Manhattan's population at the time. The eureka moment was a question Dispommier asked: "If it can't be done using rooftops, why don't we just grow the crops inside the buildings? We already know how to cultivate and water plants indoors."

With the technological advances of the last few decades, vertical farming is now a reality. Our sister site, Freethink, recently paid Plenty, Inc. a visit. (See video above.)

Vertical farming today

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Credit: Nelea Reazanteva / Adobe Stock

Today, growers across the globe are developing vertical farms. While the U.S. has more vertical farms than any other country, the industry is blooming everywhere.

There are currently over 2,000 vertical farms in the U.S. While more than 60 percent of these are owned by small growers, there are a few heavyweights as well. In addition to Wyoming's Plenty, Inc. and Newark's Aerofarms, there's also New York's Bowery Farming. There are also companies such as edengreen, based in Texas, whose mission is to help new entrants construct and operate vertical farms.

Japan comes in second, with about 200 vertical farms currently in operation. The largest vertical farming company there is SPREAD. Across Asia, vertical farms are operating in China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan. In Europe, vertical growers are in Germany, France, Netherlands, and the U.K. Germany is also home to the Association for Vertical Farming, "the leading global, non-profit organization that enables international exchange and cooperation in order to accelerate the development of the indoor/vertical farming industry."

In the Middle East, whose desert land and scarcity of water present a particularly challenging agricultural environment, vertical farming is taking root, so to speak. The United Arab Emirates' Badia Farms is now producing more than 3,500 kilograms of high-quality produce each day and expects to increase that yield going forward. In Kuwait, NOX Management launched in the summer of 2020 with plans to produce 250 types of greens, with a daily output of 550 kg of salads, herbs, and cresses.

The economics of vertical farming

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Credit: meryll / Adobe Stock

Building and operating a vertical farm is a costly endeavor, requiring a substantial initial investment in state-of-the-art technology, real estate, and construction. AgFunderNews (AFN) estimates that it can cost $15 million to construct a modern vertical farm. Fortunately, investors see the potential in vertical farming, and the industry has attracted more than $1 billion in investments since 2015. That includes $100 million for Aerofarms. Plenty, Inc raised $200 million in 2017 from a fund backed by such respected forward-thinkers as Jeff Bezos and Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt.

AFN is particularly excited by the potential of what they call second-generation vertical farming technology. They cite advances in LED technology — expected to increase energy efficiency by 70 percent by 2030 — and increasingly sophisticated automation that can streamline the operation of vertical farms. AFN anticipates operating cost reduction of 12 percent due to improvements in lighting and another 20 percent from advances in automation.

BusinessWire says that the vertical farming produce market was valued at nearly $240 million in 2019, and they expect it to grow 20 percent annually to over $1 billion by 2027.

A welcome disruption

Vertical farming will be disruptive.

Vertical farming would eliminate the need for the arduous work of harvesting crops by hand from vast tracts of farmland. Current picking jobs, the company says, can be replaced by better-paying, full-time jobs available 365 days a year in better working conditions — and in the variety of geographic locations in which vertical farms can operate.

There are two caveats, however. First, the number of people needed to manage and harvest vertical farm crops will be far fewer than the many farmworkers required for less efficiently planted traditional fields. Second, with automation becoming ever-more capable — and perhaps a key to eventual profitability — one wonders just how many new jobs ultimately will be created.

But the societal benefits far outweigh any costs. As Plenty's Storey muses, "Like most everything in the world, we can only save our species if it makes economic sense." Thankfully, it does make economic sense

Lead photo: Credit: Freethink Media / Plenty, Inc..

FFAR Pioneers Vertical Farming To Grow Food In Nontraditional Spaces

The Foundation for Food & Agriculture Research (FFAR) is awarding a $1,061,576 grant through its Precision Indoor Plants (PIP) consortium to Sky high: Vertical Farming, a revolution in plant production, a program to advance vertical farming by researching plant genetics and indoor growing conditions that help crops thrive and enhance desired qualities.

The Sky high-program, led by Dr. Leo Marcelis of Wageningen University in the Netherlands, is a collaboration of 18 organizations that are conducting research to make vertical agriculture cheaper, more nutritious and energy efficient. PIP’s partnership with SKY HIGH builds on their current research on strawberries, potatoes, lettuce and basil. The research team is exploring factors that increase crop nutrients and how environmental inputs affect taste, appearance and shelf life. The researchers are also identifying genetic traits that accelerate the development of crop varieties with specific traits in a shorter time frame – research that will benefit indoor and outdoor agriculture. Ultimately, this research is developing crops that respond well to indoor environments and designing vertical farms with favorable conditions for their growth.

“Vertical farming is a novel system for producing crops,” said Dr. Marcelis. “To realize the full potential, we need fundamental understanding of the different components of vertical farming. We want to achieve this by a coordinated effort of researchers from disciplines ranging from genetics, metabolomics, physiology, horticulture, machine learning, climate control, energy systems and building physics.”

In addition to these projects, with PIP’s help Sky high is expanding its lettuce research to study tip burn—the browning of leaf edges—in head lettuce, speed breeding in lettuce, and lettuce’s reaction to daylight cycles. The Sky high researchers are analyzing how the structure of lettuce affects the distribution of nutrients like calcium, which is thought to play a role in tip burn. With this information, the researchers will have a better understanding of how tip burn develops and can grow new lettuce varieties that reduce its damage. Researchers are also exploring breeding lettuce varieties to fast-track growth and speed up flowering and seed formation. Lettuce’s reaction to daylight cycles affects indoor growing conditions, and this project is identifying ways to use different light schedules to promote desired traits such as increased yield. The results of the research impacts both indoor and outdoor lettuce, making it a sustainable, high-quality crop.

For more information:
Foundation for food & agriculture research (FFAR)
www.foundationfar.org 

April 9, 2021

Sustainable Impacts Indoor Farming May Have On Environment

Mar 18, 2021, | Knowledge Base, Learning, Research Paper

By Center of Excellence

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 Figure 1. Map of research and knowledge domain of indoor farming.

Abstract

This article identifies the potential environmental effects large-scale indoor farming may have on air, water, and soil. We begin with an overview of what indoor farming is with a focus on greenhouses and indoor vertical farms (eg, plant factories). Next, the differences between these 2 primary methods of indoor farming are presented based on their structural requirements, methods of growing, media, nutrient sources, lighting requirements, facility capacity, and methods of climate control. We also highlight the benefits and challenges facing indoor farming. In the next section, an overview of research and the knowledge domain of indoor and vertical farming is provided. Various authors and topics for research are highlighted. In the next section, the transformative environmental effects that indoor farming may have on air, soil, and water are discussed. This article closes with suggestions for additional research on indoor farming and its influence on the environment.

Citation

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Stein EW. The Transformative Environmental Effects Large-Scale Indoor Farming May Have On Air, Water, and Soil. Air, Soil and Water Research. January 2021. doi:10.1177/1178622121995819

Introduction

Open field farming has been practiced the same way for centuries as the primary means of growing food. Its origins can be traced back to wheat production 11 000 years ago in the Middle East, which later spread to the Mediterranean, North Africa, and elsewhere.1 Given limitations on the amount of arable land, water scarcity, increased awareness of sustainable development, and the well-documented environmental effects of open-field agriculture, other farming methods have been developed in the past few decades. The primary alternative to open field farming is referred to as indoor farming, which has received relatively little attention in terms of environmental impacts. The goal of this article is to introduce indoor farming in its many forms to environmental scientists, outline key areas of research, and highlight the effects large-scale indoor farming could have on the environment. Research needs to be done to better understand the cumulative and transformative environmental effects indoor farming methods may have on water, air, and soil as it realizes its potential to supply a significant portion of the population with fresh food.

What Is Indoor Farming?

Indoor farming is a relatively new method of growing vegetables and other plants under controlled environmental conditions. These farm systems are variously referred to as indoor farms, vertical farms, vfarms, zfarms, greenhouses, controlled environment agriculture (CEA), and plant factories.2,3 Indoor farms are sometimes confused with urban farms, which typically represent small outdoor farms or gardens to grow vegetables that are located in urban areas. It also should be noted that mushrooms have been grown indoors in compost under controlled conditions without light for more than one hundred years.4 For the purposes of this article, we will focus on characteristics of controlled environment indoor vertical farms and greenhouses, which are the primary architectures used for the large-scale production of leafy greens and other vegetables that require natural or artificial light.

The many faces of indoor farming

Greenhouses have been the workhorse for indoor growers for decades, especially in the production of flowers and ornamental plants. The modern high-tech greenhouse designs were pioneered in the Netherlands and have since been embraced all over the world. Several examples of these farms are evident throughout the United States and the largest span hundreds of acres. For example, according to Greenhouse Grower,5 Altman Plants (CA) has almost 600 acres under glass followed by Costa Farms (FL) with 345 acres. These are mainly used in the production of ornamental plants.

For vegetables, greenhouses were originally designed for tomatoes but now are used in the production of kale, microgreens, lettuces, herbs, squash, and other types of fresh produce. These greenhouses, formerly located in rural areas, are now being positioned near urban and peri-urban areas to bring operations closer to population centers to save money and reduce the carbon footprint associated with transportation miles. For example, BrightFarms (brightfarms.com) has greenhouse operations located just outside of Philadelphia and Cincinnati to produce lettuces and other leafy greens. Gotham Greens (gothamgreens.com) situated its first greenhouse on top of a warehouse in Brooklyn, NY and has since expanded to other cities. AppHarvest (appharvest.com) is a venture located in Kentucky whose greenhouses cover more than 60 acres to produce tomatoes and other vegetables. What is common to greenhouse design is that all growing takes place on a single level, they are clothed in materials such as glass that transmit natural sunlight, and include climate control and irrigation equipment. They may also use a modest amount of supplemental artificial lighting during winter months.6

Growing leafy greens and other plants in buildings has emerged in the past 25 years whereby plants are grown vertically and hydroponically using artificial lights. Indoor vertical farms are typically located in warehouses or similar structures that have been retrofitted to provide superior heating, ventilation, and cooling (HVAC) for the benefit of plant production and racking systems to support the production systems.7-9 The PVC grow systems transport nutrient-rich water to the root zone of the plants, and the water is then returned to the main reservoir. Designed as closed re-circulating systems, indoor vertical farms only use a fraction of the amount of water as greenhouses or open-field methods (see also section “Water Use”). The advent of cost-effective LED lighting technologies has allowed farmers to provide the plants with just the right wavelengths of light, intensity, and photo-period to optimize growth.10 Other advances include automation, IoT, and artificial intelligence; ie, all of the information technologies that contribute to “smart farming.”11

Although modern LEDs are very efficient compared to HID, high-pressure sodium, or florescent lamps, the capital and operating costs of these artificial lighting systems are significant,10 as are the climate control systems that are also required. Greenhouses, for example, require significant investment in heating and cooling equipment to maintain stable temperatures and humidity, which results in significant operating costs in buildings with low R-value membranes (eg, glass). The chief benefit of this design is that the light comes free, although growing is limited to a single level. Indoor vertical farms, however, can benefit from well-insulated structures that reduce heating and cooling costs and growing can take place on multiple levels. That said, these savings come at the expense of relatively high electricity usage for artificial lighting.10 These operating costs can be mitigated with the increasing efficiencies of LED’s, sensing systems that modulate light to the maximum required for the plants, pairing indoor farms with renewable energy sources such as solar and geo-thermal, and architectures that favor energy efficiency.9

Methods of indoor farms

Indoor farms are characterized by several parameters:

• Growing Method and Media

• Source of Nutrients

• Lighting Requirements

• Facility Capacity

• Climate Control

• Economics

Most indoor farms use hydroponic methods of growing; i.e, plants are grown in water. Seeding takes place in an inert material such as stone-wool or peat, which is irrigated with nutrient–rich water. Water is administered using a variety of techniques ranging from fine mist sprayers (aeroponics), to shallow water (NFT) irrigation, to deep water culture (DWC) immersion to flood and drain methods.9 All are effective and have their pros and cons. Nutrients for larger-scale hydroponic production systems typically come from dissolved salts that ionize in the water. In some smaller systems, the nutrients come from the nutrient-rich water of fish farms (ie, aquaponic systems) that are proximate to and coupled with the plant production system.

In greenhouse production facilities, most lighting comes from the sun, which may be supplemented with artificial light, especially in the northern latitudes during winter. Plant factories and vertical farms, however, use only artificial lighting but are designed to maximize growing area using stacking methods. One common design is characterized by horizontal multi-tier growing systems starting at ground level that may include up to a dozen growing levels or tiers. Aerofarms (aerofarms.com) and Bowery Farms (boweryfarming.com) use this type of design for their production processes. An alternative is to use vertical drip irrigation grow systems. This design is characterized by vertical multi-site growing systems starting at ground level that extend upwards of 8 ft. In these systems, plants grow “sideways” toward artificial lights that are positioned at a right angle. Plenty, Inc. (plenty.ag) uses systems like these obtained in the acquisition of Bright Agrotech. Several examples of vertical farming ventures can also be found in Al-Kodmany.

All indoor farming methods share the characteristic of offering CEA. Controlled environment agriculture offers the grower complete control over several environmental variables including, but not limited to: light intensity and wavelength, photo-period, wind velocity, temperature, and humidity. Water culture is further managed to obtain optimal results based on nutrient levels, PH, and dissolved oxygen.9,12 In most cases, pesticides and herbicides are eliminated. More advanced farms such as Fifth Season (fifthseasonfresh.com) benefit from extensive use of sensors, IoT, robotics, automation, and control systems designed to optimize yields and minimize labor. Another valuable aspect of CEA farms is their ability to produce plants with certain desired morphologies and nutritional profiles based on the control of lighting wavelength, temperature, and nutrient levels. Sharath Kumar et al13 go so far as to suggest that with CEA, we are moving from genetic to environmental modification of plants.

Benefits and challenges of indoor vertical farms

Several benefits are associated with vertical farming,9 although the industry is not without its challenges (see Table 1). The principal sustainable benefits of indoor vertical farming are a large reduction in the use of water (see also section “Water Use”), the reduction or elimination of pesticides, and mitigation of the effects of excess fertilizer run-off. From an economic perspective, the ability to control the environment results in a stable supply chain, price stability, long-term contracts with distributors and retail markets, and high yields per square foot. The elimination of pesticides puts produce grown this way on par with organics, which command premium pricing. Indoor farms, if designed correctly, can reduce labor costs and may be located closer to urban centers. Some see a role for indoor farms to ameliorate food deserts, unemployment, and as a means to re-purpose abandoned buildings and lots.3,9,14-16 Finally, vertical farms provide resilience to climate change, flooding, droughts, etc.

However, the vertical farming industry is facing some key challenges. For instance, currently only a very small portion of fresh vegetables are produced indoors. The one exception is the mushroom industry, which represents a US$1.15 billion industry.17 Second, the USDA does not clearly identify vegetable production by method; eg, greenhouse, open field, vertical farm, etc, so data are not readily available. Third, profits have been elusive, especially for vertical farms.18 According to the 2019 Global CEA Census Report only 15% of shipping container farms and 37% of indoor vertical farms were profitable vs. 45% for greenhouse operations.19 Another limitation of indoor farming is that a relatively small number of cultivars can be grown using indoor farming methods.

The primary ones are leafy greens, herbs, microgreens, tomatoes, and peppers, although berries, root vegetables, and other more exotic plants are being trialed.19 Another challenge for indoor farm start-ups are the high capital costs, which can range from US$50-150/ft2 for greenhouses to US$150-400/ft2 for vertical farms. For example, AppHarvest had to raise over US$150 million to fund its 60-acre greenhouse complex.20 Aerofarms raised US$42 million for a 150 000 ft2 vertical farm,21 which equates to over US$280/ft2. Cosgrove22 further reports that access to capital is impeding the growth of indoor farming, especially for smaller farms. One reason that indoor vertical farms are not easily profitable is that they have to compete against conventional farms, which still enjoy a cost advantage.

As a result, indoor farms typically price product toward the high end and along the lines of pricing for organics,2 which limits market penetration. The 2 major factors contributing to the high costs of indoor and vertical farm operations are energy10,23,24 and labor, which account for nearly 3 quarters of the total.2,24 Despite these challenges, venture capital continues to pour money into indoor farming and agtech in the hopes of driving cost down and maintaining growth. Dehlinger25 reported that US$2.8 billion was invested by venture capitalists in Agtech companies in 2019.

Finally, the industry is struggling to share knowledge, establish standards, and create best practices, although progress is being made. For example, the Center of Excellence for Indoor Agriculture established a “Best in Class” award for growers and manufacturers (indoorgacenter.org). Indoor Ag-Con (indoor.ag) and the Indoor Agtech Innovation Summit (rethinkevents.com) hold online events and annual conferences to help promote knowledge sharing. Several specialized industry news outlets now exist including Vertical Farm Daily (verticalfarmdaily.com), Urban Ag News (urbanagnews.com), iGrow (igrow.news), Hortidaily (hortidaily.com), AgFunder Network (agfundernews.com), and others.

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Keywords: Indoor farming, vertical farming, vfarm, zfarm, plant factory, water, air, soil, sustainability, carbon cycles, drought, information technology, greenhouse gases, climate change, environment, agtech

Entrepreneurs See Hydroponics As Farming Solution In Libya

Conventional Agriculture Struggles

In Mostly-Desert North African Country.

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11/04/2021

TRIPOLI--Under a yellow tarpaulin stretched over an arched metal frame, Siraj Bechiya and his partner inspect their hydroponically-grown lettuce, pioneers of the method in mostly-desert Libya where conventional agriculture struggles.

Zip ties, punctured plastic cups as pots and PVC tubing bought in DIY shops hold the precious crops at “Green Paradise” — so dubbed by the two young Libyan entrepreneurs spearheading the project.

But the ad hoc nature of the materials hasn’t stopped the plants from thriving, their long white roots nourished by water rich with nutrients and oxygen.

Bechiya and his partner, Mounir, have been working tirelessly on their project for months in the small town of Qouwea, 40 kilometres east of the capital Tripoli, erecting a tunnel-shaped greenhouse surrounded by breeze-block walls on a semi-arid site.

Their hope is to demystify hydroponic farming, which “guarantees a good yield in small spaces”, uses little water and doesn’t need pesticides, 20-year-old Bechiya said.

Soilless farming has gained ground in many countries but is still in its infancy in Libya.

But in a country whose territory is 90 percent arid desert, the method could offer a path toward more food self-sufficiency, Bechiya believes.

Challenges to farming 

Agriculture remains a marginal sector in Libya, where the economy is dominated by hydrocarbons, the country boasting the most abundant oil reserves in Africa.

Arable land barely makes up three percent of Libya’s territory and is under threat, as rapid urbanisation eats up the fertile strip along the Mediterranean coast.

Another major challenge to farming in Libya is the lack of water where agriculture needs it most.

The Great Man-Made River — a pharaonic project realised by the toppled long-time ruler Muammar Gadhafi more than 30 years ago — carries drinking water pumped from groundwater tables in the south to the northern cities where most Libyans live.

But this resource is not infinite, and the GMMR’s network has been heavily damaged in the decade of conflict that has ravaged Libya since Kadhafi’s ouster in a 2011 NATO-backed uprising.

In the face of these challenges, Bechiya and Mounir set out to train in hydroponics two years ago in neighbouring Tunisia.

“When we came back, it was imperative that we move from theory to practice,” Bechiya said.

“We started with some vegetables in the house and we were surprised by people’s enthusiasm.”

New Techniques 

In theory, hydroponics can guarantee higher yields and profits than conventional farming, which is at risk from weather, water shortages, and pollution from unregulated pesticide use.

“With more space in the greenhouse, the idea was able to take off. We will continue to develop it… and improve quality,” said Bechiya, as he measured the acidity of the water feeding his young lettuce.

“Libyan consumers don’t want produce full of pesticides anymore, but organic produce,” he added.

While not saturated with pesticides, hydroponic products, poo-pooed as bland by detractors, generally are not labeled organic.

Agronomist Abdelkafi al-Amrouni said the method “paves the way toward the introduction of new agricultural techniques in Libya” to compensate for water shortages.

There are still obstacles to widespread hydroponic use, however.

“It’s complicated and very expensive to get supplies in Libya,” even as the country tries to turn the page on a decade of chaos, Amrouni said.

Such costs could make the products ultimately prohibitively pricey.

But Bechiya is not deterred.

“You have to be patient and believe in your idea,” he said.

Lead photo: Project manager checks a plantation of hydroponically grown lettuce, in a greenhouse in the small town of Qouwea, about 40 kilometres east of Libya’s capital Tripoli. (AFP)

Vertical Farming Startup Oishii Raises $50m In Series A Funding

By Sian Yates

03/11/2021

Oishii, a vertical farming startup based in New Jersey, has raised $50 million during a Series A funding round led by Sparx Group’s Mirai Creation Fund II.

The funds will enable Oishii to open vertical strawberry farms in new markets, expand its flagship farm outside of Manhattan, and accelerate its investment in R&D.

“Our mission is to change the way we grow food. We set out to deliver exceptionally delicious and sustainable produce,” said Oishii CEO Hiroki Koga. “We started with the strawberry – a fruit that routinely tops the dirty dozen of most pesticide-riddled crops – as it has long been considered the ‘holy grail’ of vertical farming.”

“We aim to be the largest strawberry producer in the world, and this capital allows us to bring the best-tasting, healthiest berry to everyone. From there, we’ll quickly expand into new fruits and produce,” he added.

Oishii is already known for its innovative farming techniques that have enabled the company to “perfect the strawberry,” while its proprietary and first-of-its-kind pollination method is conducted naturally with bees.

The company’s vertical farms feature zero pesticides and produce ripe fruit all year round, using less water and land than traditional agricultural methods.

“Oishii is the farm of the future,” said Sparx Group president and Group CEO Shuhei Abe. “The cultivation and pollination techniques the company has developed set them well apart from the industry, positioning Oishii to quickly revolutionise agriculture as we know it.”

The company has raised a total of $55 million since its founding in 2016.

Little Leaf Farms Raises $90M to Grow Its Greenhouse Network

by Jennifer Marston

Image from: Little Leaf Farms

Massachusetts-based Little Leaf Farms has raised $90 million in a debt and equity financing round to expand its network of hydroponic greenhouses on the East Coast. The round was led by Equilibrium Capital as well as founding investors Bill Helman and Pilot House Associates. Bank of America also participated.

Little Leaf Farms says the capital is “earmarked” to build new greenhouse sites along the East Coast, where its lettuce is currently available in about 2,500 stores. 

The company already operates one 10-acre greenhouse in Devins, Massachusetts. Its facility grows leafy greens using hydroponics and a mixture of sunlight supplemented by LED-powered grow lights. Rainwater captured from the facility’s roof provides most of the water used on the farm. 

According to a press release, Little Leaf Farms has doubled its retail sales to $38 million since 2019. And last year, the company bought180 acres of land in Pennsylvania on which to build an additional facility. Still another greenhouse, slated for North Carolina, will serve the Southeast region of the U.S. 

Little Leaf Farms joins the likes of Revol Greens, Gotham Greens, AppHarvest, and others in bringing local(ish) greens to a greater percentage of the population. These facilities generally pack and ship their greens on the day of or day after harvesting, and only supply retailers within a certain radius. Little Leaf Farms, for example, currently servers only parts of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. 

The list of regions the company serves will no doubt lengthen as the company builds up its greenhouse network in the coming months.

Agritech: Precision Farming With AI, IoT and 5G

Image from: Photo by Mohd Izwan Mohd Nazam/The Edge

For a company that grows and delivers vegetables, Boomgrow Productions Sdn Bhd’s office is nothing like a farm, or even a vertical farm.

Where farms are bedecked with wheelbarrows, spades and hoes, Boomgrow’s floor plan is akin to a co-working space with a communal island table, several cubicles, comfortable armchairs, a cosy hanging rattan chair and a glass-walled conference room in the middle.

At a corner, propped up along a walkway leading to a rectangular chamber fitted with grow lights, are rows of support stilts with hydroponic planters developed in-house and an agricultural technologist perched on a chair, perusing data. “This is where some of the R&D work happens,” says Jay Dasen, co-founder of the agritech start-up.

But there is a larger farm where most of the work behind this high-tech initiative is executed. Located a stone’s throw from the city centre in Ampang is a 40ft repurposed shipping container outfitted with perception technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that mimic the ideal environment to produce more than 50,000kg of vegetables a year.

Stacked in vertical layers, Boomgrow’s vegetables are grown under artificial lights with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to detect everything from leaf discolouration to nitrate composition. This is coupled with AI and machine learning algorithms.

Boomgrow is the country’s first 5G-connected vertical farm. With the low latency and larger bandwidth technology, the start-up is able to monitor production in real time as well as maintain key para­meters, such as temperature and humidity, to ensure optimal growth conditions.

When Jay and her co-founders, K Muralidesan and Shan Palani, embarked on this initiative six years ago, Boomgrow was nowhere near what it is today.

The three founders got together hoping to do their part in building a more sustainable future. “I’ve spent years advising small and large companies on sustainability, environmental and social governance disclosures. I even embarked on a doctorate in sustainability disclosure and governance,” says Jay.

“But I felt a deep sense of disconnect because while I saw companies evolving in terms of policies, processes and procedures towards sustainability, the people in those organisations were not transforming. Sustainability is almost like this white noise in the background. We know it’s important and we know it needs to be done, but we don’t really know how to integrate it into our lives.

“That disconnect really troubled me. When we started Boomgrow, it wasn’t a linear journey. Boomgrow is something that came out of meaningful conversations and many years of research.”

Shan, on the other hand, was an architect who developed a taste for sustainable designs when he was designing modular structures with minimal impact on their surroundings between regular projects. “It was great doing that kind of work. But I was getting very dissatisfied because the projects were customer-driven, which meant I would end up having debates about trivial stuff such as the colour of wall tiles,” he says.

As for Murali, the impetus to start Boomgrow came from having lived overseas — while working in capital markets and financial services — where quality and nutritious produce was easily available.

Ultimately, they concluded that the best way to work towards their shared sustainability goals was to address the imminent problem of food shortage.

“By 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion people, two-thirds of whom will be in Asia-Pacific. Feeding all those people will definitely be a huge challenge,” says Jay. 

“The current agricultural practice is not built for resilience, but efficiency. So, when you think of farming, you think of vast tracts of land located far away from where you live or shop.

“The only way we could reimagine or rethink that was to make sure the food is located closer to consumers, with a hyperlocal strategy that is traceable and transparent, and also free of pesticides.”

Having little experience in growing anything, it took them a while to figure out the best mechanism to achieve their goal. “After we started working on prototypes, we realised that the tropics are not designed for certain types of farming,” says Jay. 

“And then, there is the problem of harmful chemicals and pesticides everywhere, which has become a necessity for farmers to protect their crops because of the unpredictable climate. We went through many iterations … when we started, we used to farm in little boxes, but that didn’t quite work out.”

They explored different methodologies, from hydroponics to aquaponics, and even started growing outdoors. But they lost a lot of crops when a heat wave struck.

That was when they started exploring more effective ways to farm. “How can we protect the farm from terrible torrential rains, plant 365 days a year and keep prices affordable? It took us five years to answer these questions,” says Jay.

Even though farmers all over the world currently produce more than enough food to feed everyone, 820 million people — roughly 11% of the global population — did not have enough to eat in 2018, according to the World Health Organization. Concurrently, food safety and quality concerns are rising, with more consumers opting for organically produced food as well as safe foods, out of fear of harmful synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.

According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, consumer demand for global organic fruit and vegetables was valued at US$19.16 billion in 2019 and is anticipated to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% by 2026.

Meanwhile, the precision farming market was estimated to be US$7 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach US$12.8 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 12.7% between 2020 and 2025, states MarketsandMarkets Research Pte Ltd.

Malaysia currently imports RM1 billion worth of leafy vegetables from countries such as Australia, China and Japan. Sourcing good and safe food from local suppliers not only benefits the country from a food security standpoint but also improves Malaysia’s competitive advantage, says Jay.

Unlike organic farming — which is still a soil-based method — tech-enabled precision farming has the advantage of catering for increasing demand and optimum crop production with the limited resources available. Moreover, changing weather patterns due to global warming encourage the adoption of advanced farming technologies to enhance farm productivity and crop yield.

Boomgrow’s model does not require the acres of land that traditional farms need, Jay emphasises. With indoor farms, the company promises a year-round harvest, undisturbed by climate and which uses 95% less water, land and fuel to operate.

Traditional farming is back-breaking labour. But with precision technology, farmers can spend less time on the farm and more on doing other things to develop their business, she says.

Boomgrow has secured more than RM300,000 in funding via technology and innovation grants from SME Corporation Malaysia, PlaTCOM Ventures and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, and is on track to build the country’s largest indoor farms.

Image from: Boomgrow

The company got its chance to showcase the strength of its smart technology when Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) approached it to be a part of the telco’s Smart Agriculture cluster in Langkawi last October.

“5G makes it faster for us to process the multiple data streams that we need because we collect data for machine learning, and then AI helps us to make decisions faster,” Jay explains.

“We manage the farm using machines to study inputs like water and electricity and even measure humidity. All the farm’s produce is lab-tested and we can keep our promise that there are no pesticides, herbicides or any preserving chemicals. We follow the food safety standards set by the EU, where nitrate accumulation in plant tissues is a big issue.”

With TM’s 5G technology and Boomgrow’s patent-pending technology, the latter is able to grow vegetables like the staple Asian greens and highland crops such as butterhead and romaine lettuce as well as kale and mint. While the company is able to grow more than 30 varieties of leafy greens, it has decided to stick to a selection of crops that is most in demand to reduce waste, says Jay.

As it stands, shipping containers are the best fit for the company’s current endeavour as containerised modular farms are the simplest means of bringing better food to local communities. However, it is also developing a blueprint to house farms in buildings, she says.

Since the showcase, Boomgrow has started to supply its crops to various hotels in Langkawi. It rolled out its e-commerce platform last year after the Movement Control Order was imposed. 

“On our website, we promise to deliver the greens within six hours of harvest. But actually, you could get them way earlier. We harvest the morning after the orders come in and the vegetables are delivered on the same day,” says Jay.

Being mindful of Boomgrow’s carbon footprint, orders are organised and scheduled according to consumers’ localities, she points out. “We don’t want our delivery partners zipping everywhere, so we stagger the orders based on where consumers live. 

“For example, all deliveries to Petaling Jaya happen on Thursdays, but the vegetables are harvested that morning. They are not harvested a week before, three days before or the night before. This is what it means to be hyperlocal. We want to deliver produce at its freshest and most nutritious state.”

Plans to expand regionally are also underway, once Boomgrow’s fundraising exercise is complete, says Jay. “Most probably, this will only happen when the Covid-19 pandemic ends.”

To gain the knowledge they have today, the team had to “unlearn” everything they knew and take up new skills to figure what would work best for their business, says Jay. “All this wouldn’t have been possible if we had not experimented with smart cameras to monitor the condition of our produce,” she laughs.

Vertical Farming ‘At a Crossroads’

Building the right business model to balance resource usage with socio-economic conditions is crucial to capturing new markets, say speakers ahead of Agri-TechE event

Image from: Fruitnet

Although growing crops all year round with Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) has been proposed as a method to localize food production and increase resilience against extreme climate events, the efficiency and limitations of this strategy need to be evaluated for each location. 

That is the conclusion of research by Luuk Graamans of Wageningen University & Research, a speaker at the upcoming Agri-TechE event on CEA, which takes place on 25 February.

His research shows that integration with urban energy infrastructure can make vertical farms more viable. Graamans’ research around the modelling of vertical farms shows that these systems are able to achieve higher resource use efficiencies, compared to more traditional food production, except when it comes to electricity. 

Vertical farms, therefore, need to offer additional benefits to offset this increased energy use, Graamans said. One example his team has investigated is whether vertical farms could also provide heat.

“We investigated if vertical farms could provide not just food for people living in densely populated areas and also heat their homes using waste heat. We found that CEA can contribute to stabilizing the increasingly complex energy grid.”

Diversification

This balance between complex factors both within the growing environment and wider socio-economic conditions means that the rapidly growing CEA industry is beginning to diversify with different business models emerging.

Jack Farmer is CSO at vertical producer LettUs Grow, which recently launched its Drop & Grow growing units, offering a complete farming solution in a shipping container. 

He believes everyone in the vertical farming space is going to hit a crossroads. “Vertical farming, with its focus on higher value and higher density crops, is effectively a subset of the broader horticultural sector,” he said. 

"All the players in the vertical farming space are facing a choice – to scale vertically and try to capture as much value in that specific space, or to diversify and take their technology expertise broader.”

LettUs Grow is focussed on being the leading technology provider in containerised farming, and its smaller ‘Drop & Grow: 24’ container is mainly focussed on people entering the horticultural space.

Opportunities in retail

“This year is looking really exciting,” he said. “Supermarkets are investing to ensure a sustainable source of food production in the UK, which is what CEA provides. We’re also seeing a growth in ‘experiential’ food and retail and that’s also where we see our Drop & Grow container farm fitting in.”

Kate Hofman, CEO, GrowUp agrees. The company launched the UK’s first commercial-scale vertical farm in 2014.

“It will be really interesting to see how the foodservice world recovers after lockdown – the rough numbers are that supermarket trade was up at least 11 per cent in the last year – so retail still looks like a really good direction to go in. 

“If we want to have an impact on the food system in the UK and change it for the better, we’re committed to partnering with those big retailers to help them deliver on their sustainability and values-driven goals.

“Our focus is very much as a salad grower that grows a fantastic product that everyone will want to buy. And we’re focussed on bringing down the cost of sustainable food, which means doing it at a big enough scale to gain the economies of production that are needed to be able to sell at everyday prices.”

Making the Numbers Add Up

The economics are an important part of the discussion. Recent investment in the sector has come from the Middle East, and other locations, where abundant solar power and scarce resources are driving interest in CEA. Graamans’ research has revealed a number of scenarios where CEA has a strong business case.

For the UK, CEA should be seen as a continuum from glasshouses to vertical farming, he believes. “Greenhouses can incorporate the technologies from vertical farms to increase climate control and to enhance their performance under specific climates."

It is this aspect that is grabbing the attention of conventional fresh produce growers in open field and covered crop production.  

A Blended Approach

James Green, director of agriculture at G’s, thinks combining different growing methods is the way forward. “There’s a balance in all of these systems between energy costs for lighting, energy costs for cooling, costs of nutrient supply, and then transportation and the supply and demand. At the end of the day, sunshine is pretty cheap and it comes up every day.

“I think a blended approach, where you’re getting as much benefit as you can from nature but you’re supplementing it and controlling the growth conditions, is what we are aiming for, rather than the fully artificially lit ‘vertical farming’.”

Graamans, Farmer and Hofman will join a discussion with conventional vegetable producers, vertical farmers and technology providers at the Agri-TechE event ‘Controlled Environment Agriculture is growing up’ on 25 February 2021.

Bowery’s Founder, Irving Fain, On The Future of Vertical Farming

Image from: The Spoon

At one point in the not-so-distant past, vertical farming’s role in our future agricultural system was far from certain. Growing leafy greens in warehouse-like environments controlled by tech seemed like a compelling business, but one that had yet to prove itself either economically or as an important source of food for a growing world population.

That, at least, was a common sentiment Irving Fain, CEO and founder of Bowery, met with when he started his vertical farming company five years ago. “There was a bit of skepticism around it,” he told me over a call recently, suggesting that five years ago, there were a lot more “ifs” than “whens” in terms of vertical farming’s future.

Fain, Bowery, and the entire vertical farming industry get a much warmer reception nowadays. Investment dollars are pouring into the space. Around the world, companies, scientists, and food producers are using the method to not just supply upscale grocery stores with greens but experiment with breeds of produce, feed underserved populations, and grow food in non-arable regions. As Fain suggested when we spoke, the last 12 months seem to have turned those “ifs” into definite “whens.” 

Bowery’s last 12 months also illustrate this change. Fain said that Bowery went from under 100 retail locations about a year ago to nearly 700 right now, and will be in more than 1,000 “in the coming months.” Its produce is in a number of food retailers around the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, including Whole Foods Market, Giant Food, Stop & Shop, Walmart, and Weis Markets. And in 2020, the company experienced “more than 4x growth” with e-commerce partners.

While the pandemic is responsible for some of this popularity, Fain insists it is not the only reason for the eventful year. “It’s definitely bigger than the pandemic,” he said. “What you’re seeing is a food system that’s evolving and [people have a desire] to see transparency and traceability in the food system.” These, he says, are issues the traditional food supply chain isn’t really able to address right now, hence the opportunity for companies like Bowery, which effectively cut multiple steps out of the supply chain.

Bowery grows its greens (lettuces, herbs, and some custom blends) inside industrial spaces where crops are stacked vertically in trays and fed nutrients and water via a hydroponic system. Technology controls all elements of the farm, from the temperature inside to how much light each plants get. The company currently operates two farms, one in New Jersey and the other in Maryland. A third is planned for Pennsylvania. 

Technology, in particular, is something Bowery has big plans for. On top of a retail expansion, Bowery also added some notable personnel to its staff, including Injong Rhee, formerly the Internet of Things VP at Google as well a chief technologist at Samsung. Having such technology chops onboard will be vital in order for Bowery to realize many of its ambitions around advanced automation, which has the potential to optimize many parts of the seed-to-store process for vertically grown greens. 

For example, Bowery’s farms are equipped with sensors and cameras that are constantly collecting data — “billions” of points, according to the company — that can be used to not just observe the current state of plant health but also predict the most optimal growing conditions for each crop. Elements like temperature, humidity levels, nutrient levels, and light intensity can all be adjusted, via the BoweryOS software, to create those optimal conditions. The end result is more consistent crop production, better yields, more flavorful food, and, ideally, a better nutritional profile for the greens compared to what conventional produce offers.

The system can also, through automation and AI, detect problems with plants. In a recent interview with Venture Beat, Bowery Chief Science Officer Henry Sztul used the example of butterhead lettuce yellowing at the edges during growth. Bowery’s system is technologically advanced enough at this point that it is starting to understand the conditions that create those yellowing edges. That foreknowledge, in turn, will allow growers to adjust the crop “recipe” (see above mixture of lights, temperature, etc.) to avoid the problem.

It took Bowery years to get to this point in terms of what its technology is capable of doing. “The system [for] indoor farming that you choose has a direct impact on the crops you’ll be able to grow, on the margins you’ll be able to generate, and on the return profile of the business itself,” said Fain. “And so being incredibly intentional and thoughtful about what technology you use is something we spent a lot of time on because it has an extraordinarily important economic impact.”

On a less technically complex note, controlled ag from Bowery and others also goes some way towards reinventing the supply food chain. Rather than greens being harvested in, say, Mexico and shipped via a complex distribution process all the way to Baltimore, they are packaged up at the farm and distributed to nearby retailers, usually those within a day’s drive “It is much more sustainable. It is much more efficient, and it’s more reliable, and those things have been important to consumers long before COVID,” said Fain.

Bowery will continue to innovate on both the technology and supply side of its business, as well as with the food itself. The company just launched a new specialty product line that will experiment with different flavors of greens and change frequently. 

In terms of tech, Bowery’s latest farm, currently being built in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, will incorporate even more automation than the company’s two existing farms. That location is slated to open later in 2021. When it does, Bowery will be capable of serving nearly 50 million people within a 200-mile radius.

The company hopes to expand its geographic reach much wider some day, building farms near most major U.S. cities and beyond. Given the increased confidence in the vertical farming sector as a whole, now looks to be the optimal time to move towards those ambitions. 

by Jennifer Marston, The Spoon

Yasai To Establish First Zürich Vertical Farm, Strategic Partnership Announced

Image from: Urban Ag News

iFarm with Yasai AG (Switzerland) and Logiqs B.V. (Netherlands) are proud to announce the beginning of a long-term cooperation.  

With the launch of the first vertical farm project in Zurich, Yasai AG announced the signing of a strategic agreement with equipment and tech suppliers. The company involved Logiqs and iFarm as technology partners in the construction of a pilot facility, with 673 sq. m of growing area and with a design capacity of 20 tons of fresh herbs per year.  

The Dutch company Logiqs will act as a supplier of automated shelving systems and grow lights. iFarm will supply the nutrient solution management system, climate control equipment, and the Growtune software platform which enables flow chart implementation and control over production conditions and processes. Going forward, the partners plan to scale up the experience of rapidly constructing an automated, compact, high-performance vertical farm, gained in a Swiss project, across the globe.

Image from: Urban Ag News

Mark Essam Zahran (co-founder Yasai):

The project will not just be limited to the testing and fine-tuning of state-of-the-art innovative solutions.  We expect to lay the groundwork for large-scale industrial vertical farming in smart cities and showcase the incredible benefits of a circular economy. A plantation in the largest Swiss city, one of the most expensive cities in the world, will help us assess the economic prospects and give other European cities an example of how to produce an abundant yield without harming the planet, plants, and people.

Gert-Jan van Staalduinen (owner Logiqs):

The Swiss project opens up interesting prospects for us. We expect a fruitful collaboration with Yasai experts and a beneficial exchange of best practices with iFarm. With our vast experience in implementing automation and logistics systems on farms, we will be able to build a technologically advanced farm in the very heart of Europe. 

Kirill Zelenski (CEO iFarm Europe):

We appreciate how meticulous and scrupulous Yasai is and are impressed by their passion and drive. We are just as inspired by the prospect of working with seasoned professionals from Logiqs. We hope that our software technologies will perfectly complement their hardware and the project as a whole will become a lasting benchmark for the industry and will serve as the beginning of a long-term cooperation.  

Bringing The Future To life In Abu Dhabi

Amid the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators are sowing the seeds of a more sustainable future.

Image from: Wired

A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture. 

Madar Farms is one of a number of agtech startups benefitting from a package of incentives from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) aimed at spurring the development of innovative solutions for sustainable desert farming. The partnership is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Programme dedicated to supporting companies in high-growth areas.

“Abu Dhabi is pressing ahead with our mission to ‘turn the desert green’,” explained H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, in November 2020. “We have created an environment where innovative ideas can flourish and the companies we partnered with earlier this year are already propelling the growth of Abu Dhabi’s 24,000 farms.”

The pandemic has made food supply a critical concern across the entire world, combined with the effects of population growth and climate change, which are stretching the capacity of less efficient traditional farming methods. Abu Dhabi’s pioneering efforts to drive agricultural innovation have been gathering pace and look set to produce cutting-edge solutions addressing food security challenges.

Beyond work supporting the application of novel agricultural technologies, Abu Dhabi is also investing in foundational research and development to tackle this growing problem. 

In December, the emirate’s recently created Advanced Technology Research Council [ATRC], responsible for defining Abu Dhabi’s R&D strategy and establishing the emirate and the wider UAE as a desired home for advanced technology talent, announced a four-year competition with a $15 million prize for food security research. Launched through ATRC’s project management arm, ASPIRE, in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the award will support the development of environmentally-friendly protein alternatives with the aim to "feed the next billion".

Image from: Madar Farms

Global Challenges, Local Solutions

Food security is far from the only global challenge on the emirate’s R&D menu. In November 2020, the ATRC announced the launch of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), created to support applied research on the key priorities of quantum research, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy and secure systems.

“The technologies under development at TII are not randomly selected,” explains the centre’s secretary general Faisal Al Bannai. “This research will complement fields that are of national importance. Quantum technologies and cryptography are crucial for protecting critical infrastructure, for example, while directed energy research has use-cases in healthcare. But beyond this, the technologies and research of TII will have global impact.”

Future research directions will be developed by the ATRC’s ASPIRE pillar, in collaboration with stakeholders from across a diverse range of industry sectors.

“ASPIRE defines the problem, sets milestones, and monitors the progress of the projects,” Al Bannai says. “It will also make impactful decisions related to the selection of research partners and the allocation of funding, to ensure that their R&D priorities align with Abu Dhabi and the UAE's broader development goals.”

Image from: Agritecture

Nurturing Next-Generation Talent

To address these challenges, ATRC’s first initiative is a talent development programme, NexTech, which has begun the recruitment of 125 local researchers, who will work across 31 projects in collaboration with 23 world-leading research centres.

Alongside universities and research institutes from across the US, the UK, Europe and South America, these partners include Abu Dhabi’s own Khalifa University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first graduate-level institute focused on artificial intelligence. 

“Our aim is to up skill the researchers by allowing them to work across various disciplines in collaboration with world-renowned experts,” Al Bannai says. 

Beyond academic collaborators, TII is also working with a number of industry partners, such as hyperloop technology company, Virgin Hyperloop. Such industry collaborations, Al Bannai points out, are essential to ensuring that TII research directly tackles relevant problems and has a smooth path to commercial impact in order to fuel job creation across the UAE.

“By engaging with top global talent, universities and research institutions and industry players, TII connects an intellectual community,” he says. “This reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge-based economy.”

Nanobubble Tech Could Revolutionize Aquaculture & Aquaponics

Image from: University of Hawai’i News

The burgeoning fields of aquaculture and aquaponics hold vast potential for growing food. Yet, the efficacy of these microbial-mediated processes is governed by the availability of dissolved oxygen in water. Generally, oxygen has poor solubility in water, which has a negative effect on fish growth and plant yields.

Almost $200,000 in new funding from the USDA-National Institute of Food and Agriculture’s (NIFA) Water Quantity and Quality Program may expand researchers’ understanding of how nanobubbles could improve aeration and oxygen supplies.

Under the grant, Samir Khanal of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources (CTAHR ) Department of Molecular Biosciences and Bioengineering, will apply the technology to these aqueous systems. His goal is to uncover new opportunities for improving fish and plant yields—with concomitant improvements in water quality.

Image from: University of Hawai’i News

“There is a pressing need to develop an alternative to the current highly energy-intensive conventional aeration,” said Khanal. “Nanobubble technology has a potential to revolutionize aquaculture and aquaponic systems, with higher productivity and resource recovery.”

Khanal was initially awarded CTAHR’s Team Science grant, which was critically important to obtaining preliminary data for his grant proposal to NIFA. 

“Thanks to the CTAHR and NIFA grants, we hope our findings will benefit existing Hawaiʻi businesses, as well as a new generation of growers, across the state and beyond,” Khanal added.

The Future of the Food Supply Chain Lives on a Rooftop in Montreal

Image from: Lufa Farms

The world’s biggest commercial rooftop greenhouse sits atop a former Sears warehouse in a semi-industrial northwestern quarter of Montreal. Early every morning, staff pick fresh vegetables, then bring them downstairs, where they get packed into heavy-duty plastic totes along with the rest of the day’s grocery orders.

Tablets loaded with custom pick-and-pack software tell them where to put what: This basket has lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, plus some chicken, eggs, and milk. The next one has eggplant, cashew Parmesan, tomato sauce, fresh pasta, and vegan ground round crumble. Whatever Luca doesn’t grow in its four greenhouses comes from local farms and producers, mostly from within 100 miles.

This is a modern foodie’s dream: a tech-forward online shop full of locally grown, pesticide-free, ethically-sourced products at reasonable price points, delivered once a week to either your doorstep or a local pickup point in your neighborhood.

It’s stunning to think Lufa was founded by two people who’d never even grown a tomato before, let alone sold one. “We said, ‘Instead of learning how the food world works, let’s just come up with what we feel the food world should be,’” says Mohamed Hage, 39, who cofounded Lufa with Lauren Rathmell in 2009.

To them, it looked like this: rooftop greenhouses that bring agriculture into cities. No pesticides, herbicides, or fungicides. Composting their green waste. Selling direct-to-consumer the same day the food is harvested. Capturing and reusing rainwater. Reusable packaging. 

That’s exactly what they now have—and they feed a portion of Montreal, the second-biggest city in Canada, with it.

Image from: Lufa Farms

Back in the warehouse, workers poke at their tablets, checking off items as they’re packed into the boxes.

Customers—Lufavores, as the company calls them—typically place their orders a few days before delivery through the online store, dubbed “the Marketplace,” which Lufa built from scratch in 2012. That’s how Lufa’s suppliers know how much product to provide: They get forecasts first, then final order numbers, through their Lufa software. Some items, like frozen meat, can be delivered to the warehouse once a week. Others, like bread, arrive fresh every day.

Artisanal Montreal bakery la Fabrique Arhoma started supplying Lufa with bread and pastries about six years ago, co-owner Ariane Beaumont tells Fortune. Today, they hand-make 6,000 individual items a day for Lufa. Beaumont said Lufa now accounts for between 30% to 40% of her commercial sales; since pandemic shutdowns, a lot of the product destined for restaurants got redirected to Lufa. “They’re an exceptional company. I don’t know how they do it,” Beaumont says. “And they pay the fastest, too.” 

Technology is the underpinning of Lufa’s success, and the owners know it.

“We see ourselves as a technology company, in the sense that we solve with software,” Rathmell, 32, says. They didn’t really have any other choice. To fulfill that dream they had back in 2009—years before COVID-19 forced most grocery stores to enable online shopping—they had to do it themselves. 

“Nothing off-the-shelf can be applied to what we do, because it’s so complex,” Rathmell notes. “We harvest food ourselves; we gather from farmers and food makers throughout the province; most of it’s arriving just in time throughout the night to be packed in baskets for that day, and every order is fully unique.”

Lufa now has a team of eight programmers working on software and systems that manage e-commerce, warehouse management, routing, customer relationships, supplier fulfillment, pick-and-pack, vendor payments, delivery ETAs, and more. 

Those technologies were tested on that fateful Friday the 13th last March, when Quebec and Canada each announced their first waves of COVID-19 lockdowns. People panicked, rushing to the grocery store to stock up on flour and toilet paper.

Online, new sign-ups for Lufa’s weekly grocery baskets exploded, and existing subscribers began ordering more than they’d ever ordered before—all while Lufa’s pickup points were shutting down. “We essentially doubled overnight,” Rathmell recalls. Lufa was forced beyond its operational capacity, and the cracks started showing in the systems and software that had, until that point, done a fine job getting the company by.

Lufa temporarily closed the website and opened a wait list. The staff analyzed the pandemic’s trajectory and how they had to adapt at each step; reconfigured their warehouse floor to station workers further apart; then relaunched at the capacity they could handle, gradually scaling each week until they hit their usual stride. Today, they’re humming along at 25,000 baskets a week.

Leading with tech helped make them nimble and strategic during those hairy early pandemic days, said Hage and Rathmell. After some recalibrations and new developments, their software and processes can now handle more customers, vendors, and processes—critical elements as the company continues to scale its greenhouse operations. In August of 2020, Lufa opened its fourth greenhouse, doubling its square footage. The four greenhouses combined produce 57,000 pounds of food a week. A fifth is planned for this year. 

“Our objective at Lufa is to get to the point where we’re feeding everyone in the city,” Hage says.

And after Montreal? They’re planning on a yet to be determined second site in the northeastern pocket of North America, ideally this year. “Our vision is to grow food closer to where people live, and grow it more sustainably,” Rathmell says.

Image from: Lufa Farms

Bringing high-yield crop production into cities is a smart answer to many modern challenges in environmental and human health.

Mark Lefsrud, an associate professor of agricultural and environmental sciences at McGill University, points out that embracing technologies like LEDs and automation to grow indoors and in urban greenhouses means shorter supply chains, better nutritional integrity, less food waste, and reduced vulnerability to climate swings. In cities fed primarily by low-carbon energy (hydroelectricity in Montreal’s case), indoor growing versus importation becomes even more of a no-brainer.

“I’ve been working in the controlled environment and greenhouse industry for 20-some years, and having a company like Lufa has brought a lot of attention to not just urban agriculture, but also the need for greenhouse production,” Lefsrud says, adding that Lufa’s success has prompted more government investment in the sector overall.

“The Quebec government now takes this as a serious venture system, which then means that the students that I’m training, and research we’re doing here at the university, now have employment and have the possibility of setting up their own system,” says the McGill professor.

That idea, of developing more vertically integrated food systems, is a passion of Hage’s—not only for the idea of cutting out production and transformation middlemen to improve profit margins, but also to improve quality, traceability, and ultimately the ethics of food production.

“You know, every time we talk to someone about it, we feel like it’s the ’80s, and we’re holding a big solar panel trying to convince the room that this is the future,” Hage says.

As the larger agricultural industry catches on to vertical integration, it seems Hage and Rathmell are no longer mad scientists with a crazy dream. Instead, they are the voice of reason—and a new generation of food.

As the larger agricultural industry catches on to vertical integration, it seems Hage and Rathmell are no longer mad scientists with a crazy dream. Instead, they are the voice of reason—and a new generation of food.

As the larger agricultural industry catches on to vertical integration, it seems Hage and Rathmell are no longer mad scientists with a crazy dream. Instead, they are the voice of reason—and a new generation of food.

Is AppHarvest the Future of Farming?

Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, are red-hot right now, with investors clamoring to get into promising young companies.

In this video from Motley Fool Live, recorded on Jan. 28, Industry Focus host Nick Sciple and Motley Fool contributor Lou Whiteman discuss AppHarvest, one such SPAC that is looking to disrupt the agriculture industry. Here are the details on what AppHarvest wants to do, and a look at whether the company represents the future of farming.

Nick Sciple: One last company I wanted to talk about, Lou, and this is one I think it's -- you pay attention to, but not one I'm super excited to run in and buy. It was a company called AppHarvest. It's coming public via a [SPAC] this year. This vertical farming space. We talked about Gladstone Land buying traditional farmland. AppHarvest is taking a very different approach, trying to lean into some of the ESG-type movements.

Lou Whiteman: Yeah. Let's look at this. It probably wouldn't surprise you that the U.S. is the biggest global farm exporter as we said, but it might surprise you that the Netherlands, the tiny little country, is No. 2. The way they do that is tech: Greenhouse farm structure. AppHarvest has taken that model and brought it to the U.S. They have, I believe, three farms in Appalachia. The pitches can produce 30x the yields using 90% less water. Right now, it's mostly tomatoes and it is early-stage. I don't own this stock either. I love this idea. There's some reasons that I'm not buying in right now that we can get into. But this is fascinating to me. We talked about making the world a better place. This is the company that we need to be successful to make the world a better place. The warning on it is that it is a SPAC. So it's not public yet. Right now, I believe N-O-V-S. That deal should close soon. [Editor's note: The deal has since closed.] I'm not the only one excited about it. I tend not to like to buy IPOs and new companies anyway. I think the caution around buying into the excitement applies here. There is a Martha Stewart video on their website talking up the company, which I love Martha Stewart, but that's a hype level that makes me want to just watch and see what they produce. This is just three little farms in Appalachia right now and a great idea. This was all over my watchlist. I would imagine I would love to hold it at some point, but just be careful because this is, as we saw SPACs last year in other areas, people are very excited about this.

Sciple: Yeah. I think, like we've said, for a lot of these companies, the prospects are great. I think when you look at the reduced water usage, better, environmentally friendly, all those sorts of things. I like that they are in Appalachia. As someone who is from the South, I like it when more rural areas get some people actually investing money there. But again, there's a lot of execution between now and really getting to a place where this is the future of farming and they're going to reach scale and all those sorts of things. But this is a company I'm definitely going to have my radar on and pay attention to as they continue to report earnings. Because you can tell yourself a story about how this type of vertical farming, indoor farming disrupts this traditional model, can be more efficient, cleaner, etc. Something to continue paying attention to as we have more information, because this company, like you said, Lou, isn't all the way public yet. We still got to have this SPAC deal finalized and then we get all our fun SEC filings and quarterly calls and all those sorts of things. Once we have that, I will be very much looking forward to seeing what the company has to say.

Whiteman: Right. Just to finish up along too, the interesting thing here is that it is a proven concept because it has worked elsewhere. The downside of that is that it needed to work there. Netherlands just doesn't have -- and this is an expensive proposition to get started, to get going. There's potential there, but in a country blessed with almost seemingly unlimited farmland for now, for long term it makes sense. But in the short term, it could be a hard thing to really get up and running. I think you're right, just one to watch.

VIDEO: Daan Roosegaarde Uses "Light Recipes" To Show How Agriculture Could Be More Sustainable

Dezeen Magazine

Amy Frearson | January 18, 2021

Studio Roosegaarde has unveiled Grow, a 20,000-square-metre light installation designed to highlight the beauty of agriculture while also improving crop growth.

The Rotterdam-based studio, led by designer Daan Roosegaarde, used red, blue, and ultraviolet lights to transform a field into a dynamic artwork.

As well as creating a visual spectacle, the installation serves as a prototype for how certain "light recipes" can be used to increase plant growth and reduce the use of pesticides by up to 50 percent.

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Grow is a 20,000-square-metre light installation in a Dutch field

The first ideas for the project came after an early morning visit to the farm. As a self-confessed urbanite, Roosegaarde told Dezeen he had spent very little time exploring the Netherlands' agricultural landscape, so was amazed to experience it first hand.

Despite being a relatively small country, the Netherlands is one of the world's largest producers of vegetables, second only to the United States, and has established itself as a pioneer of highly efficient farming techniques.

"We thought we should highlight the beauty of this agriculture," said Roosegaarde. "These vast fields feed us, but nobody sees it."

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Lights turn the crops into a visual spectacle but also helps to improve growth

Shortly after, Roosegaarde became aware of advancements in photobiological lighting technology. Research suggests that certain combinations of light can not only strengthen plant metabolism but also create resistance to both pests and disease.

Although the technology has been used in greenhouses, Roosegaarde saw an opportunity to test its potential at a larger scale.

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The "light recipe" combines specific types of red, blue, and ultraviolet light

"A specific ultraviolet light activates the defense system of plants. And what is interesting is that it works on all crops," the designer explained. "So we can reduce the use of pesticides."

Pesticides are known to have a significantly harmful effect on biological diversity, one of the pillars of sustainability. If the farming industry was able to reduce reliance on them, it would be of great benefit to the environment.

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These lights can strengthen plant metabolism and create resistance to pests and disease

Studio Roosegaarde created Grow with high-density LEDs positioned at different points around the field.

The devices move up and down, distributing the light evenly across the field. As they move, they create dancing patterns that are hypnotic to watch. "It's very futuristic and also very romantic, in a way," suggested Roosegaarde.

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Grow is the latest of several large-scale light installations Roosegaarde has created

The effect is similar to some of the other large-scale installations Roosegaarde has created in the past like Waterlicht, which mimicked the effect of the Northern Lights as a way to highlight a flood plain.

However, the designer sees Grow as a project with a bigger audience. His plan is to take it around the world, with different light recipes formulated to suit different crops.

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The designer hopes to promote the role of the farmer as a hero

Roosegaarde's aim is to help to speed up the application of this science, but also to create a more universal appreciation for the important role of farmers, who he describes as heroes.

"I want to design things which make people curious about the future, not sad or mad," added Roosegaarde. "Light is my language. Light is not decoration, it's activation and it's communication."

Grow was commissioned by Rabobank, for the bank's ongoing artist-in-residence programme. The ambition is for the project to tour all 40 countries where the bank operates.

Read more: Design Lighting Netherlands Plants Farms Installations Studio Roosegaarde Technology

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