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Top Five Challenges of Container Farming
TOP 5 CHALLENGES OF CONTAINER FARMING
Virtually no aspect of indoor farming has caught the media’s attention like container farming. Stories of Kickstarters raising multimillion-dollar campaigns coupled with Millennials quitting their jobs and buying into container farms have created the perfect media narrative. In June of 2016, The Wall Street Journal went as far as to ask: “Are Shipping Containers the Future of Farming?”
There are many benefits to having container farms as an indoor farming option and the practice has encouraged many new farmers to join the industry. As our friends at Bright Agrotech (now Plenty Ag) explain in the video above, container farms can have up to 30 times the productivity per square feet of a traditional farm. There are, however, several challenges they can create for farmers.
Number 5 – Scalability
While container farms can be a great entry point into indoor agriculture because of their low startup costs, scaling an operation into many farms into a campus can be illogical for some farmers. At a larger scale, bigger buildings like a warehouse or greenhouse can be cheaper and easier to manage.
Number 4 – Durability
Although this is not the case for newly created, self-contained units, durability, and structural integrity can be a big challenge for container farming. With over 20 million shipping containers used per year, repurposing for sustainable farming seems like a great, environmentally friendly option. The challenge occurs when, by definition, used shipping containers are essentially at the end of their useful life. They are being sold because they can no longer be used by shippers to do what they were originally designed to do – ship products.
In addition to their age, they have lived a rough life. Over the years, they have been continually exposed to harsh and corrosive elements like sea water, road salt and intense UV rays. They have been moved from ships to trucks to stores and have been loaded and unloaded by crane off of boats at ports of call throughout the world.
Number 3 – Design
While the compact space of a shipping container makes a convenient small farm, the design inside a container can be a challenge. In addition to having confined areas that make it difficult to have more than a couple of people working at a time, you also face issues managing what makes plants thrive: airflow, heat, and space.
Since there is an incentive to pack plants as tightly as possible, plants often do not receive the space or airflow that they require to allow for maximum crop size. In addition, the tight spaces can lead to issues with LED lighting heat and lighting logistics. If the lights are placed too close to the plants, they burn. If they are too far away, they don’t receive sufficient light for healthy growth and if they’re placed unevenly, you will get an inconsistent crop. Any additions to LED lighting can increase temperatures to levels that can be less than ideal for your plants.
Number 2 – Marketed Output vs. Actual Output
WE RELEASE A NEW WHITE PAPER AT EACH OF OUR INDOOR AG-CON EVENTS, AND THIS ARTICLE IS BASED ON OUR WHITE PAPER ENTITLED “THE PROMISE AND PERILS OF CONTAINER FARMING”, RELEASED AT INDOOR AG-CON ASIA IN JANUARY 2018.
While you can grow an incredible amount of crops in a very small space, container farming has received criticism over the claims of exactly how much can be grown inside a container farm. Some suppliers have claimed very aggressive yields that may be difficult for farmers to recreate. Real-world outcomes can be very different based on many factors. These can include your crop mix, environmental conditions, growing choices, your local market and farmer experience.
Number 1 – Economics
One of the things that attract a lot of farmers to container farming is the low fixed cost of entry. As we mentioned earlier, however, is although your fixed costs can be low, in an older shipping container, your variable costs to maintain the structure can be much higher than a newer structure. In a “low cost” scenario you can also run into a lot of hidden costs such as regulatory, compliance or insurance issues. For example, if your customers require evidence that crops have been grown in facilities suitable for food production, you may incur a substantial amount of added costs. Add in factors that can influence profitability like land prices, utility costs, and local crop market conditions, it can be incredibly difficult to accurately forecast how much profit you can expect from a container farm.
Based on our research, we estimate that fewer than half of container farms are profitable. Although it depends on the size and market niche, profitability may not be the sole focus of someone operating a container farm.
Up Next Week: 5 Benefits of Container Farming
Want to know more?
Don’t miss the 6th Annual Indoor Ag Con May 2nd and 3rd at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Make sure to catch the sessions “What Farm Structures Work Best for Indoor Grows?” with Brad McNamara, CEO of Freight Farms and “How Should We Go About Hiring for Our Indoor Farm?”with Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots.
Want to show off your container farm technology? We have dedicated container farm pitches in our exhibition hall at the event, see more here.
JOIN US AT THE 6TH ANNUAL INDOOR AG-CON ON MAY 2-3, 2018
REGISTER TODAY
FOR SALE: (SOLD) Late 2016 PREMIUM Freight Farms LEAFY GREEN-MACHINE (LGM)
FOR SALE (SOLD)
Late 2016 PREMIUM Freight Farms LEAFY GREEN-MACHINE (LGM)
Make & Model - 2016.5 Premium Leafy Green Machine (LGM)
Manufacturer - Freight Farms
Location - Central Phoenix
Price - $60,500
Reason for owners selling - We have a young family with a 4 year-old and 2 year old. My wife is a Phoenix Firefighter and I have a full-time job. So there is not enough time to dedicate to the business.
Description
Well maintained 2016.5 LGM purchased from Freight Farms. Has been a reliable producer for the past year. Unfortunately, the owner bit off more than they could chew and need to find a home for the "farm." Comes with all the bells and whistles, as well as 3 coolers, tent, and supplies for a farmers market, branding website, power washer, shelving unit.
Price: $60,500
Seller will assist with the launch.
1. ALL-WEATHER CONSTRUCTION
Steel frame with stainless interior, 40' x 8' x 9.6' overall footprint.
2. AUTOMATIC DOSING
Programmable nutrient & pH dosing for perfect growing conditions.
3. CUSTOM WORKBENCH
TIG-welded stainless workbench with integrated seedling growth stage.
4. COMMERCIAL VOLUME
Thousands of growing sites across 256 irrigated vertical towers.
5. HIGH-EFFICIENCY LED ARRAY
5:1 red / blue LED lighting optimized for green leafy growth.
6. INSULATED ENTRY
Padlock-proof safety door with controlled-environment insulation.
Top 5 Advantages of Container Farming
Top 5 Advantages of Container Farming
The allure of container farming has introduced many new farmers to indoor agriculture. The portability and low fixed costs have expanded the possibilities for grow sites for many people. Industry players estimate that there are between 250 and 300 branded container farms in the world, with likely as many homegrown operations in existence.
This growing practice has not only captured the imagination of the media, but it has also attracted entrepreneurs and investors. A container farm’s size, cost and ability to grow in extreme temperatures have made it a great option for the right kind of farmer. While they do have their niche and their own challenges, container farms have several advantages.
Container farming
Number 5 – Encourages New Farmers
The concept and introduction of container farming have been a fantastic contributor to indoor agriculture. Research indicates that around 80% of container farmers are new to the practice. These new farmers have transitioned into the industry from professions like construction, finance and consulting. While they viewed other options somewhat confusing, they viewed container farms as a manageable option to farming. As farming as a whole is seeing an aging workforce with an average of 60 years’ old, globally, indoor farming is enticing a much-needed new group of farmers into the industry.
Number 4 – Investor Interest
Container farming has captured the interest of investors, including well-regarded venture capitalists. Both equipment suppliers and growers have been able to raise funds from a variety of different sources. In the past year alone, Paris-based strawberry farmer Agricool, Boston-based equipment provider Freight Farms and Brooklyn-based grower Square Roots have each raised rounds. Although they are small in comparison to investments raised by plant factory companies, they have increased significantly recently, with 2017 seeing over 18MM raised, more than double the funding of the prior year.
Number 3 – Speed to Market
Fixed structures require a longer process of site selection, design, manufacturing, permitting and construction. This process could take more than a year. With container farms, however, some suppliers can deliver a fully-operational container farm in just a few months. Once you are sure your farm meets all of your local zoning requirements, preparing your site involves identifying or pouring a level concrete pad and connecting water and electricity.
Number 2 – Flexible Siting
Container farming is a great option for growing in many different situations because they can be sited in food deserts and harsh environments. With the proper permits and zoning, they can essentially be placed anywhere that can bear their weight and has a level surface. Unlike a fixed structure, they can be relocated. Their flexible siting opens possibilities to locate an indoor farm in diverse locations like alleys behind restaurants, corporate campuses, urban rooftops…the possibilities can be endless.
Number 1 – Comparatively Low Price
At its lowest, the cost of entry into container farming could essentially be a mix of new and used equipment from local stores and online vendors. These costs have been reported as low as US$15,000-$20,000 per fully-operational container farm. As technologies continue to improve and become more readily available, fixed costs can continue to decrease. For example, in 2017, the prices for LED lighting were forecast to fall by more than 40% by 2020. Since lighting makes up around a quarter of total fixed costs, this represents a significant cost saving to container farmers. For a new, fully functional unit, such as the Leafy Green Machine™ manufactured by Freight Farms, farmers can own a container farm for around US$85,000.
Want to know more? Don’t miss the 6th Annual Indoor Ag Con 2-3 May at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Make sure to catch the session What Farm Structures Work Best for Indoor Grows? with special guests Brad McNamara, CEO of Freight Farms and Erik Ijntema, Export Manager for Certhon. You can find the complete speaking agenda here. Want to attend? You can register here. Want to join a variety of exhibitors? You can register to exhibit here. Ω
Georgia State Gets Southface’s Fulcrum Award For Hydroponic Farm
Georgia State Gets Southface’s Fulcrum Award For Hydroponic Farm
MARCH 13, 2018
ATLANTA—Georgia State University received a Fulcrum Award at Southface’s Greenprints conference March 12-14 in recognition of its hydroponic farm’s excellence in sustainable design, construction, planning, and advocacy.
“We proudly recognize the Leafy Green Machine, which truly exemplifies innovative, scalable and equitable sustainability,” said Andrea Pinabell, president of Southface. “Groundbreaking projects like this help us move further toward a future that is resilient and regenerative.”
Fulcrum Award winners demonstrate excellence in three categories that contribute to a sustainable future: regenerative economy, responsible resource use and social equity through a healthy built environment for all. To select winners, Southface convened an independent panel of eight jurors with expertise in sustainability across a wide range of sectors.
“We are honored to be recognized along with such reputable organizations for a Southface Fulcrum Award as the Leafy Green Machine is a stellar example of the benefits of a living-learning laboratory in higher education. Not only are we able to provide farm-to-table produce for dining operations, but our students receive hands-on training and research opportunities in urban agriculture,” said Jennifer Asman, sustainability initiatives program manager. “In the future, we hope to not only expand urban farming opportunities at the university but to share our success and find ways to replicate throughout the community and beyond.”
The Leafy Green Machine, funded by student sustainability fees, is a one-acre farm fashioned out of an upcycled shipping container produced by the Boston-based company Freight Farms.
Inside the futuristic farm is a series of environmental sensors measuring climate conditions that communicate with the in-farm controller to maintain optimal 365-days-per-year growing conditions. The windowless farm is also equipped with more than 125 LED lighting strips that mimic the sun’s natural light via growth-optimized blue and red hues.
After three weeks in the seedling station, the plants are transplanted into vertical hydroponic growing towers where emitters drip nutrient-rich water down the vertical grow tower using only 10 gallons of water daily to grow more than 4,500 plants. The water that isn’t consumed by the plant flows out the bottom of the tower and is then recirculated back to the water tank.
Since its implementation in July 2016, PantherDining grows about 500 heads of lettuce per week, harvesting Green Leaf, Butterhead lettuce, wasabi arugula, basil, thyme and Swiss Chard with no pesticides, bugs or soil. The produce is served at PantherDining’s catering events, retail outlets, and dining halls, giving patrons the ultimate farm-to-table dining experience.
Other 2018 Fulcrum Award winners include: Live Thrive Atlanta’s Center for Hard to Recycle Materials and The Kendeda Building for Innovative Sustainable Design. The Len Foote Hike Inn received a Lifetime Achievement Award honoring it's 19thyear protecting Georgia’s natural resources and teaching guests about sustainability’s value.
Media Contact: Nicole Galonczyk
Public Relations Specialist
PantherDining - 404-210-0761 - ngalonczyk@gsu.edu
Canadian Modular Farms Expand to Australia With Vertical Hydroponic Farm
Canadian Modular Farms Expand to Australia With Vertical Hydroponic Farm
Posted by Jason Cartwrighton
March 12, 2018
Modular Farms Co is a company from Canada that is now expanding into Australia. The first permanently located ‘Modular Farm’ in Australia is now located at Eat Street Northshore in Brisbane. Inside it features a vertical hydroponic farm that will help provide fresh herbs and vegetables to the numerous food vendors located within the food and entertainment precinct there truly encompassing the farm to fork ethos.
With a new Australian HQ based in Brisbane, Modular Farms Australia will make its unique indoor farming technology available to the Oceanic region. This includes the manufacturing of its state-of-the-art farming modules designed for scalability and to deliver maximum ‘Return on Investment’ for agriculturalists. The farm of the future: a vertical hydroponic system, is able to grow food sustainably and cleanly for everyone to enjoy and can be utilized anywhere, including those regions prone to devastating droughts.
The modular design of the farm blends perfectly into the shipping container landscape that is synonymous with the market’s aesthetic whilst the sustainable method of farming aligns with Eat Streets ethics and values.
John Stainton, one of the partners in Eat Street said,
“We are thrilled to have our very own Modular Farm here at Eat Street Northshore. James and the modular team are now part of the family and the produce they are able to supply ensures we have a constant, and consistent supply of high quality, fresh food for our customers without the food miles. You can’t get much fresher than having a farm on-site.”
Leading Modular Farms Co in Australia are James and Prue Pateras, who aim to connect with local businesses, entrepreneurs and farmers, including those still recovering from, or experiencing drought.
Director, Modular Farms Australia, James Pateras said,
“Having grown up on a farm near Melbourne and having experienced first-hand the distressing effects of drought, I wanted to create a new business model for farming, based on a concept of doing more with less.
With an invested interest in technology I knew it had the capability of improving productivity, sustainability and farming life. This is ultimately what I feel we have achieved.
Current farming practices are over 100 years old and are unsustainable for the next 100 years. Using Modular Farms technology, we are reducing food waste, increasing food security, and eliminating supply chain logistics to cut food miles.
We are excited to be able to showcase what this amazing product can do by partnering with Eat Street Northshore and are so grateful for the opportunity it has afforded us. We welcome people to come and taste our produce in the delicious food being served at ESN.”
The Modular Farm will supply the Northshore precinct and OzHarvest with some of their fresh produce needs and will also provide the opportunity for potential Modular Farmers to see the technology in action.
JASON CARTWRIGHT
Creator of techAU, Jason has spent the dozen+ years covering technology in Australia and around the world. Bringing a background in multimedia and passion for technology to the job, Cartwright delivers detailed product reviews, event coverage and industry news on a daily basis.
TAGS: FARMTECHMODULARFARMS
CATEGORIES :BUSINESS
How To Grow Four Tons of Food A Year In A Metal Box Without Sunlight
COURTESY OF FREIGHT FARMS
Jaime Silverstein is helping plants find a home in urban environments.
by Erin Winick
March 8, 2018
Swiss chard grows inside a Leafy Green Machine.
Jaime Silverstein works on a farm every day. Inside a cargo shipping container. In Boston. She is a part of a growing movement of urban farmers intent on using efficient, high-tech hydroponic setups to shorten the distance between city dwellers and their food.
This article is part of a series on jobs of the future paired with our newsletter Clocking In, which covers the impact of emerging technology on the future of work. Sign up here—it’s free!
Farms in the urban jungle
Silverstein works as a crop specialist for Freight Farms, a company that creates what it calls Leafy Green Machines—essentially shipping containers decked out with enough hydroponics equipment and tools to produce two to four tons of produce a year, in any climate or location. “You can put it in a parking lot on concrete or pavement, so you don’t need good soil,” Silverstein says. That’s something most urban areas are short on.
LEDs illuminate the leafy greens inside the shipping-container farm.
COURTESY OF FREIGHT FARMS
The containers produce primarily—wait for it—leafy greens, like lettuce and Swiss chard, because they’re quick to grow and can be nestled closely together.
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And while one of the main selling points is being able to grow climate-sensitive plants in an often cold, snowy place like Boston, Silverstein has her eyes set on a prize a further out—much further out: Freight Farms has worked with NASA to see how Leafy Green Machines could go into space. “We have looked at how to speed up the [plants’] grow time and looked at how you can start with seeds and inputs and then regenerate those inputs and seeds over time,” says Silverstein (“inputs” refers to the nutrients plants need to grow, which can be tough to come by in space). “I think that is really cool and interesting work. Not only for space, but to make the whole hydroponics system more sustainable and closed-loop.”
The next generation of farmers
Silverstein is part of a growing group of young, educated people who see farming as a way to make a difference in the world. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the number of farmers aged 25 to 34 increased 2.2 percent between 2007 and 2012—just the second time in the last century that group has grown. Of these new young farmers, 69 percent have college degrees. “I originally went to school for business and environmental policy,” Silverstein says. “I think that agriculture and growing food is one of the most direct and meaningful ways to reduce your environmental footprint.”
Jaime Silverstein monitors the plants inside the Freight Farms test farm.
COURTESY OF FREIGHT FARMS
Helping life flourish
As a crop specialist, Silverstein is a hybrid of farmer, scientist, and officer worker. When at her desk, she’s an on-call customer service rep, or else she’s analyzing data from Freight Farms’ test-farming setups. The rest of her day, she gets her hands dirty with everything from transplanting small seedlings to experimenting with the best ways to get edible flowers and hot peppers to grow in the purple-light-bathed walls of the company’s containers.
All that one-on-one time with the plants apparently results in some close bonds—and, sadly, some casualties. For Silverstein, this is the toughest part of the job. “You think, I could have done it differently, or these poor plants are not doing so well,” she says. “I want to make them better. You have this relationship with the actual plants themselves.”
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A Local Company Is Building The Farm of The Future From Shipping Containers
LOCAL ROOTS CEO ERIC ELLESTAD
DUSTIN SNIPES
A Local Company Is Building The Farm of The Future From Shipping Containers
In industrial Vernon, Local Roots Farms is growing salad greens that are ”better than organic”
March 8, 2018 | Andrew Rosenblum Business, Food, Science
Filled with factories and warehouses south of downtown L.A., the 5.2-square-mile city of Vernon (population: about 240) was settled long ago by farmers. So you could say that Local Roots Farms is bridging the town’s agrarian past with its industrialized present. The five-year-old company is focused on growing premium salad greens in an icon of the industrial world: shipping containers.
Eric Ellestad, the company’s slim 30-year-old CEO, calls them TerraFarms. With LED lighting, computer-controlled sensors and cameras that monitor plant health, and shelves of hydroponically grown plants, a 40-foot container can yield 4,000 heads of lettuce every ten days. The greens are priced competitively with the nonorganic fare, yet the process uses 97 percent less water than a conventional farm and no pesticides or herbicides since bugs and weeds are less likely to get in. In fact, Ellestad likes to say his produce is actually “better than organic,” noting that certified organic growers can still use non-synthetic pesticides.
This might not convince consumers who assume “organic” means back-to-the-land naturalness, but less polemical is the precision that comes with indoor farming. COO Matt Vail, a bearded biomedical engineer, points to the role of the “light recipe” the company uses. “By adjusting the blue light that we give a plant early on in its life cycle, we can actually change the color of the plant,” he says. “Imagine kale that would [normally] grow green, but by increasing the blue light, we can grow that kale red.” Red kale? “The red is beautiful—it really pops,” says Vail. The company can also tweak flavor and nutrient profiles.
At its core, though, Local Roots is about being able to grow food in even the most urbanized space because that’s where the customers are. The shipping containers are what help set it apart from other indoor operations: You can pop the metal box into a parking lot or the corner of a warehouse and expand incrementally. The idea is to eventually be able to produce local, farm-fresh produce in wintry Boston or the Sahara Desert.
But then why launch in a region known for its temperate weather? “We wanted our R&D to be here because if you can sell competitively in the L.A. market, you’re going to be competitive anywhere,” Ellestad says, sitting outside the warehouse as farm techs blast hip-hop and hammer away on a TerraFarm inside. And although indoor farming has had high-profile failures in Chicago, Atlanta, and Vancouver, Local Roots is in growth mode. SpaceX, Tender Greens, and Mendocino Farms are among its clients, and Ellestad says the company recently landed a long-term contract to supply greens to what he will identify only as a “large national retailer.”
So the company is ramping up production by retrofitting 100 shipping containers as TerraFarms on the site of a massive old dumpster factory two blocks away. There are plans to add 150 more people to its staff of 46, but Ellestad is also thinking about how to remove humans from the production process. After all, the uniform stacks of lettuce seem well suited for automated farmhands. “Imagine a lawn mower that’s filling a conveyor belt that’s filling a bag,” he says. Robots seem kind of fitting for a postindustrial industrial farm, but one thing they’ll never be able to do: savor a good vinaigrette on those greens.
RELATED: From Aldi to Vons, How Grocery Stores Are Our Connection to L.A.—and Ourselves
Grow Pod Solutions Brings New Automation Technology To Indoor Farming
Grow Pod Solutions Brings New Automation Technology To Indoor Farming
Company partners with AR Systems to provide award-winning automation software
February 27, 2018
CORONA, Calif., Feb. 27, 2018, /PRNewswire/ -- Grow Pod Solutions, a leading AgTech company and the premier developer of portable indoor growing environments, has joined forces with AR Systems, to offer award-winning automation software and hardware to the indoor farming sector.
For the first time ever, growers will be able to use technology to automate virtually all cultivation processes and control the entire system from a computer or cell phone through the company's exclusive Online Communication Module.
Highly efficient, the "Grow Pod" from Grow Pod Solutions reduces water use to a minimum, increases growth rate, and speeds up harvests through energy-efficient LED lighting that is fine-tuned to individual plant requirements.
Grow Pod Solutions has made it possible to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs anywhere in the world with its advanced technology, including humidity control, air conditioning, and the company's patented Bipolar Ionization, which provides an ideal environment for rapid and robust growth.
According to a recent article in Futurism Magazine, indoor farming represents the future of agriculture but noted that the process was difficult to master. "Vertical farmers need to know how to operate the technology, including systems that control elements such as soil contaminants and water availability," the publication reported.
However, Grow Pod Solutions' intuitive and easy-to-operate system can be set up in just a few hours, and then monitored and adjusted from anywhere in the world via the company's online portal.
Furthermore, the Grow Pod operates as a sealed system – eliminating the need for pesticides, herbicides, and additives that are commonly required on traditional indoor farms. The purified environment also eradicates any chance of cross-contamination or unwanted pollination.
George Natzic, President of Grow Pod Solutions, said the company's many recent developments represent not just staying ahead of the curve but inventing the very future of indoor farming.
"Our advanced, plug-and-go systems allow anyone to grow healthy, organic food and herbs anywhere in the world," he stated. "With our innovative, patented technologies, Grow Pod Solutions continues to advance the state-of-the-art in automated farms."
For information on Grow Pod Solutions, visit www.growpodsolutions.com or call (855) 247-8054.
Connect:
Email: info@growpodsolutions.com
Website: www.growpodsolutions.com
Facebook: facebook.com/GrowPodTechnology
Twitter: @GrowPodSolution
The EDEN-ISS Laboratory Starts Its Greenhouse Operations
The First Seedlings Have Been Planted
The EDEN-ISS Laboratory Starts Its Greenhouse Operations
Now it's getting serious: The EDEN ISS laboratory in Antarctica has been set up, the first seedlings are placed in the growth cabinets, and the majority of the team of the German Aerospace Center (DLR) is back in Germany after eight weeks of travel. For DLR scientist Paul Zabel, who will be the only member of the EDEN ISS team to stay in the Antarctic until the end of 2018, this means that wintering in the Neumayer Station III of the Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI) begins.
Cucumbers, tomatoes, and peppers will start as the first cultivated plants on the southern-most point of the world. "Our goal is to make sure there will always be something to harvest in the coming months," explains DLR project manager Daniel Schubert. With those proceeds, the diet of the ten-man wintering crew will be supplemented
Photo: DLR German Aerospace Center
The last few weeks have been exhausting for the scientists and engineers who assembled a working greenhouse for the eternal cold of Antarctica from the delivered container parts. Minus 5 to minus 10 degrees Celsius and a decent wind made the work much more exhausting than in Bremen, where the EDEN ISS laboratory was tested for the first time. And these temperatures will drop significantly in the coming weeks.
In addition to the adverse weather conditions, however, the isolated location, which makes the delivery of fresh food impossible, brings the scenario close to a mission to Mars. With Paul Zabel, just nine overwinterers will be living in the Antarctic station over the next few months - a team on a space mission would also be small. "But that's exactly what we wanted to test - with our laboratory, under realistic environmental conditions, we want to produce space tomatoes and space lettuce in an environment like this," says Daniel Schubert from the DLR Institute of Space Systems.
Photo: DLR German Aerospace Center
From basil to lemon balm
In addition to tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries, the scientists are planting leafy lettuce, rucola, radishes, peppers, basil, chives, parsley, lemon balm, and mint. The plants are growing under artificial light. Instead of soil, that would have no place on a long-term space mission, a nutrient solution is feeding the cultivated vegetables and herbs. The water in this closed life support system is recycled - it will only leave the container inside the harvested greens.
"All subsystems such as lights, irrigation, air circulation system and cameras are tested and are working properly." However, the harsh environment in which the greenhouse is located has also caused some problems: the researchers had to look for a solution when condensation was precipitated in their containers. "It is just quite different if the container is in a city or in the Antarctic," says Schubert. Building the structure was troublesome. If a tool was needed, someone had to walk 400 meters, back to the Neumayer Station. Not only did all of this make for a strenuous time for DLR's team, but it also brought a wealth of experience needed for a later mission into space.
More photos and information about the project on the DLR website.
Why This Montana Farmer Grows Food Year-Round in Shipping Containers
Why This Montana Farmer Grows Food Year-Round in Shipping Containers
She can control the water, temperature, and light conditions remotely, with an app on her phone. Is this the future of food-growing?
Each container uses only 10 gallons of water per day, 90 percent less than what is used in conventional farming.
Photo by Christina (Mom) Taylor/EyeEm/Getty Images.
Isabelle Morrison | Feb 21, 2018
Kim Curren, owner of Shaggy Bear Farm in Bozeman, Montana, has worn many hats. She worked in the solar power industry for 15 years, owned her own café bookstore, and worked a stint as a medical case manager. In 2016, Curren decided to try her hand at farming, because why not?
“People always accuse me of having an [attention deficit disorder] career,” Curren says. “I just tell them I’m a Gemini and I get bored of doing one thing.”
One day, Curren came across an article about Freight Farms, a company that upcycles old shipping containers into indoor vertical hydroponic growing machines. After doing more research and visiting their headquarters in Boston, she was sold on the idea.
In 2016, with the help of a hefty loan and a $50,000 grant from the Montana Department of Agriculture, Curren had two 40-foot-long shipping containers delivered to her home. With another grant, Curren installed solar panels on her setup. Today, her farm is 30 percent solar-powered.
“When the [first] shipping container arrived, I had a moment of ‘Oh my god, what did I do?’ because it was like this giant alien spaceship had landed in my yard,” Curren says.
But she loved the idea of being able to supply her community with local, chemical-free food year-round, despite Montana’s harsh, frosty climate. Her crops are grown without soil in a controlled indoor environment, so below-zero temperatures and pest invasions aren’t a worry.
Each of Curren’s shipping containers has the capacity to grow 4,000 plants, a wide variety of herbs and leafy greens such as lettuce, kale, chard, and arugula. Each container uses only 10 gallons of water per day, 90 percent less than what is used in conventional farming.
“If we can grow this amount of food for 10 gallons of water a day, I don’t see why we shouldn’t be doing that, especially in places that are severely water-challenged,” Curren says.
Her operation allows her to supply six restaurants and her local farmers market with a fresh selection of produce. She prefers to buy her seeds from the local seed co-op, when available.
“I really believe food should be community,” she says. “In places that have limited growing seasons, it’s a way to keep locally growing food in communities and not be reliant on trucking things in from all over.”
Inside the containers, the crops are grown vertically in gutter-like hydroponic towers and exposed to red and blue LED light strips. Nutrient-rich water flows down through the top of the towers, bathing the roots along the way. Excess water is recycled back into the main tank.
Curren can control the water, temperature, and light conditions inside her shipping containers remotely, with an app on her phone. She recently installed UV water filtration to ensure bad bacteria can’t enter her farm.
Since Curren introduced Montana’s first shipping container farm two years ago, four other farmers in the state were inspired to try this growing method as well, one of whom is Brittany Moreland of Elevated Harvest in Red Lodge.
Moreland and her husband spent several days at Shaggy Bear Farm with Curren learning about the farming process firsthand before deciding to purchase their own shipping container farm in 2016. Like Curren, Moreland enjoys being able to farm year-round.
The goal is to make clean, unprocessed, locally grown food easily accessible to the community.
“This time of year, other than onions and potatoes, we have no local fresh food. So even if it’s just salad or kale, it’s great that it’s negative 10 degrees and I’m delivering fresh heads of lettuce that were picked an hour ago,” Moreland says.
Elevated Harvest provides for a local catering company and two grocery stores in Red Lodge and Absarokee. She is currently collaborating with other farmers in the state to create a Community Supported Agriculture food hub, with an online ordering platform.
The goal is to make clean, unprocessed, locally grown food easily accessible to the community. Moreland says the food hub will be established by October.
“That’s the kind of food I want to eat, that’s the kind of food I want to have available to me, and that’s the kind of food I think everyone deserves to have available,” Moreland says.
Brad McNamara, co-founder of Freight Farms, hopes to transform more everyday people like Curren and Moreland into farmers and bring transparency to the food industry.
“Everyone’s talking about this challenge of how do we feed millions and millions of people?” McNamara says. “The best way to do that is to make millions and millions of people into successful farmers.”
The company says it has sold more than 160 shipping container farms worldwide as of December.
“I think it’s the way of the future,” Curren says. “With our global population on the rise, we have to come up with ways to grow food differently. We don’t have enough arable land to feed everyone on the planet, so coming up with models like this are a piece of the answer. They’re not the entire answer, but they’re a very important piece.”
Hydroponic Farm In Steel Container Keeps UA In Greens
Hydroponic Farm In Steel Container Keeps UA In Greens
February 18, 2018
David Gottschalk
Credit: NWA Democrat-Gazette
Allix Ice, a senior at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, harvests Rex Butterhead lettuce on Thursday inside the Freight Farms hydroponic shipping container on campus.
By Nathan Owens
February 18, 2018
Around 9 a.m. Thursday, Allix Ice, 22, a senior dietetics and nutrition major, stepped into a steel shipping container and began her duties
She confirmed that the thermostat was at 60 degrees and started pushing lettuce from one end of the container to the other.
By day's end, Ice said "anywhere between 20 and 40 pounds" of produce is bagged and shipped to a restaurant at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, called Where the Wild Greens AR.
Hydroponics, a method of growing without soil, has been a rising trend in the United States as shoppers continue to seek local, organic foods.
While results vary (one farmer said that hydroponic strawberries are bland), a few Arkansans are finding sucess growing lettuce and herbs hydroponically. They claim it's the future of farming.
Inside the university's 40-foot container, known as the Leafy Green Machine, about 260 vertical panels can hold more than 3,000 lettuce heads. A section of Rex butterhead or arugula lettuce is harvested weekly.
Ashley Meek, the campus director of nutrition and wellness, said UA is the third campus to partner with Boston-based Freight Farms. As of December, there are 20 schools that have similar partnerships with the ag-tech company.
The student-run container is a joint project between the campus catering company, Chartwell's, and the university. Meek said Chartwell's spent $97,000 on the container, and the university spent $15,000 on installation expenses. It became operational in August 2016.
Since then about 25,000 lettuce heads have been harvested for Where the Wild Greens AR.
Inside the repurposed shipping container is a sign that says that it uses 90 percent less water and electricity than a greenhouse or traditional field; growing conditions can be controlled via mobile app; and it can produce 12 times the equivalent of one conventional farm acre in a year.
Considering input costs, Meek said the container saves them about 40 cents per lettuce head. No school credit is awarded to the students who volunteer there, but Meek said there are plans to change that.
Hydroponics is "technology of the future" and can help meet rising food demand, Ice said. "I think it's going to become very big."
The U.S. hydroponic industry has grown consistently the past five years and is projected to continue, albeit more slowly, into 2022, according to market research group IBISWorld. Industry revenue rose 3.4 percent to a total of $848 million the past five years ending 2017, market data show. Its outlook declined to a yearly rate of 0.2 percent until 2022.
Jerry Miller, a Vietnam War veteran, bought his Leafy Green Machine almost three years ago. He is working with two other veterans, Alan Altom and Darryl Hill, to operate their business, Vet Veggies, in Springdale.
Its mission it to provide local produce to restaurants and retailers and show younger military veterans how they can support themselves without working behind a desk or breaking the bank.
Often 20-year-old veterans come home, find it hard to work a 9-to-5 job, and try to make a living farming, Miller said.
"The average age of a farmer is 58 years old," he said. "Veterans that are 28 can't go into farming because they can't afford it."
However, Miller said harvesting lettuce in a 320-square-foot trailer takes up less space, costs less and grants a guaranteed crop weekly. His business model shows that it can support a family of 4 or 5, he said.
Since Vet Veggies began in August 2015, they've secured agreements with various restaurants within a 10-15 mile radius of the farm. Their lettuce can be found in Northwest Arkansas at Mockingbird Cafe, Jose's and Eleven at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, among other locations.
Vet Veggies recently earned a $25,000 award that will allow the purchase a larger container to more than double existing capacity.
As of December, according to Freight Farms, there are more than 160 shipping containers repurposed to grow vegetables in 36 states and 10 countries.
This Musk — Elon's brother — Looks To Revolutionize Urban Farming
This Musk — Elon's brother — Looks To Revolutionize Urban Farming
Zlati Meyer, USA TODAY February 18, 2018
Square Roots urban farming has the equivalent of acres of land packed inside a few storage containers in a Brooklyn parking lot. USA TODAY
(Photo: Jennifer S. Altman, for USA TODAY)
NEW YORK – In sunny California, Elon Musk is upending America's auto and space industries. And here, in a cold, gritty section of Brooklyn, his brother Kimbal has embarked on a project that's just as significant in its own way: Trying to reboot the food system.
The younger Musk is the co-founder of Square Roots, an urban farming incubator with the goal of teaching young people how to farm in cities while preaching the importance of locally sourced, non-processed food.
Having shown its potential during the past two years in the parking lot of a shuttered factory near public housing projects of Brooklyn's Bedford-Stuyvesant, Square Roots is ready to branch out. It is looking to set up plots — each the equivalent of 2 acres of farmland — in cities across the U.S. They're hydroponic, which means the crops grow in a nutrient-laced water solution, not soil.
The sites in contention, all of which had to pledge support from local governments and businesses, are in Chicago, Denver, Memphis, Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, Boston, Detroit, Los Angeles, Tampa, Atlanta, Dallas, Cincinnati, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and a second site in New York. Musk and Square Roots CEO Tobias Peggs will narrow the list down to 10 later this year.
In Brooklyn, budding agricultural entrepreneurs set up year-round farms inside 10 retired metal ocean shipping containers and grow crops like microgreens, herbs and strawberries.
"I want them to get to know entrepreneurship through food," said Musk in a phone interview, who counts both growing business and food as big passions.
Kimbal Musk is a co-founder of Square Roots. (Photo: Neilson Barnard, Getty Images for New York Times)
In 2004, Musk co-founded The Kitchen Restaurant Group, which opened eateries in Colorado, Tennessee, Illinois and Indiana. Musk, who sits on the board of directors of his brother's electric car and solar power provider maker Tesla, also co-founded Big Green, an organization that installs gardens in underserved schools and teaches children about the importance of eating natural food.
With so much on his plate, Musk leaves the day-to-day running of Square Roots to Peggs. They usually talk twice a day, Peggs said. The two met while working at OneRiot, a social media target-advertising company in Colorado, which Walmart acquired in 2011. Peggs has a doctorate from Cardiff University in Wales in artificial intelligence but can just as easily switch to extolling the virtues of freshly-picked peppery arugula.
"By 2050, there’ll be 9.6 billion people on the planet and 70% of them in urban areas. That’s driving a lot of investment and interest in urban farming. Our thinking was if we start in New York and we can figure out solutions ... then we’ll be able to roll out those solutions to the world," he said.
To initially get set up in Brooklyn back in 2016, Square Roots raised $5 million in — no pun intended — seed money, Peggs explained. For each of the 10 new locations around the country, slightly more than $1 million is needed.
Peggs said the farmers find buyers for their produce, like stores, restaurants, and individuals, though they also inherit the client's list from previous Square Roots participants. Some of Square Roots' staff of 14 help generate leads, too. Thirty percent of what they earn goes to Square Roots, and expenses are another $30,000. That leaves them with an annual profit of $30,000 to $40,000.
A single 40-foot container provides 320 square feet of growing space. It is outfitted with long, narrow towers studded with crops that are hung on tracks from the ceiling in rows, like vertical blinds. The plants get their water and nutrients from irrigation pipes running along the tops of the towers and their sunlight from dangling narrow strips of LED lights. Besides arugula, crops include kale, radicchio, and pak choi.
More: Urban farmers grow veggies in freight containers
More: Farm on wheels will deliver fresh produce to food deserts
"What we’ve proven in the first phase is we can take young people with no experience in farming and get them very, very quickly to grow really high-quality food that people want to buy," he said.
Over the year-long program, the young, mostly 20-something farmers learn about not only agricultural science and farm management but also marketing, community outreach, leadership, and business, according to Peggs. During a typical week, they spend about 15 to 20 hours doing farm work, 10 hours handling the business side and 10 hours getting coached by Square Roots' in-house agriculture expert and the team of mentors the company has assembled.
Last year's group was comprised of 10 people, and this year has six. More than 1,500 individuals have applied to Square Roots, the company said.
The program has attracted participants like Hannah Sharaf, who sells her weekly yield of 25 to 30 pounds of microgreens to office workers for $7 per 2.25-ounce bag. Sharaf, 27, said she is fascinated by "how food affects the body," prompting her to give up a career in international marketing. "I really want to be a farmer. I'm exploring both urban and soil."
"High-profile, really cool projects are important because they draw attention to urban agriculture. They fascinate people. They attract capital, and that helps to grow the sector," said Nevin Cohen, research director of the City University of New York's Urban Food Policy Institute.
Part of the draw is the bold-faced name attached to it: Musk. That could make urban farming a bigger topic in the national conversation about local and fresh food, which also is driven by thousands of small activists, some of whom have been advocating for decades.
"I don’t enjoy the industrial food system. It's definitely not good for America or the world," Musk said, citing high obesity rates, the thousands of miles food has to be shipped and the lackluster taste. "We're very excited to teach America about real food."
But Musk acknowledged that not everyone can afford that — including some of Square Roots' neighbors. At least, not right now.
"It's not something restricted to the urban elite," he said. "Our mission is real food for everyone. We need food to be delicious and young entrepreneurs to be empowered."
Agricool Strawberries, Coming To Monoprix 🚀
Today we have 4 Cooltainers in Paris (Bercy, Station F, Stade de France, Halle Flachat). Each of them can produce 7 tons of strawberries per year, which is about 28,000 cartons.
Agricool Strawberries, Coming To Monoprix 🚀
Co-Founder and CEO, Agricool
February 16, 2017
So now that our direct sales have been going on for 4 months (jeez, already?!), it’s time for us to step up to the next challenge: getting our strawberries into the fruit and vegetable aisles in your grocery stores. The goal is to find the model that will let us make our fruits and vegetables accessible to everyone, across the whole world. Let’s go! Here’s where we are.
Strawberries are coming !!
A New Model
Today we have 4 Cooltainers in Paris (Bercy, Station F, Stade de France, Halle Flachat). Each of them can produce 7 tons of strawberries per year, which is about 28,000 cartons. That gives us a current total production of roughly 112,000 cartons every year. Tomorrow, we’ll have thousands of Cooltainers around the world. The number of cartons won’t be counted in the thousands, but in the millions. And when that happens, we need to have found the right way to sell them easily, efficiently, and at scale.
To make it all work, best to get started right now. The facts are simple: more than 70% of French people buy their fruits and vegetables in a supermarket or hypermarket. In other words, if we want to build a new agricultural model that gives everyone access to better fruits and vegetables, we need to figure out how to sell there. And so we’re about to take our first steps down the grocery stores aisle.
Everybody to Monoprix 🍓
Here we aaaare !!
For our first store event (🎉🎉🎉), we chose to go to Monoprix. Why? The store’s mission has been the same since they opened their first store in 1932: “Bringing the best to everyone, in the middle of the city”. It’s pretty close to ours, no? What’s more, they’ve recently decided to go even further. More than just offering “the best” products, they’ve started a brand of “Made in pas très loin” (“Made not far away”) to encourage local production. Awesome! And if we could get even closer? What if we had the label reading “Made in very very close, in a paradise for fruits and vegetables right in the heart of the city”?
For us, it’s an incredible opportunity to discover the world of in-store sales. What do we know for sure? Our recipe will stay the same (❤️) and we’ll be preparing for the next steps. Our strawberries will always be harvested that morning by our Cooltivators. This time, they’ll be dropped off in the closest store and displayed in a case specially made by us, just for this purpose, everything done in order for them to be sold that very day. And if you arrive around 10am, you’ll probably cross paths with Charlotte or Georges (our Cooltivators), there to drop off the day’s cartons. And then there’ll be nothing left to do but taste the berries.
Laura and Charlotte, ready for this new challenge !
Test & Learn 💡
We’re the first to sell strawberries produced in the heart of the city, without any pesticides and harvested that morning in order to be eaten that day, on Parisian fruits and vegetables aisles. That means that we need to learn a ton about the current sales model as well as everything that we could potentially invent. It’s an incredible challenge!
How will it work, concretely? We’ll tackle it like all of our subjects: by trying it, testing it, proving it. The sum total of what we need to learn is huge. From packaging to the display to the branding to in-store events, we have thousands of things to discover. Then once we’ve understood your expectations and how we can best respond to them, we’ll be able to dream even bigger (🚀). And that’s good, because with more than 325 Monoprix stores in the Paris region, we can move step-by-step to deploy our model further and get our strawberries to everyone in Paris.
The team, looking for the perfect place for our strawberries ✌
So…see you there? 🙂
Come by on Saturday, February 17 at Monoprix (2 Rue de la Station, 92600 Asnières-sur-Seine) to be part of the first in-store adventure.
Container Farms Shorten Distance From Farm To Plate
Container Farms Shorten Distance From Farm To Plate
Feb 9, 2018
Hydroponics. Aeroponics. Aquaponics. All are accepted methods of producing food without soil. Some are in confined spaces located a distance away from rural America. Many have achieved success while others have suffered dismal failure.
This has not stopped the entrepreneurial spirit seeking ways to feed more people, cut costs and reduce carbon footprints in order to give year- round access to certain foods.
Tobias Peggs, CEO of Square Roots: “So there’s no doubt, and I hope that during the course of a year here, we would definitely inspire a number of the people here to embark on a lifelong journey to be farmers.”
The here is the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York. On the edge of the parking lot of a former Pfizer pharmaceutical plant sit ten shipping containers. Each has been converted for growing hydroponic vegetables under LED lighting. Ten laboratories for aspiring agricultural entrepreneurs, growing food that is unique in product and location.
The brainchild of Tobias Peggs, Square Roots is a non-profit that aims to bring fresh produce to urban consumers by training farmers to build businesses in their communities. Each container has the production capacity of two acres of land and promises a better quality product by maintaining a consistent environment.
Tobias Peggs, Co-Founder, CEO of Square Roots: “Obviously people are increasingly moving to the city, so we have to figure out how to farm, in those urban areas. Whether that is indoors in containers, or whether that is outdoors in more urban gardens, or greenhouses or whatever it is, the more food that is grown close to the city, the more access that people have to local food, the better.”
Square Roots mentors spend a year teaching the “How To” of business and hydroponic agriculture to classes of recruits who dream of becoming urban farmers. Few of the entrepreneurs arrive with an agricultural background, so the learning curve can be steep. Farmer Josh Aliber spent his year learning to grow basil and build an audience for his crops.
Josh Aliber, Farmer, and entrepreneur: “I spent the first 2 to 3 months walking around from restaurant to restaurant in Manhattan meeting chefs. Learning about what they value, how can I improve my crops, and becoming a better farmer. The startup time was really hard.(EDIT) but it worked. Because the product we grow is so fresh, and you say I harvested this today, and they say ‘I’ve never tasted basil like this.’ “
Freshness is only one of the selling points for the Square Roots farmer. Growing crops unavailable in the wholesale and retail supply chain can help close a sale.
Josh Aliber, Farmer and entrepreneur: “A lot of these chefs have been in the culinary industry for 30 or 40 years, and as a brand new farmer, because I’m growing in a really unique environment where I can grow really unique crops, I can bring them things that they have never tried before. And the taste speaks for itself, because it is growing in the exact environment that it wants.”
The taste drives a solid price for produce. While a salad mix starts at $10 per pound, rare varieties of basil command $30 per pound at local restaurants. Each farmer develops a customer mix of restaurants and food retailers who buy in bulk, and individuals who purchase salad greens through a subscription model. The greens are handpicked and delivered up to three times a week.
Tobias Peggs, Co-Founder, CEO of Square Roots: “So we feel that the way that the product is priced is definitely mass-market, but every single day we work to improve the technology, make the system more efficient, that will allow us ultimately to bring down that price and ultimately fulfill the mission that the company has, which is to bring real food to everyone.”
The physical constraints of a Square Roots container farm limit the types of crops grown by each farmer to just the small and valuable. Salad greens, kales, sorrel, Swiss chard, and herbs are best suited to the vertical towers inside the farms. Crops grow quickly under the red and blue LED lighting optimized for plant growth. A footprint of only 400 square feet allows a farm to squeeze into tight urban environments and shorten the literal distance from farm-to-plate. Under LED lighting some crops go from seed to harvest in as little as 8 weeks. The container farm has operating costs of roughly $1000 per month, but requires only 8 gallons of water per day. Once a crop rotation is developed, harvesting can happen each week, year round.
Josh Aliber, Farmer, and entrepreneur: “So what we are able to do is to create unique environments for outcrops in very urban settings. Today we are in Bed-Sty. I personally grow crops that you wouldn’t be able to find in an urban environment.”
The ability to simulate varied environments is another advantage of growing crops inside a container. If a variety of basil prefers a specific temperature, humidity or altitude, the environmental controls within a Square Roots farm can be set to mimic ideal growing conditions.
While the ability to grow a high volume of quality produce in a small amount of urban space has been confirmed, price is the next frontier. For urban container farming to scale-up and become affordable for a neighborhood, the cost per pound will have to decline.
Josh Aliber, Farmer and entrepreneur: “The fact that we are able to compete now, tells us that as we really increase production to bring the costs down, we are going to be able to produce food at a much more competitive cost that is better quality than is already existing in the marketplace.”
Until then, this farm incubator will continue to experiment with a food supply chain that can be measured in yards rather than miles.
Tobias Peggs, Co-Founder, CEO of Square Roots: “At the end of the day I think what the consumer wants is food they can trust, and that tastes really amazing. And if you know your farmer, you trust the food. Once you taste that food, you are won over.”
For Market to Market, I’m Peter Tubbs.
Local Company Creates Working Gardens For Year-Round Fresh Produce
Feb 7, 2018
BOSTON - Imagine being able to get fresh, locally grown produce here in New England all year round.
It doesn't sound feasible, but a local company created by two Northeastern University graduates has figured out a way to make that possible.
Their company is called Freight Farms. They take discarded shipping containers and turn them into working farms.
One of their containers sits in a parking lot overlooking the S.E Expressway and produces swiss chard and other leafy greens.
“When we said we want to take growing, on a commercial scale, all indoors, all modular, and then allow anyone to do it – the traditional industry and the traditionalists said ‘you guys are crazy,’” company co-founder Brad McNamara said.
Freight Farms started in in 2010 and now has 30 employees in their South Boston office. They’ve shipped re-fitted containers to dozens of states and countries.
McNamara believes their approach is a very efficient way to grow food.
Here’s how it works: Seedlings start in specially designed trays and are then exposed to light that maximizes their growth. After a few weeks, they are transferred to long vertical columns. They are fed through hydroponics and aren’t exposed to soil, only nutrient-rich water.
“You control for flavor, texture, for shape, for size, for color,” added McNamara.
In about 3-6 weeks, fresh produce is ready to be picked and eaten - without being shipped across the country. McNamara says it tastes better than traditional produce, “because your lettuce two weeks old vs two hours old is a completely different product.”
A Freight Farm container can produce about the equivalent of 1.5 acres of farmland. Many of the containers are old refrigerator units that were used to ship frozen food in their first life.
Dave Pendergast of Agora Greens in Walpole now has two containers. He says the demand for this type of produce is growing. They send their lettuce and herbs to restaurants, grocery stores, and institutional kitchens.
Pendergast believes this is the future of farming as it provides an efficient way to get fresh food to people in cities. “We don’t need tractors. We don’t need a lot of labor. There’s nobody out there squirting pesticides on this stuff. We don’t have weather variables.”
One of the big selling features is a reduction in water usage “We recycle the water,” said Pendergast. “10 gallons a week for 5,000 heads of lettuce.”
And - a container can be controlled with an app. “You don’t need a green thumb,” chuckled Pendergast. “It’s all run by a supercomputer that turns itself off and on, and the lights go off and on, they are all synchronized together.”
African ministers have come to tour Agora Greens to see how the units work. Pendergast said they were impressed with the limited water usage and thought they could provide a good way to grow food in drought-impacted areas.
Legacy Hall & Growtainers®
Legacy Hall & Growtainers®
Glenn Behrman, founder of CEA Advisors LLC, Dallas based developers of state of the art custom built vertical farms housed in specially designed and engineered recycled shipping containers is pleased to announce that they have recently delivered another Food Safety compliant 53’ Growtainer® to Doodle Farms at the Food Hall at Legacy West in Plano, Texas.
This custom built Growtainer® utilizes a proprietary water conserving hydroponic irrigation system which constantly monitors the quality and nutritional levels of the water being fed to the plants, energy efficient crop specific LED lights, Growracks® from CEA Advisors with 48 individual growing levels, a commercial climate and environmental control system and a separate utility area to protect the plants from any insects or temperature fluctuation.
CEA Advisors LLC is the only custom designer and builder of unique container based Vertical Farms with successful projects worldwide. Recently completed projects include the disruptive Store Grown! fresh produce project with the Central Market division of H-E-B, Research Growtainers® for Texas A & M Agrilife Research, Hochschule Weihenstephan-Triesdorf in Munich, Germany, Pharmaceutical manufacturer Bioiberica in Barcelona, Spain and the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.
The Doodle Farms Growtainer®, located in the Food Hall “Box Garden” will be used to produce fresh, local gourmet products for the 22 artisanal food stalls offering the freshest, local ingredients and best of food trends prepared by DFW chefs and artisans. Behrman said, “We’re proud to be part of a project like this, where each food stall at Legacy Hall presents its own unique personality and chef-driven specialties, coming together to reflect the DFW food scene and offering the best of local food trends and innovations”.
Visit us online at www.growtainers.com or contact gb@cea-advisors.com for more information
Little Farm Boxes Take A Bite Out Of Big Agra
By PYMNTS
February 5, 2018
Food production and distribution are no picnic. Consumers increasingly demand transparency around what they eat. Where did it come from? Who touched it? How many chemicals were sprayed on it? Those with the means to do so are willing to pay a premium for organically grown food that comes from local, known sources rather than the distant and impersonal “Big Agra.”
There are all sorts of technology-driven solutions cropping up in response to this demand. For instance, there are startups using blockchain, the distributed ledger technology behind cryptocurrencies like bitcoin, for supply chain tracking and transparency.
Boston-based agricultural tech company Freight Farms is taking a different approach, leveraging data to optimize value throughout the supply chain — and, of course, track production every step of the way.
Co-Founders Brad McNamara and Jon Friedman explained that the data is used to tailor growing environments — from light and heat to water and soil nutrients — so maximum production can be achieved and certain standards can be met, depending on distributors’ needs.
For instance, a variety of sizes and colors is desirable in direct-to-consumer (D2C) settings, while uniformity is more valuable to a wholesaler with a direct supplier relationship to a specific restaurant.
Oh, and all of this is happening inside of shipping containers.
One freight farm can grow approximately two acres worth of produce, according to the company, and that can be sold either D2C or through partnerships with local distributors, restaurants and grocery stores.
Talk about local. These freight container food production hubs were designed for urban settings where it can be difficult to access truly fresh food. But McNamara and Friedman say the economic implications are greater than simply giving savvy city dwellers the freshness they demand in food.
A farm in a box can establish an agricultural industry where there wasn’t one before — from the coldest, northernmost reaches of Canada to the deserts of Dubai. It also invites entrepreneurship wherever it’s placed, as farms can be started by either institutions or business-minded individuals.
McNamara said the company hopes to encourage more entrepreneurial activity through its recent acquisition of Boston-based software company Cabbige, a move that will unlock tools like price optimization algorithms, inventory matching, inventory tracking and algorithms to mix and price community-supported agriculture (CSA) shares.
“We’ve pushed to the limit of transacting,” Friedman said. “Where we really live in the payments realm is optimizing the value creation of the plant.”
He also said the company is working toward enabling seamless payments for those who buy from Freight Farms.
“We’re solving for the need for more food in more places closer to where people are,” McNamara summarized. “We hear a lot about the issues of population growth and urban density, and climate change is no longer a theory; it’s a fact. Going forward, people will need to be able to produce food under more and more difficult circumstances.”
Driving the farming process with data can make it easier to rise to those difficult circumstances, he added. Food production can be a bit of a black box to those who are not industry professionals. Institutional knowledge is not easy for outsiders to access. By simplifying and automating processes, Freight Farms aims to lower the barrier to entry so that people, communities and institutions can take control of their own supply chains.
Corporations feeding cafeterias and large staffs, for instance, could use this technology to replace or supplement expensive supply chains with self-sustaining ones that have total production transparency.
McNamara and Friedman don’t expect to take out Big Agra with their little box farms. Traditional agriculture won’t go away, and staple crops like corn and wheat won’t go out of business. Rather, their goal is to put pressure on the industry giants in the same way that nimble FinTech startups have put pressure on traditional banks and financial institutions.
The way people eat and perceive food is changing, the co-founders said, and Freight Farms hopes to further that cultural and industry transformation with its data-driven approach to food production.
Bringing Fresh to the Frozen State—A Farmer Spotlight
Bringing Fresh to the Frozen State—A Farmer Spotlight
by Mia Lauenroth | Jan 31, 2018 | Upstart U News & Announcements
A modern farmer’s call to fresh food
In a repurposed car garage, somewhere in Anchorage, Alaska, there is an indoor farm built from an unexpected combination of rectangular towers held in long, wooden racks.
The farm is CityFarms Alaska, and it’s six months old. It was born for the purpose of serving the Anchorage community with fresh herbs, something that the residents of Alaska usually only experience for 2 or 3 months of the year.
For the rest of the year, much of Alaska’s food system relies on barges and planes that bring produce from the lower 48 states. If the shipment can’t make it, shelves are left empty.
When the shipment does arrive, it delivers less-than-desirable produce; fruits and vegetables that have traveled thousands of miles. By the time they reach the table, they are days if not weeks old, are stemmy, and have bland flavor.
And it’s not just the small urban areas that feel the effects of the tedious shipping process—the large cities of Alaska share the dependency on imported foods due to the short growing season and long winters among a long list of other limiting factors¹. In addition, the state has been inclined to focus more effort on producing valuable exports, like oil, than on sustaining viable food systems. In short, fresh foods in Alaska is an accessibility game, and Alaska was dealt a bad hand.
The process of rebuilding
To solve that problem and other food security issues around the world, many farmers, like those in the Upstart University community, are implementing modern sustainable methods in and around cities to reduce the amount of time and distance produce travels, and to increase the quality.
The garage farm is one of many to join the movement that aims to rebuild the foundation of the food systems in America and across the world. CityFarms Alaska is an up-and-coming modern agriculture solution to the shortage of fresh in the 49th state.
Nik Bouman, the founder of CityFarms Alaska, was an unlikely candidate for starting a farm. Having attended college for an education in business and finance, he always knew he wanted to start a business of his own. He had no idea it would be farming.
Naturally, there were some knowledge gaps to fill. When asked about the ways he overcame those experience gaps, Nik said that the most valuable resources by far were Upstart University andYouTube videos featuring Dr. Nate Storey.
Like so many great experiments, Nik’s began in his basement while he was a student in Oregon. It was a small hobby system, nothing more than a few Towers on the wall. It wasn’t until he moved back to Alaska that he invested in a system that could support a commercial yield. “Before, it was just me in a basement with a few heads of lettuce and some basil,” he recalls.
Intrigued by the innovation opportunities of a fairly young industry, he found that he enjoyed farming, but was frustrated by the crop limitations of the towers. He knew his small system was a means to an end—kale, parsley, and chives would all come in time—so he made the most of it by learning as much as he could from it.
Nik ended up appreciating the small beginning, as the risks and mistakes yielded less expensive consequences. With this in mind, he built out the commercial farm in his garage, mimicking a large farm as closely as his budget would allow.
The farm holds fifty seven-foot ZipGrow Towers, arranged in wooden racks that Nik handmade. Each Tower bursts with verdant growth; sweet basil, Thai basil, and lemon basil, varieties that have so far had the best yield as well as profit.
Someday, he says, he hopes to bring fresh tomatoes and even strawberries to the last frontier. Luckily, the market is brimming with potential for locally grown fruits with reliable availability.
Rising to the local need
At only six months old, the farm is already producing enough to be sold in the local Anchorage grocery stores. He provides recognizable value to his customers by using the Alaska Grown logo on his custom display.
CityFarms Alaska clamshells hang from custom displays under signs that proudly boast the “Alaska Grown” logo.
Alaska Grown is a program developed by the agriculture industry in the state to bring awareness to consumers regarding products grown regionally. It encourages growers to use the logo, but only on produce that is 100% local².
Nik’s basil is among the 4% of food that is grown locally in the state of Alaska, a number that increased in recent years³. Most produce grown in the state is available for only three months, and from November to April, the state relies on storage and imports.
“Seasonal Produce Availability.” http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/sourcebook/2014SBimages/Seasonalproduce.pdf
Nik produces year round. “People really care about local up here, and there’s hardly any of it,” he says. Thus, the value and potential of controlled environment agriculture have been recognized as a viable approach—if not solution.
Because local products are currently so hard to find, entering grocery stores was fairly easy for Nik. It was also a more profitable option than restaurants, who were more concerned about price than about quality. In addition to inconsistent availability, quality and flavor are a common complaint of locals. Nik’s superior quality has been a huge selling point for the basil. The flavor of something that was harvested just a few hours ago is hugely different from the conventional product harvested a week ago.
Nik saw the opportunity for innovation and novelty in the indoor agriculture industry and jumped on the chance to combine his dream of owning a business with helping to solve the struggling Alaskan food system. He came to understand that the satisfaction of providing his community with high-quality freshness gave way to owning a business he is proud of.
See Nik’s farm in action at the CityFarms Alaska website, and follow the farm on the CityFarms Alaska Facebook page.
Would you like to have your farm featured on Upstart University?
Contact us by reaching out to support@upstartuniversity.net!
- ¹ Phu, Lisa. “Alaska only grows 4 percent of its food. Can we do better?” JuneauEmpire, http://juneauempire.com/local/2016-09-08/alaska-only-grows-4-percent-its-food-can-we-do-better
- ² Alaska Department of Natural Resources. “Alaska Grown Program.” Division of Agriculture, http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/ag_AKGrown.htm
- ³ Phu, Lisa. “Alaska only grows 4 percent of its food. Can we do better?” JuneauEmpire, http://juneauempire.com/local/2016-09-08/alaska-only-grows-4-percent-its-food-can-we-do-better
- ⁴ Alaska Department of Natural Resources. “Seasonal Produce Availability.” Divisio of Agriculture, http://dnr.alaska.gov/ag/sourcebook/2014SBimages/Seasonalproduce.pdf
Indoor Farming is "The Future of Agriculture"
Indoor Farming is "The Future of Agriculture"
Grow Pod Solutions is on the leading edge of one of the most significant changes in the history of world food production
NEWS PROVIDED BY Grow Pod Solutions
CORONA, Calif., Jan. 23, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Grow Pod Solutions, the developer of portable indoor growing environments, announced that their next-gen systems will become a vital part of feeding the world's growing population.
Indoor farming is "the future of agriculture," according to a recent article in Futurism Magazine. "New technologies are changing the equation, allowing people to grow food in places where it was previously difficult or impossible, and in quantities akin to traditional farms," the magazine reported.
However, the magazine also noted that setting up an indoor farm is often not an easy task.
"Vertical farmers need to know how to operate the technology, including systems that control elements such as soil contaminants and water availability, that nature takes care of on a traditional farm."
Grow Pod Solutions advanced technologies eliminate these obstacles. Grow Pod's indoor farms are fully automated, and feature innovations such as greenhouse control software, Bipolar Ionization, automatic dosing, fertigation scheduling and full-time surveillance. The systems conserve water, have minimal energy costs, and produces clean, pesticide-free crops.
According to a Thomson Reuters Foundation study, indoor farms like Grow Pods are "critical" to combat hunger.
And EcoWatch said, "Urban farms could supply almost the entire recommended consumption of vegetables for city dwellers while cutting food waste and reducing emissions from the transportation of agricultural products."
George Natzic, President of Grow Pod Solutions, said that the company is well-positioned to become a market leader in affordable, transportable automated farms.
"Our advanced, simple-to-operate system allows individuals, community groups, businesses and organizations to grow healthy, organic foods virtually anywhere," he stated. "Our pods feature technologies not found anywhere else, which I believe will position Grow Pod Solutions as the premier provider of superior quality automated farms."
For information on Grow Pod Solutions, visit www.growpodsolutions.com or call (855) 247-8054.
Connect:
Email: info@growpodsolutions.com
Website: www.growpodsolutions.com
Facebook: facebook.com/GrowPodTechnology
Twitter: @GrowPodSolution
Media:
Innovation Agency
310-571-5592
www.inov8.us
info(at)inov8.us
SOURCE Grow Pod Solutions
Related Links
North American Freight Farms Acquires Cabbige
Freight Farms—manufacturer of smart hydroponic container farms and developer of the farmhand® automation and remote control suite—today announced the acquisition of Boston-based Cabbige, an online business management application for small-scale farmers.
North American Freight Farms Acquires Cabbige
Online business management application for small-scale farmers
Freight Farms—manufacturer of smart hydroponic container farms and developer of the farmhand® automation and remote control suite—today announced the acquisition of Boston-based Cabbige, an online business management application for small-scale farmers. Cabbige’s inventory, crop, and financial management software will be integrated into farmhand®.
Freight Farms is as much a software developer as a hardware manufacturer. Today, farmhand® supports farms in over 35 states and 10 countries. Growers using farmhand® can already monitor their operations, control environment settings, track production, and replenish supplies using the mobile or web app. With upcoming Cabbige software integration, farmhand® users will have greater business management capabilities and the tools to run both their farm and business from a single application.
Freight Farms and Cabbige both have roots in the Boston AgTech scene. CEOs Brad McNamara (Freight Farms) and Jessica Angell (Cabbige) have always shared the goal of creating a more distributed, sustainable food system.
“Brad and I came to realize that our two technologies would do more for small business farmers together than independently. Cabbige has been acquired by Freight Farms to expand its impact to indoor growers and to give small-scale farmers an end-to-end solution for growing and
selling fresh, local produce,” says Jessica Angell, CEO of Cabbige.
“Cabbige’s pricing algorithms and farm management software are powerful tools for any grower seeking to optimize their business. We saw a clear opportunity to bring that power onto the farmhand® platform to make managing farm operations, production, inventory, and pricing data easier. Our farmhand® users will now get full seed-to-sale visibility and value optimization,” says Brad McNamara, CEO of Freight Farms.
With the integration of Cabbige’s business technology, Freight Farms plans to release a paid version of farmhand® to a broader farming audience in 2018. For more information about the Cabbige acquisition, please visit the Freight Farms blog.
For more information:
Natasha Fee
Freight Farms
Tel: +1 781 966 4145
Mob: +1 978 460 4449