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Revolution Farms Hires Head Grower
Tammam Serage to Lead Hydroponic Growing at Grand Rapids’ Sustainable Lettuce Farm
GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., October 9, 2019 – Revolution Farms, a leading indoor hydroponics farm in Caledonia, announced today that Tammam (Tam) Serage has taken over as head grower at the farm. Serage came to Revolution Farms from Shenandoah Growers in Harrisonburg, Va., where he most recently served as the farm’s corporate grower. Tam has more than 25 years of practical experience in the efficient and sustainable production of organic herbs, microgreens and decorative plants.
“As we continue to scale the farm, Tam’s experience and knowledge will ensure we can grow the very best salad greens possible, while simultaneously improving our sustainability initiatives,” said John Green, CEO of Revolution Farms. “His extensive hydroponics expertise will help us continue to make our product better and more nutritious, ensuring it’s the best salad option for Michigan and Midwest consumers.”
Serage previously worked as head grower at farms in Maryland and Delaware, as well as serving in multiple growing roles at farms in Alabama and Saudi Arabia. He holds Bachelor of Science and Master of Science degrees in Horticulture from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, as well as an Associate of Science from Virginia Western Community College.
Revolution Farms’ 85,000 sq.ft. indoor farm, located on 76th St in Caledonia, has the capacity to produce more than 500,000 pounds of fresh lettuce and salad greens for Michigan and the Midwest region every year. Its leafy greens go from farm to store in as few as 1-2 days, less than half the time it takes for lettuce grown and shipped from California, Arizona and Mexico to make it to Michigan store shelves.
“Revolution Farms has the momentum and the people behind it to innovate hydroponic farming, and expand growing operations on a large scale for Michigan and beyond,” said Serage. “My passion is identifying and incorporating new technologies and sustainable growing techniques that will produce healthier greens at greater yields. I am thrilled to join John and the Revolution Farms team to be part of this fast-growing farm.”
Revolution Farms is built on a mission to disrupt the fresh produce industry by growing and harvesting hyper-local salad greens for consumers year-round, using advanced indoor farming methods and technologies. Its lettuce is currently available at more than 100 SpartanNash stores across Michigan – including Forest Hills Foods, D&W Fresh Market, VG’s and Family Fare stores, as well as through Doorganics for direct consumer delivery and VanEerden for use in restaurants and foodservice.
About Revolution Farms
Revolution Farms is leading the hydroponics revolution in Michigan with one of the largest and most advanced indoor hydroponic farms in the United States. Located in Caledonia, Mich., its 85,000 sq.ft. greenhouse produces fresh, local lettuce and salad greens for consumers across the Midwest. Revolution Farms was founded to leverage the social, economic, and environmental benefits of hydroponics in a state-of-the-art facility. More info at www.revolutionfarms.com.
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Colorado: Urban Farm, Restaurant And Market Coming To Englewood
Behind that glass window will reside a hydroponic system where plants will grow on indoor towers. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants year-round in sand, gravel or liquid with added nutrients without using soil. Farms that use the hydroponic method use up to 10 times less water than traditional farms, according to the National Park Service
Grow + Gather Will Occupy The Old Bill's Auto Service Building
Monday, September 16, 2019
Joseph Rios
jrios@coloradocommunitymedia.com
George Gastis sold his tech business four years ago — a year after he packed his bags and moved to Englewood from Platt Park. Contemplating what his next move would be, he knew he always had a green thumb and a love for food.
At first, he had planned to find a property to purchase or rent where he would grow food that would be sold to grocery stores and restaurants. In the process of planning his next steps, Gastis purchased the old Bill's Auto Service building, located at 900 E. Hampden Ave.
“The idea quickly became more than just a place to grow food. There seemed to be a great opportunity to create a place where not only can we grow food, but reconnect the neighborhood and surrounding communities,” said Gastis, referring to places like Littleton, south Denver, Greenwood Village and other areas near Englewood. “Our geographic location is sort of strangely unique in the sense that we sit on the edge of some of those communities.”
After planning and talking to people from his past, Gastis realized there was an opportunity to create a hub around food at the old Bill's Auto Service building. Gastis seized the opportunity, and depending on construction, Grow + Gather will open its doors in October. The development will be a casual restaurant and a market that'll sell coffee and freshly harvested produce and foods - all grown at Grow + Gather.
“When we moved to this neighborhood, I saw the potential in this area. There wasn't a ton to do,” said Gastis. “Combined with trying to figure out what I wanted to do and recognizing the opportunity here — Englewood seemed to be in the process of reviving itself with a lot of new businesses moving in, a lot of development, certainly (Swedish Medical Center) and their role they played in the community — it seemed really interesting.”
The restaurant will be operated by chefs like Caleb Phillips, a Tennessee native who plans to bring a Southern twist to some of Grow + Gather's dishes. Phillips says the menu will be simple, but it'll center around ingredients that will come from Grow + Gather's farm. Some of its dishes will include biscuits, salads, pies, egg dishes, and grits. Beer will also be available at the restaurant, brewed from the second level of the building.
“It's just the neatest idea. I get to walk 20 yards to get fresh vegetables,” said Phillips. “The community has already been super kind and receptive. I think it's going to be a lot of fun.”
When customers walk through Grow + Gather's community room, an area designated for guests to have coffee and for classes on gardening and cooking, they'll be able to see their food being grown behind a glass window. Behind that glass window will reside a hydroponic system where plants will grow on indoor towers. Hydroponics is a method of growing plants year-round in sand, gravel or liquid with added nutrients without using soil. Farms that use the hydroponic method use up to 10 times less water than traditional farms, according to the National Park Service.
Gastis says the rooftop of the building will serve as rooftop greenhouse, where he'll grow crops like tomatoes.
“It is exciting to see a new business concept like Grow + Gather here in Englewood as well as the repurposing of the property once occupied by Bill's Auto Service. It is sure to bring new life to that area,” said David Carroll, executive director of the Greater Englewood Chamber of Commerce. The chamber works to promote its business members while engaging with new businesses in the city.
PHOTOS: COURTESY OF GEORGE GASTIS
A New Hydroponic Farm Starts A New Age For UAE farmers
A new hydroponic farm is under construction in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and it will be one of the most important model projects of Kingpeng in Abu Dhabi
A new hydroponic farm is under construction in Abu Dhabi, UAE, and it will be one of the most important model projects of Kingpeng in Abu Dhabi. The total project is 1.2 hectares and will grow leafy vegetables and fruit vegetables with hydroponic technology. This project has a leafy vegetables NFT system and hanging gutter growing system.
The owner of this project has more than 5 years of organic food growing experience and organic food production certificate. Now he will start a hydroponic farm; all products will be purchased by high-standard hotels and restaurants in the future. Meanwhile, the owner of the greenhouse will establish a new brand for his green vegetables. The idea is for it to be very famous in the market of UAE and around Gulf countries.
“Three years ago, I have visited a lot of farms with greenhouse projects in UAE, but it seems that there are not many high-standard hydroponics farms which can provide what the market wants. So, I visited Kingpeng in 2018 and we confirmed the design and project soon after several meetings. Now in UAE, my project is still on the top level and we will be one of the biggest green vegetable suppliers in Abu Dhabi after the project’s completion and we will expand the production scale soon next year”, said the owner of the greenhouse.
“We really thank Kingpeng for the good service and products and we believe it will not only be a perfect vegetable production base for me but also start a new age for UAE farmers because they will have a better choice.”
Kingpeng has been active in the Middle East for more than 12 years, and they provide one-stop service, full greenhouse solutions and also growing services for the customers after project completion.
For more information:
Beijing Kingpeng International Agriculture Corporation
7th floor, Advanced Material Building, Feng Hui Zhong Lu, Haidian District, Beijing, China, 100094
T: +86 58711536
F: +86 58711560
info@chinakingpeng.com
www.kingpengintl.com
Publication date: Thu, 26 Sep 2019
How Does Tilapia Help Produce Organic Vege? This Ampang Aquaponic Farm Blooms Because of It
The growing demand for clean eating eventually led to the birth of Urban Greenlife farm, run by Chin and six other shareholders including the farm’s co-director Shum Chong Bon and Aquaponics Hardware Asia business development manager Yoon Wong
20 September 2019
BY TAN MEI ZI
(From left) Shum Chong Bon, Yoon Wong, and Chin Kwe Fok began cultivating the farm last year. — Pictures by Firdaus Latif
KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 20 — For Chin Kwe Fok, the motivation behind setting up an aquaponic farm was simple: A desire to eat healthily.
After speaking with friends at church, he soon realized he wasn’t the only one on the lookout for organic, pesticide-free produce.
The growing demand for clean eating eventually led to the birth of Urban Greenlife farm, run by Chin and six other shareholders including the farm’s co-director Shum Chong Bon and Aquaponics Hardware Asia business development manager Yoon Wong.
Tucked away in a quiet street in Ampang, the farm spans over 3,000 square feet and currently houses a variety of greens including basil, kale, watercress, Japanese cucumber, and Brazilian spinach.
It runs on an aquaponic system where nutrient-rich water produced by tilapia is fed to the plants before being recirculated back into the fish tanks.
Crops from ancient civilizations as early as the Aztec Empire are said to have flourished thanks to this method, now used by Chin to grow vegetables without the need for pesticides or chemical fertilisers.
The farm’s success is a result of the mutual health between the plants and the aquatic animals.
As consumer awareness about organic produce improves, Chin and his co-directors hope to establish working relationships with nearby restaurants and supply fresh vegetables straight to their kitchens.
“When we talk to people, we see that there is a market out there for organic food.
“People from the church I attend have expressed interest when I told them about the farm and asked if they could buy directly from us.
“Now we are trying to make the system stable so we can maintain supply to keep up with the demand,” Chin told Malay Mail.
It’s been an uphill battle working on the farm as the balance is of utmost importance; if one element falters, the rest of the operation soon follows.
The farm has a strict rule on avoiding chemicals as they can seep into the water and pose a fatal risk to the fish once the fluid recirculates back into their tanks.
Similarly, the tilapia need to be fed and monitored with meticulous care to ensure the health of the plants is not compromised.
The roots of the plant are immersed in nutrient-rich water that gets fed to them from the tilapia tank.
It currently costs around RM4,000 per month to maintain the farm, a bargain considering its proximity to the city center.
Aquaponic farming also saves water and produces minimal waste, making it cost-efficient in the long run.
By chance, the landowner happened to be a fish lover, making it easier for the Urban Greenlife team to get a headstart when with rearing tilapia.
“We were lucky because the owner of the lot likes to keep fish, so the place came with a pond already built inside.
“He did all the renovations and didn’t charge anything,” said Chin.
As Urban Greenlife continues to sprout new opportunities for its owners, Chin hopes to inspire Malaysians to move towards healthier eating by making aquaponic produce more accessible and affordable.
To find out more about Urban Greenlife, surf over to their Facebook page.
Urban Farms Are Sprouting Up All Over NYC
You might be thinking that farms and New York City go together like good pizza and rural Iowa. But the city’s farm history dates to its founding. Orchard Street was once an actual orchard and in the 17th century, the Bowery was called Bouwerij, the Dutch word for farm. Today, farming in the Big Apple is making a big comeback
Adam Walker, programs coordinator at The Battery Conservancy, hits the dirt at Battery Urban Farm. Tamara Beckwith/NY Post
By Tim Donnelly
September 6, 2019 | 5:19pm
September has hit New York, and that means the air is getting cooler, the subways are getting slightly less sweaty and we can all resume arguing whether pumpkin-flavored things are good. It’s the time of year that makes us start thinking of farm life, getting the flannel out of the closet and hitting a hayride.
You might be thinking that farms and New York City go together like good pizza and rural Iowa. But the city’s farm history dates to its founding. Orchard Street was once an actual orchard and in the 17th century, the Bowery was called Bouwerij, the Dutch word for farm. Today, farming in the Big Apple is making a big comeback.
You just have to look around a little — or sometimes, look up — to find it. A new wave of urban farms are inviting city dwellers to get back to their roots, literally, this fall, and teach all of us why vibrant green space is so necessary in the growing city. Here’s how New Yorkers can get dirty — in a good way — and get some hyper local produce without leaving the five boroughs.
Battery Urban Farm
Tamara Beckwith/NY Post
The farmers on this patch of parkland nestled in the southern tip of Manhattan have to deal with something even their most seasoned rural counterparts don’t encounter: shadows from skyscrapers. The hidden little garden hosts about 40 rows of plant beds, sprouting tomatoes, peas, kale, radishes, carrots, herbs, sweet peppers and more. The farm opened in 2011 and is tended weekly by a team of volunteers, but its open gates welcome in lots of tourists on their way to catch the ferry to the Statue of Liberty.
Mary Beth Rogan started volunteering at the farm last year after moving from, appropriately, Garden City, LI, to Tribeca and realizing she missed her home garden. She’s retired and finds peace at the space, even when she’s just pulling weeds out of one of the vegetable beds as noisy tour buses roar by the park.
“I love being in the dirt,” she says. “There’s a sense of tranquility, of being connected to the earth, to the world.”
The site is also a teaching garden for city students; a few get their own patch of land to tend in the park. The veggies grown here are served to kids, and donated to local charities. State Street and Battery Place, open every day; check Web site for volunteer opportunities
Brooklyn Grange Sunset Park
Colin Mixson
Brooklyn Grange has been leading the way in turning New York rooftops into lush farmlands over the past decade. Its newest outpost, which opened in Sunset Park last month, is now the largest rooftop farm in the city. The site is an oasis on top of a building that contains a Bed Bath & Beyond and other stores, with 140,000 square feet of tomatoes, peppers, kale and more, marked with colorful bursts of sunflowers and other flowers. The effect is so transformative it’s easy to forget you’re in NYC, until you look up and see crops perfectly framing the Statue of Liberty in the distance.
Bring your date: It’s a perfect mix of the urban and rural, especially John Epifanio, 44, who grew up in suburban Connecticut and says he occasionally hits a “tipping point” where he needs to escape the claustrophobic city. His girlfriend, Niki Roger, surprised him with a date to the farm on a recent sunny Sunday.
“Just having the backdrop of the city with that kind of contrast between agriculture and then the most defined urban background you could possibly see, I thought it was really stunning,” he tells The Post.
The new site uses 4 million pounds of soil; in total, Brooklyn Grange’s three farms yield 80,000 pounds of produce a year to sell to local restaurants and at farmers markets. At the weekly open houses on Sundays, you can take a guided tour of the space ($18) or visit for free and buy produce from the rooftop market. The new farm is expecting to host more events in the spring, but in the meantime, you can check out its other locations in Long Island City and at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, which host rooftop yoga, dinner parties, workshops and more.
What’s in season? The end-of-summer bounty at the market includes tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, kale, eggplant and custom-made hot sauce. 850 Third Ave., Brooklyn; open to the public Sundays through the end of October, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Queens County Farm Museum
Courtesy of Queens County Farm Museum
The Queens County Farm Museum’s famous Halloween-season corn maze is far more fun, and easier to solve, than the underground labyrinth of Penn Station. But the site also sits on the largest remaining tract of undisturbed farmland in the city, with 47 acres of farming history dating to the 17th century.
It’s a great spot for a family-friendly outing this fall, with the Queens County Fair and pumpkin picking kicking off later this month. But you can also tour the premises to see the farming, livestock and machinery up close, and enjoy the fruits of the land at its farmstand.
What’s in season? The fall harvest here includes kale, lettuce, sweet potatoes, watermelon, squash, radishes and more. And this year, the maze will be crafted in a familiar shape: the famed Unisphere from the World’s Fair site. 73-50 Little Neck Parkway, Queens; open daily, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Randall’s Island Urban Farm
Matt Mead
The farm on the island, sandwiched between East Harlem and Astoria, feels like a true oasis away from the city. It has 100 raised beds growing veggies and flowers. The farm also grows specialized items to get kids excited about farming, including a cucamelon: a tiny cucumber that looks like a little watermelon.
“Exposing young people and adults to this shows that it is possible to have this type of experience in New York,” farm manager Ciara Sidell says. “It opens people’s minds to what they could be doing in their own lives.”
Worth the trip: On Sunday, the park is hosting an urban farming bike tour, which will roll through the NYC Parks 5-Borough Green Roof, a 45,000-square-foot garden on the island, and the Randall’s Island Urban Farm itself. It’s free; just BYO bike. Wards Meadow Loop, Randall’s Island. Visit during the open house from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays, with “Art on the Farm” activities from 2 to 4 p.m., through mid-October
Hellgate Farm
Rachel Mukon/Hellgate Farm
Hellgate may be the most badass name for a farm in the city, but it’s actually not one site, it’s a whole network of rooftop and residential gardens across Astoria and other parts of Queens. Founded in 2011, the project turns underutilized plots into environmentally friendly green spaces and productive gardens, selling produce at local markets and through a subscription service. Converting concrete to green space is something environmentalists say is key to capturing carbon dioxide in the city and absorbing rain, which helps keep the waterways clean.
Get your hands dirty: Hellgate Farm offers to teach you the ins and outs of rooftop farming through classes, an apprenticeship program and volunteer days. Check the Web site for more info before the growing season ends in October; various addresses in Queens
FILED UNDER FARMING , FARMS , NEW YORK CITY , OUTDOOR ACTIVITY
Atlanta Suburb Working With Organizations, Government To Build Up Urban Agriculture
Atlanta nonprofit Food Well Alliance is a collaborative network of local food leaders heading up a new program it believes will be a game-changer for urban agriculture in cities across metro Atlanta
City of East Point Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham signs the City Agriculture Plan MOU with Allison Duncan, Atlanta Regional Commission Principal Planner (left) and Food Well Alliance’s Kim Karris, Executive Director; Will Sellers, Deputy Director and Sarah Benedict, Operations Coordinator.
Photo © Caleb Jones
The City of East Point has been selected to pilot a new City Agriculture Plan in partnership with the Atlanta Regional Commission
August 28, 2019
Posted by Patrick Williams
Atlanta, GA — Atlanta nonprofit Food Well Alliance is a collaborative network of local food leaders heading up a new program it believes will be a game-changer for urban agriculture in cities across metro Atlanta. According to a press release, the City Agriculture Plan will do exactly what its name says: bring growers, community leaders, and city officials together — guided by the planning expertise of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) — to develop city-wide plans that prioritize urban agriculture. The end goal? Thriving community gardens and urban farms providing greater access to locally grown food across the metro Atlanta region, which translates to healthier people, environments, and communities.
After a thorough exploration process with seven metro cities earlier this year, Food Well Alliance has announced the City of East Point has been selected to pilot the new City Agriculture Plan. The plan will begin with a community engagement and asset-mapping phase led by Food Well Alliance, followed by a six-month planning process undertaken with support from ARC. Once the plan is developed, Food Well Alliance will guide the implementation of the plan and provide a minimum of $75,000 in funding to help the community bring it to life.
“We are thrilled the City of East Point will be joining us in this exciting new endeavor,” said Food Well Alliance Executive Director Kim Karris. “We believe that East Point is uniquely poised to take bold steps and become a national model for urban agriculture. The work begins today, and it couldn’t come at a more crucial time. Metro Atlanta is one of the fastest growing regions in the country, and our cities are rapidly becoming more developed. This threatens the long-term viability of community gardens and farms. The City Agriculture Plan paves a way for city officials to work directly with growers and community leaders to determine the policies, ordinances, and programs that will move the needle most effectively.”
As the City Agriculture Planning process gets underway in East Point, six other metro Atlanta cities that rallied to pilot the program will receive funding support to catalyze their own urban agriculture initiatives: Alpharetta, Clarkston, Hapeville, Lawrenceville, Lovejoy, and Pine Lake. “The level of enthusiasm demonstrated in all seven cities shows us that we are onto something - that people want community spaces to reconnect to where their food comes from - so we are going to keep building on the momentum,” Karris said.
Nearly 500 people attended Community Food Forums held in the seven cities this February and March to learn more about City Agriculture Planning and share their ideas. Over time, Food Well Alliance aims to help develop City Agriculture Plans in all 54 cities in its five-county region serving Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties.
Funding for the City Agriculture Plan pilot has been made possible by The Zeist Foundation and Food Well Alliance founding benefactor, the James M. Cox Foundation.
“We are truly humbled and honored by being selected to create and implement the first City Agriculture Plan in the region,” said City of East Point Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham. “This amazing partnership with Food Well Alliance and the Atlanta Regional Commission will be impactful and transform our City. The intense focus on community engagement and leadership throughout our City Agriculture Planning process will help ensure sustainability of the projects implemented to systemically address our food access challenges.”
“The City of East Point is extremely excited about its partnership with Food Well Alliance,” said Maceo Rogers, CEcD, director, Department of Economic Development for the City of East Point.
“It marks the beginning of a new collaboration between the City, residents, businesses and metro area organizations all uniting together to take a holistic approach to transforming the overall health of the community through access to local food production, community gardens, and farms.”
“Local agriculture is a key part of developing healthy communities,” said Sam Shenbaga, manager of ARC’s Community Development Group. “ARC is proud to support community agriculture and put our resources behind initiatives that improve our region starting at the local level."
Australia: This Car Park Turned Urban Farm Has Grown 300 kg of Produce For People In Need
Forget the assumption that cities have a lack of space available to grow fresh produce. This experimental urban farm proves that it's possible to grow masses of vegetables in a space as small as a car park
Produce grown in the urban farm in Port Melbourne. (William Hamilton-Coates)
28 August 2019
Forget the assumption that cities have a lack of space available to grow fresh produce. This experimental urban farm proves that it's possible to grow masses of vegetables in a space as small as a car park.
By Yasmin Noone
An urban farm project in Melbourne, powered by coffee compost and food waste that would otherwise go to the landfill, has successfully reached its target and grown around 300 kilograms of vegetables and herbs for people in need.
The farm, spread across two empty car spaces in Port Melbourne industrial parking lot, was originally intended to be a 12-month experimental project run by Cirrus Fine Coffee, Biofilta and Australian Ecosystems.
But having already generated 360 kilograms of produce in under eight months and donated more than 90 per cent of food grown to OzHarvest, the farm will now remain functioning on-site indefinitely.
"So an urban farm like this aims to tackle the existence of food deserts in cities like Melbourne, and improve the nutrition of people in need.”
“In our cities, we have food deserts – areas where there are high concentrations of fast food outlets,” says Brendan Condon, director of the three sustainability companies involved in the collaboration.
“But many people can’t get access to nutrient-dense, high-quality food. So an urban farm like this aims to tackle the existence of food deserts in cities like Melbourne, and improve the nutrition of people in need.”
OzHarvest collects the produce grown at the urban farm in Port Melbourne. (Image: William Hamilton-Coates)
The small farm will now be used as a test case for a much bigger scale rooftop farm, Melbourne Skyfarm, to be built on a larger parking lot in the heart of the city in 2020.
“We tend to think that cities are congested places with no space, but in Melbourne, we have huge amounts of spare, under-utilised space to be growing food,” explains Condon.
“On top of that, we have huge streams of organic waste streams that come out of our cities, as well as massive amounts of water running off our rooftops. We could be using the water and organic waste and putting it back into urban farming.
“This small project proves that cities can be really food abundant and we can grow huge amounts of food in small spaces.”
How coffee compost and food waste is charging this urban farm
The farm's recipe for success is multifactorial. Firstly, it uses water-efficient wicking beds. But the real secret seems to lie in the soil, featuring composted coffee grounds and coffee chaff from the company’s roaster, as well as composted organic waste from South Melbourne Market.
Composted coffee grounds contain a large amount of minerals such as potassium, magnesium and phosphorus, calcium and iron, making them a good additive into compost. They are also a valuable source of nitrogen.
The organic waste from the markets includes fish residues. “That’s fish guts, heads, bones and innards,” he says. “Fish residues turbocharges your garden, as it’s high in nitrogen.”
Off-cuts from produce stalls at South Melbourne Market also make it into the farm’s compost heap.
“Fish residues turbocharges your garden, as it’s high in nitrogen.”
South Melbourne Market stall-holder, Alan Li from Fruits on Coventry, tells SBS he contributes masses fruit and vegetable waste to the farm.
“We sell around 45-50 tonnes of fresh food a week,” says Li. “So we fill around three green bins a day of green waste, plus two extra bins of green waste from the oranges we juice for our customers. In total, that’s about 5 big bins of green waste a day. That’s a lot of green waste that we produce, which doesn’t end up in landfill.”
Li explains leaves, off-cuts and leftover produce from the stall goes into green waste bins, before being hot composted and then donated to the urban farm for fertiliser.
“We are using our green waste to create a benefit for the community as most of the food grown at the urban farm goes towards feeding the homeless and people in need. I’m really happy with the outcome.”
Volunteers work on the urban farm, spread across two car spaces in the Cirrus Fine Coffee parking lot in Melbourne. (Image: William Hamilton-Coates)
Since the project started in January this year, the double car-park garden has grown heritage varieties of tomatoes, corn, zucchini, pumpkin, spring onion, beetroot, rainbow chard, spinach, silverbeet, flowers to attract beneficial insects and also a range of herbs like chives, basil, oregano and coriander.
Although winter has been slow, Condon believes that spring will reap a plentiful harvest.
“We can’t grow all of the diverse food plants that comprise the entire modern diet,” says Condon.
“But by volume, weight and value, we can punch a big hole in city food demands within city limits by using readily available organics that we currently treat as waste.”
Resetting The Table: An Aquaponic Farm Rooted In Community
The sun is beating down on Oko Farms, and goldfish the size of sandals swim lazy circles through a tank of water shaded by a tarp-covered tent. Sunflowers sway in the wind, a light breeze rustles through planter beds, and bees hum as they move between clusters of bright little flowers
Elazar and the camera crew head to Bushwick, New York to meet the woman behind New York City's largest outdoor aquaponic farm
August 27, 2019
To View The Video, Please Click Here
[Photographs: Vicky Wasik. Video: Serious Eats Video.]
Editor's note: Resetting the Table is a monthly Serious Eats video series celebrating the diverse foodways that inform the way we eat in America. In each segment, Elazar Sontag cooks and talks with someone whose work in food, farming, or social justice is making a difference.
The sun is beating down on Oko Farms, and goldfish the size of sandals swim lazy circles through a tank of water shaded by a tarp-covered tent. Sunflowers sway in the wind, a light breeze rustles through planter beds, and bees hum as they move between clusters of bright little flowers. It’s not the kind of scene you expect to find in noisy, traffic-jammed Brooklyn, squeezed between a pizza shop and a banner promising "Fast & Professional!!" tax preparation services. But on this plot of land in Bushwick, Yemi Amu has transformed an abandoned concrete lot into New York City’s largest outdoor aquaponic farm.
Yemi utilizes the space on her farm to grow many of the vegetables she ate growing up in the coastal city of Lagos, Nigeria. Alongside onions and kale, she also grows gburé (water leaf), clove basil, several varieties of rice, sorghum, and other hard-to-find vegetables and herbs for Nigerian chef friends to incorporate into their cooking.
[Photograph: Vicky Wasik]
Aquaponic farming is a sustainable method of growing plants and raising fish simultaneously, perfect for areas like this one, where a fire hydrant is the most accessible source of water. In aquaponics, water from a large freshwater fish tank is filtered to remove solid waste, then it's pumped through pipes into plant beds, providing the plants with nutrient-dense fertilizer. The plants filter out any toxic waste from the water, so that it’s clean when it returns to the fish tank, and the cycle repeats. This method of farming uses just a fraction of the water that conventional methods use.
Other farmers turned the Bushwick lot down, since without a water source it wasn’t farmable land. But Yemi saw the empty lot’s potential for aquaponic farming, and got to work.
Oko Farms before and during the building process. [Photographs: Courtesy of Yemi Amu.]
The 2,500-square-foot farm she has created acts as a community space of sorts. Students regularly visit Oko Farms to learn about aquaponic farming, and Yemi welcomes anyone in the community to wander through and learn more about what she’s doing. When she's not tending to her own farm, Yemi helps build aquaponic farms throughout New York.
Early one morning, I headed to Oko with the Serious Eats camera crew to meet Yemi, learn about aquaponic farming and the incredible work she’s doing in her community, and to cook lunch on the beautiful farm.
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ELAZAR SONTAG ASSISTANT EDITOR
Elazar Sontag is a writer from Oakland, California, living in Brooklyn. He’s the author of Flavors of Oakland: A Cookbook in 20 Stories, a book about home cooks and their food cultures. He's written for the Washington Post, New York Magazine, Vice, and this excellent website. Find him on Instagram: e_zar
Mucci Farms Acquires Orangeline Farms And Announces Expansion Plans
Mucci Farms announces that it has acquired controlling interest of Leamington, Ontario based Orangeline Farms, including its existing greenhouse and warehouse facilities, and additional land with plans for expansion. Subsequently, the company also announced additional expansion plans in Canada and the United States
August 21st, 2019 (Kingsville, Ontario)
Mucci Farms announces that it has acquired controlling interest of Leamington, Ontario based Orangeline Farms, including its existing greenhouse and warehouse facilities, and additional land with plans for expansion. Subsequently, the company also announced additional expansion plans in Canada and the United States.
Duffy Kniaziew
Bert Mucci
“It’s an exciting time for the company as we continue our aggressive expansion plans to increase our local and regional production,” says Bert Mucci, CEO. “The Orangeline acquisition comes with a 32-acre greenhouse and a warehouse with additional land totalling 100 acres. Consumers are demanding more local production, and we’re listening. We also have plans in place to build on the additional land that was received as part of the agreement.”
Founded in 2000 by the Kniaziew family, Orangeline Farms is an award-winning grower predominantly known for their unique pepper offerings grown under the Zing!TM Healthy Foods brand. “In searching for growth opportunities for both Orangeline’s staff and our ever loyal customers, the chance to partner with a world class organization like Mucci Farms was an easy decision to make,” said Duffy Kniaziew, Founder. Mucci Farms will continue to use the Zing!TM brand for the foreseeable future as it has quietly established itself among retailers and consumers. “Duffy and his team have done a great job with the brand and it’s familiar in our region, so we’re not looking to make any dramatic changes at the moment,” said Emily Murracas, Director of Marketing.
Originally a 60-acre project in Huron, Ohio, the company has also acquired additional land adjacent to the current property to increase the totality of the enterprise to 75-acres. “The first 24-acre phase is in its second season of harvesting, and we’ll be building two more identical ranges. Phase two construction is already underway,” remarked Bert Mucci. “The Ohio program has gotten off to a great start and we’re looking forward to growing our presence in the community and the regional market.”
Mucci Farms is a vertically integrated fruit and vegetable grower that owns and operates 250-acres of tomato, pepper, cucumber, lettuce and strawberry greenhouses in Canada and the United States, with a partner-grower network of 1500 acres across North America. Committed to maximizing efficiencies, the organization makes sizeable investments in automation and technology to provide consumers with the most flavourful fruits and vegetables in the market.
In addition to harvesting and packing equipment, these investments include a significant acreage of grow lights that allow the company to grow locally 365 days per year, with an end goal of equipping 100% of their hi-tech glass facilities with High Pressure Sodium and/or LED lights.
US: Idaho - Family Farm Serves Mushrooms To Treasure Valley
Mason and Tia Groves built the entire farm from three shipping containers and now have their mushrooms shipped to five restaurants in the Treasure Valley, to Cliff’s Country Market in Caldwell and to the Nampa Farmers Market
By RACHEL SPACEK rspacek@idahopress.com
July 29, 2019
PARMA — Tia Groves described her husband, Mason Groves, as an “entrepreneurial person with passion oozing out of his pores.” Last fall, that passion took the form of a hand-built, family-run mushroom farm in Parma.
On Wednesday morning, Tia Groves walked in and out of the three shipping containers-turned-mushroom farms with baby Abel on her hip. Groves Country Mushroom Farm had its first full month of operation in November and plans to continue growing mushrooms year-round to keep up with the demand.
Mason and Tia Groves built the entire farm from three shipping containers and now have their mushrooms shipped to five restaurants in the Treasure Valley, to Cliff’s Country Market in Caldwell and to the Nampa Farmers Market. They are also in a number of community supported agriculture bundles, a service in which people can get local produce delivered to them on a regular basis.
Tia Groves said she believes there are at least two other mushroom farmers in the Treasure Valley. She said that the competition among the three is minimal since they see a demand for mushrooms in the valley.
The couple met at Vallivue High School in 2009. The couple spent a few years apart when Mason Groves spent time on a fishing boat in Alaska and Tia Groves went to school and worked in Chicago. They rekindled their relationship in 2014 back in the Treasure Valley.
After having their first child, Jett, the two realized they couldn’t raise a family on an Alaskan fishing boat and decided to move back to the valley.
When searching for a way to make a living in the valley, Mason Groves, who said he has always been fascinated by agriculture, came up with the idea of growing mushrooms after talking with his grandfather, a longtime crop farmer in Parma.
“After that I dove right in,” he said.
Mason Groves said he started reading books on how to grow mushrooms and starting small growing facilities to work it out in trial and error.
Still, to make a living, Mason Groves continues to work on a fishing boat in Alaska, away from his family. He said growing mushrooms started as a way to make money while also being with his family. He is trying to get out of the commercial fishing business.
While Mason Groves is away fishing, Tia Groves and Justis Kelly, the farm’s only other employee, work on harvesting and moving the mushrooms between shipping containers.
Kelly is living near the farm for the summer and helps harvest the mushrooms twice a day.
One of the greatest challenges, Mason Groves said, was the consistency involved in growing a product.
“This is a weekly crop — you are on a schedule, doing the same thing every week, and any hiccup that shows up impacts the clients that are expecting mushrooms every week,” he said.
THE PROCESS
Mushrooms, Tia Groves explained, typically thrive in the Pacific Northwest, where it is cold and moist nearly year-round.
“In order to grow them in a climate like this, we try to mimic the way they would grow there,” she said.
Groves Country Mushrooms are grown indoors, in three shipping containers, so the farmers can regulate the temperatures of the containers to keep them cool and moist despite the weather outdoors.
Currently, the farm is growing three different colors of oyster mushrooms, chestnut mushrooms and lion’s mane. Tia Groves said in the fall the farm can grow as many as 11 different types.
The first shipping container on the farm has a refrigerator where the harvested mushrooms are preserved and where they await being shipped to consumers.
The second shipping container contains bags of wood chips and the mushroom spawn, what the mushroom grows from. This shipping container acts as the incubation chamber for the bags of wood chips and spawn to form mycelium, the vegetative part of a fungus or fungus-like bacterial colony.
After the bags fill with mycelium, they go into the last shipping container, or the fruiting chamber, where the mushrooms eventually sprout. The fruiting chamber is the foggiest and most humid of the containers. Once in the fruiting chamber, a slit is made in the bags of mycelium, allowing oxygen and light in so the mushrooms can grow.
The mushrooms start sprouting as pin sets, miniature mushrooms, and then grow into full clusters.
Once the mushrooms are in full clusters, they are harvested and put in the refrigerator in the first shipping container.
The excess wood chips and used mycelium from the plastic bags gets composted onto a pile on the farm. The compost is used on other parts of the Groveses’ property, like vegetable and flower beds. Mason Groves said they would eventually like to use the compost to grow other vegetables.
Water is used throughout the shipping containers to clean the space and regulate the environments inside. Once the water is used, it drains into a settling tank and is used on the compost pile.
Mason Groves said what little water is used in the process doesn’t go to waste.
Tia Groves said the family hopes to introduce new types of mushrooms to their farm in the fall and spring. She said the small farm is still in a trial-and-error period.
According to a ResearchAndMarkets.com report, the global mushroom market accounted for $38 billion in 2017. In the United States, the value of mushroom production was $1.22 billion in 2017, an 8 percent increase in value since 2007, according to a report commissioned by the American Mushroom Institute. The total crop in the United States was 929 million pounds of mushrooms.
Groves Country Mushrooms is expecting to triple in size by the first of the year after they move into a new building and keep the three shipping containers.
Mason Groves said the Treasure Valley community has been helpful and nice as the couple’s mushroom operation has gone through some ups and downs. He said their customers are countable on one hand, and he has personal relationships with all of them.
Rachel Spacek is the Latino Affairs reporter for the Idaho Press. You can reach her at rspacek@idahopress.com. Follow her on twitter @RachelSpacek.
All Photos: Brian Myrick / Idaho Press
NatureFresh™ Farms Introduces New Procurement Manager in Mexico
With over 21 years of experience in the agriculture industry, Paul Hulsbos will be taking on the role of Procurement Manager at NatureFresh™ Farms in Mexico. Among his new responsibilities, Paul will be aligning growers to support NatureFresh™ Farms winter programs as well as set up yearly commitments
Leamington, ON (July 18, 2019) - NatureFresh™ Farms announces and welcomes the newest addition, Paul Hulsbos, to their sales team as Procurement Manager based in Mexico.
With over 21 years of experience in the agriculture industry, Paul Hulsbos will be taking on the role of Procurement Manager at NatureFresh™ Farms in Mexico. Among his new responsibilities, Paul will be aligning growers to support NatureFresh™ Farms winter programs as well as set up yearly commitments.
Originally from the Netherlands Paul began his career in agriculture working at a family owned importer/exporter company and was responsible for sales and marketing of produce based in Holland. Since then, Paul has relocated to Mexico where he has been working to keep up with industry growth and be closer to the market.
Excited to begin a new journey with NatureFresh™ Farms, Paul considers it to be a defining moment in his career. “I’m looking forward to contributing my experience to the procurement team at NatureFresh™ Farms while strengthening their presence in Mexico,” said Paul. “My new adventure with them is a life changing decision but one I am very much excited about.”
General Manager; John Ketler, also shared his excitement for Paul’s arrival. “We are thrilled to have Paul join the team,” said John. “He brings a great amount of experience to this new position and will greatly assist in building relations and our efforts in year-round production in Mexico.”
As NatureFresh™ Farms focuses on company growth and developing relations, Paul’s presence in Mexico will strengthen intercommunication between locations in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. NatureFresh™ Farms is excited for their future with the continuous expansion of their team, their advancements in technology and product innovation allowing them to provide fresh produce all year round.
How India's Hydroponic Farmers Are Building Businesses
In the middle of an industrial building in the Andheri East neighbourhood of Mumbai is a farm. It is spread across 1,000 sq ft and grows 2,500 plants. It is no ordinary farm. The hum of an air conditioner greets visitors into the room, tube lights replace sunlight, and there’s no soil on the patch
Urban hydroponic farmers are making it possible to eat fresh, pesticide-free produce, with no soil use
BY JOANNA LOBO
PUBLISHED: Jul 13, 2019
Herbivore Farms, in Mumbai's Andheri, is spread across 1,000 sq ft and grows about 2,500 plants
In the middle of an industrial building in the Andheri East neighbourhood of Mumbai is a farm. It is spread across 1,000 sq ft and grows 2,500 plants. It is no ordinary farm. The hum of an air conditioner greets visitors into the room, tube lights replace sunlight, and there’s no soil on the patch.
Herbivore Farms is an example of a newly popular and successful type of urban farming—hydroponics. Simply put, it is growing plants in water. Soil is replaced by a water solution that is rich in macronutrients like nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous, calcium nitrate and micronutrients like manganese, zinc etc. A ‘grow system’ controls the balance of nutrition, humidity and temperature, uses less water than soil-based farming and increases yield without chemicals or pesticides.
“There are many advantages to urban farming. The land requirement is quite low, water consumption is 80 percent less, the water is recycled and saved, it is pesticide-free and in cases of high-tech farms there is no real dependency on the weather,” says hydroponic farmer Ajay Naik of Letcetra Agritech in the Sattari district of Goa.
Hydroponic farming is setting up roots all across India. Sakina Rajkotwala and Joshua Lewis, of Herbivore Farms, have come into focus in the last year. In Manori, Linesh Pillai started Terra Farms as a pilot project before taking the idea countrywide. Delhi has Triton Foodworks; Noida has Nature’s Miracle; Chennai has Sriram Gopal’s Future Farms and Rahul Dhoka’s Acqua Farms; and Gurugram-based company, Barton Breeze, has six farms across Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand.
Sakina Rajkotwalla quit her job at Magic Bus to start Herbivore Farms;
Image: Ronit Sarkar
“Hydroponics and other soil-less farming techniques can help us take our agriculture and farming industry to the next level,” adds Naik.
The new farmer
The path to hydroponic farming is paved with good intentions: Sustainable farming and the desire to eat fresh, organic, zero-carbon food.
Rajkotwala and Lewis’ journey began after they quit their jobs at Magic Bus and Directi, respectively, and decided to seek out their purpose in life. The question of ‘who we are’ led them to examine what they eat and how to grow it, and a stint at an Auroville farm, and eating fresh produce, turned out to be the change they sought. “It was a revelatory experience, as it opened our minds to the importance of food,” says Lewis. “We wanted to replicate that farm model—pluck vegetables and eat them fresh—in the urban space.” Hydroponics made the most sense, and they started with a small farm on Rajkotwala’s terrace in Juhu in 2017 and moved to Andheri in 2018.
Herbivore Farms’ set-up is a good example of how a hydroponic farm functions. It consists of a covered germination chamber that uses biodegradable sponge to sprout plants, a nursery where net cups (small planters) are filled with clay pebbles for support and structure, and the grow systems where the plants become fully grown. It involves metal stands, PVC pipes attached to a covered nutrient tank that pumps water to the plants, and tube lights. Once the plant grows roots, it is transferred to a system with higher nutrients in the water, where it is fully grown and harvested.
Everything, from the humidity and temperature levels to the amount of light, nutrients and water, is controlled. Although most hydroponic systems function in a similar manner, every farmer has his/her own customised grow systems, lights, seeds, and growing methods. The farms can be indoors or outdoors (a greenhouse). The vertical system ensures produce is plentiful (vertically stacked plants means there are more of them in the same area) and growth is quick, sometimes within seven days, as they get light round the clock.
At Herbivore, the produce—it comprises sorrel, basil, microgreens, edible flowers, lettuce varieties, Swiss Chard and peppermint—is packed into boxes and sent to customers via a subscription model. Most other farmers sell their produce at markets, gourmet stores, restaurants, cafes and salad bars, and to businesses.
Pillai of UGF Farms (earlier Terra Farms) in Manori, doesn’t just sell his produce at markets in Mumbai, he also sets up grow areas in restaurants, hotels and community spaces and has done so in over 30 locations in five cities, including Moscow. He does this to reduce the journey of the food from farm to consumer. Pillai started his own farming journey in 2014, converting 500 sq ft into a prototype, which he now replicates. The farms he sets up produces microgreens, microherbs and leafy greens. “It is food that grows in a space where it is consumed and never goes through logistics. Today, food takes much longer to get to our plates and in the interim, most valued nutrients are lost. By this method, food is consumed right after harvesting… it cannot get fresher,” he says.
Terra Farms, which is started by Linesh Pillai in Mumbai’s Manori last year
In Chennai, Rahul Dhoka has an 80 sq ft terrace farm producing kale, bok choy, Italian basil, thyme and mint, all for his family of six. The industrial biotech graduate started out in the organic business before turning to hydroponic farming last year. He now has three farms run by friends and family but his focus is on his hydroponic farming consultancy, Acqua Farms.
Experiments with food
Some soil-free farmers aren’t content with just growing their own vegetables and selling them. They want to spread the good word through workshops, sales of kits and systems, and advice.
Dhoka believes in encouraging more people to become farmers. “After we started in 2016, we got many requests for helping people build systems that could work in confined spaces such as balconies and terraces,” he says. Acqua Farms sells affordable ready-to-grow kits priced between `750 and `7,500, which include pipes, cups, growing media, four varieties of seeds, nutrients for three months, and an instruction manual. “We offer consultations for two harvests. Customers send us updates every week and we give instructions and modify things,” he says.
What Dhoka and other consultants are also selling is the idea that ‘anyone can do this’. There could a downside to that notion. “Today, people seem more hell bent on selling equipment and setting up farms but not helping you grow them. There’s a common misconception that it’s modern and easy to do and once you set up a system, everything takes care of itself,” says Rajkotwala. When Herbivore Farms began, the duo had no external help or experience, and persevered through trial-and-error, online tutorials, videos and articles. Hydroponics, she believes, is a continuous learning process. It isn’t a one-size-fits-all concept.
It’s why Vijay Yelmalle started the Center for Research in Alternative Farming Technologies (Craft) in 2016 in Navi Mumbai, training over 2,000 aspiring urban farmers in hydroponics and aquaponics, the latter being a system in which water from a fish tank is pumped to the roots of plants growing above it. Yelmalle has a 15-acre plot in Raigad where he is prototyping systems for aquaponics and hydroponics. His company is incubated by Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR).
Training takes place on the weekends and includes talks about the basics of agriculture, organic farming, the produce market and suppliers, hydro- and acqua-ponics, and how to build simple systems. Trainees are then added to WhatsApp groups that include field experts. “Urbanites who come here have read about hydroponics; they have vacant land or homes, and want to start their own business. They think agriculture is very easy. My intention is to make them aware of all aspects, good and bad, and let them decide. If they go ahead—about 40 per cent do—I provide support,” he says. “This is not a part-time job and you cannot pass it on to someone else.”
For the serious farmer, there are no fixed templates to learn from, and most prefer doing their own research and experiments. Legal issues and permissions are an unexplored area. There isn’t enough material on how to grow Indian vegetables using this method, which is why most farmers end up growing ‘exotic vegetables’ with imported seeds. Many of the components required to build these grow systems have to be imported too, increasing the carbon footprint of what is a low-carbon cultivation method. The initial investment into the farm can be quite high; the cost of setting up one acre of land can start from ₹30-35 lakh.
“The only disadvantage of this method is that it is capital-intensive,” says Dhruv Khanna of Delhi-based Triton Foodworks. “But, from a business point of view, at conservative figures you can break even in three years or less.” He and his friends started out by growing strawberries on a 750 sq m set-up at Sainik Farms, near Delhi, in 2014.
It’s been a rollercoaster ride since: An investor came in but left soon, one of the four original founders dropped out, and their first greenhouse was pulled down by the municipal authorities, who believed they were building a house.
Triton then picked up turnkey projects to supplement the income from selling farm produce. In 2018, they set up an outdoor hydroponic farm in Gurugram, selling vegetables under the label Chop Chop by Tritons. They cut costs by using local material, customising their lights, stands and systems; they import only the cooling systems for the greenhouse. “We have saved over 2.5 billion litres of water using our technique in four years,” says Khanna. “Our vertical systems grow food in just one-eighth of the area required for traditional farming.”
Terra Farms, which is started by Linesh Pillai in Mumbai’s Manori last year
The bigger picture
Hydroponics is beneficial, not just to the consumer who gets to eat pesticide-free, fresh produce, but also to the farmers who are not dependent on erratic weather, natural water levels, and soil contamination. “Climate change poses a major challenge to food production,” says Naik. “Hydroponics can be conducted in controlled environments and within the safety of greenhouses. The cherry on the cake is better quality food.”
Rajkotwala and Lewis believe this sustainable form of farming can make a difference to the country’s agricultural sector. Herbivore Farms is working on figuring out how to grow local Indian produce through hydroponics and how to make their current produce relevant to people or “teach people how to use Swiss chard to make palak paneer”.
Meanwhile, Pillai puts the onus on the city, community, and individual to make the change. “One can produce as much as 100 kg a month in as little as 1,000 sq ft of space all year round. A typical window in a home can produce up to 1 kg every week. Just imagine what we could achieve if every household could grow that much.”
How One Urban Farm Is Breaking Down Barriers To Healthy Food
Today, Project Eats creates and maintains networks of urban farms in low-income neighborhoods around New York City without much access to fresh food. The guiding principle on these farms: small plots; high yield
“If We Can Grow Food In New York City, We Can Grow It Everywhere.”
July 5, 2019
Irene Archos
For over a decade during the Great Recession, Linda Goode Bryant gathered research and edited segments for an independent documentary about the global food crisis, which had pushed prices so high that people with limited income faced serious barriers to access to healthy food.
After reviewing hours of film shot across the world depicting the nutrition challenges facing the urban poor, she put the camera down and turned the computer off. “What kind of world do we live in that people have to eat mud pies in order to survive?” she asked herself. That’s when the idea for Project Eats was born.
Today, Project Eats creates and maintains networks of urban farms in low-income neighborhoods around New York City without much access to fresh food. The guiding principle on these farms: small plots; high yield.
“We should be able to grow our own food,” Bryant explains. “Food is ultimately tied to social justice. The belief behind Project Eats is that we should live healthy lives regardless of income.”
Each farm is both invested in and reflective of its surrounding community, from employees (young people and students from nearby schools), to pricing (sliding-scale), to programming (Saturday “storytelling” breakfasts and farm training).
The first site, Amboy Community Farm, launched in Brownsville in 2009. It’s now used as a production and training site, supplying produce for farm stands throughout the city. After 10 years, Project Eats has expanded its reach to include 10 urban farms across nearly five acres of land.
In a good year, the group distributes nearly 40,000 pounds of fresh, organically grown greens and vegetables to communities that would otherwise face little access and high prices.
The organization’s largest urban farm sits on a former parking lot under the shadow of the Marcus Garvey Apartments in Brownsville. Since 2014, under the care of two full-time urban farmers, the farm sprouts leafy greens in neat rows: Spinach and mustard greens, arugula and radishes, bok choy and broccolini and more provide a welcome green contrast to the red brick and gray concrete of surrounding buildings.
Located in areas often referred to as a “food deserts,” the farms become a vehicle for introducing city kids to an agrarian way of living. An after-school program employs teens and children for the summer to introduce them to sustainable food production, and, on a more basic level, invite them to interact with nature in a way that’s rare in the concrete-laden environments in which they have grown up.
The Project Eats ‘farmacy’ program, born from a 2017 partnership with Brownsville Action Health Center and Gotham Health in East New York, sought to expand urban farming from grocery shopping to health care. Doctors participating in the program prescribe fresh produce to patients — either in addition to or in place of their synthetic drugs — and the urban farm fills the prescription.
The vision Bryant conceived of back in 2008 has grown to include three farms in Brownsville and one in East New York, plus three more locations in Manhattan and Queens. The first Bronx farm is in development, as is a 10th on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
Bryant, both a Guggenheim Fellow and a Peabody Award recipient, notes that just making farm-fresh greens available is not the same as increasing demand for them. The choice to use and cook fresh food is more complex than just having it readily available.
“No matter what income class you are,” she explains, “ordering Dominos is easier than preparing fresh food at home. We’ve succumbed to the incessant marketing of such convenient, readily available foods.”
But she remains optimistic about the movement. “If we can grow food in New York City, we can grow it everywhere.”
Irene Archos is an educator and a freelance writer. You can follow her work on her website.
Volunteers at one of Project Eats' gardens. Eagle photo by Irene Archos
A look Inside Balance Farms, Downtown Toledo's Aquaponics Operation
Hidden from prying eyes and tucked beneath a four-story steel and concrete parking garage in the heart of downtown Toledo sits the most unlikely of things — a farm. But this one has no tractors, silos, or scarecrows
JUN 21, 2019
JON CHAVEZ
Hidden from prying eyes and tucked beneath a four-story steel and concrete parking garage in the heart of downtown Toledo sits the most unlikely of things — a farm.
But this one has no tractors, silos, or scarecrows.
Go inside Balance Farms, an 8,168-square foot high-tech “aquaponics” operation located on the first floor of the Tower on the Maumee’s parking garage on Summit Street, and you will find multiple rows of tall racks filled with herbs and leafy greens that are growing robustly in black plastic trays.
Each tray is bathed by ultraviolet light and filled by a three-layer sandwich of nutrient-laden water, shredded coconut husk, and a styrofoam sheet with rows of neatly-spaced holes to hold the hydroponically-grown crops.
“There’s never a rainy day, there’s never a cloudy day in here. We have a controlled light spectrum that gives each plant exactly what they need, and we go from seed to harvest in about four weeks. Every week we’re harvesting about 500 heads of lettuce,” said Prakash “P.K.” Karamchandani, of Balance Pan-Asian Grille, which is the prime beneficiary of Balance Farms’ bountiful and organic harvests.
Mr. Karamchandani and his business partner, HoChan Jang, co-own the Balance restaurant chain, which they founded in 2010 on a premise of tangy and exotic flavors using the freshest ingredients possible.
But Mr. Jang, the chain’s executive chef, menu planner, and in-house foodie, grew increasingly frustrated that his meal planning and menu experimentation was limited by his produce suppliers.
Some items they could not procure, while others could not be obtained regularly or in consistent quantity.
“I’ve experimented with a lot of different peppers. But for some dishes, they’re just not going to have the genuine flavors because I can’t always get what I need,” Mr. Jang said.
So in mid-2016 the two began investigating a way to get the freshest ingredients, in large quantities, and at the exact time when those ingredients would be needed.
Their $715,000 solution was an aquaponics farm adjacent to their downtown Toledo restaurant.
Aquaponics is a self-contained symbiotic system that recirculates waste water from a fish tank through a vegetable bed. The nutrient-rich wastewater feeds the plants, and the plants filter the water to keep the fish healthy.
Neither of the two owners knew much about aquaponics, so they purchased an existing small aquaponics firm in Toledo, Great Greens, which ran an aquaponics farm in the Uptown neighborhood near downtown Toledo and was supplying greens to a small list of area upscale restaurants.
Balance Farms, which is 15 times larger than the operation Great Greens had, went operational in mid-May and already is supplying lettuce and herbs (mostly basil) to Balance Grille’s four Toledo area stores plus a new store in Cleveland. The basil crop has been large enough to sell leftovers at Walt Churchill’s Markets locally and Plum Markets in Ann Arbor.
Plants grow in a multitude of rows inside the 9,000 sq. ft. Balance aquaponics space.(Phillip Kaplan/The Blade)
About 80 percent of the farm will be functioning by July and Mr. Karamchandani expects production levels to hit 100 percent by 2021. A system that will house fruiting plants like tomatoes and peppers hasn’t been set up yet but should be operating by this summer.
Modern aquaponics has been around only since about 1979 and it didn’t really take off until the 1990s.
“We’re now past it being a fad stage and people want it to work long-term. People are committed to it and it has taken hold,” said Allen Pattillo, an aquaculture researcher and a specialist in aquaponics at Auburn University in Alabama.
However, aquaponics still faces some real hurdles, he added. For one thing, it’s expensive on a per-cost basis.
“It’s hard to make money in agriculture just in general terms. The margins are thin,” Mr. Pattillo said.
With aquaponics, “The profitability, that’s the tough part,” he said.
In regular agriculture, the distribution markets available to produce growers have long since been established. But that isn’t the case for produce grown using aquaponics.
“The biggest problem that most (aquaponics) people have is they have a hard time selling the stuff they grow. It’s a big problem finding markets for it,” Mr. Pattillo said. “If (Mr. Karamchandani and Mr. Jang) can take theirs onto the retail side already in their restaurants and sell the rest to whomever, that’s a great start.”
Currently, Mr. Pattillo said he is unaware of any restaurant chains that are using aquaponics to vertically integrate their supply chain into their overall business.
“There’s a fellow with a place close to Minneapolis. He’s got a garden center and an organic farm and a restaurant. It’s not all on site, but he’s kind of vertically integrating,” Mr. Pattillo said.
A company in Wisconsin, Superior Fresh, is using aquaponics to grow produce on an industrial scale, but it functions as a produce supplier with its crop going to restaurants and retailers.
The jury is still out, Mr. Pattillo said, as to whether the public really cares enough to pay a little more to buy produce grown with aquaponics.
“We all say we would like to buy some of that nicer stuff, but when it comes right down to it, we might not,” he said. “But people are more likely to try those new fancy things in a restaurant than in the store,” he added.
The Balance owners might have saved money by using a hydroponic system instead of aquaponics.
In hydroponics, plants are grown in water-fed trays, but unlike aquaponics the water isn’t recovered and fed back into the system and the grower must continually buy nutrients, seeds, and other items.
Mr. Karamchandani said he and Mr. Jang made the decision to spend more for a system that was organic but that also was largely self-sustaining. Once Balance Farms is fully functional, the only large expense will be seeds, and even that expense might be offset by sales of excess produce, mature fish, and other by-products.
“We’ve tried to monetize every aspect of this project,” Mr. Karamchandani said.
For example, a small part of their crop is a fish food called duckweed. And when the waste conversion tanks become too filled, some liquid can be drained off, bottled, and sold as liquid plant food.
So far, the urban farm project has about 600 fish, mostly tilapia and koi, swimming in 650 gallon tanks. But there is room for 1,200 fish. The fish tanks and additional tanks that mix wastewater and bacteria to create nitrates that plants can absorb are located in a separate room from the plants.
Both plant water and fish water eventually meet in a computer-controlled mixing system that pumps water to one system or another to keep it all balanced. Overall, the fish tanks and water system to feed the plants contain about 26,000 gallons of water.
Inside the plant room, a climate-controlled system using triple filters regulates the air quality and humidity.
Even tiny flies that hover around the plants are there for a specific purpose: they eat mold that can damage plants. And the fly population is strictly controlled — all are females.
If building an aquaponics farm seems like an extreme step to have a “farm-to-table” experience at a fast casual restaurant, Balance Grille’s owners say it’s worth it.
On the food side, Mr. Jang said, Balance can claim without exaggeration fresher and better tasting greens.
“The flavors are much bolder but the textures are so much more delicate,” Mr. Jang said. “The lettuce is sweeter and it has a better texture.”
If menu items call for exotic greens or peppers, Mr. Jang said he now can grow as much as needed. “And it’s not just a certain item. I can grow hybrids. Really, this is a way we can put our own mark on everything we sell,” he said.
On the business side, Mr. Karamchandani said the aquaponics farm enhances Balance’s corporate brand and pledge of freshness. It also will eventually cut costs and provide new revenue streams.
More importantly, it gives the owners a greater measure of control they have long desired.
On its website, Balance promises “fresh meals, where every ingredient is prepared from whole form, right here in the restaurant.” But up until last month, that promise was more a goal than reality.
“Restaurants by and large revolve around delivery of their product by a supplier. But say you’re expecting a shipment of greens,” Mr. Karamchandani said. “Those greens could have been prepped on a Monday and been sitting in a (refrigeration truck) waiting for shipment on a Wednesday.
“All that work for a product that sat on a truck for a day,” he said.
At Balance Farms, produce is harvested at 6 a.m., distributed locally and in use by 11 a.m. at the restaurants, Mr. Karamchandani said.
“This was so worth it for us,” he said. “Food is such a commodity and not needing to give up control on how we get our supply was important.
Plants grow in a multitude of rows inside the 9,000 sq. ft. Balance aquaponics space.(Phillip Kaplan/The Blade)
“Look outside the restaurant industry and there’s vertical integration everywhere. Look at ProMedica and their recent acquisition. That was all about being vertical,” he said.
It takes about six to eight weeks in dirt to grow lettuce conventionally. “We need just four weeks to bring it to harvest and we can rotate crops so that we’re harvesting fresh greens every week,” Mr. Karamdanchani said.
Eventually, 70 percent of everything grown in their mysterious space with covered windows will supply Balance restaurants. The remaining 30 percent will be sold at local grocery stores.
And while Balance Farms is low-key for now, it will not stay in the shadows long.
The two owners plan to show off their investment in an innovative way.
They have an arrangement with Imagination Station to eventually turn their urban farm into a kind of exhibit demonstrating how a sustainable aquaponics farm operates.
Mr. Karamchandani said a live exhibit is a natural fit for Balance’s philosophy.
“People want transparency. They want freshness but they want to be assured how that freshness occurred,” he said. “When this is ready you will see every part, see the entire process of how we grow everything that we put on the table.”
Balance Grille Founders Building Aquaponics Farm In Downtown Toledo
A simplified supply chain, lower food prices and increased quality control are are just three benefits expected from a daring venture by the founders of Toledo-based Balance Pan-Asian Grille
March 9, 2018 | by S.A. Whitehead
A simplified supply chain, lower food prices and increased quality control are are just three benefits expected from a daring venture by the founders of Toledo-based Balance Pan-Asian Grille. Prakash Karamchandani and HoChan Jang are building an 8,600-square-foot aquaponics farm in the middle of downtown Toledo, Ohio, next to the chain's newest location opening this month on Summit Street.
Kale and rainbow swiss chard in the R&D facility's deep water channel setup being used at Toledo aquaponics farm, which is controlled environment agriculture, using no pesticides, allowing immediate consumption of produce. Photo by Jeff Kamp of Plur Films.
Aquaponics is an efficient system of farming that uses fish to cultivate plants, which, in turn, helps purify the water.
And even though it's innovative and very "green," plunking down one of these farms in the middle of the Rust Belt city's downtown may not seem like the choice location for such an operation,
Karamchandani said, for Balance Grille, it's just about perfect.
"Our customers know not just where our ingredients are sourced, they can visit the facility and view the production happen," he said in an interview with QSRWeb, referring to the farm's location adjacent the brand's newest restaurant. "Our brand is gaining visibility in multiple channels, including grocery stores and our brand is differentiated."
The venture has taken about two years, a lot of creative thinking and cutting through miles of red tape with both the property owners and the city of Toledo, but if things work out as planned, the farm promises big payoffs.
"We will be able to offer local organic produce year-round in Ohio's climate," Karamchandani said. "We are connected deeper in our community with new relationships, including with children's science and learning museum, Imagination Station, which will be organizing educational tours for school children and adults."
It may sound like a lofty goal for the four-unit chain, but these restaurateurs like to embrace innovation. Last year, for example, they instituted a "managerless" form of restaurant operation, so this kind of project is right in line with the way these two University of Toledo graduates think.
Of course, QSRweb wanted to know more, so check out our recent interview with Karamchandani.
Q: Local sourcing is a huge demand now from restaurant brands and this certainly is right in line with that. Why was that important enough to your brand to go to the somewhat extreme lengths of operating your own aquaponics facility?
A: I realize "local" has been a buzzword in our industry for several years now, and it's almost becoming cliché. [But] going back to our roots, as restaurateurs, we want to nourish our neighbors/community. From a nutrition perspective, the faster we can get product from the field to the store, the better overall quality we offer to our customers.
From an economic perspective, we're keeping the dollars within our community. From a culinary perspective, we have a direct connection to producers allowing for some really unique opportunities compared to standard "big box" distributors.
Q: When and why did you decide to go for an aquaponics facility?
A: We decided to continue vertical integration in late 2015. We had an existing dry-stock warehouse and distribution servicing our three area restaurants. We added cold refrigerated storage and delivery capability and found we could help a few small producers with their local delivery route.
One of our producers specialized in microgreens and we connected with the aquaponics method of food production, the balanced relationship between fish and plants. Over approximately a year, we began to play with a couple of R&D prototype systems to try and grow a variety of ingredients outside of the microgreens we use on our menu.
Space in the farm was limited (an old warehouse, under 1,700 square feet), so we were unable to move beyond the testing phase. But, we were hooked. In 2017, we purchased the farming operation, formed an operating partnership, and began to develop plans for a production-level facility.
Q: Why downtown Toledo and where are you in the development process?
A: We located the new farm next to our flagship Downtown Toledo Ohio location opening Q1 2018. Its footprint is 8600 square feet, and located in the first-floor retail area of a historic parking garage in the heart of the commercial district. As of the end of February 2018, our space is in the demolition phase of construction while we complete permit approval with the City of Toledo.
Q: So how does this work and what will be grown there?
A: The grow facility will be comprised of the plant grow space, a small tank room/workshop and an office. The plant grow space will be comprised of 15-by-36-foot rack systems, each three to four tiers tall, depending on ceiling height.
Each tier will house specific grow systems with LED grow-spectrum lighting. Racks will be specialized in deep-water channel, dutch-bucket style, and thin-film channel type grow systems. We will be able to section off areas to adjust temperature and humidity, so racks can be grouped and specialized for a specific crop.
Our crops will include leafy greens, micro greens, living and harvest herbs and certain fruiting vegetables (primarily peppers and tomatoes), although we can theoretically produce nearly any crop that grows above ground. We will also have 4-by-600g tanks used to raise tilapia fish, which will be sold live for pond/lake stocking or algae control, not for consumption. In the future, we hope to add freshwater prawn/shrimp propagation to the system.
"Our customers know not just where our ingredients are sourced, they can visit the facility and view the production happen. ... We are connected deeper in our community with new relationships, including with children's science and learning museum, Imagination Station, which will be organizing educational tours for school children and adults."
Q: Operationally, how much will the farm cost to run and how is that being incorporated into your expenses and balance sheet?
A: We have modeled the operating overhead, labor, and debt service into our crop sales internally to our own restaurants, which account for 70 percent of the facility's initial production capacity. Fully burdened, we are conservatively anticipating a 10 percent reduction in ingredient cost from the restaurant's perspective. The remaining 30-plus percent of production capacity will primarily generate profit for the company.
Q: Why aquaponics as opposed to other types of agriculture?
A: Aquaponics, like hydroponics, allows for year-round growth and consistent crop harvest, perfect for restaurant supply purposes. [Likewise], hydroponics often uses chemical fertilizer and has a high water waste ratio. This combination's runoff would add to an existing algae problem in our area of Lake Erie, similar to traditional field or hoop-house type agriculture.
Aquaponics is differentiated because it is inherently organic: Feed the fish, and allow the plants to act as the water's filter. On an ongoing basis, regarding water waste we are only adding water to offset the system's natural evaporation, a few gallons per day.
Q: Where have you turned for expert input on this operation and making it work business-wise?
A: Our operating partner is obviously a great resource. But our area has a rich agricultural heritage, and we have community resources like the Center for Innovative Food Technology and Agricultural Incubator, less than 30 minutes away. We have also visited multiple commercial aquaponics facilities in the Midwest to learn from their experiences and acquire best practices.
Q: Are you aware of other restaurant brands globally using an aquaponics farm for sourcing?
A: As of this interview, we are unaware of any restaurant brands vertically integrated to the degree we are. Generally, we don't make it a practice to watch other restaurant brands. Our goal has always been to focus on our own cultural values. If we are missing out on a similar effort, we'd love to connect and share insights!
Q: Where do you see this going in the future and how will you measure for success?
A: If Balance Farms continues to be a successful part of our brand, we plan to add an aquaponics facility to each metro area we grow to. We will be watching basic financial and operational metrics, including profit margin, the effect on our restaurant's P&L and volume of product produced.
Our only advice (to others in the business) is to follow your passion where it leads you.
Topics: Sustainability
Award-winning veteran print and broadcast journalist, Shelly Whitehead, has spent most of the last 30 years reporting for TV and newspapers, including the former Kentucky and Cincinnati Post and a number of network news affiliates nationally. She brings her cumulative experience as a multimedia storyteller and video producer to the web-based pages of Pizzamarketplace.com and QSRweb.com after a lifelong “love affair” with reporting the stories behind the businesses that make our world go ‘round. Ms. Whitehead is driven to find and share news of the many professional passions people take to work with them every day in the pizza and quick-service restaurant industry. She is particularly interested in the growing role of sustainable agriculture and nutrition in food service worldwide and is always ready to move on great story ideas and news tips.
Competitors Join Forces to Push The Industry Forward
“FarmRoadTM was conceived to fulfil two broad purposes. A platform for autonomous farming and secondly as a way of bringing together all disparate technologies that farmers use into one unified management tool,” explains Darryn
Autogrow and Ridder
In order for the industry to move forward, collaboration is necessary. That’s what Darryn Keiller, CEO with Autogrow, is convinced of. “Everybody is innovating, but innovating in silos. There’s no real sharing of advantages created for the broader industry - and that’s the only way of speeding up innovation.”
Launching FarmRoad on the Indoor AgTech yesterday!
To change this, Autogrow launched a new farm management platform: FarmRoad. The new platform was launched yesterday at the Indoor AgTech Summit in New York.
“FarmRoadTM was conceived to fulfil two broad purposes. A platform for autonomous farming and secondly as a way of bringing together all disparate technologies that farmers use into one unified management tool,” explains Darryn.
Autogrow aren’t just talking - they are doing what they say they are - and have also announced a collaboration with their competitor Ridder Group, which will make it possible for growers to connect their Ridder climate control and irrigation systems to the FarmRoadTM platform.
“To be truly unified you need to be open and work collaboratively across the industry with buy-in from existing major players. It’s a concept we advocated two years ago when we came out with the first open API (Application Programming Interface) and I’m pleased to be in a position to say the dream is now tangible.”
“We are ecstatic that Ridder has shown the foresight and faith in us, to support what we are doing and join us in showing the industry what is possible when true collaboration occurs.”
Both Autogrow and Ridder market automation solutions for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) and both will be able to integrate with FarmRoadTM. Ridder Group, will make it possible for growers to connect their Ridder climate control and irrigation systems to the FarmRoadTM platform.
“The Ridder Group, developer of the HortiMaX greenhouse control systems for over 40 years, supports the initiative of Autogrow,” says Joep van den Bosch, Chief Innovation Officer, Ridder Group. “Ridder believes strongly in a connected future where systems and data is shared for the benefit of optimizing the plants growing conditions and more efficient and sustainable greenhouse operations.”
There are various developments in the industry causing Autogrow to start innovating in this direction. Darryn explains how there are roadblocks in the way when it comes to the adoption of Agtech including the knowledge base – with the average age of the farming community going up and limited knowledge sharing tools available.
In order to transfer knowledge and systemise it, making it possible to utilise new technology, they developed FarmRoadTM, making it possible to share knowledge and collaborate.
Autogrow CEO Darryn Keiller at the Auckland, NZ office
“There are many applications growers have to deal with at their farm. If it’s the cultivars or heating, or energy consumption - traceability, environmental effects, finance, labor. Part of our journey is unifying farm information and data for different farms and crops, including machine learning techniques, into one platform.”
Alongside Ridder Group, Autogrow will also be collaborating with New York based Start-Up NATIVE.
“Equally as important as an established player showing vision, is new entrants to the industry who are also bringing innovation. What NATIVE are creating delivers a fundamental industry building block, which we will integrate with FarmRoadTM,” says Darryn.
The NATIVE platform connects farms with local buyers, maximizing the value of their harvests and helping both buyers and restaurants deliver on the promise and demand of locally sourced food.
“Our partnership with Autogrow will most benefit the growers and the farmers,” says Frank Pica, co-founder, NATIVE. “FarmRoadTM users can provide NATIVE with real-time data that verifies the quantity and quality of their harvests, and Native will return the true market value of the products. NATIVE then provides an outlet for growers to bring their products to premium markets within their region.”
Autogrow will work closely with Ridder Group and NATIVE over the coming months during the pilot phase. The beginning of the journey in working collaboratively with producers and growers.
“The next iterations of FarmRoadTM include flower and fruiting identification through Machine Vision and AI to provide pollination rates and flower to fruit conversion performance. We will be extending the 3rd party integration to include finance, labor management, food security and more,” says Darryn.
For more information:
Kylie Horomia
Autogrow
kylie.horomia@autogrow.com
www.farmroad.io
Micro Lab Farms Offers The Fastest, Most Efficient Pathway to Cultivate Cannabis
The company’s modular automated micro-farms can be fitted for
cultivation, drying, cloning or custom uses
Corona, CA – June 6, 2019 – Micro Lab Farms, a premier provider of fully automated turnkey systems for rapid production of legal cannabis, announced that it is offering four different units designed for specific applications.
The Micro Lab “FlowerPod” is designed for cannabis cultivation, and is an affordable, scalable, efficient and automated system that allows a grower to be quickly up and running. The Pod features a soil-based platform and proprietary air and water filtration, along with complete environmental control. The Pod outperforms other methods of cultivation, and return on investment can be achieved in as little as 6 to 9 months.
The “ClonePod” is the perfect solution to ensure consistent growth and exact replicas of favored plants and preferred cannabinoid profiles. As a sealed eco-system, worries about plant cross pollination and contamination are eliminated. The ClonePod offers an economical and consistent method to reproduce plants in a clean, contaminant-free environment.
The “DryingPod” provides the perfect space for finishing a harvest in a humidity-controlled environment. With a clean, temperature controlled room, growers are now able to dry and cure with a precision never before available.
The “CustomPod” is designed with a grower’s specific needs in mind. The team of botanists and scientists at Micro Lab Farms can develop the perfect environment for any particular crop, or to meet any goal.
The GrowPods allow cultivation to take place year-round, any place and any time, and have been shown to produce higher yields with greater consistency than other methods of cultivation.
GrowPods are environmentally friendly, use less water, and eliminate pathogens and pesticides.
Micro Lab Farms offers financing options with a minimum down payment. With reduced labor costs and no TI’s or construction needed, Micro Lab Farms provides a quick and cost-effective method to help a business get established and rapidly start growing.
To learn more about the GrowPods from Micro Lab Farms, call: 800-320-0761, or visit: www.microlabfarms.com
CONNECT:
Website: www.microlabfarms.com
Facebook: facebook.com/MicroLabFarms
Twitter: @MicroLabFarms
NatureFreshTM Farms Takes Home Accolades for Best Overall Pepper, Tomato & Cucumber at Leamington Greenhouse Vegetable Awards
Leamington, ON (June 16th, 2019) – The Tomato Capital of Canada, Leamington, Ontario, hosted its annual Greenhouse Vegetable Awards this past weekend at the Leamington Fair. Showcasing the best greenhouse-grown produce from leading North American growers, family-owned NatureFreshTM Farms was awarded many top accolades, including best overall Pepper, Tomato & Cucumber.
NatureFreshTM Farms took home top awards in the following categories:
-Best English Cucumber
- Best Speciality Mini Pepper
- Best Beefsteak Tomato
- Best Cluster Tomato
- Best Speciality Tomato for their TOMZ Orange Cherry Tomato
- People’s Choice Tomato for their TOMZ Tomberry® Tomato
- Kid’s Choice Tomato for their TOMZ Tomberry® Tomato
- Overall Best Cucumber for their Long English Cucumber
- Overall Best Tomato for their TOMZ Orange Cherry Tomato
- Overall Best Pepper for their Red Mini Pepper
Accepting the awards on behalf of NatureFreshTM Farms was Executive Retail Sales Account Manager Matt Quiring, “We have an amazing team who works very hard to ensure our produce has top-notch flavor paired with consistency.
Winning the highest overall honors across the board is a great testament to what our team can accomplish; it is more than just about showcasing the best that we grow, it is about our commitment to continuing to push our categories in the right direction.”
This is the second year in a row that NatureFreshTM Farms has won the Peoples Choice Award for Hottest Tomato and the Kids’ Choice Award for Hottest Tomato for their Tomberry® Tomato, an outstanding accomplishment considering the strong competition from other varieties in the market place. The Tomberry® Tomato, with a unique flavor profile & dubbed the World’s Smallest Tomato is one that has seen great response from consumers & continues to grow in demand.
Done under secret ballot, consumers get a true blind taste test on selecting the best varieties. NatureFreshTM Farms has proven themselves deserving of the awards with their continuous efforts toward perfecting flavor and growing the best vegetables they can. With such strong competition, NatureFreshTM Farms is very proud to be
taking home these meaningful awards voted and judged by the locals of Leamington.
All funds raised from the Greenhouse Vegetable Awards go to R.E.A.C.H International.
This local charity has continuously hosted this annual competition which celebrates Essex County as being the largest greenhouse industry in North America. As a recognized and registered Canadian charity, R.E.A.C.H International’s humanitarian efforts assist the poor all over the world with their main project currently in Uganda.
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About NatureFreshTM Farms
NatureFreshTM Farms has grown to become one of the largest independent, vertically integrated greenhouse vegetable growers in North America. Growing in Leamington, ON and Delta, OH, NatureFreshTM Farms prides itself on exceptional flavor & quality. Family owned NatureFreshTM Farms ships fresh greenhouse grown produce year-round to key retailers throughout North America.
SOURCE: NatureFreshTM Farms | info@naturefresh.ca T: 519 326 1111 | www.naturefresh.ca
Micro Lab Farms Adds Kyle Kushman to Board as Company Expands in Cannabis Industry
The company’s modular indoor farms allow growers, entrepreneurs and investors to enter or expand in the legal cannabis industry through a variety of options
Corona, CA – May 29, 2019 – Micro Lab Farms, a premier provider of fully automated turnkey systems for rapid production of legal cannabis, announced that noted cultivator, Kyle Kushman, has joined the company’s Advisory Board. Kushman is an internationally renowned legal cannabis cultivator who has earned 13 Cannabis Cups Awards.
Micro Lab Farms has made it possible for farmers, businesses, entrepreneurs and investors to enter or expand in the legal cannabis industry with its “GrowPod” cultivation systems.
GrowPods are modular, indoor micro-farms that utilize a clean, controlled environment to grow robust, fast-turn, healthy crops. The system uses state-of-the-art air and water filtration, proprietary pathogen-free living soils, and automation controls that together provides a highly advanced environment that outperforms other methods of cultivation.
The system eliminates pathogens, contaminants, pesticides and chemicals, and gives growers the ability to harvest clean crops with fast harvest times.
The system can be easily transported, allowing cultivation to take place virtually anywhere.
The GrowPod system from Micro Lab Farms is ideal for growers that want to keep genetics separated, add new strains, expand their operation, or enter the market.
Kushman says that Micro Lab Farms is providing several pathways to get involved in the legal cannabis industry.
“An existing business or farmer can have a Pod shipped to their location and it can be up and running in just days,” he said. “Or for a more hands-off approach, an investor or entrepreneur can have Pods delivered to the new California Cultivation Complex and have the entire process managed by our world-class experts.”
Further details on the California Cultivation Complex are available upon request.
For information on Micro Lab Farms, call: 800-320-0761, or visit: www.microlabfarms.com
Connect:
Website: www.microlabfarms.com
Facebook: facebook.com/MicroLabFarms
Twitter: @MicroLabFarms
Part of Something Bigger - Promote Jobs And Improve Diets
February 1, 2018
Growers Create Community Partnerships And Educational Programs to
Promote Jobs And Improve Diets.
From left to right: Traders Hill Farm's Nichole Curry, Tracy Nazzaro and Victoria Caba
When it comes to doing good, some growers set a high bar. They form integral community partnerships and educate people about health and nutrition through offering locally grown produce, all the while creating jobs and committing to strict food safety and environmental standards. These growers exude a sense of altruism, and their passion provides clear benefits to their and other communities.
Although it is rare to succeed in these many ways, examples are being set by Traders Hill Farm, an aquaponics and leafy greens operation in Hilliard, Florida; and the Rid-All Green Partnership, a nonprofit urban farm in Cleveland.
Beta steps
Traders Hill Farm began small and is now a commercial agribusiness, says company president Tracy Nazzaro. The operation built its aquaponics beta system in a retrofitted chicken barn in 2013. “The structure itself was in pretty good shape, but it had that tin roof to it, so we cut out sections of the roof and put in corrugated plastic just to let the light in,” Nazzaro says. Traders Hill no longer grows produce in the former chicken barn, but it plans to turn it into an aquaculture hatchery in 2018.
The greenhouse operation specializes in romaine lettuce — both red and green varieties — but also grows Bibb, Lollo Rossa, Oscarde, frisée and a spring mix. It sells fresh produce to mostly restaurants, but also a handful of retail stores.
To fuel growth and advance food safety protocols, Traders Hill built a 10,000-square-foot commercial structure in 2015, and the following year, built a larger 40,000-square foot structure. It also began another major development in 2016 — its internship program.
Traders Hill’s aquaculture team measures feed amounts and dissolved oxygen in fish tanks.
Students in the Sunshine State
For the past two summers, paid interns have shadowed growers and their colleagues at Traders Hill. Working with the aquaculture team, the interns measured greenhouse temperatures, as well as feed amounts and dissolved oxygen in the fish tanks for the operation’s approximately 10,000 tilapia. Afterward, the students mapped the data they gathered.
In their internships, students have worked in Traders Hill’s aquaculture, horticulture, general farm and office environments. All high school interns so far have been local, and college interns have come from the University of North Florida, Jacksonville University, Southern Illinois University, Auburn University and Valdosta State University in Georgia.
Nazzaro suspects many young people are drawn to this work because it is technical. “This is a different farming from what we think of as traditional ag — although traditional ag isn’t what it used to be either,” she says. “But it’s not tractors and hoes and garden tools. This is a much smaller footprint. There are a lot more moving parts. I think that they gravitate toward that.”
Victoria Caba worked at Traders Hill as an intern in 2017 and was subsequently hired in the farm's aquaculture department.
Traders Hill awarded a full scholarship to a local student who worked at the farm during his senior year of high school and is now a sophomore at Southern Illinois University studying agricultural systems and education. Looking ahead, the operation is considering offering partial scholarships to benefit a greater number of students.
The greenhouse has hired interns following completion of their internships. In September 2017, the farm hired Victoria Caba, an intern from that summer and a Jacksonville University marine science and sustainability graduate, to work in its aquaculture department. And the farm hired summer 2017 intern Nichole Curry, a freshman studying finance and accounting at the University of North Florida, to work part-time while she attends college.
Traders Hill participates in community partnerships, such as working with the Nassau County School District to supply students with lettuce, engage them in health fairs and invite them on tours. Additionally, it works with professors at nearby Jacksonville University and provides tours for students in the university’s marine science program.
“One of our core values is developing people,” Nazzaro says. “So we seek out and hire people who are a good fit for our company and our culture, and then we’ll provide them with opportunities and training.”
Emphasizing local produce
Traders Hill Farm sells its popular romaine lettuce to markets spanning the area from Daytona, Florida, to the south; to Tallahassee, Florida, to the west; and Savannah, Georgia, to the north. “Where we’re located on the East Coast, that’s a pretty big deal,” Nazzaro says. “From being in the ag industry, almost all romaines are grown either in Yuma [Arizona] or Salinas [California].” But Traders Hill’s customers can expect their produce to be grown within 130 miles and delivered promptly.
Local produce is one of many benefits the Nassau County School District sees in partnering with Traders Hill. The 16-school district previously received its lettuce from a national supplier at a low price. But Traders Hill conducted a test whose results convinced the district to switch lettuce providers to its nearby aquaponics farm.
“We took what they got from their supplier and we took ours, and over a week we looked at what kind of shrink we had,” Nazzaro says. “The commercial stuff was getting between 40 and 50 percent shrink, which was just not usable product, and ours was in the 5 percent range. They were like, ‘Wow.’”
In many ways, local produce is healthier than that which has traveled a long distance. Produce with fewer miles on it contains more nutrients and nutrient variety, according to Kathleen Frith of the Harvard School of Public Health. And children have something to gain from eating local produce, because according to the Mayo Clinic, they need the same types of nutrients as adults, just in different amounts.
Traders Hill visits the district schools to discuss the greenhouse's process and the importance of eating healthy eating. “We are really proud of the fact that we provide the cleanest food possible, both from a food safety standpoint — we take our food safety very, very seriously — and that we aren’t adding anything into this food supply that doesn’t need to be there, just from a pure health standpoint — no pesticides, no herbicides, no fungicides.”
One of roughly 10,000 tilapia at Traders Hill
Photo courtesy of Traders Hill Farm
Fulfilling consumer demand
Valuing health and safety, Nazzaro and her colleagues at Traders Hill Farm were excited when the National Organic Standards Board voted in November 2017 to allow USDA Organic certification for hydroponic and aquaponic produce operations. Prior to the decision, Nazzaro says, hydroponic and aquaponic growers found themselves in a precarious position in declaring certification.
Traders Hill joined the debate to ensure aquaponics would be certified USDA Organic. “We had six team members write arguments for why we should be allowed to do that,” Nazzaro says. “I reached out to my local university professors. They also wrote arguments. We delivered verbal comments at the recent hearing, and we were really pleased about that.” Within the next year and a half, Nazzaro says Traders Hill plans to determine if USDA Organic certification is viable for the operation — aiming to officialize the practices it already intently follows.
Also, in the future, Traders Hill will consider adding other types of produce. “We’re a regional player,” Nazzaro says. “We developed this regional market and they’re buying all our leafy greens. Then it’s like, ‘Okay, what else would you guys like that grows well in our system?’”
Produce markets might need more greenhouses like Traders Hill to step up their output. The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs expects the world population to reach 8.6 billion by 2030, 9.8 billion by 2050 and 11.2 billion in 2100, according to the report, 2017 Revision of World Population Prospects.
“We’re feeding people,” Nazzaro says. “This is part of a bigger plan, and we need more food. This is really important, because on a global scale our food production needs to exponentially increase. I don’t know if we need a lot of lettuce, but on a lot of levels it needs to exponentially increase. It’s fun to be a part of something that’s bigger.”
From left to right: Rid-All Green Partnership’s David Hester, Keymah Durden, Damien Forshe, Randell McShepard and Marc WhitePhoto: Gary Yasaki | From forthcoming “Soil Brothers” documentary
Meet the Soil Brothers
Another grower creating jobs and improving diets is the Rid-All Green Partnership, a nonprofit urban farm thriving in Cleveland’s Kinsman neighborhood. Produce Grower first featured Rid-All’s work in the community in the December 2014 issue (Editor’s note: Read the story here). But we decided to provide an update as the farm has continued expanding over the past several years, in part through strengthening its aquaponics and composting efforts, and by influencing urban farmers outside of Cleveland.
Childhood friends Damien Forshe, Keymah Durden and Randell McShepard began Rid-All Green Partnership in 2009 with broad ambitions to clean up and revitalize toxic soils, develop meaningful community partnerships and provide fresh produce to city residents.
Operating in an area known as the “Forgotten Triangle” for its history of illegal dumping and burned-out cars, Rid-All cuts through the area’s discord to bring community members together. “We encourage everybody to come and get involved,” Forshe says, “because that’s what we all have in common — food.”
Rid-All’s output includes lettuce; heirloom tomatoes; kale greens; collard greens; chili, ghost and cayenne peppers; rosemary; lavender; thyme; basil; beets; and Swiss chard. On 1.3 acres, Rid-All runs one 30-by-80-square-foot hoop house, two 30-by-60-square-foot hoop houses, two 30-by-60-square-foot greenhouses, a treehouse office and a teepee (used for events such as weddings and concerts, as well as relaxation for the farmers). In 2017, Rid-All expanded its aquaponics footprint by 7,200 square feet and added a five-acre compost facility.
The farm sells produce to restaurants and caterers, and directly to end consumers. “We operate a CSA — community-supported agricultural program — where members from the community can sign up for one of three tiers — gold, silver or bronze,” Durden says. “Based on their membership, they can come and pick up food weekly that they take home and consume.”
Rid-All established Soil Brothers, a soil compost business, in 2016.Photo: Matt McClellan
Overcoming the unknown
Rid-All, whose partners include the Cleveland Metropolitan School District, Ohio State University and Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio, places a strong emphasis on job creation. The farm’s main staff consists of six people, but they require help with tasks such as growing, groundskeeping, landscaping and driving to pick up food waste. “Since our beginning we have created over 15 to 20 jobs for local residents,” Durden says. “Some only stay with us for a short time before moving on to manage their own project.” Over the course of a year, the operation adds around 300 volunteers.
Durden stresses the importance of educating people about healthy eating habits. “Most days, many folks, particularly in low-income areas, are making food choices with their wallet — ‘I can buy what I can afford’ — instead of making an educated choice based on knowledge of the food that they’re consuming,” he says. “We believe that if we can educate folks about how to make healthy choices, then that fear of the unknown won’t be as prevalent.”
But, Durden says, people are more educated about food choices now than they ever were in the past. When organizations like Rid-All teach children to develop healthy eating habits, those children will retain those habits as they transition into adulthood. Simultaneously, Rid-All teaches children and other community members about making smart decisions in other aspects of life, from the TV they watch to the environment they find themselves in.
Many of the partnership’s educational offerings are specific to growing produce, but a generous portion of them extend into other areas as well. “Our main tracks deal with our composting, our aquaponics operations and urban farming as our main core of classes that we teach,” Durden says. “But that branches out anywhere to wastewater management, it goes into animal husbandry, dealing with trees and agriculture. But then we spin off even further into arts and entertainment, where we engage local students and residents about how to become creative again.”
Rid-All’s work isn’t limited to Cleveland, either. When Columbus, Ohio’s Linden neighborhood was facing many of the same issues as Kinsman, its Saint Stephen’s Community House decided to address them. In 2014-15, the community house linked with Rid-All, which built it a greenhouse with aquaponic tanks, a compost bin and double-wide hoop houses. Since then, the community house, like Rid-All, has been providing educational programs, creating jobs and making compost. It even has its own teepee.
To make good happen in the community, growers need to put in “manpower and blood, sweat and tears,” says David Hester, Forshe and McShepard’s cousin and a farmer at Rid-All. “When you’re not getting paid, or anything that you still have the passion with, keep on moving it forward, as long as you’re doing something,” he says. “Don’t just talk about it — actually do something. For us, a lot of times, we recommend starting with the soil, because that makes the hugest difference in how your place is going to turn out.”
“Since our beginning we have created over 15 to 20 jobs for local residents,” says Rid-All co-founder Keymah Durden.Photo: Gary Yasaki | From forthcoming “Soil Brothers” documentary
Remediating the soil
The soil is a major component of the Rid-All Green Partnership. The toxins that saturated the former dump site created a challenge for the urban farmers, who had to improve soil conditions. They tried remediation via clay, as well as using soil they received from a rural area. Ultimately, they succeeded when they layered the ground with wood chips. “What I found out is that wood chips are the best remediation that you can use for lead, arsenic, things like that, so we were layering our ground [with them],” Forshe says. “Wood chips eventually break down from a carbon to a soil.”
With a commitment to minimize food waste, Rid-All established a soil compost business with the name Soil Brothers in 2016. As a whole, Rid-All has produced more than 500 tons of compost since 2011. In 2014, Soil Brothers became the only compost facility in Greater Cleveland to earn a Class II Compost Facility license through the EPA. The soil business is one of Rid-All's biggest revenue streams, working with local Starbucks stores, the Greater Cleveland Food Bank, AVI Foodsystems and other partners.
In June 2017, former Ambassador to the United Nations and civil rights activist Andrew Young visited Rid-All for the purpose, Young says, of partnering with Soil Brothers. A Cleveland public broadcasting station filmed Young telling an audience at the event, “I think it’s our calling to kind of pull the world together in peace, and peace starts with a good, balanced diet.”
“The Soil Brothers’ whole concept is relative to fortifying our bodies with nutritionally rich soil first,” says Marc White, Rid-All’s operations manager. “If [nutrients] are not in the soil, they can’t get in the food. We’ve been eating empty food for the last 20 years. That’s why everybody’s sick.”
Over the past eight years, the urban farm has helped redefine the area and even earn it a new name. “As society has shifted and the economies have changed, a lot of neighborhoods got left behind,” Durden says. “We believe that we can go into those neighborhoods and transform them from desolate to places of hope. This area that we’re in now, the Kinsman area, which was called the ‘Forgotten Triangle’ is now referred to as the ‘Urban Agriculture Innovation Zone.’”
We're excited to see what Rid-All does in the future. Look out for the forthcoming “Soil Brothers” documentary for more coverage.