Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
UGA Professor: Today’s Students Will Live to See Food Shortages
Posted October 24, 2017 03:02 pm
By Lee Shearer | lee.shearer@onlineathens.com
UGA Professor: Today’s Students Will Live to See Food Shortages
University of Georgia students will see food shortages in their lifetimes, UGA professor David Berle predicts.
It’s impossible to tell how a future of food scarcity might play out, or how deep that scarcity could be, Berle said in a recent talk in the auditorium of UGA’s Odum School of Ecology.
A 2011 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated world food production would have to increase by as much as 70 percent to feed the expected world population of about 9 billion in 2050, Berle said.
Scientific and demographic studies have also predicted water shortages.
SEE ALSO
Tant: 60 years ago, Sputnik launched the Space Age
Day of Caring: 500 volunteers help at Athens area agencies
A revision of the report suggests agricultural production may not have to increase that much, but it’s clear change is coming, Berle explained.
Various solutions have been proposed, but none of them is a magic bullet, and some may not even be good ideas, according to Berle, a professor of horticulture who helped begin and now oversees the student-run organic UGArden on university land near the State Botanical Garden of Georgia.
Indoor farming is energy-intensive, for example, and vertical agriculture — or wall growing — still requires the delivery of water and nutrients to plants.
Some companies and people tout the use of genetically-modified crops, but it’s unclear how much if any more yield genetically-altered plants can provide.
Cutting back on food waste is another proposed solution, but one with uneven applications. Some have estimated we throw away up to 50 percent of food in the United States. But in less wealthy parts of the world, waste is much less.
Growing food locally is a good idea, but that also can only go so far, Berle said. Many of the foods we eat aren’t suitable for growing in the local climate.
Climate change is also altering growing conditions in many places.
The still-growing organic agriculture movement is a bright spot.
A few years ago, when the idea of growing crops with minimal use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers and pesticides began taking hold, studies showed that organic farming was less productive.
But more recent studies show, said Berle, that organic farming can come close to high-output farming in yield.
Follow Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH orhttps://twitter.com/LeeShearer.
Vertical Farming: Key to Meeting Princeton University Sustainability Plan
Dr. Paul Gauthier, a postdoctoral research associate in the geosciences department, created the Princeton Vertical Farming Project (PVFP) this past April. The project is situated in Moffett Laboratory, which adjoins Guyot Hall, and was funded by the University’s Office of Sustainability and is directly related to the University’s SustainabilityPlan.
In 2008, as part of the a larger plan to promote sustainability, the University committed to reduce its overall carbon dioxide emission levels to those of 1990 by 2020. The University's plan also set several more goals in the area of environmentalism and sustainable energy meant to address pressing environmental issues such as climate change, water scarcity, and air pollution.
According to Gauthier, the PFVP is a present-day attempt to expand upon these goals from almost a decade ago. Indeed, Gauthier identified the project as a key addition to the University’s larger sustainability plan.
“The goal of the project [PFVP] is to help students familiarize themselves with vertical farming here [at the University] and eventually create start-ups that employ the technique outside of the University,” explained Gauthier, adding that another goal of the project is to eventually provide produce to the dining halls as a step towards the University becoming completely self-sustaining.
Gauthier explained that, globally, the majority of start-ups utilizing vertical farming shut down after only a couple of years. This short life, he said, stems from the startups' inability to generate enough profit to meet the costs of applying vertical farming to produce farming. PFVP, he hopes, will help advance vertical farming technology from a scientific standpoint to remedy this problem. This kind of technological advancement, he added, will encourage students to build their own start-ups utilizing vertical farming technology.
Gauthier noted that the issues with popular use of vertical farms include a shortage of adequate technology as well as a lack of proper experimental data on the optimization of vertical farming efficiency. To study these problems, Gauthier's team is currently measuring the effectiveness of different vertical farming settings by testing how different lighting and water environments impact plant growth.
As a result of months of experiments and research, Gauthier and his team have enhanced the efficiency of vertical farms in a number of ways, such as reducing water usage and utilizing LED lights instead of sunlight to provide photosynthetic catalyst.
“We are using approximately 0.5 gallons of water for every kale plant,” noted Gauthier. “This is considered very efficient, and will save a significant amount of water when applied to large-scale fields.”
Gauthier added that vertical farming can be utilized not only as a reliable source of food in the future, but also as a means for capturing carbon dioxide emissions.
According to Gauthier, vertically farmed produce is not only sustainable and efficient, but grows rather quickly and is comparable in taste to commercial produce. Gauthier explained that basil plants in the vertical farm take approximately a month to grow, and with the use of special LED lights, are almost indistinguishable from basil sold in markets. According to Gauthier, this is attributable to his focus on the taste and quality of the vertical farm products rather than the quantity.
Kyra Gregory ‘19, a communications assistant for the Office of Sustainability and PVFP website manager, has been working with Gauthier from the start of the project and believes it will contribute to the University’s larger sustainability initiatives.
“Overall, seeing the vertical farm progress from its initial stage to where it is now is very inspiring for me. The amount of growth and student interest gives me hope for sustainability efforts at Princeton and in our generation in general,” said Gregory. She also explained that the PVFP team, which includes other students, hopes to make a meaningful impact on sustainability at Princeton and to highlight the benefits of vertical farming.
In addition to being a great chance to improve sustainability on campus, PFVP has left a mark on the team members for other reasons. “It's wonderful being involved with a team where people from different academic and social backgrounds can come together to work on this project that we all care deeply about,” Gregory said.
Reached out to Dr. Shana S. Weber, Director of Sustainability Office, and Ms. Kristi Wiedemann, Assistant Director of Sustainability Office, were unable to be reached for comment before publication.
Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Crops in Controlled Environments Convening Event
Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Crops in Controlled Environments Convening Event
MONDAY | November 13, 2017 | 8:30 AM
To advance crop development in controlled systems that will support economic viability, FFAR will host a convening event to help us determine the state of science and, most importantly, the areas where FFAR can catalyze research efforts to advance crop development for controlled environments. At this convening event, we will explore areas of research where joint efforts in research between the public and private sectors will advance the field, such as:
– Advances in the molecular understanding of traits required for controlled environments
– Breeding crops for controlled environments and increasing nutritional content
– Alternative methods for crop adaptation
– Environmental stressors to enhance qualities and nutritional content
FFAR believes that through increased investments from both the private and public sector, we can help put controlled environment agriculture at the forefront of providing food security and economic opportunities in urban centers.
Event Details
Date: November 13, 2017
Time: 8:30 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Location: IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, New York
Keynote Speaker
Caleb Harper
MIT Media Lab
Contact Details John Reich | FFAR | jreich@foundationfar.org
Taos Youth Shelter Grows Steady Funding With Sustainable Agriculture
Taos Youth Shelter Grows Steady Funding With Sustainable Agriculture
PHOTOS COURTESY FREIGHT FARMS
Posted Friday, October 20, 2017 | By Cody Hooks | chooks@taosnews.com
DreamTree Project, a local nonprofit that operates a youth shelter, is buying a retrofitted shipping container that comes fully stocked and installed with all the technology and equipment necessary to do vertical hydroponic farming in any weather. The “social enterprise” will fund the shelter and other programing.
While most farmers in Northern New Mexico have put their gardens to bed for the season, one local nonprofit is looking to harvest its first bundles of lettuce, kale and basil just after the start of the new year.
DreamTree Project announced earlier this month that the organization is branching into agriculture to cultivate a new source of much-needed revenue for the high costs of running a temporary shelter and transitional housing program for young people.
"It's simple," said DreamTree Project Executive Director Catherine Hummel. "We will grow, package and distribute produce to local markets and in return create jobs and revenue for DreamTree Project."
But how are nonprofit-do-gooders-turned-first-time-farmers going to raise a crop that's ready in the dead of winter?
The answer is a retrofitted shipping container that comes fully stocked and installed with all the technology and equipment necessary to do vertical hydroponic farming in temperatures as hot as 120 degrees and cold as 20 degrees below zero, said Hummel.
DreamTree Project is purchasing the 40-foot-by-9-foot shipping container from Freight Farms, a company based in Austin, Texas.
Once fully operational, the relatively small growing space inside the shipping container can produce 1 acre's worth of leafy greens, lettuce and similar crops with little more than 10 gallons of water a day, Hummel said. Many of the hydroponic monitoring and distribution systems are automated and can be controlled through a mobile app.
While the shipping container farms were designed for in-fill spaces in densely packed cities that have a chronic shortage of fresh food, Hummel said the vertical farm offers the opportunity to "link in with the Taos agricultural tradition," but with an "innovative, high-tech approach."
Hummel said the crops grown in the new vertical farm, which will be located near the nonprofit's main space in Taos, will be sold to restaurants that have confirmed their need for a consistent supply of greens in the winter months. A weekly farm stand supplied by the DreamTree Project farm is also in the works.
Hummel estimates the new farm will bring in at least $25,000 a year - a significant chunk of money in a cash-strapped community full of nonprofits that inevitably compete for resources.
As a social enterprise, the farm isn't about netting a profit for investors, but meant to put money directly toward housing and counseling services for young people without a home.
Lisa O'Brien, director of the Taos Community Foundation, told The Taos News that DreamTree's project is bold.
While "grant funding, gala events and individual gifts have been the anchors of traditional fundraising strategies," O'Brien said, "there are great demands on nonprofit organizations to meet the ever-growing needs in community, and creating diversity in funding streams is critical to their long-term health."
Ironically enough, DreamTree Project has made a down payment on the pop-up farm, but seeks grants and donations to buy it outright instead of taking on loan payments. The vertical gardens typically have a three-year return on investment, according to the Freight Farms website.
But finding the right type of social enterprise can be tricky. Online business are a viable option for making money, but are often disconnected from the community, Hummel said. One nonprofit in Albuquerque started growing wheatgrass for the many smoothie stores in the metro area to pick up extra cash while another organization coordinates vehicle donations to fund its mission.
DreamTree Project screened at least 50 potential ideas and went through market research for about six. "This one really fit our criteria: It's a small business we have the capacity to run, meets a need and can be sustainable in our community."
DreamTree Project's youth shelter can house up to eight residents who are between 12 and 17 years old for up to 90 days, while the transitional living program can help more than a dozen young people ages 16 to 24 for up to two years.
"Once it's fully up and running, generating money for our programs, there'll be other opportunities - making prepared foods like salads and pesto we can sell through local markets," she said.
DreamTree Project is hiring a part-time farm manager and part-time sales manager to jump-start the operations. Hummel said that once the farm is running smoothly, it could offer opportunities for youth employment - in harvesting, sales and deliveries.
Seven Miles to Heaven // Katie Martin
Seven Miles to Heaven // Katie Martin
KATIE MARTIN OCT 06, 2017 | CONTRIBUTING REPORTER
Driving to the Landscape Lab at Yale’s West Campus requires getting on I-95, getting off I-95, taking the ramp to get back on I-95, then veering off to the right moments before you get sucked back into the vortex of traffic. Yale runs two regular shuttles out to West Campus, but I missed the one I needed to catch, so I made my boyfriend rent a Zipcar and drive me there.
Of course, I was late to my meeting with Justin Freiberg, the director of the Landscape Lab. Fortunately, Freiberg is one of the nicest people on Earth, which is probably what happens to you when you spend as much time communing with nature as he does.
In 2007, Yale bought the 136-acre Bayer Pharmaceuticals campus in Orange, Connecticut for $109 million, which sounds like an exorbitant sum but was apparently a pretty good deal. Ten years later, West Campus houses seven institutes dedicated to biology, chemistry, energy sciences and cultural heritage preservation, plus analytic and imaging technology centers that serve the whole Yale community.
It’s also home to 80 acres of greenspace, which is where Freiberg comes in. His job description on the Lab’s website says he “oversees the development, design, planning and execution” of the Lab’s initiatives, but he functions just as much as a human Rolodex/mentor/jack-of-all-trades as he does an administrator. He is involved in practically every project at the Landscape Lab, and everyone I spoke with told me that he had made their work infinitely easier and more successful.
The Lab is two years old, but it’s built around a quarter-acre urban farm that’s now in its fifth growing season. Since the Lab’s inception, Freiberg, a team of volunteers, student interns and partner organizations in New Haven have built a barn, a patio and a “WikiHouse” (more on that later); terraced a hillside to create a medicinal herb garden; installed beehives; and begun cultivating mushrooms. The timber barn, adjacent to an agroforestry orchard, is built with wood from the Yale Forest, and serves as the site for courses, workshops and gatherings.
“The Landscape Lab has developed a lot since I started going. When I first went it was just a farm and a couple of trails. But in the past three years we’ve built so much, and now I’m taking leadership on developing a rainwater collection system for the barn,” said Holden Leslie-Bole ’18, who’s been working at the Lab since the beginning of his sophomore year. “The barn is off the grid and we want to get some water to it so we can use it for events. So we could either run a water line from the street for about $20,000, or we could have a cool student design opportunity and develop a rainwater collection system for a couple hundred bucks.”
Leslie-Bole emphasized the value of doing simpler tasks around the Lab as well. “I’ve also spent time building trails, whacking back brush, and laying down wood chips, and I built the fire pit so we could gather around a campfire. It’s a little overwhelming sometimes doing academics at Yale, so it’s nice to get outside and do something physical.”
The Lab’s work isn’t limited to the barn’s immediate surroundings — it extends across West Campus. Thanks to a Seedling Award (a grant that supports student projects at the Landscape Lab), Rachel McMonagle FES ’18 studies the effects of perennial wheatgrass on soil erosion, and she managed to obtain permission to convert an unused hillside between two parking lots into a group of research plots. “That’s a real tribute to the collaboration between the Landscape Lab and West Campus, that they were able to take this unused space and make it productive both generally and in a research sense,” she said.
Another Seedling Award recipient is Jonathan Simonds ’18, an environmental engineering major who used his grant to build a biogas digester and develop preprocessing techniques that will allow more kinds of food scraps to be digested into methane. “Methane is basically identical to natural gas,” Simonds said, “and there’s so much natural gas infrastructure already in place that if you can make methane without fracking, with a renewable material like food scraps, you can use that methane without having to start from scratch.”
Along with Lillian Childress ’17, Simonds applied for the grant after hearing about it from Freiberg, whom he’d met while working on an Engineers Without Borders project at the Landscape Lab. And, as he tends to do, Freiberg helped Simonds and Childress expand their project further than they’d initially imagined. “We really thought we were just applying for some money, because we already knew what we wanted to do — it was just expensive! But the award has been way more than that, way more than what we expected. We’ve gotten so many resources in terms of mentorship, both from Justin and people he’s connected with us. This award is worth so much more than the money,” Simonds said.
Other Seedling Grant recipients include Project Bright, a student-run group that works to install more solar panels at Yale, and a team of Forestry and Environmental students using drones to monitor and analyze various terrains.
The Landscape Lab’s commitment to student projects and entrepreneurship dates back farther than the year-old Seedling Awards. The aforementioned WikiHouse was a 2014 project spearheaded by Peter Hirsch FES ’15, who wanted to test whether houses could be built quickly to serve as temporary shelter in disaster zones or refugee camps. WikiHouse provides open-source building plans that can be downloaded and used to cut pieces out of plywood, which then snap together to assemble without nails or special equipment, making them faster and easier to build than a traditional structure. The WikiHouse organization promises that one can be built in less than a day, so Hirsch enlisted 40 volunteers and picked a day to assemble the parts.
It ended up taking a lot longer than he expected. “We thought it would go up really fast. We had brought a GoPro with 4 hours of film to capture the whole process. It ended up taking a month,” Freiberg said. “But that process of trying and failing taught us about the limitations of this design. The humidity warped the wood so the pieces didn’t fit together properly, and of course that would be a challenge in lots of areas. So it took longer than expected, but Peter learned some valuable things, shared them with the community and now we have this really beautiful structure.”
Cass Walker-Harvey, the program director for social entrepreneurship at the Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale, pointed to the WikiHouse project as a great example of the Landscape Lab’s contribution to entrepreneurship at Yale. “You need to test ideas like the WikiHouse out somewhere, and you couldn’t do that on main campus,” Walker-Harvey said. “Having a space for trial and error and hands-on experimentation is incredibly valuable. When I hear about any sustainability initiatives, or really any initiatives that need space, from storing prosthetic limbs to testing irrigation systems, I tell my students to go to the Landscape Lab.”
Another project that benefited from West Campus’ spaciousness is Poda Foods, a cricket-based culinary startup founded by Yale students that now operates (unsurprisingly) out of Portland. The company needed somewhere to breed the crickets that it would then use to make cricket flour, a sustainable source of protein. (There are a lot of crickets in the world, and unlike cows, they do not, uh, produce methane in significant volumes). “It addressed a critical food need and a critical sustainability challenge,” Walker-Harvey said. “And they couldn’t have done it without that space and that support.”
More established New Haven companies have also partnered with the Landscape Lab. Junzi Kitchen was founded by two FES students, Yong Zhao FES ’15 and Wanting Zhang FES ’11, and a School of Art student, Ming Bai ART ’13. It is partnering with the Landscape Lab, Dwight Hall and Colombian restaurant Roia to present this Friday’s installment of Beyond Food, a “monthly-ish culinary experience dedicated to interrogating the role food plays in our society.”
“When I think about service and social justice, one way to have greater civic engagement is to have people come together and talk and build empathy,” said Onyeka Obiocha, Dwight Hall’s director of innovation. “And one way Dwight Hall chooses to do that work is through food, which is a great way to bring people together.”
“Junzi and Roia actually forage from the farm at Beyond Food — they use produce and herbs from around the Lab to create the food they’ll serve,” Obiocha continued. “Working around the limitations of the Landscape Lab and the farm, using an open fire and foraging — that speaks to the way Northern Chinese and Colombian cuisines have influenced and continue to influence the culture of New England. The Landscape Lab is really a laboratory for people to get their hands dirty and build things.”
And the farm’s produce is used not just for culinary purposes, but for educational ones as well.
Sanjeet Baidwan first saw the farm’s potential when she visited it in 2015. Baidwan, a clinical instructor at the School of Medicine, had cold-emailed Freiberg (“when I hear of someone interesting that I’d like to collaborate with, I tend to just do that”), and their first meeting consisted of them wandering around the Landscape Lab’s grounds.
Baidwan’s interest in the link between food and health was first sparked when she served on the board of directors for local nonprofit New Haven Farms during her residency. New Haven Farms converts parking lots into urban farms, and partners with neighborhood clinics to identify low-income patients with a high risk of developing diet-linked diseases like obesity and diabetes. These patients and their families are then provided with a 16- to 20-week Community Supported Agriculture share, which includes not only weekly delivery of fresh, locally-grown fruit and vegetables, but also a two-hour weekly nutrition and cooking class offered in both Spanish and English that focuses on recipes using that week’s produce. “You can give people fruits and vegetables,” Baidwan said, “but if they don’t know what to do with them they won’t use them at home. So having a nutritionist give cooking lessons addresses that problem.”
Baidwan saw the success of the program, and realized it was filling a serious gap in the health care system. “I wanted to teach health care practitioners about these issues, because these preventable lifestyle diseases, like obesity, diabetes and some cancers, are a huge burden on the health care system,” he said. “Being in the clinics and seeing patients and physicians who are desperate for answers and help — that kind of brought about this idea.”
So she took a walk with Justin Freiberg, and since no walk with Justin Freiberg ends without him finding a way to help you, Yale Cultivate Health was born. YCH now hosts regular workshops for health care professionals at the Landscape Lab that combine short lectures on nutrition with “Iron Chef-style” cooking competitions where the participants harvest and then use produce from the Landscape Lab’s farm. Baidwan also teaches a required first-year course at the School of Medicine that focuses on food and its impacts on health.
The School of Nursing offers courses in partnership with the Landscape Lab as well: a plant-based medicine class teaches students at the School of Nursing about the uses of medicinal herbs grown in the Lab’s gardens, as well as about food and nutrition.
Undergraduate students also have opportunities to get involved in growing and producing food.
Y Pop-Up, a student-run pop-up restaurant that creates four-course fine-dining experiences in butteries, recently hosted a meal at the Landscape Lab. “Especially when you’re doing something like a dinner where the focus is on sustainability and contextualizing where food comes from, it helps to be surrounded by nature,” said Rhea Teng, the co-president of Y Pop-Up. “I recently went on a foraging tour with Justin for this past Y Pop-Up opening. Justin is one of those people that seems to know the name and use of nearly every plant, and it was a surreal experience to go walking into the wilderness and have things pointed out that you would normally never think to eat.”
Teng is also the president of Bee Space, an undergraduate club that runs the Lab’s beehives and uses the hive’s products, including their honey. “Because the Lab grows so much beautiful produce, it’s the perfect place to have hives to help with pollination,” she said.
“We’re pretty involved. We go to West Campus about every two weeks, once a month in the winter,” said Grace Cheung ’20, a hive coordinator for Bee Space.
“We’re not trying to train professional beekeepers,” said Freiberg, “so it’s less about the practice of beekeeping and more about creating opportunities for students to get a sense of the practice as it stands, and then be inventive and try to build improvements.” Cheung said Bee Space is currently investigating ways to help the bees survive the winter, and exploring nontraditional hive designs.
Another sweet project at the Lab is Maple Fest, an annual celebration of all things maple. “Of course, sharing the maple syrup we’ve tapped from our trees is great. But Maple Fest also offers an opportunity to talk about some of the tangible effects of climate change, like the reduction in harvestable days for maple trees as our area gets less of the weather needed for sap flow,” said Freiberg.
Other projects at the Landscape Lab are also in service of larger social and environmental causes. The Agroforestry Collaborative was founded three years ago by Nathan Hall FES ’17 SOM ’17, who was born and raised in a coal-mining region of Eastern Kentucky. The Collaborative now uses a plot of land at the Landscape Lab to explore how strip-mined land can be reforested, and Hall used his joint degree with the forestry school and the School of Management to investigate alternatives to his home’s mining-centric economy.
Another project, the GrassX Experimental Grassland Competition, challenges teams to design and implement strategies that hold back invasive plants, create pollinator habitats and improve the health of the soil. The competition is held in partnership with Ucross, an organization that works on land stewardship in the American West. “Projects like grassland management need to be executed at scale, and this competition gives people the opportunity to do that. And then, once they’ve had experience managing even an acre of land, that makes them much more prepared to work with the millions of acres out west,” Freiberg said. “And hopefully, we’ll hear about some solutions for pollinator habitat that could be useful locally.”
But not every student’s involvement in the Landscape Lab’s work needs to be so formal (or competitive). “We have programming almost every single day,” said Freiberg, before rattling off a list of recent events including a foraging workshop, farm volunteering sessions and a nature walk. “I wish everyone at Yale would come out here, because there are so many opportunities and so many ways to connect.”
Students who’ve spent time at the Landscape Lab echo Freiberg’s sentiments. “It’s a hidden gem of Yale’s campus. It’s a super cool place that feels almost like a retreat in the middle of the forest, but it’s just a couple minutes away on the shuttle,” Leslie-Bole said.
Though the drive may have been confusing, I could practically feel the stress melting off me as I walked along the Lab’s wooded paths. If the peaceful atmosphere isn’t worth the commute, the diversity of opportunities certainly is — especially if you catch the shuttle.
Katie Martin | katherine.d.martin@yale.edu
Food Loves Tech Conference Will Explore Food’s Not-Too-Distant Future
The two-day expo is designed to give “attendees a chance to see, smell, touch, hear, and taste food’s not-too-distant future,” according toEdible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn Editor-In-Chief Brian Halweil and Publisher Stephen Munshin.
Food Loves Tech Conference Will Explore Food’s Not-Too-Distant Future
Food and drink innovators and enthusiasts will gather in Brooklyn, New York, on November 3 and 4, 2017, to explore the developing relationship between modern technology and food systems at this year’s Food Loves Tech conference. Produced by Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn, the event is described as an “education-by-entertainment innovation expo” and will be hosted at Industry City.
The two-day expo is designed to give “attendees a chance to see, smell, touch, hear, and taste food’s not-too-distant future,” according to Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn Editor-In-Chief Brian Halweil and Publisher Stephen Munshin. They write that the event will be careful to not only highlight those novel technologies that solve what they call “#firstworldproblems,” like faster ways to order food online, but also those technologies and startups that are “compelled by a mission to fix our broken food system.”
“Why are we so fascinated by this?,” they write. “At best, this data-flooded food culture will mean more traceability, less waste, increased crop diversity, less overeating. Hopefully.”
In addition to the experiential component of the conference, 10 scheduled panels will explore various questions: How can tech help save our oceans? How can technology help mitigate food waste? How will we buy groceries in 2050? Can vertical agriculture help us produce more food, more sustainably? Food Tank President Danielle Nierenberg will be both speaking on and moderating panels at the event.
For tickets to Food Loves Tech 2017, click here.
Viability of Indoor Urban Agriculture is Focus of Research Grant
Viability of Indoor Urban Agriculture is Focus of Research Grant
By Krishna Ramanujan | October 12, 2017
A commercial CEA greenhouse operation producing leafy greens in eastern New York. Chris Kitchen/University Photography
Neil Mattson, associate professor in the Horticulture Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science.
Growing crops in controlled environments – in greenhouses, plant factories and in vertical farms – provides alternatives to conventional farming by producing food year-round near metropolitan areas, reducing transportation costs and water use, and improving land-use efficiency. Such local systems also offer valuable educational and psychological benefits by connecting urban people to the food they consume.
At the same time, there is little concrete evidence to show how so-called controlled-environment agriculture (CEA) compares to conventional field agriculture in terms of energy, carbon and water footprints, profitability, workforce development and scalability.
Cornell will lead a project to answer these questions, thanks to a three-year, $2.4 million grant from the National Science Foundation, through its new funding initiative called Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems.
“By putting all these pieces together – including energy, water, workforce development and economic viability – we hope to discover if CEAs make sense for producing food for the masses,” said Neil Mattson, the grant’s principal investigator and associate professor in the Horticulture Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science.
Six projects included in the grant will look at:
Case studies: Food system analysis of case studies in metropolitan areas will examine where vegetables are currently sourced and the market channels they go through to reach consumers, such as supermarkets, retailers or restaurants. Researchers will model whether urban CEAs could replace a large fraction of this produce, and whether it makes sense for CEA produce to go through the same market channels or other ones that may suit them better. This project is led by Miguel Gómez, associate professor, and Charles Nicholson, adjunct associate professor, both in Cornell’s Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management.
Computer modeling of energy and water use: Computer models of energy and water use for different crops in greenhouses, vertical farms and plant factories (indoor environments with artificial lighting and racks of plants) will be developed. The models will be calibrated with real-world data from greenhouse growth trials at Cornell and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). A 2008 study by Lou Albright at Cornell found that based on that year’s technologies, the carbon footprint to produce lettuce in a greenhouse in New York state was twice that of growing it in a field in Arizona or California. Other researchers have reported that CEAs use 20 times less water than field agriculture, since water can be recycled indoors. Mattson leads this effort with research associate Kale Harbick, also in the Horticulture Section of the School of Integrative Plant Science.
Networking: The project will foster industry-to-research networks for facilitating the acceptance, adoption and improvement of metropolitan CEA systems. Anusuya Rangarajan, senior extension associate, will lead this project.
Nutritional value: Researchers will examine the nutritional value of produce from greenhouses and plant factories and comparing those values with CEA systems where lighting might be optimized for more healthful produce. Project leaders include Marianne Nyman, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and Tessa Pocock, a senior research scientist, both at RPI.
Workforce needs: Cornell researchers are collaborating with the Association for Vertical Farming to assess the workforce needs of the urban CEA industry and develop programs to meet those needs and test if requirements are being met. Researchers will examine if, for example, all the tomatoes consumed in New York City were to be grown indoors, how many jobs at what education levels and training would be needed. Rangarajan leads this effort.
Training opportunities: Rangarajan and the Association for Vertical Farming will also create workforce training opportunities. They will spearhead outreach through conferences and events to share information. A forthcoming website will house a toolkit to assess the viability and resource availability of proposed urban agriculture projects.
“Urban agriculture is an increasingly touted way to connect producers with consumers, and this grant will help guide full development of this industry and do better to figure out where the best opportunities might be, as well as cases where it doesn’t make sense,” Mattson said.
STORY CONTACTS
Krishna Ramanujan
DD2 Participates In Farm-to School Pilot Program
DD2 Participates In Farm-to School Pilot Program
Inside the container, plants do not have to contend with weather, pests or soil depletion and can grow year round
A new container farm is providing leafy greens to Ashley Ridge High.
The container farm is the result of a partnership working to make sure healthy food is going into students’ mouths – not in the trashcan.
Dorchester District Two, Ashley Ridge High’s agriculture program, Vertical Roots, Tiger Corner Containers and Boxcar Central have joined forces to start a farm-to-school program in the district.
Deb Filomarino, director of nutrition and food services for the district, said the partnership started with Olivia Thompson, public health professor at the College of Charleston. Through Thompson, Filomarino was introduced to Stefanie Swackhamer, general manager of Tiger Corner Farms, and a partnership grew to start the farm-to-school program.
Boxcar, Vertical Roots and Tiger Corner Farms are sister companies. The farm-to-school implementation started at the beginning of the school year.
All the partners celebrated with a kickoff party Oct. 3. Filomarino said she is “over the moon” with the turnout and the number of students and community members who participated.
Thompson said they are going to start collecting data now and look at production costs, the economic impact at schools and a nutritional analysis.
“Ultimately, how do we get the food into students' mouth and not in the trash cans?” she said.
Tiger Corner Containers manufactures the container farm, which is just that – a mobile aeroponic farm system customized with an innovative cloud-based control system that allows growers 24-hour, 365-day monitoring of each plant from seed to sale and the ability to adjust the farm system setting from any computer or mobile device. Tiger Corner Farms Manufacturing is locally-owned and operated in Summerville.
Inside the container, plants do not have to contend with weather, pests or soil depletion and can grow year-round.
Right now the container grows 4,450 heads of lettuce a week. Vertical Roots is growing the produce inside. Boxcar Central builds the technology system that goes into the container.
Ashley Ridge provides the lettuce in the school lunches and also provides it to five other schools; Filomarino said they are reaching potentially 12,000 students.
“This is a model for other districts to adopt,” she said.
Vertical Roots officials said they use no pesticides in the farming, and the whole system uses about eight gallons of water a day. Co-owner Matt Daniels said they can grow anything within reason – right now the container has the proper setup for leafy greens, and every aspect of the indoor environment is controlled by the technology Boxcar set up.
The lettuce is harvested on Monday nights.
The kickoff party consisted of tours of the container farm and catering by GoGo Greens, which offered samplings of two types of salad, a kale smoothie and chocolate pudding – all made with sustainable, organic ingredients.
Eleventh-graders Dalton Mitchum and Colton Matthew try out the kale smoothie.
Ashley Ridge students were also invited to check out the container farm and food samplings – the kale smoothie and chocolate pudding were a big hit; the latter was made from cacao powder, strawberry, avocado and agave.
Eleventh-grade horticulture student Amandadell Mills tried out the pudding.
“It’s actually pretty good. I don’t like avocado but you can’t really taste it,” she said.
Ben Gibson, one of the agriculture teachers at the school, called the partnership an “excellent opportunity” for the school to bring in an outside horticulture business whose goals are similar to the school’s education goals.
Gibson said they are hoping one day they can provide these groups with students who want to work in the business.
“It’s another way to show our kids, 'Hey, this is also horticulture,'” he said.
MPA ESP Student to Transform Urban Farming
MPA ESP Student to Transform Urban Farming
BY LAURA PIRAINO | October 6, 2017
MPA-ESP student Alexander Rudnicki is a civil engineer (Columbia University ’10), who comes to SIPA from AeroFarms, an urban farming pioneer. Rudnicki speaks to MPA ESP intern Shagorika Ghosh about the urban farming industry, the enriching experiences of the ESP program, and his plans for the future.
How did your background working with innovative and transformative urban farms lead you to pursuing theMPA-ESP program?
I was the first engineer working at AeroFarms, where being the plant manager for over three years allowed me to experience the entire spectrum of working in the industry. For example, there was a day in particular that I remember, when I spent all day working in the plant training people, supervising operations, as well as having to present our work to the Duke of Westminster, who is one of our largest funders. Working at AeroFarms allowed me to experience the reality of working in the sector–how slowly things can move in real life, how implementation of projects needs teamwork and lots of capital.
AeroFarms was a vehicle for agricultural companies to engage in urban farming. People are excited and enthusiastic about urban farming, but it is a nascent industry with respect to policy and technology, so it’s kind of like the Wild West right now. There isn’t much incentive for farming companies to move into urban areas at this point. I wanted to explore the confluence of urban farming technology and traditional farming techniques, and studying environmental policy seemed to be the way forward.
What specifically motivated you to choose the MPA-ESP program at Columbia University?
I want to shape what the future industry looks like, and how the industry can be developed. The MPA-ESP program really equips me to do that. There is a focus on the environment, but it also takes into account social perspectives. The length of the program and its rigor is definitely another factor. It is a shorter, more intensive program, and the course structure and hands-on experience is great for mid-career professionals because it doesn’t feel like a full step back into school, but more like a half step back. At the same time, it’s great to be at SIPA, which allows you to be flexible, branch out and take different electives. Being at Columbia has also broadened my horizons, and it’s possible to keep abreast of everything that is happening in the industry. A lot of avenues then open up–working in policy or with companies in different areas of the urban farming industry.
What are your favorite classes and why?
One of my favorite classes has been Leadership and Urban Transformation, taught by Professor Michael Nutter, the former mayor of Philadelphia. He brings his long time public service perspective, and incredible insights into the actual implementation of policies, and the challenges of politics involved in policy implementation. I am also enjoying Sustainable Finance with Professor Bruce Kahn, which covers components of corporate finance, sustainability accounting, and sustainability metrics.
How has living and studying in NYC contributed to your experience in this program?
New York City is taking efforts to be at the forefront of sustainability, and this is being supported through high level executive action as well. OneNYC (formerly the Bloomberg Administration’s PlanNYC) is the sustainability plan for the City of New York. I am very interested in their Zero Waste initiative, and I intend to volunteer for the city in the future.
What has been your experience with your Environmental Science and Policy cohort been like?
In the MPA-ESP cohort, we work collaboratively for workshop presentations and other group projects. After multiple projects, we all have worked and interacted with at least half of the entire class. Our cohort is a very close-knit one, and I make it a point to interact with my fellow classmates. It has been very interesting to know their backgrounds, their interests and what they want to pursue. In my role as the ESP Treasurer, I also work to understand what the needs of the cohort are, what events and speakers they would be interested in.
What are your plans once you graduate? What are some skills and tools you have developed over the last year that you can use?
I would love to work with city planning offices to integrate urban farming into city planning and layouts. It’s encouraging to see cities like Detroit that have outlined an urban farming policy. It’s a great start and I want to be involved in such urban initiatives after I graduate.
I came to SIPA to learn how to create policy that would shape the future of urban farming. Through my classes, I am developing skills to be able to do that. I am learning to adopt a systems thinking approach towards earth systems through classes such as Climatology and Hydrology, that allows for a broader perspective when looking at the sustainability industry as a whole. Through my Sustainable Finance class, I am learning not just how to evaluate sustainability quantitatively, but also learn and analyze trends in the industry that are attractive to investors. All of these will equip me to further develop the urban farming industry and integrate traditional techniques and new technologies.
'An Overwhelming Case For Action' - Expert Panel Identifies Unacceptable Toll of Food and Farming Systems On Human Health
09.10.2017
NEW REPORT: 'An overwhelming case for action' - expert panel identifies unacceptable toll of food and farming systems on human health
(9th October - Rome) Industrial food and farming systems are making people sick in a variety of ways, and are generating staggering human and economic costs - according to a major new report from the International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems (IPES-Food).
Decisive action can be taken on the basis of what we know, the Panel found, but is held back by the unequal power of food system actors to set the terms of debate and to influence policy.
Lead author Cecilia Rocha said: “Food systems are making us sick. Unhealthy diets are the most obvious link, but are only one of many pathways through which food and farming systems affect human health.”
“This means that there are multiple entry points for building healthier food systems. We must urgently address these impacts wherever they occur, and in parallel we must address the root causes of inequitable, unsustainable and unhealthy practices in food systems.”
Launched today at the UN Committee on World Food Security in Rome, the report places the debilitating health impacts of inadequate diets side by side with environmental health risks (e.g. nitrate-contaminated drinking water and the spread antimicrobial resistance) and the endemic occupational hazards facing food and farmworkers.
IPES-Food found that many of the severest health conditions afflicting populations around the world - from respiratory diseases to a range of cancers and systematic livelihood stresses- are linked to industrial food and farming practices, i.e. chemical-intensive agriculture, concentrated livestock production, the mass production and marketing of ultra-processed foods, and deregulated global supply chains.
The economic costs of these impacts are huge and likely to grow. Malnutrition costs the world $3.5 trillion per year, while obesity alone is estimated to cost $760 billion by 2025. Meanwhile, combined EU and US losses from exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals amount to $557 billion per year, while anti-microbrial resistant infections are already thought to be incurring $20-34 billion of annual costs in the US.
IPES-Food co-chair Olivia Yambi said: “What is troubling is how systematically these risks are generated - at different nodes of the chain and in different parts of the world.”
Fellow co-chair Olivier De Schutter, former UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, added: “When all of these health impacts are considered collectively, the grounds for reform are compelling. And when health impacts are placed alongside social and environmental impacts, and the mounting costs they generate, the case for action is overwhelming. It is now clearer than ever that healthy people and a healthy planet are co-dependent.”
The report found that those without power or voice are often exposed to the greatest health risks in food systems, meaning that these impacts often go unseen, undocumented and unaddressed. "Here as elsewhere," De Schutter said, "political disempowerment and marginalization goes hand in hand with risks to lives and livelihoods."
Furthermore, the health impacts of food systems are interconnected, self-reinforcing, and complex. They are caused by many agents, and exacerbated by climate change, unsanitary conditions, and poverty – factors which are shaped by food and farming systems.
Rocha said: “The industrial food and farming model that systematically generates negative health impacts also generates highly unequal power relations. Powerful actors are therefore able to shape our understanding of food-health linkages, promoting solutions that leave the root causes of ill health unaddressed.”
“The complexity of health impacts in food systems is real and challenging, but should not be an excuse for inaction. Urgent steps can and must be taken to reform food system practices, and to transform the ways in which knowledge is gathered and transmitted, understandings are forged, and priorities are set.”
IPES-Food identified five key leverage points for building healthier food systems: i) promoting food systems thinking at all levels; ii) reasserting scientific integrity and research as a public good; iii) bringing the positive impacts of alternative food systems to light; iv) adopting the precautionary principle; and, v) building integrated food policies under participatory governance.
The report, commissioned by the Global Alliance for the Future of Food, builds on IPES-Food’s first thematic report, ‘From Uniformity to Diversity’ (2016), which identified factors locking in the industrial food and farming model, and called for a paradigm shift towards diversified agroecological systems.
Read the Full Report: Unravelling the Food–Health Nexus: Addressing practices, political economy, and power relations to build healthier food systems
Read the Executive Summary.
Vertical Farming Looks To Go Mainstream
Vertical Farming Looks To Go Mainstream
Vertical farming can produce crops with a tiny fraction of the water and nutrients required in traditional outdoor production.
September 29, 2017By: Richard Jones | Email
The University of the District of Columbia is the nation’s only urban land-grant university, so it was a particularly appropriate setting for the Association of Vertical Farming (AVF) to host the AVF Summit 2017 on September 22. The summit was a mix of education, advocacy, and policy discussion about urban agriculture — vertical farming in particular — targeted at finding ways to broaden its adoption in cities around the country and around the world.
You’ve probably heard quite a bit in recent months about vertical farming — systems for growing food in stacked layers in completely controlled environments, applying inputs such as light, water, and fertilizer in precise amounts. While there’s some use of these systems in greenhouse settings, in many cases, urban farmers are repurposing abandoned buildings or even shipping containers. Match the availability of these facilities in most large urban areas with big cities’ limited access to fresh, local produce and you can see why interest — and investment — are growing.
Around 100 people attended the summit, a mix of researchers, suppliers, government employees, and potential growers. The overriding interest of most seemed to be in the potential of vertical farming not just as a business opportunity, but also as technology that can help solve some of the most pressing problems of getting nutritious food to people in areas where there’s limited availability. Techniques such as hydroponics or aeroponics can produce crops with a fraction of the water and nutrient resources required in traditional outdoor production.
“Vertical farming will be one pillar to help tackle these problems,” said Christine Zimmerman-Loessi, Chairwoman of AVF.
That said, the resources required to produce crops in completely enclosed environments where the grower supplies all the inputs — even the light — can be expensive. That’s certainly a limiting factor in adopting vertical systems to this point. A number of people at the conference suggested that as the technology advances and becomes more affordable, vertical farming will become a much more reasonable investment and business.
Sessions throughout the day covered issues from urban zoning and permitting to topics that are more familiar to experienced growers, such as the importance of having a good food safety program.
The concluding session, and possibly the most relevant for the longer-term adoption of urban agriculture and vertical farming, was a discussion of the upcoming farm bill negotiations.
Bob Van Heuvelen, CEO of VH Strategies, a legislative policy and strategic consulting firm, is working with the AVF for recognition of urban ag in the next farm bill through the Agricultural Innovation Alliance.
Van Heuvelen told the group there’s opportunity in a number of areas under the farm bill. For instance, vertical farming could:
- Win explicit recognition in the U.S. Code for promoting activities including urban agriculture, edible gardens, green walls, rooftop agriculture, and indoor vertical farms;
- Gain funding for data collection as part of a census of urban agriculture;
- Create an Office of Urban Agriculture;
- Earn competitive grants to support urban ag and get access to research funding for improving indoor production methods; and
- Fund market access and foreign market development programs.
Van Heuvelen was clear it would be a tough fight to win any of these points. The focus of the current administration in Washington, D.C., is on cutting the budget for farm bill programs, and placing more emphasis on rural agriculture than on urban ag. But, he said, the only way to have a chance to move things forward is to ask for it.
"Green Team" Growing Veggies and Fruits at Effingham, IL High School
"Green Team" Growing Veggies and Fruits at Effingham, IL High School
Published on September 29 2017
Written by Greg Sapp
(AVERY LUEKEN DISPLAYS ONE OF THE STRAWBERRY PLANTS BEING GROWN)
Effingham, IL High School's Biology Club, or "Green Team", is busy at work trying to grow a variety of plants as a food source. They are using hydroponics, meaning they are being grown in water, not in soil.
EHS got its first Plant Tower last school year. The program has expanded this year to several Unit 40 buildings..10 at EHS, two at the junior high building, and one each at Central and at South Side.
Three members of the Biology Club...Avery Lueken, Cecelia Castillo and Katie Vahling...were on hand to make a presentation on the project at this week's Effingham Unit 40 School Board meeting, along with EHS instructors Gena McDonald and Melissa Habing.
(FROM LEFT, EHS TEACHERS MELISSA HABING AND GENA McDONALD AND STUDENTS KATIE VAHLING, CECELIA CASTILLO AND AVERY LUEKEN)
Last year, the lettuce grown with the plant tower was sufficient to be used on the salad bar during the lunch hour at EHS. This year, the classes are looking at growing cilantro, basil, sage, banana peppers, bell peppers and hopefully strawberries.
(THE PLANT TOWER CONTAINING STRAWBERRY PLANTS ON DISPLAY AT THE UNIT 40 BOARD MEETING THIS WEEK)
As far as the towers, some assembly is required, but Habing said students watch a video and had one unit put together within 20 minutes.
‘Corporate Industrial Food Sucks’: Highlights from NYC AgTech Week 2017
‘Corporate Industrial Food Sucks’: Highlights from NYC AgTech Week 2017
September 29, 2017
Food system's busted. A bunch of people came out last week to discuss solutions — from hydroponic microgreens to the Farm Bill.
By Nina Sparling / CONTRIBUTOR
One of the venues for NYC Agtech Week 2017 | (Photo by Nina Sparling)
How can we grow more food in cities?
That was the seemingly simple question tackled by innovators, developers, investors and thought-leaders in New York last week. And the proposed answers were anything but simple.
Over the course of NYC Agtech Week, attendees from across the globe had the opportunity to attend workshops, learn about investment strategy and share in local food and spirits. There were hands-on experiences with everything from hyper-controlled, in-home grow setups to the sun and soil of area community gardens.
“Six and a half years ago I was just a kid with a blog who was passionate,” said Henry Gordon Smith, founder and managing director of Agritecture Consulting and organizer of the event. “I’m thrilled about the rate of acceleration. Our first year we had seven events; this year we had 31 events and we sold out. We’re focusing on not just talking about urban agriculture, but doing it.”
Conversations during the third-annual agtech week focused on a handful of fundamental questions: What is urban agriculture? Why is interest growing rapidly right now? How can I get involved? The event was hosted by the New York City Agriculture Technology Collective.
NYC Agtech Week 2017. (Photo by Nina Sparling)
Defining urban agriculture and articulating why it matters flowed through many of the presentations and conversations over the course of the week.
In a workshop during Agtech Demo Day, the group offered a handful of impressions about why urban agriculture is hot right now: Density in urban areas, an increased demand for local fresh food, concerns about climate change and, as Diane Hatz, the founder and executive director of Change Food put it, “The food system is broken, and corporate industrial food sucks.”
Among the guests were several young entrepreneurs looking turn ideas into realities. Most of the businesses in the agtech space are venture capital funded, and one panel at the Agritecture Consulting offices featured Andrew Shearer, the founder and CEO of Farmshelf, and Tinia Pina, the founder and CEO of Re-nuble. They addressed strategies for finding investors and building a business from the ground up. “Have a hit list and ask people that know people,” said Shearer. “It’s all networking — a lot of it is pounding the pavement. Fundraising is like dating.”
The tone was straightforward: be transparent, be reliable, and practice your pitch.
NYC Agtech Week 2017. (Photo by Nina Sparling)
The events vibrated with energy and momentum towards building a better food system.
Product designers and farm operators celebrated to how the industry has exploded of late, with Brooklyn leading the way in innovation. “Overall, it’s exciting to see how everything evolves: this event has exploded every year since the beginning,” said Marco Tidona from Heidelberg, Germany, who designed Aponix, a modular vertical farm that accommodates both soil-based and soil-less grow systems. “[Vertical farming] is further developed in New York City than in Europe,” Tidona said. “People are becoming aware — they would rather pay for a safe, clean product.”
I met Tidona at the Locavore Feast, organized by Our Name is Farm, a digital and experiential marketing company for the food system. The evening provided the opportunity for event-goers to network, but also to taste the food produced by New York’s high-tech farmers. A vibrant salad featured greens from Bowery Farms; Edenworks provided microgreens; Catskills Distillerybrought their spirits (including a white whiskey, which is code for moonshine); and the kombucha featured local basil.
Several people had come to the Locavore Feast to learn about the what urban and vertical farming means, looking to get involved in one way or another. “I would love to work in the industry,” said Bronwen Blaney, who won tickets to attend the Locavore Feast and jumped at the opportunity to network with industry leaders. “Be it urban farming or vertical farming, there are so many different ways to approach it. I’m just trying to figure out my way in. So far, it’s full of great people and good food.”
NYC Agtech Week 2017. (Photo by Nina Sparling)
Among the curious observers and invested developers were a handful of people focused on building vertical farming into political and legislative futures.
Mayoral candidate Mike Tolkin — whose campaign is designed around privatizing much of city government — made an appearance at Agtech Demo Day. “Vertical farming is a source of future economic growth that is important for sustainability,” he said in our conversation. “It’s a thrilling integration of private development with public support. We should elevate vertical farming to a new level; everyone eats, it’s crazy that we don’t talk more about this issue.”
And while New York may be a hotbed of sorts for vertical and indoor farming, its future may be much more widespread.
“Right now, vertical farming is a very local activity; to have it implemented on a broader scale we need a policy change,” said Christine Zimmermann, the chairwoman of the Association for Vertical Farming (AVF), who I met at the Locavore Feast. AVF hosted a conference in Washington, D.C., last week, where Zimmermann was looking forward to the opportunity to meet politicians and decision-makers.
“What the United States can do in the Farm Bill has a global significance; everyone will look at what’s going on here,” she said. “The U.S. can take the lead on this.”
Schurz Food Science Lab | Episode 01
Schurz Food Science Lab | Episode 01
September 28, 2017
Nick Greens was a co-founder of the first Food Science Lab at Schurz High School. Recently, Nick was invited back to help integrate some donated grow systems and help kick off "Year Three" of the program. Here is an inside look at Nick and the team preparing for Fall semester 2017.
Food For Thought: Bringing Farms Into Canadian Universities
Food For Thought: Bringing Farms Into Canadian Universities
Having a farm at McMaster can do even more to build our personal capacity to address climate change in way that does not build cynicism, but rather creates community and shows that we can make a difference while having fun.
By Adam Chiaravalle
Published September 28, 2017
Something quite remarkable is happening at Universities from coast to coast across Canada. This something is urban farms. I was inspired when I read the following from a 2011 Maclean's article:
This past September [2011], New Brunswick's Mount Allison University held an event unprecedented in its 172-year-long history: a you-pick potato harvest. For the first five Saturdays of the new school year, students and Sackville residents were able to pick Russet and Superior potatoes from a boggy, 9.7-hectare [24 acre] farm in the heart of the campus. The rest of the spud harvest - a yield of 30,000 pounds - was transformed, to the delight of many ravenous undergrads, into fresh, hand-cut french fries and mashed potatoes in the kitchen at Jennings Hall.
Can you imagine being a Mount Allison student going to school and eating food that you helped grow on your own campus? It does not stop there, as the University of British Columbia has a 24 hectare (59 acre) farm on their campus. The University of Toronto has a 60 hectare farm off-campus an hour away in the Niagara escarpment. Dalhousie University has a 1 hectare farm. Concordia University has a one-half hectare farm on their campus.
The purpose of these farms is to act as living laboratories for students to understand how to grow nutritious food that works with the planet.
Teaching students how to provide themselves with nutritious food and how to do it in a sustainable way is some of tremendous importance. This is because two existential problems in the world today are human health and climate change.
These two issues are not only intrinsically interconnected, but also healthy eating and climate change can both be learned about on a farm. Learning about two of the most sever issues on our planet certainty seems like they would be worth learning about.
The word farm may be too big of a concept for some people, but the severity of climate change commands for us to take bold and ambitious actions. A farm helps with climate change because it allows for us to tangibly interact with our planet and for us to attain a true understanding of what sustainable living entails.
Getting people to have sustainable consciousness is vital, as 2017 is the 30th anniversary of the term 'Sustainable Development' that was coined for the 1987 Bruntland Commission Report [PDF], and the planet's condition has only gotten worse since 1987.
Having said that, we need to understand that climate change is not some future concept that we will have to address, rather it is dangerously unfolding right now.
Farming at McMaster
Even though McMaster University in Hamilton does not have an urban farm, there is a groundswell for local food among students, faculty and staff.
McMaster garden
The incredibly progressive thinking Director of Grounds, Carlos Figueira, created a garden for Dr. Chad Harvey and me to test the appetite McMaster students have to grow their own food. We ran six garden-based cooking classes through the Student Wellness Centre's Food for Thought program that is funded generously by Alumni House's Mac 10 program.
Students preparing meals in the Food for Thought program
Two questions were answered this summer: McMaster is proactive in creating a sustainable food system in order to be a place of learning, and the students want to see more of this.
In addition to this, I have talked to many faculty and staff members at McMaster and they are all supportive of a large sustainable food system at the university that goes beyond the two current community gardens that McMaster has.
Is it time for a McMaster Urban Farm? In April 2016, one McMaster professor asked, "Question for @McMasterU community in the wake of #BIBCclimate week: why don't we have a Mac farm for student food & education?"
A farm is not just for us to grow food, but it is for us to be connected to our food system and for us to understand the impacts it has.
Industrial agriculture is responsible for the health of food being at an all-time low, as four out of the six biggest killers in the United States are related to the food we eat.
Also, industrial agriculture has eroded natural lands to such a point that 27 percent of natural land in North America is now farmland and the type of agriculture of that is practiced is monoculture systems, which are the grave for bio-diversity.
Ontarians should have chills running down our spines when we hear that there are 2,337 species in Ontario that are either endangered or vulnerable and of special concern. Without Biodiversity, ecosystems cannot run and thus the health of the planet is seriously diminished.
Growing Food More Sustainably
The saddest thing here is that agriculture does not have to be practiced in this way, as we can do it differently. Dr. Chad Harvey and I are trying to bring permaculture farm to McMaster.
Permaculture is an agricultural design system that mimics a natural ecosystem to produce food while restoring nature. The benefit of permaculture is that biodiversity and the production of food can co-exist. This is an example of true sustainability because it is tending to the needs of humans and nature.
Before we can talk about any farm or physical project being constructed, we must understand that the land is not ours, but rather it belongs to Indigenous people. If we are to progress in a dignified human way, we would be much improved if we adopted the Indigenous perspective of land in the sense that is no one owns it but rather we all act as stewards of the land.
McMaster has gotten a step closer to respecting and honouring Indigenous people by acknowledging that it is located on the traditional territories of the Mississauga and Haudenosaunee nations.
The next step for McMaster to continue respecting Indigenous people is to have a farm that grows Indigenous plants so that we can begin to learn more about Indigenous perspectives and culture.
Battle of the Eggplants
Additionally, if we are going to talk about how growing our own food has the ability to enact change, we should also talk about the joy of cooking, because this is something I think we have been forgotten as the waves of restaurants continue to open in Hamilton.
The Battle of the Eggplant can remind us about the fun of cooking, as this competition saw two of McMaster's very own square-off.
In one corner we had Dr. Ameil Joseph, a professor from the school of social work, and in the other corner we had Taryn Aarssen, an outreach assistant from the student wellness centre.
Both competitors were given eggplants from the garden behind the Biology Greenhouse and they were to cook a meal with this ingredient. The rules were simple: the best-tasting dish would be chosen as the winner.
Dr. Joseph is one of the most gastronomically inclined professors on campus. Taryn, on the other hand, has never found an ingredient that she could not turn into a tasty treat.
Dr. Joseph began his dish by sautéing the eggplant in a screaming hot skillet until they reached a juicy golden brown. My heart simultaneously melted a little as I watched the spectacle. Then Dr. Joseph drew upon his nuanced worldview and added garlic soya sauce over the eggplant. This brought the taste of Asian into the dish.
The result of this worldly combination of flavours was like experiencing a perfectly choreographed opera song, as the sweet eggplant was contrasted brilliantly with the nutty, salty, rich soya sauce. The loveliness of this dish was that it was a three-ingredient wonder: Dr. Joseph let the eggplant do all the talking.
Dr. Ameil Joseph showing off his sauteed eggplant
Taryn started her dish by slicing the eggplant so thinly that it only had one side and then she placed it on top of a sauced pizza dough. Then she added fresh mozzarella and purple basil. Then time and space stood still for a few moments, because instead of simply cooking the pizza in a generic oven, she cooked it in a wood-burning oven!
The result was one for the ages as the crisp and perfectly-charred pizza was as gorgeous as it was delicious. The toppings on the pizza were kissed with a lick of flame that made the flavours take on another life form.
The creamy fresh mozzarella cheese with the zesty tomato sauce was the perfect place for the tender sweet eggplant to call home and then the symphony of flavours were topped off with a floral aroma of purple basil.
Taryn Aarssen showing off her eggplant pizza
Both dishes tasted of summer and they were great in their own unique ways, but I would give the victory to Taryn. It was difficult work tasting both dishes and deciding on a winner, but somebody has got to do it. The pizza beat the garlic soya sauce eggplant because the crisp of the pizza crust with creamy center could quite literally defeat any force in the world. Perhaps if everyone in the world ate this pizza everyday there would be peace on earth.
Cooking Connects Us
Some of you may think that my explanation on the battle of the eggplants was too much of a dramatic embellishment. However, we need to remember that cooking with each other not only connects us with one another, but it binds us to the best bit of life and is an expression that our common desire to eat is a social act.
Witnessing strangers cooking, laughing, learning and sharing food with one another is seeing humans at their very best. This is what the Food for Thought cooking classes are all about and I am so happy to see students building relationships and find meaning in the mundane act of food that many of us take for granted.
We can use this fun and familiar context of cooking to take climate change head-on because it spins this systemic problem of antagonistic drudgery into a more hopeful context where relationships are built, and where climate change is viewed as an opportunity to create change and achieve fulfillment.
Having a farm at McMaster can do even more to build our personal capacity to address climate change in way that does not build cynicism, but rather creates community and shows that we can make a difference while having fun.
Growing food is something we can all do to improve our health and the health of the planet that provides so much for us, it is a very empowering opportunity, all we need to do is start and we will be surprised to see many great people already out there making change happen!
Adam Chiaravalle is a McMaster University student looking for opportunities to create change in the world.
Leafy Green Machine Growing Garden-Fresh Veggies At CHS
Leafy Green Machine Growing Garden-Fresh Veggies At CHS
Vegetables grow in verticle towers, maximizing space in the growing unit.
9/27/2017
Indoor facility first in state at public school
By ETHAN SHOREY, Valley Breeze Managing Editor
CUMBERLAND – A modified shipping container capable of producing a football field’s worth of vegetables every seven weeks now stands outside the kitchen door at Cumberland High School.
The Leafy Green Machine, as it’s called, will bring fresh vegetables to the plates of students at CHS and across the school district, making Cumberland the first public school district in Rhode Island to boast such a facility, according to those who will run it.
Shauna Spillane, food service director for local provider Sodexo, said the hydroponic growing facility is essentially like a “smart home” for food, a “really awesome” facility that keeps vegetables in ideal growing conditions at all times. When it gets too hot in the growing container, the LED lights shut off and the AC comes on. Only the amount of light needed for photosynthesis is used. Air quality is constantly monitored and controlled.
The money to purchase the grow box from Boston-based Freight Farms came out of the food service budget.
Sodexo will manage the growing and picking of vegetables for daily use, but students will be invited to participate in the process. CHS administrators eventually hope to have an agriculture pathway at the school, teaching students about sustainable growing and horticulture.
The Leafy Green Machine, or LGM, allows a variety of crops to be grown regardless of weather conditions, providing students with year-round access to local and fresh produce. Vegetables are grown in vertical rows, requiring minimal water and electricity to flourish. Water drips from overhead spouts onto strips, going down vertical columns to give vegetables exactly the amount that they need. The water then falls into a trough, where it is pumped out.
Gina Rodriguez, food service manager for Sodexo, said employees have typically struggled a bit to put fresh vegetables on the table all winter. Last year was particularly bad, as vegetables often had to be thrown out because they didn’t last, she said.
With the LGM, workers will “pick today for tomorrow,” said Rodriguez. Vegetables typically start losing nutrients the moment they’re picked, she said. The difference will be noticeable in the vegetables picked from the LGM, as they’ll taste better, be a brighter green, and provide more nutrition for students. Because the container is insulated and climate-controlled (about 65 degrees), the entire system uses just five gallons of water a week.
Sodexo currently uses about 200 pounds of leafy greens, mostly for salads, across all schools in Cumberland, including at Blackstone Valley Prep charter school, said Rodriguez. The vegetables harvested from the LGM will be used to supplement the supply.
The entire plant-to-harvest process takes about seven weeks, meaning it can be done several times in a year.
Optimized to grow lettuce, herbs or greens such as kale or Swiss chard, the LGM will initially grow kale and Romaine lettuce at CHS. Spillane said adding something like basil changes the dynamics inside the LGM, because growing the herb calls for slightly different conditions.
The Farmhand App makes farming easier by monitoring, controlling and tracking the indoor farm remotely. Rolling racks allow workers to move the plants for easier access.
Though the LGM is a rarity at public high schools, a number of colleges in New England, including Clark University in Worcester, Mass., have them.
Over the course of a year, the 320-square-foot LGM can grow the same amount of food as about 2 acres of land. Freight Farms, which produces the LGM, promotes its product as a way to grow food in almost any condition all around the world.
The inside of a Leafy Green Machine shows the full operation of vertical gardens, bathed in LED light.
Shauna Spillane, left, and Gina Rodriguez, of Sodexo Food Service, show off the new Green Leafy Machine outside the door of the kitchen at Cumberland High School. The former storage container will be used to grow vegetables for the school’s food service. (Breeze photo by Ethan Shorey)
School and Hospital Menus Add More Plant-Based Options to Meet Growing Demand
School and Hospital Menus Add More Plant-Based Options to Meet Growing Demand
CHARLOTTE, NC (September 7, 2017) – Chartwells Higher Education, Morrison Healthcare and The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) announced today a national partnership on veg-centric menus. As more Americans seek meat-free meals, plant-based foods are increasingly moving to the center of the plate. Millennials show the greatest interest with 60 percent of diners age 21-34 consuming plant-based meats, according to 210 Analytics.
Through an intensive program, the groups’ “Forward Food Culinary Experience” full-day trainings inspire chefs to create delicious meals without meat, eggs or dairy, while teaching the benefits of plant-based eating. These in-the-kitchen classes and train-the-trainers program will influence approximately 3200 chefs and registered dieticians across the country in 2018 who will learn to create nutritious plant-based breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks like carrot osso bucco, mushroom street tacos, cauliflower fried rice, biscuits and gravy, and tofu scramble.
“To me, these classes are about breaking that meat-and-two-sides mindset, stepping out of your comfort zone and creating exciting dishes that appeal to vegans and meat eaters alike,” said Vice President of Wellness and Sustainability for Chartwells, Laura Lapp.
The hands-on training is led by HSUS chefs and nutritionists at host accounts nationwide. It started in Chartwells’ Higher Ed locations in June to meet student demand and will roll out at Morrison Healthcare locations in the fall of 2017. Both are part of Compass Group, the world’s largest foodservice provider. Ninety percent of Chartwells Higher Ed schools already incorporate recipes from Compass’s Rooted…In Good Taste plant-based concept and this education will advance the understanding, preparation and implementation of these dishes. With this partnership, Chartwells will continue to shift 20% of its offers to plant-based by 2020 – emphasizing fruits, vegetables, legumes, whole grains, and other plant-proteins.
Morrison Healthcare is conducting 21-day plant-based challenges at select hospital locations nationwide. Staff and visitors are encouraged to eliminate or limit consumption of animal products and increase whole plant foods in their diets. Host locations offer culinary demonstrations, lunch and learns, and offer an increased variety of plant-based foods in cafeterias.
“Focusing on flavor is part of our philosophy at Morrison Healthcare,” said Vice President of Culinary for Morrison, Cary Neff. “With a focus on healthful recipes that are delicious, elegant and easy to prepare, this partnership will help expand our repertoire and get guests and staff excited about food that’s good for them and the planet.”
“Serving more plant-based meals is a great way to improve health, take a bite out of carbon emissions, and reduce consumption of industrially-produced animal products,” said HSUS President and CEO, Wayne Pacelle. “Compass is doing something important and noteworthy in offering its culinary leaders this opportunity.”
The “Forward Food Culinary Experience” will roll out Compass-wide starting this fall.
For additional information, visit www.forwardfood.org.
Chartwells Higher Education Dining Services is the recognized leader in contract foodservice management, hospitality and award-winning guest service within 290 college and university dining environments throughout academic institutions across the U.S. Chartwells’ new brand mantra, “Where Hungry Minds Gather,” signifies its commitment to reinventing the dining experience for the next generation of students and beyond. Our nutritious cuisine not only satisfies the unique appetites, lifestyles and dietary needs of every guest dining on campus, but it also brings people together to promote the high-intensity relationships that will prepare students for the future. www.ChartwellsHigherEd.com
Morrison Healthcare
Morrison Healthcare is part of Compass Group USA, and a leading national food and nutrition services company, proudly serving 750 hospitals and healthcare systems. Morrison Healthcare together with Crothall Healthcare form Compass One Healthcare – providing specialized patient experiences in food, nutrition and support services in more than 1,600 locations with a combined 90 years of healthcare experience. www.morrisonhealthcare.com
US Representative Marcy Kaptur Introduces Bipartisan Urban Agriculture Production Act
Linked by Michael Levenston
Kaptur helped kick off a capital campaign for the next phase of the successful Oneida Street greenhouse project in 2011. Young people learned urban agriculture techniques, aquaculture, apiary science, gardening, and life skills.
Bill Bolsters USDA Nutritional and Farmers’ Market Programs and Works to Spur Economic Development
Press Release | September 8, 2017
Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), today introduced the Urban Agriculture Production Act (H.R. 3699), a bipartisan bill to bolster nutritional and farmers’ market programs and help create the next generation of local, urban farmers and food producers. The bill is supported by the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition and Farmers Market Coalition.
“Too many urban neighborhoods are in food deserts that lack stores where people can purchase fresh, healthy foods, so the federal government needs to step up and improve access to nutritious foods,” said Kaptur. “Nutritious and healthy eating can reduce the rate of diabetes, hypertension and obesity related illnesses and my bill builds on successful nutritional programs, like the Seniors Farmers’ Market. As Congress readies to debate the Farm Bill, I’ll fight for programs that bolster farmers, develop our urban centers and help create jobs.”
The bill works to spur the development and expansion of regional and local food systems in nontraditional agriculture production areas, like cities and towns. The bill also works to strengthen farmers’ markets, improve nutrition for low-income seniors and veterans and bolster existing U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) programs that support farmers, ranchers, and producers as a tool for economic development.
“Communities are addressing these challenges by developing local farmers markets, community gardens, greenhouses, and other food systems to provide fresh, affordable and healthy foods throughout underserved communities and this bill will build on that work,” Kaptur continued.
During her tenure in Congress, Kaptur has been a champion of farmers’ markets and other programs and one of the chief authors of urban agriculture legislation. Her legislative efforts have focused on creating places in urban areas to cultivate community agriculture that improve the self-sufficiency of neighborhoods.
Kaptur introduces the Urban Agriculture Production Act just as Congress prepares to debate the upcoming Farm Bill reauthorization. Her key goals are to support direct marketing opportunities for local farmers and producers, advance local agriculture in our nation’s most underserved areas, and increase the consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables for our seniors and veterans.
What does the bill do?
Establishes an Urban Agriculture Liaison and Outreach Program at USDA
Expands the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program to include veterans
Provides for competitive grants to advance agriculture production in underserved, undernourished metropolitan areas
Creates a loan and loan guarantee program for projects that expand and promote direct producer to consumer marketing and assist in the development of local food business enterprises.
Improves federal agricultural reporting with the inclusion of Farmers Markets in the Ag. Census
Western's Newest Garden Provides Aesthetic and Sustainable Value
The food garden aims to grow more varieties of plants than the greenhouse already on campus, because it's not restrained by the unique conditions of it, such as temperature and humidity. Ly highlights that the garden offers more space.
Western's Newest Garden Provides Aesthetic and Sustainable Value
- Vivian Cheng
- Sep 6, 2017
The campus vibrancy in September is unparalleled by any other month: the sun is shining and the gardens are blooming.
Not only do Western's gardens provide aesthetic value, they also spur research and sustainability initiatives.
Western has a greenhouse, several rooftop gardens and an Indigenous food and medicine garden. Along with those gardens, its newest addition is an outdoor food garden created by Enviro Western, a student service on campus.
Western University's Gardens
Photos Max Mao / GAZETTE
The garden opened at the end of August, outside of the Health Sciences Addition.
Olivia Ly, a third year medical sciences and health sciences student, says that, although the garden is still in its planning phases, the group plans to distribute some of their produce to
Kale grows in Enviro Western's outdoor food garden, photographed on Sept. 6, 2017.
the London community where it's needed.
The food could also be sold in the farmer's market on campus that runs every Tuesday on Concrete Beach.
With the rise of the wellness trend in our culture, the garden's opening provides a unique opportunity for students to learn more about healthy eating as well as food sustainability.
Ly believes that the garden will prompt students to think about the source of their food. Because it's on campus, the garden will make learning about the environment accessible.
"Our goal is to teach people about environmental actions, especially how to plant a garden in their own homes," says Ly. More specifically, Ly says the group will teach students about gardening in pots and gardening in the winter during their greenhouse meetings at the end of September.
The food garden aims to grow more varieties of plants than the greenhouse already on campus, because it's not restrained by the unique conditions of it, such as temperature and humidity. Ly highlights that the garden offers more space.
Kale at the food garden
Currently, kale and green onions grow in the garden plots, but as the months become colder, the vegetables will be replaced with garlic.
Ly expresses that gardening promotes a more authentic coexistence with the environment. "Instead of rules like recycling or bringing a reusable water bottle, you get to see what it's like to interact with the environment and obtain tangible products for your efforts," says Ly.
Global Data Collection And The Future of Indoor Urban Farming
Harper is director of the Open Agriculture Initiative (OpenAg) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. He and a global collection of “nerd farmers” are working on a Food Computer, which closely detects – and allows you to adjust – the growing conditions of any plant in the room. Francis Lam talks with Harper about the project.
From The Future of Urban Farming
September 8, 2017
Global Data Collection And The Future of Indoor Urban Farming
by Francis Lam
Photo: Nettedotca/iStock/Getty Images Plus
The urban farming movement takes many forms, both indoors and outdoors: school gardens, community vegetable patches, fish farms in tanks. Scientist Caleb Harper believes that indoor urban farming specifically can create the best tasting, most nutritious, and least energy intensive crops anywhere in the world. Harper is director of the Open Agriculture Initiative (OpenAg) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. He and a global collection of “nerd farmers” are working on a Food Computer, which closely detects – and allows you to adjust – the growing conditions of any plant in the room. Francis Lam talks with Harper about the project.
Francis Lam: There are so many things that make a great farm great. You start with the farmers, of course. But then the kind of sunlight it gets, the soil composition, the temperature, all sorts of factors. You’re trying to bring those characteristics to growing plants – indoors.
Caleb Harper: Exactly. If someone says the best tomato in the world comes from Tuscany on the north side of the slope with the happy cow next door, we try to factor in all of the biotic or abiotic stress – most people would call it climate – that caused those specific genetics to create the flavor that they liked. We try to figure that out and, in the process, use the least amount of resources – less water, energy, and nutrition loss from transportation – so that we can make a good product that's healthy and available in our cities.
FL: I assume that means you also pipe in audio of a happy cow mooing just to make sure that's covered?
CH: A lot of my freshmen that come into my lab at MIT, the first thing they want to do is put the plants through Mozart and then put the plants through Tupac. And you know who wins between Mozart and Tupac? Tupac! Because it's all about microvibrations, which in the natural world you'd call wind. You need wind inside of these environments because the plant gets stressed by the wind and starts to grow taller, so it's morphologically correct. Those microvibrations of Tupac really help it out.
FL: I imagine the more you do it, the more you learn what these factors are –
CH: That's a bleeding edge of science. We've never before had the ability to gather or process so much data so cheaply. Now, with advancements in robotics, sensors technology, and data processing, we can start to get at some basic science that we haven’t been able to do before.
FL: It’s almost like you're creating a virtual reality for these plants that is, in fact, reality.
CH: That's totally true. One of the things that limits agriculture and agricultural science is seasons. We go season-to-season, we try and make changes, we select for genetics that did well in that season. But we have a lot of asynchronistic or non-categorized variables during that season. Imagine you could run the season ten thousand times. If you could run the season ten thousand times, you could try all different kinds of things that you would have done, and see which one worked out the best without having to wait ten thousand years. The idea is, how can we make agriculture and plant science more like computing?
Caleb Harper
(Photo: MIT Media Lab)
FL: How are we going to get to the point where this happens on every other block in every other city? How will this scale up?
CH: Right now, it’s bubbling in the entrepreneurial realm. There are a lot of start-ups – shipping container size or warehouse size – in Japan, China, Europe, and the United States, with hundreds of millions of dollars going into this. But what I think needs to happen, and what my group is trying to be a part of, is the sharing of this knowledge so it can scale up.
There are so many unanswered questions. We need trillions of data points. We need one hundred thousand images to do any machine learning. We've taken all of our plans, software and hardware, and made it open source. You can access it for free; you can use it for whatever you want and you contribute as part of the project. It’s kind of like a citizen science for horticulture or botany. After the last year and a half, there are people in 40 countries around the world contributing to our project. They are contributing code. They are growing in the bots whatever they want to grow, whatever excites them. We are able to collect data on that, and it starts to build up this data set that we can use.
This is the way of the future. You look at Tesla open sourcing their patents so that more infrastructure can be built; it’s part of that network economy. Apple open sourcing their app developer language; this is because of our networked world. There's never been a time in human history where you can get more people working on a single problem – if you share that infrastructure. I don't think anything is more important than how we are going to feed all the people in the world with the least amount of resources and the highest amount of flavor and nutrition.
FL: This sounds incredible. Good luck to you, and I think that means good luck to all of us.
CH: Absolutely. There's a nerd farmer inside all of us. A lot of us think we don't have a green thumb. But what if a green thumb was a digital asset? What if I could download a farmer's eye that took 60 years to cultivate? That beautiful eye that can tell you what's wrong with a plant. You might come into this saying, “My houseplants are always dying; I don't know what to do with them.” What if we could make that a program? What if you literally downloaded a tomato, and that tomato meant that you put a seed in an environment that was then created by a master gardener or a master horticulturalist, or by a chef that knew what to do with this plant in the northern part of Spain to get the most beautiful expression of flavor – but we captured that as a recipe? You downloaded it, you grew it, and all the sudden, you're in the Basque region in your apartment.
FL: What other technologies do you see right now in terms of farming and agriculture that we laypeople don’t know about?
CH: In a bigger context, what I’m seeing is a general shift that’s a coming together of biologic and digital technologies. For example, rapid sequencing – the ability to get to the genetics of whatever we’re interested in very quickly. And now, the ability to edit those genetics. There is something called CRISPR (Clustered Regulatory Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats); it’s a system that makes it easy and cheap to edit something within a genome. This might be something that people are concerned about. But when you think about the fact that everything we’ve eaten in our entire life has been genetically modified because it’s been trait selected for hundreds of years down to become the corn that we eat today –
FL: Breeding sweeter and sweeter corn.
CH: Exactly. Or a bigger version of whatever we were looking for. What CRISPR is, is the ability to do what used to take many years outside, one day to do in a lab. That can radically change what we’re able to do with agriculture in the short term.
There are some amazing things going on in the microbiome. I don’t know if you’re following the conversation about human microbiome, but in the plant world, we’re saying “root microbiome.” We look at what should be in the soil. Maybe it isn’t there because the method of farming that we’ve been using hasn’t cultivated that microbiome. Maybe it was never there in the first place, for whatever reason. What microbes and bacteria would we want to put back into the soil that would cause a better plant to come out? What’s even more radical than that, is people are starting to engineer microbes. If you know the process you are trying to help, you can literally engineer a helper microbe to go into the soil to cause a more efficient plant.
Things like microsatellites and drones are getting a lot more data on our fields. There is a start-up that has recently created more data about infield farming in the last five years than the USDA has in its entire existence. Part of that is the cheaper sensors and cheaper processing power. We’re getting a very described field, the ability to modify very quickly within genome, trait select using CRISPR, and we’re looking at how we would intentionally the soil with microbes.