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Indoor Farms of America Bridges the Gap with Traditional U.S. Agriculture in Landmark Farm Sales
"With the sale of these farms, which will be up and running in the great state of Indiana in about 90 days from today, our company has achieved the first stage of the plans to have large scale indoor farming adopted by the very folks who have kept us fed in this country since its inception, and that is the traditional farmer," stated David Martin, CEO of Indoor Farms of America.
Indoor Farms of America Bridges the Gap with Traditional U.S. Agriculture in Landmark Farm Sales
NEWS PROVIDED BY | Indoor Farms of America
Indoor Farms of America corporate Farm Manager Anthony Randolph grows beautiful greens in the vertical aeroponics from IFOA.
LAS VEGAS, July 25, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- In what is a watershed transaction and a continuance of plans to integrate world-class indoor agriculture equipment into traditional farming, Indoor Farms of America announces that it has sold the first two "warehouse" style farms to Co-Alliance, LLP one of the largest, oldest and most respected major locally owned Farmer Cooperatives in the United States.
Unlike all other commercial scale Indoor Farm equipment, Indoor Farms of America patented equipment does not require ladders or skylifts to operate, and grows 40 plant sites per square foot in just 8 feet of ceiling height.
"With the sale of these farms, which will be up and running in the great state of Indiana in about 90 days from today, our company has achieved the first stage of the plans to have large scale indoor farming adopted by the very folks who have kept us fed in this country since its inception, and that is the traditional farmer," stated David Martin, CEO of Indoor Farms of America.
"Co-Alliance has been investigating several companies and the equipment available for the indoor agriculture space for some time," states Darren Radde, Business Development Manager at Co-Alliance. "Our team understands quality equipment, and after reviewing numerous growing platforms, we believe the equipment developed and manufactured by Indoor Farms of America will provide our Farmer Members with a viable means of supplementing their income, allowing them to farm new crops all year long, and be within 30 minutes to 2 hours delivery time to any major market they can serve from their existing farm."
John Graham, CFO of Co-Alliance, said: "When we visited with the team at Indoor Farms of America, they expressed to us that while their indoor growing equipment was designed to be superior in performance to anything else in the world, which makes them very 'disruptive' in that space, Ron and Dave have a real desire to see existing traditional farmers embrace the technology."
Graham went on to say, "This means our farmers can take advantage of all our existing channels to market, our inherent ability to be close to those markets, which means our farmers can deliver fresh produce every day of the year from their farms. When the fields are covered in snow, they can produce income for their families. We like that."
The first of the two farms will be owned and operated by a long-time family farming operation, who have an existing building as part of their farming operation in central Indiana, that will be converted to state-of-the-art indoor growing facility at pretty minimal expense.
Phil Brewer, VP of Marketing at Co-Alliance, sees new opportunities for member farmers to have a major impact on the "locally grown" food movement, never seen before. "By bringing scale production of a variety of crops such as premium herbs, for example, to within a very short distance of the actual consumption of those products, we are able to deliver on two fronts. First, the consumer wins by having truly fresh, locally grown and high quality products available to them from local farmers they know and trust. Second, our farmers win, as they are now able to operate during the cold winter season when the fields are out of operation. This creates meaningful additional income for themselves."
After seeing a solid first year in sales of its game-changing vertical aeroponic farm equipment, Indoor Farms of America is on a path to more than quadruple first year sales in 2017, which is year two.
"The largest food-related companies in the world are working with us at this point. They have compared every aspect of every available indoor platform and come back to us. We designed, patented with multiple patents, and now build a fundamentally and economically sound indoor farming product that scales to as large as may be required, anywhere in the world. Nothing grows in quantities that are even close to our equipment, in terms of robust, healthy, clean and nutritious produce," states Martin.
According to company President Ron Evans, "We have seen traditional farmers who purchased our equipment last year respond with praise for our equipment and how it performs. This year we are seeing them buy larger farms. When you get compliments from a farmer that operates 5,000 acres for a living, yet understands the real need and place for this in his own operation, the light bulb goes on for him and those around him."
2 East Bay Companies Redefine Urban Farming
2 East Bay Companies Redefine Urban Farming
By Alix WallApril 4, 2017, 1 p.m. - Up Dated: July 25, 2017
Benjamin Fahrer at work at the Top Leaf Farms location on the roof of 2201 Dwight Way in Berkeley. Photo: Alix Wall
One hundred miles, give or take, from farm to table, is the ideal maximum distance for produce to be considered local. But there are some companies that are greatly improving on that goal — instead of triple-digit mileage, they’re offering produce that’s grown within just a few miles. Even better, when there’s a short distance involved, delivery happens by bicycle or on foot, eliminating any reliance on fossil fuels.
Traditionally, this type of urban farming takes place in abandoned lots, backyards or parks. But two new East Bay companies are changing up that paradigm.
Read more about Berkeley’s Garden Village building.
The larger of the two operations is Top Leaf Farms, a rooftop garden at 2201 Dwight Way in Berkeley. The building, which was built by the Oakland-based Nautilus Group, Inc., is called Garden Village and functions as student housing for UC Berkeley. It was completed in January 2016 and Top Leaf began installing its garden in August 2016. By October it was up and running, growing produce in 10,000 of its 12,000 square feet of space.
Top Leaf Farms is in contract for another rooftop garden at Telegraph and 51st Street in Oakland, where the garden will be grown across 30,000 square feet of roof space. The mixed-use building will include apartments, as well as a Whole Foods’ 365 store. In fact Top Leaf is already gardening in the vacant lot on which the building will be constructed; that garden will be dug up once construction begins. While Top Leaf Farms is in discussion to sell produce to the new 365 store headed to the building, nothing has been confirmed yet.
Benjamin Fahrer uses a Quick Greens Harvester (made by Farmer’s Friend LLC) at Top Leaf Farms. Photo: Alix Wall
Top Leaf has just two full-time employees. Benjamin Fahrer is the co-owner, principal designer and farm manager, and he is a 20-year veteran of organic farming in such places as Ocean Song Farm and Wilderness Center in Sonoma, as well as Esalen in Big Sur.
No doubt he would still be farming in a more rural locale had he not fallen in love with his wife, whose career requires her to be in an urban environment — she is a physician at UCSF and performs in a band.
There’s been a bit of a learning curve when taking his farming skills to the roof of a building. For one, much less soil can be used because of weight restrictions.
“Agriculture is a contrived system where we impose a production system on nature to serve our needs to extract product,” Fahrer explained. “On a roof, it’s even more contrived in that it’s separated from the earth. On the ground, you’re working with nature, and here you’re working with concrete, steel and metal. Fabricated materials have a certain rigidity you can’t be flexible with.”
The rooftop farm created by Top Leaf Farms at 2201 Dwight Way in Berkeley. Photo: Alix Wall
Whatever challenges a rooftop presents, though, are not apparent to a farming novice visiting the roof on Dwight. One can walk through numerous terraces and see neat rows of crops growing; it looks no different than a regular farm, except for the fact that you can also see the tops of nearby office buildings and past those, the Bay Bridge in the distance.
They may call the arugula they grow “arufula” or “aroofula”
Right now Fahrer is growing numerous varieties of kale and lettuces, arugula, pea shoots, herbs, flowers and more. Fahrer said he’s already determined which variety of arugula grows best on the roof — they may call it “arufula,” or “aroofula.”
Top Leaf sells produce to the students in the building in limited quantities, but makes most of its income with its “RSA,” or restaurant-supported agriculture, as Fahrer likes to call it. It currently supplies six restaurants with produce and all are within a three-mile radius. These include all three of Charlie Hallowell’s restaurants (Pizzaiolo, Boot & Shoe Service and Penrose), Juhu Beach Club, Chez Panisse, Ramen Shop, Benchmark Pizzeria and Gather.
“Ideally the [building’s] residents would take the majority of food that’s grown above them,” Fahrer said. “But right now the restaurants provide a constant revenue stream.”
Top Leaf Farms has an advisory board that includes author and sustainability expert Raj Patel and former Oakland Food Policy Council director Esperanza Pallana, and is in contract to design a handful of other projects, but Fahrer said they are very particular about their clients. The company has had a few experiences where a developer asks for a rooftop garden with the latest green technology, but after entering into a discussion, “at a certain point we realize we don’t agree with the ethics of that development,” said Fahrer. “We’ve declined because of gentrification and the way in which they’re developing because they’re evicting people from their homes.”
The hope for the Temescal farm, which Fahrer expects will be finished in 2019, is for it to be “a worker-owned cooperative, where we can train and employ local people to become part owners, and create more of a livelihood from urban agriculture,” he said.
Oaktown Farms: The only way is up
John Wichmann of Oaktown Farms (left) sells lettuce to Paul Bosky at the Temescal farmers market. Photo: Alix Wall
Meanwhile, another Oakland farm has taken shape, albeit on a much smaller scale. If you’ve shopped at the Temescal farmers market these past few weeks, you will likely have seen a white tower, attached to a bike trailer, with various types of greens growing in it.
This is Oaktown Farms.
While vertical towers are a new fad in urban agriculture, Oakland engineer John Wichmann has built one of his own design that he believes is better than any on the market.
“There’s one person making a tower system similar to mine but you’re only able to grow plants on one side of a four-sided box. Why not utilize all the real estate you have?” he asks.
Noting that this other system grows nine plants in the same amount of space in which he can grow 40, Wichmann said his tower grows 1,000 plants in 100 square feet of space.
Then there’s the portability factor. He can disconnect a piece of his farm, attach it to his bike, and ride it approximately three-quarters of a mile to the market. Wichmann doesn’t give out the exact address of the farm, but it is on a friend’s lot somewhere within a one mile radius of the Claremont Department of Motor Vehicles.
“The tower allows me to grow, transport and sell from one device, which is unique,” Wichmann said.
Oaktown Farms grows all of its produce in a vertical system. Photo: Alix Wall
Wichmann’s day job is as an engineer at Nauto, a company that’s competing with Google and Uber in the self-driving car space. His interest in gardening has been lifelong; growing up in Southern California, his father was a food technologist and his mother a dietician.
“My dad had a compost pile in the 1970s when I was a kid,” he said. “I always thought that was normal.”
His high school had a Future Farmers of America organization, and also offered advanced courses in wood and metal shop, all of which Wichmann took advantage of.
But while farming had always been a hobby, Wichmann was especially inspired when learning about aquaponics systems. “I got really excited about that because you can get fish and greens in the same system,” he said.
Like Fahrer, Wichmann was also inspired by the fact that more and more people are living in an urban environment. He thinks that new food systems should be feeding them.
And then, of course, there’s the issue of California’s drought.
While it’s hard to quantify, Wichmann believes his system uses 90% less water than conventional farming.
“When you water plants, a lot of it runs off and some evaporates,” he said. With his vertical-farming methods, called a close-looped system, “the water is in a reservoir if it’s not being sprayed onto the roots, and the only water that’s taken up [goes to] the roots.”
The Oaktown Farms stand at the Temescal farmers market. Photo: Alix Wall
Wichmann’s system also prevents waste, as customers only cut the plants when they buy them; whatever isn’t sold remains planted until the next market.
Wichmann also argues that his produce has better health benefits than traditionally farmed vegetables. He said that once you cut a plant, it slowly starts to lose its nutritional value. His are as close to living as you can get.
He’s been bringing to market a mix of Asian greens like tatsoi and mizuna, as well as heirloom varieties of lettuce and mustard greens. People have been puzzled so far, and they sometimes inquire about buying the tower rather than the greens from it.
This last request may become a reality: Wichmann has some big ideas about how a tower like his could alleviate hunger in certain parts of the world, and he is busy pitching it around.
Room To Grow More Local Veggies At Panasonic's Farm
Room To Grow More Local Veggies At Panasonic's Farm
PUBLISHED - JUL 10, 2017, 5:00 AM SGT | Updated July 25, 2017
S'pore Farm Now Yields 40 Varieties, Aims to More Than Double Production
Consumers here can look forward to more home-grown leafy greens from Panasonic, which plans to expand its high-tech indoor vegetable farm and more than double its production by next year.
The Japanese electronics giant is also looking into cultivating seasonal fruit usually grown in temperate climates.
It runs a 1,154 sq m indoor farm, about the size of 11/2 soccer fields, at Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia-Pacific's premises in Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim.
The farm produces up to 40 crop varieties, amounting to 81 tonnes of vegetables annually.
Plans are under way to increase farm size to 1,710 sq m, which will allow it to produce up to 180 tonnes at optimum capacity. The cultivated varieties include mizuna, oba, leafy lettuce, mini red radish, Swiss chard and baby spinach.
Mr Paul Wong, managing director of Panasonic Singapore, said the company embarked on vertical farming as a viable and efficient means of producing vegetables in a limited space.
Mr Wong said: "We started with eight types of crops. Through constant research and development, we now produce 40 varieties of leafy greens and we want to expand that list with seasonal fruits.
"Increasing our overall crop production is also in line with our goal to contribute to Singapore's food security through a stable local supply of leafy greens."
Latest figures from the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) show that last year, 11,300 tonnes of vegetables were locally produced, which accounts for 12 per cent of the total vegetable supply. Singapore imports over 90 per cent of its food supply.
Mr Melvin Chow, group director of AVA's Food Supply Resilience Group, said local food production provides a crucial buffer in the event of disruptions in overseas food supply.
The AVA encourages the use of technology that can help local farms optimise land use, boost capability and raise production.
Mr Chow said: "The most important step is for our industry to adopt a progressive mindset and improve productivity."
Panasonic's indoor vegetable farm was the first of its kind to be licensed by the AVA in 2013.
It utilises both soil cultivation and hydroponics. No pesticides are used. Seeding and potting are automated, which doubles productivity compared with traditional farming methods. An intelligent lighting system using LED lights helps to accelerate plant growth.
Through a system of automated irrigation, controlled temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide, the farm is able to increase crop growth and achieve a high yield rate of 95 per cent.
The farm is also licensed by the AVA to process salads. Panasonic produces three ready-to-eat salad mixes, which are sold at major supermarkets. It also supplies vegetables to hotels, restaurants and catering companies.
Japanese restaurant chain Ootoya placed its first order of vegetables with Panasonic in 2014.
Mr Yusuke Shimizu, 39, managing director of Ootoya Asia-Pacific, said: "Our customers... complimented us on the freshness and some even asked us where to buy the vegetables."
Ootoya orders an average of 150kg of vegetables from Panasonic every month for its three outlets. Mr Shimizu said: "Freshness is a priority at our restaurants and Panasonic supplies us with vegetables that are harvested on the same day."
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on July 10, 2017, with the headline 'Room to grow more local veggies at Panasonic's farm'.
$200M Invested For a Global Network of Indoor Farms? That’s Plenty
$200M Invested For a Global Network of Indoor Farms? That’s Plenty
Frank Vinluan | July 21st, 2017 | @frankvinluan | @xconomy | Email
Agtech startup Plenty has reeled in $200 million in financing as the company presses forward on its plans to build a global network of indoor vertical farms.
Softbank Vision Fund of Japan led the Series B funding round for South San Francisco, CA-based Plenty. The round included investments from affiliates of Louis Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management, as well earlier investors Innovation Endeavors, Bezos Expeditions, DCM, Data Collective, and Finistere Ventures.
The founders of Plenty say they aim to site their farms near major cities. By growing plants vertically, these farms can produce more food from a smaller footprint while also shortening the supply chain to reach consumers. The company also says these facilities will use sensors and software to optimize growing conditions, avoid the use of crop chemicals, and conserve water—savings that help keep the produce affordable. Plenty CEO Matt Barnard toldBloomberg News that the company’s goal is to provide food priced to fit everyone’s budget.
“That’s the thing that’s hardest to do,” Barnard said. “Now that we’ve accomplished those milestones, we’re looking to scale.”
Plenty has plenty of company in the indoor farming space. In June, New York-based Bowery raised $20 million in its Series A round, four months after announcing its seed round of financing. Bowery CEO Irving Fain hinted at ambitions to build its indoor farms around the world but in the near term, he said the funding will support the construction of at least one additional indoor farm in the New York area. Last year, New York-based BrightFarms raised $30.1 million in a Series C round to bankroll expansion of its indoor farms across the country.
Indoor farming investments have heated up in recent years; the category accounted for $247 million invested in 43 deals last year, according to a report from online investment marketplace AgFunder. But Plenty’s latest round appears to be the biggest agtech investment ever. The $200 million round tops the $100 million Series C round of Boston agricultural microbials startup Indigo a year ago in what AgFunder calculated was previously the largest-ever agtech investment.
Softbank has a lot of money to invest in agtech and elsewhere. In May, the fund announced it had closed on $93 billion in committed capital, a sum that it expected would reach $100 billion. At the time, Softbank said it would seek investments of $100 million or more as it builds a portfolio diversified across technology sectors and geographies. The fund said it is looking to invest in companies “that seek to enable the next age of innovation.”
Plenty has also been a dealmaker in the indoor farming space. Last month, the company acquired Laramie, WY-based Bright Agrotech, a maker of vertical farming equipment. No financial terms were disclosed for that deal but at the time it was announced, Bright Agrotech CEO Chris Michael wrote in a blog post that his company’s technology would help Plenty “build field-scale vertical indoor farms around the world.”
Among the technologies that Plenty gained in the Bright Agrotech deal is the ZipGrow Hydroponic Tower. These towers use gravity to feed nutrient-rich water to plants grown in a vertical plane. Barnard told Bloomberg that using gravity saves energy compared to the energy-consuming systems of other farms that pump nutrients to plants.
Plenty has not yet said where it plans to build its farms, nor has the company set a timeline for bringing produce to the market. Other than the Bright Agrotech facilities, Plenty’s only disclosed location is its 51,000-square-foot warehouse in South San Francisco.
ZipFarm photo by Plenty subsidiary Bright Agrotech.
Frank Vinluan is editor of Xconomy Raleigh-Durham, based in Research Triangle Park. You can reach him at fvinluan [at] xconomy.com Follow @frankvinluan
The Freshest Farm-to-Table Meal in New York City: Dinner at Edgemere Farm in Far Rockaway
At first glance, Far Rockaway may seem like a strange location for a small farm—the peninsula on which it resides is known more as a summer beach getawaythan a bastion of fresh produce. While Edgemere Farm is thriving several years after its 2013 opening, it took a great deal of effort to even make the land productive and arable.
The Freshest Farm-to-Table Meal in New York City: Dinner at Edgemere Farm in Far Rockaway
Most people don't think of New York City as a hotbed of urban farming, but there are a number of hidden pockets of agriculture scattered throughout the city’s five boroughs supplying local produce to everyone from neighborhood residents to Michelin-starred restaurants. Case in point: Edgemere Farm, a half-acre of land in Far Rockaway, Queens, that grows everything from potatoes to raspberries to peppers.
At first glance, Far Rockaway may seem like a strange location for a small farm—the peninsula on which it resides is known more as a summer beach getawaythan a bastion of fresh produce. While Edgemere Farm is thriving several years after its 2013 opening, it took a great deal of effort to even make the land productive and arable.
“Originally the space where the farm stands housed a few bungalows, but during the 1970s a lot of people left the Rockaways and the city condemned the buildings that remained,” says Edgemere Farm co-founder, Matt Sheehan. “Before we arrived, the lot had been used as a place to park cars or change tires. We had a lot of work to do to get the land in usable shape.”
Four years later, though, the four-person team at Edgemere Farms grows more than 40 varieties of plants on the property, along with playing home to weekly farm stand markets. Edgemere also provides produce to more than ten area restaurants—the team makes deliveries in their cars, blasting the AC to preserve freshness.
While the farm’s focus is growing great produce, Sheehan and his team also host dinners on the property, each run by a different visiting chef. Edgemere Farm continues to host dinners almost weekly throughout the summer and most recently they teamed up with Grindhaus’ Erin Norris and chef Kevin Speltz, along with noted baker, and Matt’s wife, Jessie Sheehan, for the Hooked On Edgemere Farm dinner. Here's a look at what it's like to eat the freshest farm-to-table dinner in the city.
— Max Bonem
Organization Turning Vacant Toronto Properties Into Mobile Urban Farms
Organization Turning Vacant Toronto Properties Into Mobile Urban Farms
By Susan HayAnchor/Producer Global News
The Bowery Project is taking vacant lots in downtown Toronto and transforming the properties into mobile urban farms. It’s the brainchild of longtime friends Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto. Susan Hay has the story.
Longtime friends Rachel Kimel and Deena DelZotto have a passion for growing food and giving back to the community. Their joint love for food prompted them to start the Bowery Project, an organization that takes vacant lots in downtown Toronto and transforms the properties into mobile urban farms.
“The developer here, Oben Flats, wanted to do something that gave back to the community and that transformed his site,” said co-founder Rachel Kimel.
“People come and they learn new things and they walk away with something fresh, organically grown and sustainable.”
READ MORE: Urban farming: not just growing food but communities
Currently there are three sites in Toronto growing produce in re-purposed milk crates that sit above the land. This allows for an easy change of location when the land is sold or developed.
“It’s like a pop-up mobile farm,” said Kimel. “There’s something called square-foot gardening and so whatever you can occupy in a crate, we do. Herbs, veggies, edible flowers, lots of greens, mixed greens.”
Several community organizations like the Native Women’s Resource Centre benefit from what’s grown on the sites and from the weekly programming and educational workshops.
“Every year from a site this big (at Sherbourne Street and Gerrard Street East), we grow at least 400 pounds of produce and that gets given away to people who are hungry in the city,” said Kimel.
Living Greens Farm Quadruples Its Vertical Food Growing Operation In Rice County
Next month, the company will add 30 systems to help grow more lettuce, microgreens and herbs in Faribault.
Living Greens Farm Quadruples Its Vertical Food Growing Operation In Rice County
- GUNNAR OLSON golson@faribault.com
- Jul 24, 2017
Head Grower Michelle Keller, left, and Chairman/President Dana Anderson stand in front of rows of food being grown at Living Greens Farm in Faribault. Currently, the business is quadrupling its output with the addition of 30 more growing machines. (Gunnar Olson/Daily News)
From butter lettuce to arugula microgreens, Living Greens Farm specializes in growth. In August, the company will undergo some growth itself, quadrupling its size in its Faribault facility.
Currently, Living Greens Farm houses 10 growing systems in its Faribault Industrial Park facility. These systems grow food products vertically and indoors without the use of herbicides or pesticides. According to its own estimates, the company uses 200 times less land and 95 percent less water than traditional farming.
Next month, the company will add 30 systems to help grow more lettuce, microgreens and herbs in Faribault.
Head Grower Michelle Keller, left, and Chairman/President Dana Anderson stand in front of rows of food being grown at Living Greens Farm in Faribault. Currently, the business is quadrupling its output with the addition of 30 more growing machines. (Gunnar Olson/Daily News)
In 15 to 17 cycles per year, Living Greens Farms harvests about 1,500 plants per cycle. Lettuce, microgreens and herbs each have different grow times, but the company’s 10 patents for its traversing misting system help Living Greens grow food in a shorter time frame.
According to Dana Anderson, chairman and president of Living Greens Farm, the company uses aeroponics to grow the plants quickly.
“We feel aeroponics is the fastest and most disease-resistant way to grow,” he said.
Once the expansion is complete and production begins in September, Living Greens Farm will be one of the “largest indoor farms in the world,” Anderson said.
Getting to that point, however, was a tall task. Development of its traversing misting system took five years and $5 million to complete. While just one part of the equation, Living Greens Farm’s invention was pivotal to the company’s success.
“We didn’t invent aeroponics,” Anderson said. “But we invented how to commercialize it.”
The person tasked with doing the day to day growing is Michelle Keller, the head grower at Living Greens Farm and a four-year master grower.
Keller works with two other individuals that make up the current staff, which she said she expects to grow to six or seven employees once the 30 additional machines are added to the operation.
In the current operation, the plants are first grown outside of the machines before they are placed into the rows under the misting system technology.
“It maximizes the space,” she said. “But it still gives the plants the room they need to grow.”
Growing in Rice County
When the expansion is complete, the earliest stages of growth will occupy the current space, while plants will grow in the 30 new machines in the next room in the latter stages.
The Faribault business is built on a series of high-tech innovations and also contributes to Faribault’s community of growers and agriculture.
For Faribault Area Chamber of Commerce and Tourism Marketing Director Nort Johnson, Living Greens Farm fits into a growing market.
“Locally grown, homegrown, organic foods are growing in popularity,” he said. “Living Greens Farms is at the very front edge of that. They use no herbicides or pesticides and they do it all in house.”
Johnson also has a particular interest in biomes, or the natural growth within one’s habitat. In Living Greens Farm, Johnson sees the opportunity for people in Rice County to take advantage of their own biome.
“In the big picture of sustainability, the more you can produce and manage within your own biome, the less dependent that you can be in a world economy,” he said.
From the growing rows of Living Greens Farm, its products are distributed locally in Faribault and Northfield at the Smoqhouse, Hy-Vee, Just Foods Co-op, Carleton College and Tanzenwald Brewing.
While those businesses now benefit from Living Greens’ operations in Rice County, it almost didn’t happen here. According to Anderson, former Faribault Mayor John Jasinski and current Economic and Community Development Director Deanna Kuennen were instrumental in bringing Living Greens to Faribault, where they will now expand.
“They were really welcoming and supporting,” he said. “That was the difference for us. That’s why we chose Rice County over Dakota or Hennepin counties.”
Make High Quality Food A Stable of The Culture
For today’s modern corporate campus, Freight Farms provides the opportunity to seamlessly integrate sustainable food production into current operations to make high-quality food a staple of the culture. Each farm offers a unique flexibility to create tailored programs to meet the specific needs of our clients. It becomes a powerful tool for promoting wellness, sustainability, and innovation while building an active community and fostering a culture of social responsibility and creativity.
Here are 7 ways to improve your corporate campus with the Leafy Green Machine:
Champion social responsibility: Companies seeking to reduce their carbon footprint are using the Leafy Green Machine (LGM) to offer great food at a low environmental cost. Google, the internet giant notorious for offering free breakfast, lunch, and dinner for their more than 20,000 employees, is growing produce in an LGM on their campus in Mountain View as part of their farm-to-table initiative.
Demonstrate your commitment to sustainability: Incorporating the Leafy Green Machine system into current operations is a way to showcase your business's commitment to sustainability through more environmentally-sound sourcing practices. Each farm acts as an immediate solution to shorten the food supply chain, thereby cutting fuel emissions, increasing transportation costs, and dramatically reducing the carbon footprint of any food operation. The innovative climate technology and energy-efficient growing equipment allows businesses to grow their own produce 365 days a year, regardless of the outside climate. The closed-loop hydroponic system uses over 90% less water than traditional agriculture, significantly reducing the environmental impact of food production.
Actively promote nutrition, health, and wellness: Today’s industry leaders recognize the importance of equipping employees with the tools and resources to help them lead successful, healthy lives both in and out of the workplace. Food has become a core component of every strategy, as more companies seek to provide the freshest, healthiest foods available to their staff. By equipping them with the right information, they are able to make more informed choices that support their health and in turn the health of the larger community.
Be an advocate for innovative technology and creativity: The Leafy Green Machine gives businesses and their food service teams the opportunity to explore new, innovative approaches to food production and provides a platform for education and engagement throughout each step of the process. Producing fresh food directly on campus with the latest growing technology makes it easy to captivate employees and facilitate a dialogue around food. Campus chefs have the ability to choose what to grow and how to incorporate it into their menus. Produce is grown on-site, and brought directly into the kitchens after harvest, ensuring employees get the freshest, most nutritious food available.
Serve up the freshest food for your employees year-round: Chef Kevin Gibbons of UMass Dartmouth is growing a variety of lettuces of herbs in the Leafy Green Machine on campus. In a recent interview, he told us, “we can harvest lettuce at 10:00 am and serve it for lunch later that day.” It doesn't get fresher than that!
Educate your employees about the food supply chain: Use the Leafy Green Machine as a tool to facilitate engagement and inspire change by providing employees with the opportunity to interact with food in a new way. Increase participation and collaboration by bringing transparency to operations and educating employees on the journey their food takes from farm to table.
Cut costs: Sourcing fresh produce and herbs during the winter months can be expensive. The Courtyard Marriott Grappone Conference Center in Concord, New Hampshire is growing lettuce, kale, spinach, arugula, and basil. Steve Duprey, the owner of the hotel, reported that during the winter months they are now able to produce basil at 1/10 of the cost of wholesale prices.
If you'd like to learn more about how Freight Farms is helping farmers grow food in regions across the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean reach out to us here.
NatureFresh Farms Mobile Greenhouse Pushes Past Heat
NatureFresh Farms Mobile Greenhouse Pushes Past Heat
By Kate Walz July 2017
Two people check out the mobile greenhouse education center. The mobile greenhouse also has a live bumblebee eco-system.Photo by NatureFresh Farms
NatureFresh Farms mobile greenhouse tour (#GreenInTheCity) is continuing across the Midwest despite the heat.
The mobile greenhouse, which has done almost 50 events since mid-April, teaches consumers how greenhouse vegetables are grown.
“The mobile greenhouse has not only been a conversation starter but a difference maker in how we connect with our customers,” Ray Wowryk, director of business development of the Leamington, Ontario, greenhouse company, said in a news release.
The Greenhouse Education Center (GEC) is a 38-foot mobile unit equipped with fruit bearing plants and a live bumblebee eco-system.
“We care about the future of fresh and all that it entails; we need to collectively increase fresh produce consumption,” Wowryk said in the release. “NatureFresh can help do that with the GEC and by getting front and center with consumers, we share our story to help inform them of the value of greenhouse vegetables.” Knowing who grows what you buy is important, understanding how it’s grown is just as important if not more.”
Five college students are serving as brand ambassadors at each event, conducting event day operations and interacting with retail partners. The group has varied backgrounds including agribusiness, environmental science, marketing and biology.
“We are able to immediately impact consumers purchasing decisions at store level with the knowledge we share about how we grow greenhouse vegetables,” said Cole Burkholder, a third-year environmental science major from Ohio State University. “The look on people’s faces when we explain the greenhouse growing process and they see the live plants with real fruit, it’s priceless. You kind of see that ‘a-ha’ moment in their eyes. We’ve even had customers show us their shopping carts when leaving to show us the tomatoes or bell peppers they have purchased because of our conversation.”
This is the third mobile greenhouse tour, which has completed more than 200 events since its inception, including events at retail stores, summer camps, schools and community fairs. The 2017 tour will end Nov. 12 at the Royal Agriculture Winter Fair in Toronto, Ontario.
Can Digital Farming Be A Success?
Can Digital Farming Be A Success?
Susan Martinez, 20th July 2017
Farmers in the United States are constantly struggling to make ends meet. Part of the problem is the logistics involved in getting products from farm to table, but one company is looking to circumvent the process by creating a fully automated farming distribution center right outside many cities. A private firm Bowery Founds is attempting to automate the farming process and reduce the costs of distribution by using technology to grow products.
The Demand for Organic Products
Demand for organic products continue to grow. Protein demand has skyrocketed during the past year. According to the US Department of Agriculture, the number of organic chickens slaughtered have increased nearly 3-fold in the past 12-months. Organic produce demand has grown significantly, as consumer look for non-genetically modified foods.
Organic Prices are High
The problem that consumers face is the high cost of organic products. For example, the retail price for organic corn is nearly 4-times the cost of conventional corn. This is for several reasons including the cost to farming corn, the time it takes to receive certification which takes 3-years to growth grains, and the loss of crop due to pests.
Additionally, fraudulent organic products have been flooding into the United States which has help satiate demand, and cap prices. The recent detection of fraudulent organic grains, which include corn, soybeans and wheat from Turkey in the U.S. drove the Organic Trade Association to form a task force to detect fraudulent activity. Certifiers of organic products are now asking traders to show that there is certification back from the original farms that produced the products.
A Weaker Dollar Makes Imports Expensive
In addition, a weaker dollar in the forex markets make imports more expensive to purchase in the United States. If the dollar continues to move lower if the Federal Reserve keeps interest rates on hold for the balance of 2017, consumers will turn to domestic products to feed strong demand.
Technology at the Farm
One of the ways Bowery believes they can circumvent some of these issues is to grow most of the crops indoors using LED lights. While the USDA has not ruled yet on whether hydroponic growth can be considered organic, there is demand for this product. In the last decade, the costs of LED lights have dropped nearly 85%, while the efficiency of these lights has surged. LED lights can be used to grow plants, making these farms very efficient.
Additionally, there are now software programs that can analyze a plant and specifically determine what is needed to create a better product. In real-time, algorithms can evaluate the soil and water as well as analyze a plants DNA. The algorithms are constantly changing givIng produce the best chance to flourish.
Most of the farms will be right outside major cities, at most 20-miles from a major metropolitan urban center. This will provide for lower distribution costs, and reduce spoilage that is due to transportation. Farm to table will become much more efficient and given the robust demand, this technology driven approach could be successful.
Vertical Farming Tour Visits Delval Programs
Vertical Farming Tour Visits Delval Programs
Chris Filling, hydroponics greenhouse manager, leads a tour of DelVal's greenhouses during an educational tour conducted by the state Department of Agriculture. Delaware Valley University photo
DOYLESTOWN, Pa. — As interest in vertical farming continues to grow, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has been conducting an educational tour for its urban agriculture partners featuring hydroponics and aquaponics programs in Pennsylvania.
Delaware Valley University was the first stop on the tour, which kicked off Tuesday in the Philadelphia area.
Guests toured the University’s hydroponics and aquaponics greenhouses to see how DelVal is preparing students for these industries.
In hydroponics, growers use soilless systems for more precise control of inputs. In aquaponics, fish provide nutrients for plants in a soilless system.
These systems allow growers to produce food in unconventional places, using less space and resources.
“The hydroponics and aquaponics industries have tremendous potential to help solve pressing challenges, such as how to feed a growing population with limited resources,” said Chris Tipping, DelVal’s interim dean of agriculture and environmental sciences.
“At DelVal, we’re educating our students about these industries, and we’re also reaching out into the larger community to partner with other educational programs,” Tipping said. “There’s a real sense of excitement about hydroponics and aquaponics in Pennsylvania.”
Scott Sheely, special assistant for workforce development for the state Department of Agriculture, was part of organizing the tour.
“As schools, government officials and businesses look at ways to apply the technology to grow food in cities, there has been a demand for education on urban agriculture,” Sheely said.
“The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture invited its urban agriculture partners to join it in visiting sites across Pennsylvania to learn more about this technology and how it is being used in the region,” he said.
“DelVal was chosen as a stop because the university is investing in research and education in hydroponics and aquaponics,” Sheely said.
DelVal President Maria Gallo and Tipping addressed the group.
DelVal is currently building a new specialization in hydroponics and aquaponics within its established Department of Plant Science, thanks to the support of DelVal trustee Kate Littlefield.
“This support was used to renovate two greenhouses as well as to provide the opportunity to create the first endowed professorship in DelVal history,” Tipping said. “This professor will lead the program.”
The tour also visited sites in Lancaster on Wednesday and Harrisburg on Thursday. Other stops included W.B. Saul High School, Metropolis Farm, Aero Development, Garden Spot Village, Steelton-Highspire High School, Ladder & Vine and Messiah College.
For Additional Information, please click on the link below:
3 Urban Farming Companies On The Fast Track To Success
3 Urban Farming Companies On The Fast Track To Success
One of the beauties of urban farming is that it can be implemented on both a small scale by individual urban dwellers as well as large commercial scale, supplying surrounding communities with locally sourced urban farmed goods.
These 3 companies, running urban farming operations at the commercial scale in some of the worlds largest cities, are urban agriculture enterprises to watch out for, if you have not seen their products on the shelf of your local grocery store, you may see them soon!
1. Metropolitan Farms (Chicago)
Despite opening less than a year ago (Fall 2015), Metropolitan farms has been years in the making. CEO Benjamin Kent had been developing the concept for quite some time before launching the 10,000+ sq ft facility that is Metropolitan farms today.
Metropolitan farms' specialty? Aquaponic farming - and lots of it. The rapidly growing company is on pace to produce approximately 100,000 heads of lettuce annually.
The best part? With close proximity to clients, metro farms can get their products to clientele as quickly and as freshly as possible, a common benefit to the urban farming approach.
But lettuce isn't the only output of Metropolitan farms, they also produce the urban farming staple herb basil along with over a tonne of fish annually produced by the hydroponic cycle.
2. Bright Farms (Washington D.C. , Chicago, and others)
Bright Farms also focuses on greenhouse style urban farming, but thus far has built larger urban agriculture facilities on the outskirts of urban centers. Currently, the company has over a quarter million square feet in cumulative growing space, and has raised over $25MM cumulatively to expand their urban farming operations.
The production output potential of some of Bright Farms' new facilities is also staggering to say the least. The Chicago facility, according to CEO Paul Lightfoot, will have the capability to produce upwards of one million pounds of urban farmed produce annually to customers at large retail grocers such as Mariano's.
Bright Farms' isn't slowing down either - according to CEO Lightfoot, the company, which originally started as a non-profit but has now switched to for-profit, has plans to expand by opening over 15 new urban farming locations in the near future.
3. Gotham Greens (New York, Chicago)
With over 150,000 sq ft cumulatively in facilities spanning across New York City and Chicago predominantly, Gotham Greens is stiff competition for companies like the aforementioned Bright Farms in what has now become a crowded space in commercial urban large-scale farming.
The secret sauce of Gotham Greens may lie in its highly technical approach to their growing systems, which utilize advanced computer algorithms to manage growing conditions with more efficiency than human farmers possibly could.
Investors are starting to buy in also, with Gotham Greens having raised over $30 MM in venture funding to date, they are without question a trending agricultural technology startup and the proof is in the pudding in terms of traction - Gotham has picked up high profile clients such as Whole Foods.
With the urban agricultural landscape expanding so rapidly (and it is expanding quite rapidly, urban agriculture is now practiced by over 800 million peopleworldwide, or over 10% of the world population, according to the FAO), these three companies will be in the center of the a rapidly swelling market.
Both commercial enterprises such as these as well as individuals practicing urban farming could lead to unprecedented prevalence and reliance on urban farming in the not so distant future.
MSU Students Launch Local Food Business Made From Campus Grown Foods
MSU Students Launch Local Food Business Made From Campus Grown Foods
Look for Land Grant Goods products this summer on campus.
July 20, 2017 by Kendra Wills, Michigan State University Extension
Land Grant Good founders, Alex Marx (left) and Bethany Kogut (right). Photo credit: Land Grant Goods
For anyone who finds themselves around the Brody Halls at Michigan State University, whether they be an incoming resident, staff, family member, or simply someone in the neighborhood, it may be beneficial to know that this location site offers their own handmade goods straight from the Bailey GREENhousecommunity garden located next to Bailey Hall in the Brody Complex, west of the Kellogg Center. Stop by to help support this student-run organization.
Since Michigan State University opened its doors in 1855, it has always been dedicated to education and to agriculture. In fact, it was originally called “the Agriculture College of the State of Michigan.” Which is why, to this day, you will see various gardens, hoop houses, open fields, and an overall beautiful landscape when touring the campus. As the school continues to build on to this campus, as you can see in the future visions they have set for the year 2020, MSU will continue to embrace the university’s agricultural heritage.
With this in mind, various students studying agriculture, sustainability, and education have decided that the Brody Halls, which is secluded from much of campus, needed their own greenhouse. With MSU having such a large agriculture department, and Brody Halls being located several miles away from the MSU Student Organic Farm and other MSU agricultural production facilities, it created a barrier for students living in these halls to be exposed to the culture of farming. Luckily, the Bailey GREENhouse enables students living on campus to be involved in agriculture without having to travel far distances.
This idea was put in motion in 2012, joining with the Residential Initiative for the Study of the Environment (RISE). The Bailey GREENhouse produces a wide variety of greens, tomatoes, herbs, mushrooms and even an apiary they have created themselves. The amount of components being produced in such a small area between the dorm halls is impressive and is all student-grown.
Bailey GREENhouse crops were originally used only for the residential dining halls and the State Room restaurant in the Kellogg Center, but the students knew they could take their successes further. They launched Land Grant Goods in 2015, with a goal to promote locally-made products to the community.
Today, using a mobile certified kitchen inside of a trailer parked at the MSU Student Organic Farm, the students process their jams. They sell the honey made from the apiary, and make teas from GREENhouse herbs. Overall, they have shown that they can work to make their small space as productive as possible by thinking about various value-added products that can be created.
For anyone who finds themselves visiting this site, seek out the students running this operation. This group of passionate individuals welcome all those interested in learning more about how they run their business, and will talk with excitement about the work they do and the new projects they have lined up. This may only be the start for these students, but in order to achieve these goals they will need a support system to do it.
Michigan State University Extension supports commercial agricultural producers and food businesses. For more information about launching a food business or seeking business counseling services, please contact the MSU Product Center at (517) 432-8750.
This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit http://www.msue.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit http://www.msue.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit http://expert.msue.msu.edu, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Europe’s Huge New Vertical Farm
GrowWise is a vertical farming research facility, and in conjunction with Dutch fresh food distributor Staay Food Group, it’s laying the groundwork for the first commercial vertical farm in Europe, slated to open north-east of Amsterdam in a town called Dronten later this year.
A Behind-the-Scenes Look at Europe’s Huge New Vertical Farm
July 20, 2017
The Eindhoven High Tech Campus, a 90-minute train ride south of Amsterdam, consists of two rows of nondescript mid-rise office buildings on either side of a wide, tree-lined road. In typical Dutch fashion, there’s more parking for bikes than cars, and the campus is flanked by stretches of neatly-maintained green fields and canals.
The place doesn’t have an especially high-tech feel to it. But on the third floor of a building near the end of the road, a division of Philips Lighting called GrowWise is using technology to tackle a crucial question: what are we going to eat once there are over nine billion people on Earth?
GrowWise is a vertical farming research facility, and in conjunction with Dutch fresh food distributor Staay Food Group, it’s laying the groundwork for the first commercial vertical farm in Europe, slated to open north-east of Amsterdam in a town called Dronten later this year.
During a tour of GrowWise, I spoke with Gus van der Feltz, Global Director of City Farming, about the ins and outs of vertical farms and the opportunities and challenges the field will face in coming years.
No Sun + No Soil = Organic Plants?
Since the beginning of growing food, sunlight, water, and soil have been essential ingredients. If you take away two of these most basic of inputs, how do plants grow?
“You can think of a vertical farm as a black box,” van der Feltz said. “We look at it as an integrated system, trying to create vegetables in a closed environment.”
Before going into said ‘black box’—otherwise known as the growth rooms—we slip light blue covers over the soles of our shoes and sanitize our hands. These are minor protective measures, and they don’t prevent pathogens from entering the chamber. “If we were going into the actual growth facility we’d need to put on full protective gear,” van der Feltz said.
Outside the growth room is a winding, humming network of pipes, screens, and dials. Van der Feltz pulls back a large sandwich panel door, and when we step inside, the air is noticeably warmer and more humid. It smells like a farm, except without the manure, and it feels a little like being on a spaceship—trays of plants are stacked four levels high, hundreds of blue and red pinpoints of light beaming down on them from above. The light on the bottom two levels is white, while the top two give off a purplish glow.
We have to raise our voices to talk over the hum of the regulators. Solar light, van der Feltz explains, is spread across a spectrum ranging from UV to infrared. In photosynthesis, red and blue wavelengths of light interact with chlorophyll to help form glucose and cellulose, the structural material in cell walls.
LEDs can reproduce this effect, and can do it faster than the sun; time from seed to harvest at GrowWise is 30-40 days, as compared to 60-65 days in a typical greenhouse, according to van der Feltz.
“What we’ve done with LEDs is optimize the conditions for growth. There are elements of sunlight that plants don’t use as efficiently, and those can be reduced or taken out,” van der Feltz said. One of those elements is heat—when I wave a hand under the lights, they feel no warmer than the rest of the room.
The crops need different intensities of light as they pass through stages of growth, and they’re constantly monitored by sensors and software that tweak their conditions as necessary. Van der Feltz explains that triggering the right combination of processes in photosynthesis, in combination with other growth factors, can also create desired effects. “With the right lighting conditions we can make lettuce turn purple or red. We can make strawberries sweeter,” he said.
Each plant sits in a thimble-sized container of sterilized coconut bark, which serves as a substrate for germination and root development. From there the roots extend into shallow troughs of nutrient-rich water—the plants are constantly in water rather than being periodically sprayed or on a timed drip, making this hydroponic farming.
Food And The Future
The Dronten facility will be 900 square meters (9,680 square feet), with a total cultivation area of 3,000 square meters (32,290 square feet).
Though this pales in comparison to the biggest vertical farm in the world—AeroFarms’ 70,000-square-foot facility in Newark, New Jersey—it will be the largest in Europe. Outside Europe and the US, vertical farms also exist in Japan, Korea, Singapore, and Canada, and a facility much larger than Aerofarms is planned in Shanghai.
It’s no coincidence most of these farms are near big, densely-populated cities. The UN’s 2014 World Urbanization Prospects report predicts population growth and urbanization will add 2.5 billion people to the world’s big cities by 2050. That’s a whole lot of people who’ll be buying all their food rather than producing any of it.
Agricultural yields, then, will have to increase significantly, and since much of the world’s farmable land is already being farmed, we’ll need to get a bit more resourceful with our food supply.
Right now, vertical farming is still expensive—a bag of GrowWise lettuce costs more than a bag of organic lettuce, which costs more than a bag of regular lettuce—and it requires a lot of energy; those LED bulbs aren’t lighting themselves.
But continued research and investment will gradually drive prices down, and as ironic as it sounds, vertical farms will eventually get all their energy from solar panels.
This will leave us with an organic growing method that requires no fertilizer or pesticides, produces no agricultural runoff or other pollution, uses a fraction of the water traditional farms use (same goes for land), and yields consistent harvests year-round, even in extreme or unusual weather.
“You can create optimal growing conditions for the crop and you don’t need to wash it,” van der Feltz said. “The washing process damages the leaves and causes them to decay faster. Having the growth facility nearby decreases travel time and means the food will be fresher.”
The Consumer’s Still King
As rosy as this all sounds, it doesn’t mean people will embrace vertically-farmed food with open arms. Food is a sensitive topic many consumers take very seriously; if we are, in fact, what we eat, people may not love the idea of eating food that, for all its merits, is grown under decidedly artificial conditions.
As we stood peering at the neatly glowing rows of plants, van der Feltz reached out, plucked one from its roots, and handed it to me. “Try it,” he said. So I did. I tasted the green-leaf lettuce and the basil. Both seemed to have a stronger flavor and aftertaste than the store-bought greens I’m used to, though it was nothing I’d have noticed had I not been aware of what I was eating.
Van der Feltz recognizes widespread adoption of vertically-farmed food may be a challenge. “We understand some people may feel uneasy about food grown with no sunlight,” he said. Consumer education will play a key role in getting people comfortable with purchasing and eating LED-grown greens.
At the same time, though, food preferences are shifting, and for the better as far as vertical farming is concerned. “In the Western world there’s a growing demand for convenience products that have already been washed and are ready to use,” van der Feltz explained.
His confidence in GrowWise’s products, for one, is unwavering. “We test our produce regularly for pathogens and nutritional quality, and each time the results are excellent,” he said. “They serve this lettuce here in our cafeteria. I take it home to my family. My kids love it.”
Image Credit: Vanessa Bates Ramirez
Plenty Attracts Largest-Ever Agriculture Technology Investment Led by the SoftBank Vision Fund to Solve Global Fresh Produce Shortages
Plenty Attracts Largest-Ever Agriculture Technology Investment Led by the SoftBank Vision Fund to Solve Global Fresh Produce Shortages
Investment will drive deployment of global, large-scale indoor farm network to deliver radically fresher, affordable food to local communities everywhere
July 19, 2017 10:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Plenty, the leading field-scale indoor farming company remaking the global food system, announced today a $200 million Series B funding round led by the SoftBank Vision Fund, making it the largest agriculture technology investment in history. In connection with the investment in Plenty, the SoftBank Vision Fund’s Managing Director, Jeffrey Housenbold, will join the Plenty Board of Directors.
“Fruits and vegetables grown conventionally spend days, weeks, and thousands of miles on freeways and in storage, keeping us all from what we crave and deserve — food as irresistible and nutritious as what we used to eat out of our grandparents’ gardens”
Plenty is using proven plant science and patented technologies to build a new kind of indoor farm that uses cutting-edge LED lighting, micro-sensor technology, and big data processing to deliver higher-quality produce for pricing as good or better than what consumers pay today. The world has run out of economically viable, arable land for many fresh fruit and vegetable crops. This investment will support building out Plenty’s global, hyper-yield farm network and support its mission of solving the increasingly critical need to make fresh produce available and affordable for people everywhere.
“Fruits and vegetables grown conventionally spend days, weeks, and thousands of miles on freeways and in storage, keeping us all from what we crave and deserve — food as irresistible and nutritious as what we used to eat out of our grandparents’ gardens," said Matt Barnard, CEO and co-founder of Plenty. “The world is out of land in the places it’s most economical to grow these crops. After a decade of development driven by one of our founders, our technology is uniquely capable of growing hyper-organic food with no pesticides nor GMOs while cutting water consumption by 99 percent, making locally-grown produce possible anywhere. We’re now ready to build out our farm network and serve communities around the globe.”
"By combining technology with optimal agriculture methods, Plenty is working to make ultra-fresh, nutrient-rich food accessible to everyone in an always-local way that minimizes wastage from transport," said Masayoshi Son, Chairman & CEO of SoftBank Group Corp. "We believe that Plenty's team will remake the current food system to improve people's quality of life."
Plenty’s farms, which the Company plans to build near the world’s major population centers, will deliver industry-leading yields of the freshest, best-tasting local produce that’s completely GMO- and pesticide-free, all while transitioning agriculture to a predictable and perpetual model. Plenty farms maintain a perfect growing environment, use one percent of the water and a tiny fraction of the land of conventional agriculture, while delivering produce to local grocery shelves within hours of harvest.
The Series B funding round was led by the SoftBank Vision Fund, with participation from affiliates of Louis M. Bacon, the founder of Moore Capital Management, LP, and existing investors including Eric Schmidt’s Innovation Endeavors, Bezos Expeditions, DCM, Data Collective and Finistere.
About Plenty
Plenty is a new kind of farm for a new kind of world. We’re on a mission to bring local produce to people and communities everywhere by growing the freshest, best-tasting fruits and vegetables, while using one percent of the water, less than one percent of the land, and none of the pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or GMOs of conventional agriculture. Our field-scale indoor farms combine the best in American agriculture and crop science with machine learning, IoT, big data, climate creation technology and the extraordinary flavor and nutritional profiles of heirloom seed stock, enabling us to grow the food nature intended — while minimizing our water and energy footprint. Based in San Francisco, Plenty is currently building out and scaling its operations to serve people around the world.
Indoor Farming Plus Made In USA LED Grow Lights: Profile 1.18
Indoor Farming Plus Made In USA LED Grow Lights: Profile 1.18
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GREENandSAVE Staff | Posted on Thursday 20th July 2017
This is one of the profiles in an ongoing series covering next generation agriculture. We are seeing an increased trend for indoor farming across the United States and around the world. This is a positive trend given that local farming reduces adverse CO2 emissions from moving food long distances. If you would like us to review and profile your company, just let us know! Contact Us.
Company Profile: Metropolis Farms
Here is a great example of a large scale vertical indoor farm growing vegetables and herbs.
Here is some of the “About Us” content: We are urban-vertical farmers with over 15 years of indoor growing experience. We grow great tasting, wholesome herbs and vegetables, inside city buildings year-round. We grow the highest-quality food without pesticides, herbicides, or many of the other health risks that impact the food that reaches your table. We harvest and deliver our fresh produce the same day to local stores and restaurants. We can also make our fresh herbs and vegetables available by next-day air to restaurants and home gourmets nationwide. Our South Philadelphia Location is the first vertical farm in Philadelphia in addition to being the first vertical farm ever built on a second floor.
Our proprietary Revolution Vertical Farming Technology ™ is ultra-efficient, environmentally-responsible and commercially scalable. Our farms are highly-adaptive and virtually eliminate many of the health business and environmental risks that make conventional and greenhouse farming so expensive. Our farms can operate profitably for both smaller-artisan farms (Flash Farms) as well as large-scale operations (Super Farms). Our farming systems use 95 to 98 percent less water and 82 percent less energy than traditional farms. Our cost-effective technology allows us to grow more than an acre of produce in a 36 square feet of space, over 1,200 times the herbs and vegetables of an outdoor farm per square foot. We bring great food, good jobs and opportunities to local communities.
Instead of focusing on creating the world’s largest vertical farm. Our focus is on creating the world’s most efficient, cost effective and consequently productive local farms. It seems like every few months the media announces yet another proposed “World’s Largest Vertical Farm”. To date exactly none of these projects have ever fulfilled their promises. Our technology produces the most food, at the lowest cost, of both capital and operational expense, while maintaining the highest taste and nutritional values. Our goal is to grow both farms and farmers nationwide.
Here is the link to learn more: http://www.metropolisfarmsusa.com.
To date, the cost of man made lighting has been a barrier for indoor agriculture. A new generation of LED lighting provides cost effective opportunities for farmers to deliver local produce. Warehouses and greenhouses are both viable structures for next generation agriculture. Here is one example of next generation made in USA LED grow light technology to help farmers: Commercial LED Grow Lights.
Do-It-Yourself Farmer Grows Strawberries In The Air
The system has a number of advantages. Elevated strawberries stay warmer than strawberries in the ground, which means a relatively long season, from November through April. And the plants grow downward, so the berries are easy to harvest. Outdoor strawberry farms yield about 12 tons of strawberries per acre; hanging strawberry plants in greenhouses yield three times as much.
Do-It-Yourself Farmer Grows Strawberries In The Air
July 18, 201712:50 PM ET
SHAINA SHEALY
An elevated strawberry farms in the West Bank city of Tulkarum, funded by a USAID program.
Shaina Shealy for NPR
Hezam Kittani didn't want U.S. handouts to help him grow strawberries.
He wanted to be a do-it-yourself berry farmer — and to teach others to follow in his footsteps.
Strawberries were barely grown in the West Bank, where Kittani lives, before 2009. Today they're a 250-ton yearly crop. And that's because of $705,358 in grants from USAID for farmers in this "lower middle income region" (as classified by the World Bank).
The USAID money offered a helping hand for farmers to set up a new way to grow the fruits — in hanging planters where pests can't get to them as easily as on the ground and with "a computerized automated drip irrigation system that accurately measures the optimum amount of water needed." The berries grow in a mix of perlite and peat moss.
The system has a number of advantages. Elevated strawberries stay warmer than strawberries in the ground, which means a relatively long season, from November through April. And the plants grow downward, so the berries are easy to harvest. Outdoor strawberry farms yield about 12 tons of strawberries per acre; hanging strawberry plants in greenhouses yield three times as much.
Hezam Kittani (left), the do-it-yourselfer who created his own aerial strawberry system, and Mustafa Barakat, the Palestinian Ministry of Agriculture's strawberry expert.
Shaina Shealy for NPR
But Kittani thinks there's a big disadvantage to the current setup. He doesn't want local farmers to rely on foreign aid. He wants them to succeed — to help themselves and the economy — without outside help. That's why Kittani set out to design a version of the USAID elevated strawberry system that Palestinian farmers could easily (and inexpensively) replicate themselves.
He began watching YouTube videos and doing trial-and-error experiments to find a system that farmers could pay for themselves and that would still yield lots of berries. First, Kittani built planters from the same plastic boards used in USAID-assisted strawberry farming, but the process was labor-intensive, Kittani says. "It was hard to construct because you have to cut it in pieces and find how to stick it together."
One video suggested sewage pipes as planters. So Kittani bought pipes, drilled holes in them and lined them with plastic cups full of strawberry plants. But the pipes ended up costing more than the plastic boards.
Kittani kept experimenting. Eventually he settled on wooden beams wrapped with white plastic sheets — the cheapest materials he found. "I try to make it more practical and easy to construct to train neighbors how to do it," he says.
Kittani fills his channels with soil he calls "ideal," a mix of coconut shells, peat moss and foam balls. He learned about it on a video series on the University of Arizona website.
The biggest challenge was building a computer-based irrigation system similar to the expensive USAID model. Kittani asked his daughter's high school science teacher for advice; she told him about a market that sold irrigation timers for around $30 each. He taught himself how to code and programmed a computer with similar nutrient and water measurements as the USAID system. The result was a $500 automated irrigation computer, about a third of the cost of the USAID model.
USAID's objective is the same as Kittani's: to boost the local economy, create jobs and make Palestinian agriculture globally competitive. In response to Kittani's project, a USAID spokesperson said the organization applauds innovation and is pleased that an entrepreneur is trying to develop a new system: "Our goal is to make this program self-sustaining so that farmers will be able to do this work in the future without USAID's assistance."
Strawberries and almonds (pictured, raw) are popular crops in the West Bank.
Shaina Shealy for NPR
Kittani is still fine-tuning his strawberry operation. He's working with local researchers to develop a strawberry plant tissue culture, a technique used to grow whole plants from plant cells. And Kittani recently rigged a smartphone app that's connected to a device in the soil to track irrigation and pH levels. He's researching solar panels and wants to install internet using local SIM cards instead of a wireless router so farmers without internet or electricity can send and receive information from smartphones.
"It's called smart irrigation," Kitanni says. He pauses. "No," he continues. "We will call it smart farming."
This year marked the first full strawberry harvest in Kittani's backyard. Five farmers have come to him for advice. None of them have replicated his strawberry system from scratch, but they are asking him how to make their farms more affordable and resource-efficient.
And the strawberry is just the beginning, Kittani says. Next up: "We need to study the pineapple."
Shaina Shealy is an American journalist living in Jerusalem. Her work focuses on religion, community development and women's health. Find her on twitter @shainashealy
Indoor Farming Operation Being Built At Ivy Tech South Bend
Indoor Farming Operation Being Built At Ivy Tech South Bend
By Mark Peterson | Posted: Wed 6:22 PM, Jul 19, 2017
SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) - A farm is being built on Ivy Tech’s South Bend campus at a cost of up to $4 million.
The farm will span just 20,000 square feet because all the growing will take place indoors, hydroponically, under L.E.D. lights. It was somewhat ironic that the soil ceremoniously overturned during groundbreaking ceremonies today won’t be used to grow a thing.
“We are at the tip of the spear of a brand new industry, we're leaders in an emerging market,” said Green Sense Farm’s Founding Farmer Robert Colangelo. “We’re like Steve Jobs making computers in your garage. This field is just at the beginning of the beginning.”
The Green Sense search to find an academic partner for the project was not an easy one. “We went to a number of four year institutions looking to transform farming at agricultural schools but hit walls of bureaucracy and Chancellor Coley took a risk, he saw that there was a real need to train students with two year degrees to work in the produce food service and agricultural sectors.”
Chancellor Coley refers to the leader at Ivy Tech South Bend, Dr. Thomas Coley: “They set up a real live production and then our students get to train in a live production that's a very unique arrangement, it’s probably one, if not few in the country that would have this kind of partnership.”
And the partnering doesn’t end there. The facility’s produce production capacity has already been purchased by a half dozen entities including Martin’s Super Markets.
“When you harvest produce it starts dying and losing its nutritional value as soon as it’s cut,” said Colangelo. “So if it travels from the west coast to the Midwest it could take three days, so it’s less nutritious. If it’s harvested and it’s at your table in hours, because it’s locally grown it’s much more nutritious and you can see that in the taste and in the color of the produce as well as the shelf life, it’ll last much longer.”
On July 19, 2017, Green Sense Farms and Ivy Tech Community College broke ground on a 20,000 square-foot indoor vertical farm which will be an innovative workforce training center for the next generation of farmers as it grows produce for local customers in a year-round, sustainable farm. On hand to celebrate were representatives from Green Sense Farms, Ivy Tech, the City of South Bend, as well as the customers who will use produce from the farm. Pictured are (left to right): Robert Colangelo, Founding Farmer/CEO for Green Sense Farms; Donte Shaw, Executive Chef for Café Navarre; Kenneth Acosta, General Manager for Sodexo; Patrick Dahms, Executive Chef for Morris Inn at University of Notre Dame; Pipe Halpin, Customer Relations for Green Sense Farms; Dr. Thomas G. Coley, Chancellor for Ivy Tech South Bend; Dr. Sue Ellspermann, President of Ivy Tech Community College; Craig Lewkowitz, Vice President of Culinary Operations for Four Winds Casinos.
The list of sponsors also includes the wing of Sodexo and serves the St. Mary’s Campus: “No, I don’t think dirt farms are doomed, so this is just something else that’s different. You’ve got limited growing products that are in there you know, more on the lettuces the micro greens, the enhanced flavors of herbs, stuff like that, but you aren’t going to able to take corn and wheat and all that other stuff out of the system,” said Sodexo General Manager Kenneth Acosta.
FREIGHT FARMER Q&A: KARMA FARM
Jon Shaw has his roots in organic, soil-based farming. He has been an avid organic vegetable grower since he was a student in high school, and in 2009, after 45 years of gardening experience, Jon transformed his hobby into a career and launched Karma Farm
JUNE 8, 2017
6 Questions With Jon and Nathaniel Shaw of Karma Farm
One of the best parts of being part of the Freight Farms team is talking to our freight farmers and hearing about their successes, their businesses, their customers, and their challenges. They are a wealth of information, so now we are sharing some of their stories with you!
Jon Shaw has his roots in organic, soil-based farming. He has been an avid organic vegetable grower since he was a student in high school, and in 2009, after 45 years of gardening experience, Jon transformed his hobby into a career and launched Karma Farm. Located in Maryland, this family run farm decided to extend their growing season through the use of a hoop house, and now a Leafy Green Machine (LGM), which is run by Jon's son, Nathaniel. In addition to running a farm stand CSA, the Shaws provide area farm-to-table restaurants with leafy greens grown in the LGM year-round. With over 40 years of gardening and farming experience, Jon is a wonderful addition to our Freight Farmer community. We recently spoke with Jon and Nathaniel about the transition from traditional farming to hydroponics.
Freight Farms (FF): What, if any was your experience with farming before becoming a Freight Farmer?
Jon Shaw (JS): I started organic gardening in high school (circa 1972) and I have been growing vegetables ever since. Eight years ago, I decided to take a portion of my horse farm and turn it into commercial vegetable production.
FF: How did you find customers to buy your produce?
JS: We found many of our current customers our first summer when we grew too many tomatoes in our family garden and I decided I would go into town (Baltimore) to a few restaurants to give away samples or possibly sell them. Providing samples of our produce and explaining the breadth of our product line to chefs is still the main method we use to bring in new restaurants. Our customer base has also grown significantly from word of mouth as chefs tend to change jobs frequently.
FF: What is one small change everyone can make in their daily lives to make a big difference in our food system?
JS: Eat less meat and more vegetables.
“I was motivated to become a Freight Farmer because of my desire to turn our family farm into a sustainable business.”
FF: What’s the best part of being a Freight Farmer?
Nathaniel Shaw (NS): I’ve only been a Freight Farmer for a few months, but so far, the best things about it are bringing local chefs into the LGM to touch and taste the greens we are growing inside and seeing their surprise and excitement about the bold tastes and textures it can produce. Working with local chefs to find new greens and develop products that best utilize the advantages of the LGM has been an amazing process and one that I’m most excited to continue.
FF: What motivated you to become a farmer?
NS: I was motivated to become a Freight Farmer because of my desire to turn our family farm into a sustainable business. In recent years, we have worked to supply our restaurant customers with produce more consistently using row covers and hoop-houses, but our off-season production has remained slim. Our LGM gives us the ability to sustain a broader product line throughout the year and sustain our revenue and employee base over the winter.
FF: Which individuals, groups, and communities do you strive to reach and why have you chosen to get involved with these groups?
NS: We primarily target chefs at Farm-to-Table restaurants. The reason for this is that we love to grow beautiful and unusual produce and sell to chefs at mid to higher end restaurants that specialize in utilizing local ingredients. The restaurant community in nearby Baltimore is thriving and has grown with the farm as well.
Make sure to follow Karma Farm on Facebook and Instagram to check out pictures of Little Shaw (top dog in change) as well as beautiful shots from the farm!
If you'd like to learn more about how Freight Farms is helping farmers grow food in regions across the United States, Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean reach out to us here.
Affinor Growers Highlights Accomplishments in Fiscal Year End and Outlines Future Plans
Affinor Growers Highlights Accomplishments in Fiscal Year End and Outlines Future Plans
Vancouver (Canada), July 17 2017 - Affinor Growers (CSE:AFI, OTC:RSSFF, Frankfurt:1AF) (“Affinor” or the “Corporation”) is pleased to provide our shareholders with a summary of the Company's accomplishments in the past year and Affinor's plans for the current year.
Affinor's fiscal year end was May 31, 2017. Our ultimate goal continues to focus on becoming the leading technology developer and supplier of vertical farming equipment dramatically increasing the economics of farming, improving food security and increasing agriculture production for high value crops. With the help of our strategic partners and our technical team, Affinor's immediate plans include continuing the development and commercialization of our patented technology and equipment, validation through third party partners, proving revenue models, and crop diversification.
Over the last year, Affinor has focused on strawberry development as fresh strawberries account for 80% of the total strawberry production in North America valued at $2.6 billion annually with several industry challenges making traditional strawberry growing an ongoing concern for long term viability. Affinor will continue to grow and harvest strawberries with our beta prototypes installed at the University of Fraser Valley throughout the summer, fall and winter of 2018. The focus will continue on standardizing crop models and determining best practices for commercialization. Other notable achievements over the last fiscal year included testing cannabis on a small 4 level vertical growing tower to determine if the high value crop can be utilized with the technology, increasing yields and production per square foot, with initial success.
Affinor's goal over the next year is to shift from a development to an operational company focusing on generating revenue from vertical tower sales, license agreements and introducing new agriculture technologies. Our revenue models will include selling systems to growers resulting in a margin on the equipment, license fees, and collecting royalties on the revenues from production; as well as potentially using the equipment ourselves to grow and sell crops.
Project updates:
Commercial Farm in Abbotsford
Affinor expects to commission 32 towers in a commercial farm in Abbotsford British Columbia in late 2017 capable of growing over 21,000 plants. The facility will be one of our first license holders to commercially produce products using Affinor technology. We have partnered with a large strawberry producer in California that will supply the strawberry plants and help oversee the initial growing with an "On-Farm Test Agreement" executed March 27, 2017 (see news release "Affinor Growers Signs an "On-Farm Test Agreement" with California Berry Company")
Beta Prototype Testing Update
Two 4 level beta prototype towers were installed installed in April, 2016, and December, 2016, at the University of the Fraser Valley (“UFV”) Surrey BC location in the agriculture research greenhouse (see news release Dec 6 2016, "Affinor Installs Second Tower at the Agriculture Research Demonstration Greenhouse BioPod Initiative"). One tower holds 128 strawberry plants within 100 square feet and the other 256 within 100 square feet. All crop model information, data, procedures and harvest quality is being documented to help prove operational and financial assumptions, revenue models, and best practices to standardize commercialization. The protocols and developed methods will help catalyze the commercial farm in Abbotsford when ready.
Affinor's next objective is to produce strawberries throughout the winter with customized LED supplemental lighting for fruiting crops and diversify the crop trials with kale during the fall 2017.
Affinor and Cannabis Production
As cannabis becomes more established in North America, cost effective commercial production and greenhouse systems will be needed to improve production. Affinor sees this as an opportunity to diversity our technology into other markets with high value crops and be the first vertical system actively growing cannabis in Canada. Our first trial growing cannabis was completed in February 2017, with a grower in Mission BC (see news release Feb 27 2017 "Affnor Growers Installs Vertical Farming System for Medical Cannabis in Mission BC") with encouraging results within four months (see news release May 29 2017 "Affinor Growers Completes Initial Medical Cannabis Growth Trial with 200% Production Increase.") Affinor will continue to test cannabis, furthering yields and output by developing new crop models for short, high producing cannabis plants specific to the needs of the technology, at licensed sites. We are negotiating with cannabis growers throughout North America to help facilitate a larger pilot plant cannabis growth trial.
BC Tree Seedlings Development.
Affinor executed a research and development license agreement to develop vertical growing systems to mass produce high quality, high stress resistance seedlings for the BC forestry market (see news release May 22 2017 "Affinor Growers Signs and "On-Site Test Agreement" to Develop Vertical Farming with Coniferous Tree Seedling"). 259 million trees were planted in 2016 with 266 million planned for 2017. Reforestation and silviculture are a large and growing market throughout North America requiring new technological solutions to keep up with demand.
License Agreements and Sales
Affinor has signed several license agreements throughout the fiscal year with various companies to use our technology based on our beta prototype concepts and preliminary production results. Each license agreement has the potential to generate significant equipment sales, long term royalties, ownership options and joint venture partnerships. For a complete list, please visit our website. We are also under license agreement negotiations with several international companies looking to build commercial facilities throughout the Caribbean, Europe, and Middle East.
For More Information, please contact:
Jarrett Malnarick, President and CEO
contact@affinorgrowers.com
About Affinor Growers Inc.
Affinor Growers is a publicly traded company on the Canadian Securities Exchange under the symbol ("AFI"). Affinor is focused on growing high quality crops such as romaine lettuce, spinach, strawberries using its vertical farming techniques. Affinor is committed to becoming a pre-eminent supplier and grower, using exclusive vertical farming techniques.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors
AFFINOR GROWERS INC.
"Jarrett Malnarick"
President & CEO
The CSE has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
FORWARD LOOKING INFORMATION
This News Release contains forward-looking statements. The use of any of the words "anticipate", "continue", "estimate", "expect", "may", "will", "project", "should", "believe" and similar expressions are intended to identify forward-looking statements. Although the Company believes that the expectations and assumptions on which the forward-looking statements are based are reasonable, undue reliance should not be placed on the forward-looking statements because the Company can give no assurance that they will prove to be correct. Since forward-looking statements address future events and conditions, by their very nature they involve inherent risks and uncertainties. These statements speak only as of the date of this News Release. Actual results could differ materially from those currently anticipated due to a number of factors and risks including various risk factors discussed in the Company's disclosure documents which can be found under the Company's profile on www.sedar.com. This News Release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended and such forward-looking statements are made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995.