Can Agritech Save The Future of Food?

Photo: SKY GREENS

Can Agritech Save The Future of Food?

Aug. 7  06:00 am JST

By Maxine Cheyney for The Journal (ACCJ)TOKYO

The Fourth Industrial Revolution—a fusion of cloud-connected technologies, Big Data, and biotech—is changing the way we do business, travel, communicate, and even how we eat and produce food. The agriculture industry has already seen two revolutions of its own, with scientists and manufacturers dabbling in mechanization, plant breeding, and genetics. Now, this technological shift has sparked the rise of smart farms and what is being called the Third Green Revolution.

Although agritech—a broad collection of innovations and technologies that can be applied to farming—is not new, it is finding new life in Japan and abroad. As the world’s resources are stretched thin by population growth, and as environmental factors begin to impact our food supply, agritech is finding sure footing as a possible solution.

This is particularly true in Japan. Following the devastating Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami of March 11, 2011, the demand for untainted food swelled. The declining population of farmers has caused further production problems, making technologies that can improve yield, profit, and provide clean produce more important than ever.

More companies are looking for ways to invest, whether through venture capital funds, public equities, or direct investment. In Japan, technology companies such as Toshiba Corporation and Panasonic Corporation are finding ways to support smart farming.

But how are these technologies progressing? What potential do self-contained farms have to become the new way to grow fruit and vegetables? What is the science behind the agritech movement?

TECH TIME

According to Digital America: a tale of haves and have-mores, a 2015 report by consultants McKinsey & Company, agriculture and hunting remain the least-digitized industries in the United States.

But farmers have long been seeking the most efficient tools for their trade. Sensors that measure air and soil, livestock biometrics, and automated systems that use the Internet of Things (IoT) to control irrigation are just some of the tools already available. Precision equipment, geo-positioning systems, Big Data, unmanned aerial vehicles, drones, and even robotics are also leaving their mark on farming.

“The whole agritech sector is really interesting—it’s kind of like the healthcare sector, because it’s fundamentally important,” said Trista Bridges, founder and president of Vizane KK. “It’s very complex, very regulated, and there’s lots of different actors and stakeholders.”

The Journal also spoke with representatives from Japan’s Institute of Agricultural Machinery (IAM), part of the National Agriculture and Food Research Organization (NARO), about this growing sector.

“In smart agriculture,” they explained, “it is important for it to be cost-effective and have set rules and regulations, such as liability upon accidents.”

Bridges recently helped organize the AgriTech Summit (AG/SUM), which took place in Tokyo from May 23 to 25 and focused on how disruptive technology is helping to shape agriculture. She explained that many start-ups at the event provided a variety of solutions to meet a range of agriculture needs. Not one, however, delivered an end-to-end solution.

One of the main issues is understanding farmers’ needs, which differ from farm to farm. “The [return on investment] on a lot of these technologies is not proven at all,” she added. “It’s extremely complex to make a smart farm that is full-functioning, and indoor farming is probably a little easier because it’s self-contained.”

She also pointed out that the price of LED light bulbs is beginning to drop, an important change that will help many indoor farms.

Japan-based plant factory operations and vegetable production company Spread Co., Ltd. has created its own LED lighting for the soon-to-open Techno Farm Keihanna. Chief Executive Officer Shinji Inada said, “The lights are tailored to vegetables cultivated in indoor vertical farms.” He added that, compared with existing LED lighting, the system reduces energy consumption by 30 percent.

The number of self-contained farms is certainly increasing, helping the sector grow. They also provide a place for innovative technologies to be tested.

“I think it has a lot of potential, especially in a country where you have limited space and fewer people working on farmland,” Bridges said. But, she added, it is not yet clear in what situations equipping a farm with robotics and advanced technologies is the best option.

Inada added, “Although indoor farming comes with its fair share of challenges, its ability to control the environment not only allows for more stable production year round, but also for the cultivation of high-quality produce without the use of pesticides.”

Another aspect to consider is the cost of bringing in produce. “In Japan, you have substantial issues with importation of food,” Bridges explained. This means pressure is mounting for Japan to become more self-sustaining, especially as migration to the city increases. This is a concern shared by the United States.

Gotham Greens, an urban greenhouse opened its doors in Brooklyn in 2009. During the winter months, much of New York City’s produce was coming from places such as Mexico, California, and Israel, and CEO Viraj Puri saw a business opportunity. “We realized that by the time the produce made its way here, it was at least a week old and had changed hands multiple times. We also began to notice that consumer preferences were shifting toward more local and sustainably produced food.”

SECTOR SOLUTIONS

The importance of agritech falls into two crucial areas undergoing change: climate and population. Rapid growth of urban areas, resulting in declining land availability for agriculture, is fueling the need to find farming alternatives.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations report, Strategic Work of FAO for Sustainable Food and Agriculture, by 2050 there will be more than nine billion people on earth. That means we will need to produce 60 percent more food—an increase from 8.4 billion metric tons a year to almost 13.5 billion metric tons. This will require increased use of fertilizer, water, pesticides, and drugs, and the introduction of new crop varieties and animal breeds. Much of this production will come from already-cultivated land.

Unpredictable climate change also impacts the productivity of farms. The report states that sustainability relies on enhanced systems and “we must learn to produce more food with less resources and do so under much harsher conditions.” Smart farm alternatives could provide some respite.

One such smart farm is in Singapore. Sky Greens, a low-carbon, hydraulic-driven vertical farm, has found a way to create a sustainable business using minimal land, water, and energy. CEO Jack Ng explained how he saw an opportunity while working in the construction industry at a time when Indonesia had stopped exporting sand to Singapore. This heavily impacted the industry.

He knew that if something such as that happened in the agricultural sector, the impact would be much greater. “I realized that our country is very vulnerable due to our size and open economy,” he said.

Sky Urban Solutions—Sky Greens’s holding company—has patented its water-pulley system, which harnesses hydraulic power for irrigation. “This reduces the energy required to rotate the trays of crops upwards to get natural sunlight and down to the water tray for irrigation,” he explained.

Ng claims the system uses just five percent of the water used in conventional farming, and reduces energy consumption—each tower requires just 40W per hour to grow up to 2,500 plants.

Reduced labor is another key benefit. “The opportunity for our technology lies in the fact that it requires relatively few people to operate,” said Inada. “And it provides a comfortable and safe environment for its farm workers.”

The environmental benefits are also broad, with no agricultural runoff thanks to a scalable and flexible closed-loop irrigation system. Sky Greens has technology that can meet the unique needs of the local environment. Towers can also be built on non-arable land.

Gotham Greens, too, has found sustainable and environmentally friendly solutions that serve its inner-city communities all year round. “Our pesticide-free produce is grown using ecologically sustainable methods in 100 percent clean, electricity-powered greenhouses. We use advanced, recirculating hydroponic techniques to maintain precision plant nutrition.”

In addition, the greenhouse uses many of the technologies mentioned previously, including sensors, controls, and data science to create optimal conditions for the plants to grow. “Hydroponic farming, when practiced effectively, can be very efficient,” Puri said.

NARO-IAM has also developed a movable bench system for high-density cultivation of strawberries. This means workers do not have to move between cultivation benches, saving time and labor. The organization has also developed a robotic strawberry harvester.

Other projects to further develop agritech are now on NARO-IAM’s drawing board, including joining the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) created by the Cabinet Office of the government of Japan. NARO-IAM works as the representative research body, looking at revolutionary technologies to boost rice production.

Of course, this all requires rules and regulations to ensure food safety. “In March 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries of Japan announced safety measure guidelines for autopilot agricultural machinery, and this will be revised as autopilot in agriculture advances,” NARO-IAM experts explained.

Efforts in Japan to encourage smart farming businesses are strong. According to the Nikkei Asian Review on May 22, the government of Japan is moving to cut taxes for operators of high-tech indoor farms to encourage growth in this sector. Land that is paved over for indoor farms will be subject to the same taxes as agricultural land rather than higher property taxes.

Japanese technology companies are also taking an interest in the smart farming sector in Singapore. Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia Pacific, a subsidiary of Panasonic Corporation, opened an indoor vegetable farm in Singapore, and uses its LED lighting to grow Japanese vegetables that cannot withstand Singapore’s tropical climate.

FUTURE FARMS

Opening a smart farm is not all smooth sailing. Inada’s experience opening Spread’s Kameoka Plant in 2007 highlighted this. “It took us about six years to reach the point of stable cultivation in such a large environment.” He explained that there were also difficulties with conveying the concept to stores and the general public.

Ng said some farmers have misconceptions about the aim of his farm. “I am often misunderstood; [farmers think] that my innovation is built in order to replace them,” he said. “Farmers are also generally skeptical of modern methods of cultivation, and are therefore slow to embrace technology and engineering solutions.”

Even now, Ng admits that he is still learning in the rapidly growing agritech sector. “Any viable modern farming system is a synthesis of two main branches of science: engineering and horticulture.” Coming from the construction industry, for Ng this meant learning from scratch about plant science, crop behavior, pest control, and environmental factors.

Gotham Greens’ Puri, too, had to overcome obstacles when opening his greenhouse. “We initially faced some setbacks,” he said. “Challenges we faced included finding the right real estate and landlord, as well as logistics, regulatory challenges—zoning and permitting—and high upfront costs.”

One of Ng’s main concerns with the agricultural sector is that “many traditional farmers are giving up their trade, getting on in years, and are not likely to be succeeded by their children. The younger generations will not be attracted to agribusiness unless it pays more, requires much less work, and offers better prospects.”

However, the opportunity is there to further advance the smart farming sector, and having the right approach is crucial. Puri emphasized the need for perseverance and capital for any business looking to enter the market.

“For any vertical farm or businesses involving intensive cultivation, mixed or integrated farming, it is important to work backwards by identifying market demand to determine crop selection.”

Puri’s concerns for the industry goes further than just the pressures of the environment. “One of the problems with our current food system is over-industrialization, which has led to a huge disconnect between consumers and producers.”

“Long distance transport associated with trucking food across the country—and the food waste that results from it—are also significant issues.” he added. The idea that Gotham Greens can harvest daily and deliver food straight to supermarkets and restaurants within hours makes the self-contained greenhouse a viable option in any big city environment.

Japan’s smart farming sector is certainly growing, and Inada is looking to expand Spread’s operations. “Domestically, we will aim for a 10 percent share of the Japanese lettuce market by utilizing a franchise/ownership model to establish 20 facilities and a daily production capacity of 500,000 heads of lettuce.”

As technological innovation transforms agriculture, the smart farming sector is bound to go through the trials that other industries have experienced during such transitions. But we are sure to see more and more smart farms on the global scene, and the Third Green Revolution could ensure that each of the world’s soon-to-be-nine-billion people are fed.

Photo: SKY GREENS

Gotham Greens, New York  Photo: GOTHAM GREENS

This Midwestern Greenhouse Has Perfected The Art Of Growing Quality Tomatoes Year-Round

This Midwestern Greenhouse Has Perfected The Art Of Growing Quality Tomatoes Year-Round

No more ruining deli sandwiches–and no more shipping bad tomatoes across the country. MightyVine’s hydroponic technology produces ripe, red tomatoes, on land close to the city.

“Until someone invents a robot that can gauge which leaves to pluck off and when, there’s going to be a strong human element in tomato growing.”

BY EILLIE ANZILOTTI

A few years ago, as a food industry entrepreneur in Chicago, Gary Lazarski started to notice something that bothered him. “My office back in 2010 was in the Loop; there were a bunch of different lunch places around there, and every sandwich and every salad you bought would have these tomatoes on them,” Lazarski tells Fast Company. “They were terrible. You’d see people sitting on a park bench, and without fail, they all do the same thing: Open up the sandwich, look at that sad, orange disk, peel it off like it was a dirty sock, and throw it out.”

We all do it, Lazarski says; when a tomato is subpar, mealy-textured, and weak-colored, we don’t think of throwing it away as wasting food, but rather as salvaging an otherwise acceptable sandwich. But why, Lazarski wondered, could Chicago, a great food city, not equip its lunch options with tomatoes that actually tasted good?

“Open up the sandwich, look at that sad, orange disk, peel it off like it was a dirty sock, and throw it out.” [Photo: MightyVine]

Lazarski and his business partner Danny Murphy were, at the time, piloting a food-distribution company called Local Foods, which is still operational today. Through that enterprise, they connected with some Dutch business partners, Royal Pride Holland, and on trips to the Netherlands, visited their greenhouses. Royal Pride Holland has, since its founding in 1960, been a pioneer in greenhouse growing techniques; their many-acred structures use hydroponics and radiated heat to grow produce year-round. In one greenhouse, Lazarski and Murphy saw bright red, perfect tomatoes growing in the middle of winter. They began to wonder if a glass enclosure on the outskirts of Chicago could supply the city with the elusive, quality tomatoes that would not end up in the trash.

They pulled together around a dozen investors and $11 million to develop a greenhouse built with Royal Pride Holland’s glasshouse and hydroponic technology, where they would, once launched as MightyVine in August 2015, grow both cherry and large slicing tomatoes. In the Midwest, land-grown tomatoes enjoy just a brief season, from midsummer to early fall. The best tomatoes are those that are plucked at peak ripeness and delivered fresh, but the tomatoes populating grocery store shelves in Chicago through the winter have been plucked prematurely to survive a long trip cross-country from warmer climates. MightyVine, with Lazarski as CEO, can grow and ship ripe tomatoes year-round; the produce is grown without pesticides, and the tomatoes can linger on the vine until they’re ready to be plucked. Lazarski knew the operation would fill a void in the Midwestern produce scene, but they needed land to be able to pull it off.

“It’s well suited to get us up into Wisconsin, into Iowa, and into the city itself.” [Photo: MightyVine]

Rochelle, Illinois, a small city 80 miles west of Chicago, was where Lazarski and Murphy landed. “It’s well suited to get us up into Wisconsin, into Iowa, and into the city itself,” Lazarski says. While it would have been appealing for marketing purposes to locate the greenhouse in Chicago proper, logistically speaking, it would’ve been a nightmare, Lazarski says; space constraints would make it difficult to scale, and visions of tomato trucks attempting to navigate the Dan Ryan Expressway during rush hour were enough to cement the founders’ decision to locate on the outskirts.

Rochelle was a city that was poised, in the years leading up to the recession of 2008, for great economic growth, as it sat at the intersection of a number of roads that fanned out into other Midwestern economic centers like Chicago and Milwaukee. When Lazarski put out an RFP to the state of Illinois, seeking a place to site a 15-acre tomato greenhouse, he learned about a parcel that had been bought up by CenterPoint Properties, which intended to build a network of warehouses on the site. They built one, then the recession hit, and they abandoned the plans and sold the property back to its original owner, a local farmer. “You hear a lot of talk about shovel-ready projects around the recession,” Lazarski says. “This was literally shovel ready–CenterPoint had already stripped the topsoil off and run roads, water, and electricity out to the site.”

Because it was already treated for development, the land could not be farmed. When Lazarski and Murphy approached the farmer who owned the property, and explained their idea–to build a greenhouse on top of the wasted land–he was immediately on board; the farmer is now an investor and board member for MightyVine.

“What we found is if you offer people a good tomato, they’re willing to pay for it.” [Photo: MightyVine]

The greenhouse leaves a light enough environmental footprint to allow the farmer to continue working his plots of land around MightyVine’s facility. The Dutch glasshouse model includes rainwater capture capability, which prevents runoff into the field; that rainwater is then used to feed the tomatoes growing inside; MightyVine uses around 10% of the water of conventionally grown tomatoes. And because the tomatoes are distributed only around the greater Chicagoland region, the company is cutting down the carbon footprint associated with long-haul shipping.

Since October 2015, when MightyVine collected its first harvest, it’s been growing continuously. At first, only half of the greenhouse was being used, but the company, in response to demand, brought the other 7.5 acres into production this January. In a given week, MightyVine will harvest and deliver around 120,000 pounds of tomatoes. The approval of well-known chefs like Frontera’s Rick Bayless, who told Modern Farmer that he hasn’t been “so excited about a local product in a long time,” has contributed to MightyVine’s growth.

While indoor vertical farming companies like Bowery and AeroFarms are perfecting automated, data driven hydroponic models that consistently deliver large quantities of leafy greens with minimal labor, tomatoes, Lazarski says, are a more difficult product. “With lettuce, you have to get the nutrient mixture and the lighting down, but once that’s set, they will pretty much grow on their own,” Lazarski says. Tomatoes require constant pruning; there’s a lot of fussing that has to occur around a vine to ensure it grows correctly. “Until someone invents a robot that can gauge which leaves to pluck off and when, there’s going to be a strong human element in tomato growing,” Lazarski says. MightyVine has hired and trained around 80 local people, who have taken to the working conditions, Lazarksi says: The greenhouse is consistently 70 degrees, and because the tomatoes are grown in standardized hydroponic structures, they’re plucked at waist height, negating the need for injury-inducing stooping.

In order to be able to pay their workers a good living wage and benefits, Lazarski says the tomatoes are priced at a premium; while standard tomatoes retail for around $1.24 per pound, MightyVine products sell between $2.99 and $3.99 per pound. “But what we found is if you offer people a good tomato, they’re willing to pay for it,” Lazarski says. Local high-end grocery stores consistently sell the tomatoes (Local Foods, Lazarski’s and Murphy’s original venture, oversees the distribution of the produce), and some of Chicago’s most prominent restaurateurs are sourcing from MightyVine. While Lazarski cannot testify to the fate of the tomatoes once they reach people’s plates, one can only assume that they land in the trash at a much lower frequency than their pale orange competitors.

Purdue Students Created “Hydro Grow”

Purdue Students Created “Hydro Grow”

August 17, 2017 

People will produce faster and fresh food in their homes with the help of the Purdue student’s inventions. A mechanical engineering student named Scott Massey working on a NASA-funded project tasked with growing plants in outer space. Scott Massey said, “I think I realized that if I really had this one shot at life, why not try something new and take a risk?”. With the help of the co-founder and classmate Ivan Ball Scott Massey developed Hydro Grow.

The Hydro Grow is a business whose task is to provide easier access to people to freshly grown produce in their homes. The vertical tower Gropod named can produce a variety of vegetables as well as fruits faster rate than a traditional farm could.

Scott Massey said, “People want to know how their food is developed, and there’s just a general hunger for that knowledge”. Further, he said, “This is a product that lets people have the comfort to know that what they have is naturally grown, and they can be present every step of the way”.

The Gropod is still in its prototype phase. Scott Massey stated that they are looking to start selling the product in just a few months.

The process is simple Massey said, just people need to insert a seed into the Gropod’s slots and pour water into the tower and then let it grow. Ball said, “It will continue to grow until it’s ready for harvest”. Further, Ball added, “You can continually keep your produce fresh”. Ball said, “With a hydroponic system like we have, you’re actually able to continuously recycle the water over and over again by spraying the roots directly”.

Hydroponics quickly becoming one of the next targets for sustainable agriculture, it is a global industry that continues to grow.

Indoor AG-Con Philly

Indoor AG-Con Philly

ABOUT INDOOR AG-CON PHILLY

After two successful years in New York, Indoor Ag-Con is relocating its East coast event to Philadelphia for its inaugural Indoor Ag-Con Philly on October 16, 2017. Our venue is the modern gallery at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and our agenda will include 12 industry-leading keynotes covering topical “big picture” subjects such as the use of artificial intelligence in indoor agriculture.  As for other Indoor Ag-Con events, our agenda for Indoor Ag-Con Philly will be tech-focused and crop-agnostic.  With extended Q&A sessions and networking breaks, there will be plenty of opportunity to network with the growers, produce buyers, entrepreneurs, tech geeks and investors we expect to join us.  Participation will be capped at 120 to keep the conversation flowing and maximize networking opportunities.

On October 17, the day after Indoor Ag-Con Philly, our Nextbean Ambassador sponsors at Kennett Township, PA – one hour’s drive outside of Philadelphia – will be hosting tours, free to Indoor Ag-Con Philly participants, of the extensive indoor agriculture production and distribution facilities which support their world-class mushroom industry. Every day Kennett produces, packs and ships 1.5M lbs of fresh mushrooms, single-handedly supplying ~50% of the US market, an amazing feat that’s been going on year-round for over 100 years! This is a truly unusual opportunity to get an insider’s view of what’s involved in producing and distributing a large-scale agriculture commodity grown entirely indoors. In addition, the event will start from world-famous Longwood Gardens, home to more than 1,000 acres of formal gardens, conservatories, woodlands and meadows, and includes a custom tour of Longwood’s own indoor production horticultural facilities, plus a complimentary farm-to-table lunch and free admission to the public gardens. You’ll be asked if you would like to join the Kennett event – at no extra charge – as you purchase your Indoor Ag-Con Philly admission.

REGISTER FOR PASSES

Passes are available at the early bird rate of $399 through August 31 or until the event is sold out, a 25% discount to the standard rate of $499.

This rate includes access to all sessions, light breakfast and lunch, drinks party and a gift bag with an exclusive hard copy of our newest white paper.

REGISTER NOW

SPONSORING & EXHIBITING

As it is a one day event, we will not have an exhibition hall at Indoor Ag-Con Philly, but we do have plentiful sponsorship opportunities to allow you to engage your brand with our farming, equipment supply, tech, investor, academic and government participants.

OUR AGENDA & SPEAKERS

Our one day event will be split into four themed sessions that look at the “big picture” of indoor agriculture with presentations from its thought leaders.  Each consists of three keynote speakers, with an extended Q&A at the end of each session.  We’ll be adding speakers here as they are confirmed, and the agenda may change a little as we confirm speaker availability.

8:30 AM9:15 AM  Registration & Light Breakfast

9:15 AM9:20 AM  Welcome & Introduction

9:20 AM10:05 AM  Session One: How indoor agriculture can develop local communities
Three Keynote Speakers, including:

Eric Stein, Associate Professor, Penn State

10:05 AM10:30 AM  Extended Q&A and Discussion

10:30 AM11:00 AM  Networking Break

11:00 AM11:45 AM  Session Two: Artificial intelligence in indoor agriculture
Three Keynote Speakers, including:

Adam Greenberg, CEO, iunu

Dr. April Agee Carroll, VP of R&D, AeroFarms

11:45 AM12:15 PM  Extended Q&A and Discussion

12:15 PM1:45 PM  Lunch, with Curated Discussion Tables

1:45 PM2:30 PM  Session Three: The coming impact of LED lighting
Three Keynote Speakers, including:
Dr. AJ Both, Associate Extension Specialist, Rutgers University

2:30 PM3:00 PM  Extended Q&A and Discussion

3:00 PM3:30 PM  Networking Break

3:30 PM4:15 PM  Session Four: How technology changes indoor agriculture business models
Three Keynote Speakers, including:
Jack Griffin, President, Metropolis Farms

4:15 PM4:45 PM  Extended Q&A and Discussion

4:45 PM4:50 PM  Closing Remarks

5:00 PM  After Party

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Why Suburban Lawns Are Becoming Farms

The Leonard Lopate Show

Jim Adams and Linda Borghi discuss using suburban lawns to grow crops.

Why Suburban Lawns Are Becoming Farms

Aug 16, 2017

New York City isn't known as a farming destination, but green thumbs in Long Island have come up with a creative way to grow crops by turning their front yards into farms. Jim Adams, co-founder of Lawn Island Farms, joins us to talk about this new movement. He was recently profiled in the New York Times piece "For Farmers Without Land, a Long Island Lawn Will Do." He's joined by Linda Borghi, founder of Farm-A-Yard, an organization that trains people on how to use their yards to grow crops.

Alesca Life Is Creating Urban Solutions That Is Transforming The Farming Production

Alesca Life Is Creating Urban Solutions That Is Transforming The Farming Production

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Alesca Life Technologies Dubai Municipality MoU signing. Photo credit: Courtesy of Alesca Life Technologies

• 03-Aug-2017
•  Samuel Wendel, Forbes Middle East Staff

Stuart Oda isn’t your average farmer. As the 32-year-old explains it, “I’m a former investment banker turned urban farmer.”

Oda is CEO of Alesca Life Technologies, a Beijing-based agricultural technology startup that creates software-enabled crop growing facilities designed for urban farming. “We build weather-proof, cloud-connected farms that enable food production by anyone, anywhere,” says Oda.

One such “anywhere” is Dubai. Oda is eyeing the U.A.E. as Alesca Life’s first major expansion opportunity outside of its primary market in China, where he and two co-founders formed the company in 2013.

Back then, the founders spied an opportunity to innovate the agriculture industry in emerging markets by using new technology. “There’s a lot of opportunities for us to improve everything from access to highly nutritious foods all the way to food security,” says Oda.

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Stuart Oda, CEO of Alesca Life Technologies

Alesca Life primarily takes old shipping containers and turns them into miniature, automated farms. It outfits containers with hydroponic systems that allow crops to be grown using fewer resources.

As a result, its container farms use between 20 to 25 times less water than traditional agriculture, says Oda. It also uses less fertilizer and is pesticide free.

Simultaneously, Alesca Life cuts down on labor costs by automating most of the growing process using software. It relies on sensors inside the containers to monitor the crops, and the operation can be controlled remotely through a smartphone app.

Alesca Life’s container farms are designed to be embedded in buildings or other unused spaces in high-density urban areas. Oda markets the technology to clients such as hotels, restaurants, supermarket chains and food distributors.

In addition to saving resources, Alesca Life’s technology allows clients to reduce their logistics costs. Rather than transport produce into the city from rural areas, clients can grow fruits and vegetables in the center of major metropolitan areas. “To give them the capability to produce food locally, we believe it would be quite transformative for their business,” says Oda.

He sees potential in the U.A.E. for a variety of reasons. For starters, Dubai is a cosmopolitan city home to a thriving tourist industry, which creates a demand for a large mixture of fresh produce. “The variety of cuisines that exist [in Dubai] is enormous,” says Oda. These cuisines require a wide range of ingredients, many of which are not produced in the U.A.E.

As a result, the U.A.E. is a major importer of food—and it’s not alone. Across the Gulf, food imports are expected to rise in each country over the next three years; overall food imports are projected to grow to $53 billion in the Gulf by 2020, according to a research paper by the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Many types of the imported produce could be grown onsite in Alesca Life’s container farms. “Anything you can imagine, from Italian herbs to the simplest sprouts and micro-greens,” says Oda. “These are typically things that are imported from Europe.”

The company first put down roots in the Middle East last year through the Dubai Future Accelerators program, where it was one of 30 companies to make the cut out of nearly 2,000 that applied to the government-backed startup accelerator. During the 12-week program Oda was introduced to potential local partners and clients in the Gulf. “It essentially allowed us to see if the technology had value in the region, which we were convinced it did,” says Oda.

The program culminated with Alesca Life signing a memorandum of understanding with the Dubai Municipality to be its strategic advisor.

According to Oda, Alesca Life is currently in the final stages of signing contracts with clients in the U.A.E. He declines to reveal client’s identities until after the deals are completed, but notes they’re talking to both public and private sector players. Oda is also reaching out to potential customers in Saudi Arabia.

In China, over the last six months Alesca Life has served clients such as Mercedes Benz and the hotel group Hotel Jen. Oda is currently exploring expanding into Europe and southeast Asia as well, an objective which he hopes to achieve within the next 12 months.

As a result, these days Oda spends more time flying than he does tending to his crops. He’s on pace to take 60 flights this year—or one flight about every six days.

Back in the U.A.E., Alesca Life isn’t the only one exploring agricultural innovation; local companies such as Landex Group and My Green Chapter, to name a few, are also addressing urban agriculture.

My Green Chapter, which caters to environmentally conscious Emirati consumers looking to grow their own food, is an online platform selling all manner of products designed for urban farming, from indoor growing kits to chicken coops.

“We believe urban farming will contribute very well to the U.A.E.’s agricultural industry,” says Jean-Charles Hameau, the company’s founder.

On a global scale companies such as Freight Farms, PodPonics and Growtainer in the U.S are pursuing technology similar to Alesca Life’s. It was a market opportunity that Oda came upon nearly six years ago, back when his office was in the corporate world rather than on a farm.

At that time Oda worked for Dell in China. Born in the U.S. and educated at the University of California Los Angeles, Oda started his career in investment banking working for Merrill Lynch in Tokyo before moving to Dell in 2011.

There he was tasked with mapping global mega-trends in emerging markets to see how—as Oda phrases it—“the challenges of today become the opportunities of tomorrow.”

It was through this he stumbled on the idea that led to Alesca Life. Although Dell was exploring opportunities in emerging markets from a personal computing angle, it got Oda thinking about global challenges that could be addressed by technology in general. One of the areas that caught his attention was agriculture.

He poked around and discovered that access to fresh produce can be a major challenge in emerging markets, with limiting factors such as agriculture’s reliance on land, logistics and climate.

He saw an opportunity for innovation. “From a market size perspective, it [agriculture] was exciting,” says Oda.

Others were exploring the problem too, doing things such as using weather data to optimize field crop production.

They’re part of a precision farming market that is expected to double in size from $3.2 billion in 2015 to $7.8 billion by 2022, according to India-based market research firm Markets and Markets.

Oda became convinced there must be tremendous opportunity in trying to improve the efficiency of agriculture by making it more data driven.

Still, it took Oda awhile to gather the courage to leave his job and jump headfirst into entrepreneurism. Ultimately, a sense of urgency overwhelmed him. “The opportunity isn’t available for very long,” says Oda.

He teamed up with two co-founders, Kazuho Komoda and Young Ha, to start the company in August 2013. Oda knew Komoda from his days working in investment banking in Tokyo, and Ha also worked at Dell in China (Ha has since left the company).

Then came the real challenges. For one thing, none of the founders were farmers by training. They also had to self-fund the venture in the early days.

Old shipping containers become miniature, automated farms.

They began by studying everything from plant biology to nutritional chemistry, while simultaneously tinkering with the software and technology. Slowly they began to develop a prototype. “It took a while,” admits Oda, with a laugh.

Early on they traveled to a port city in China, where they bought a secondhand shipping container. They refurbished it and insulated it, and then embedded their hardware—all of which was designed by the company. The resulting container was sheltered from air, water and soil pollution.

They developed the smartphone app to give the farm manager the ability to monitor all environmental parameters in the containers.

Once the container was built, Alesca Life’s team got down to the business of planting and growing crops.

The company scored its first client in 2014. Boasting a functioning product, Oda then turned his attention to fundraising and spreading word about the company.

Alesca Life didn’t get its first outside investment until the first prototype container was built and operational. Its earliest investors were friends and family. Oda recently closed a round of funding for more than $1 million, but he can’t disclose the investors yet. To date the company has secured seed funding and angel investments, although Oda won’t reveal the total amount raised.

Last year, Alesca Life competed in the 1776 Challenge Cup, a global startup competition. Although it didn’t win, through it Oda was recommended to the newly created Dubai Future Accelerators program, leading Alesca Life to apply, also last year.

Oda is now focusing his efforts on expanding Alesca Life into new markets, one of the first of which has been the U.A.E. In Dubai, Alesca Life is currently looking for ways to localize the manufacturing of their containers, as well as preparing to set up an office, where Oda plans to hire everyone from industrial designers to horticulturists.

Although it has planted a seed in Dubai, there are other challenges that may face the company as it expands, one of which is regulation. For the moment, Oda thinks the regulatory environment is quite friendly in Dubai.

Winning over consumers is another issue. In China, it has taken time to convince consumers to accept produce grown in new ways, rather than by traditional methods. So far, that hasn’t been a major issue in the U.A.E. either, at least not yet.

Another problem is growing different types of crops profitably. Some crops can be grown quite profitably in Alesca Life’s containers, while others cannot. It’s an issue Alesca Life’s team hopes to squash as they continue to tinker and refine their technology.

Challenges aside, Oda is adamant that it’s the right time for innovation in the agriculture industry. And in Dubai Oda thinks he’s found an opportunity ripe for the picking.

PIDO's Bike Share Farm Is A Community Garden That Can Be Pedalled From Place To Place

PIDO's Bike Share Farm Is A Community Garden That Can Be Pedalled From Place To Place

Emma Tucker | 6 August 2017  Leave a comment

Beijing architecture firm People's Industrial Design Office has designed a mobile farm that lets the community share responsibility for crops' wellbeing.

Bike Share Farm – which was created and built by People's Industrial Design Office(PIDO) during a 72-hour hackathon in Seoul, South Korea – addresses the lack of space many major cities suffer from, particularly when it comes to room for growing produce.

The hydroponic farm consists of a triangular steel framework supported by a pair of bikes. Pipes run across the metal base, with holes for pot plants to slot into. A set of solar panels are fastened onto the structure to power a pump that runs water through the entire system.

The frame allows for bikes to be easily exchanged, so that a new cyclist can take responsibility for the farm at each stop. The system is designed to encourage a whole community to take part in farming, and offer more people the chance to get involved.

"Urban gardens are now common in many cities but few have access to them," PIDO co-founder James Shen told Dezeen. "The Bike Share Farm marries the bike share model with urban farming. A vertical and mobile farm addresses the land constraints found in dense cities like Seoul and Beijing."

According to Shen, the structure is light enough to be lifted by two people and is easy to control and steer.

"We imagine people would ride to a Bike Share Farm location, hook on their bikes and take it to a convenient location," he added. "This would allow large numbers of Bike Share Farms to spread throughout the city."

The studio is currently working on demonstrating the design with larger numbers of vehicles.

As cities with limited space continue to build upwards, new approaches to farming are being created by designers keen to introduce greenery. These include a vertical farm that would produce food amid Shanghai's skyscrapers and a floating "food forest" that would occupy a barge on New York's waterways.

Full Automation From Planning To Control For Indoor Farms Is Here

Full Automation From Planning To Control For Indoor Farms Is Here

Brooklyn, August 10, 2017 - Two leading agtech companies have joined forces to offer award-winning automation software and hardware to indoor farms.

For the first time ever, growers will be able to use technology to automate processes that have previously been decided based on incomplete data. Agrilyst, based in Brooklyn, is the market leader in farm management and automation software for indoor farms. Motorleaf, based in Montreal, is a market leader in IoT, plug-and-play sensor, and controls hardware and software for hydroponic and greenhouse automation.

It is now possible to connect Motorleaf devices to Agrilyst’s platform. Growers can visualize all of their climate and nutrient information real-time and alongside their crop yield data.

“The customer is the most important piece of the puzzle, and facilitating easy access to critical information in an intuitive and plug-and-play environment are two of the things that both Agrilyst and Motorleaf customers already experience. Now for the first time they can do this with both companies working together on their behalf. Welcome to the new way agtech should work for all customers,” says Ally Monk, Motorleaf Co-Founder and CEO.

“We believe the open exchange of data between systems is critical for farm success and have always been committed to helping farmers access and utilize their data in better ways. We’re excited to work with Motorleaf, who is quickly becoming a key player in advanced indoor controls technology. Connecting to top-of-the line devices will help our customers get the best insights into their operations possible,” says Allison Kopf, Agrilyst Founder and CEO.

For a limited time, growers who sign up for an annual commercial farm subscription with Agrilyst will receive two free control units from Motorleaf.

About Agrilyst

Growers who are interested in taking the next step in data and automation can sign up at: https://www.agrilyst.com/motorleaf/

Agrilyst is the virtual agronomist powering the horticulture industry. The company was founded in 2015 and is based in Brooklyn, NY. The subscription-based software helps growers automate labor-intensive processes like production planning, crop scheduling, and task management and drive higher revenues on the farm. Agrilyst is committed to helping every indoor farmer reach profitability.

Contact: Allison Kopf CEO, Agrilyst  |  akopf@agrilyst.com

About Motorleaf

https://www.agrilyst.com/motorleaf/

Motorleaf turns any greenhouse and indoor farm, into a smart connected operation. From a hobby grower to 100+ acres of greenhouse; Motorleaf has a suite of hardware and software to allow the Monitoring, Automation, and AI/Machine Learning enabled discovery to flourish. Motorleaf allows all farmers to ‘Sleep Well While Plants Grow Well.’

Your Greens Might Soon Be Grown in Warehouses

Your Greens Might Soon Be Grown in Warehouses

Technology-driven businesses such as New Jersey-based Bowery are bypassing traditional farming with warehouses and LED fixtures.

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Bowery Farms grows hydroponic crops out of a warehouse in Kearny, New Jersey, using LED lights. Co-founder Irving Fain says productivity far exceeds that of traditional farming.  PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BOWERY

By Christina Nunez

PUBLISHED AUGUST 11, 2017

Transformational ideas can come from anywhere. From anyone. National Geographic’s CHASING GENIUS is now soliciting ideas around three issues: sustainable planet, global health, and feeding nine billion. Could your solution be a spark of genius? Check out the challenge, where the best ideas for improving our world each can win $25,000.

At a warehouse in New Jersey, beds of hydroponically grown greens sit under grow lights, eventually bound for high-end restaurants and grocery stores in New York City and surrounding areas. Bowery is one of several indoor farming startups aiming to reinvent agriculture using new technology, from highly efficient lights to plant-monitoring software.

Here, Bowery co-founder and CEO Irving Fain talks about the future of urban farming and why it's important.

How is Bowery different from traditional agriculture?

We grow in a completely controlled environment, which means that we can grow 365 days of the year, totally independent of weather and seasonality. The reliable, consistent supply of high-quality produce year-round is a complete departure from centuries of the way agriculture has functioned. We grow all of our food without any pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, or insecticides.

When you grow in that way out in the field, you typically see substantial declines in the yields of the crops. In our case,we actually are able to grow more than twice as fast as the field for a number of crops. We end up more than 100 times more productive than a square foot of outdoor farmland, and we're saving over 95 percent of the water.

Our farms are so close to the point of consumption that our time between harvest and consumption is a fraction of what traditional agriculture has. We can build a much better business than many traditional farmers have today.

That's a striking percentage of water reduction. Why is that?

We built a system that allows us to monitor how the plants are growing and give them only what they need, when they need it. So we're being much more thoughtful about giving the plants any of the inputs that they need to grow. We are also able to recirculate and reuse water.

What was the inspiration for starting the company?

I've always been a big believer in technology's ability to solve difficult problems. When you look at the current agricultural system today, you see that it is really at the epicenter—either directly or indirectly—of so many global issues. By 2050, according to the UN, we'll have nine to 10 billion people on the planet, and we need somewhere between 50 and 70 percent more food to feed that growing population.

That additional food has to come from moving a lot of levers—it's not just what we're doing here that solves this problem. But figuring out ways to grow food in a more efficient way is important. I became really fascinated with this question of, how do you provide fresh food to urban environments, and how do you do it in a way that's both more efficient and more sustainable? (See also: Feeding 9 Billion)

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Bowery vertically stacks its plants to maximize growing space.

PHOTOGRAPH COURTESY OF BOWERY

Of course, the idea of growing food indoors isn't really new—what's changed?

People have been using lights to grow indoors for a long time. The problem was, the light fixtures were expensive and inefficient.

It wasn't until about six or seven years ago that everything changed. The cost of LED fixtures dropped by over 85 percent, and the efficiency more than doubled. The stacking [of crops] was enabled by the LEDs because they're very thin and they can pull the heat away from the plants well. That means you can stack vertically and use the cubic space much more efficiently.

We also have a [proprietary software network] across our entire farm. We're collecting millions of points of data in real time. We have cameras that are not only taking pictures of the plants, but they're running those pictures through machine-learning algorithms and are actually able to understand, how is this plant growing, what's the quality we're seeing—and then in real time make tweaks to the conditions to change the way the crops are growing.

What advice would you give to someone who has an innovative idea and wants to pursue it?

Get started. And don't be afraid to ask questions and reach out to people to gain as much knowledge as you can. People oftentimes are surprised at how much they could learn just from asking the right questions to the right people.

While I'm not recommending haphazardly diving in, there's a point of diminishing returns whereby thinking and talking to people is yielding less value than you get just by getting started.

Often the point where entrepreneurs will hesitate is right at that cliff. They're looking for a sort of certainty that will urge them to jump off. The reality of entrepreneurship is, that certainty doesn't exist—and it will never exist. You've got to just jump in.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Mouser Electronics “Vertical Farming” E-Book

Mouser Electronics “Vertical Farming” E-Book

August 2017

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Tying into the first EBook from Mouser Electronics’ Empowering Innovation Together initiative, Mouser and Grant Imahara of MythBusters’ fame now explore the up-and-coming realm of urban farming. As previously mentioned, the Empowering Innovation Together initiative takes readers on a quest for new knowledge where they can see a direct connection between ideas and products, and how it’s all applied into a working solution.

In this EBook, entitled “Vertical Farming,” Mouser and suppliers Analog Devices, Intel, Microchip and Molex explore how urban farming could help smart cities meet the challenge of feeding their growing populations.

From precision agriculture and indoor farming to energy efficiency and connectivity, this E-Book examines the aspects of smart agriculture, and the implications these advances may have on our future.

In their next stop, partners Mouser Electronics, WIRED Brand Lab and Grant Imahara visit Tokyo and meet with the group at Mirai, whose goal is to bring farm-fresh food to the middle of one of the busiest cities on the planet. Join Mouser and series sponsors Intel, Analog Devices, Microchip Technology and Molex for a look at the future.

Mucci Farms Announces 60-Acre Expansion Into Ohio

Mucci Farms Announces 60-Acre Expansion Into Ohio

Mucci Farms (the “Company”) yesterday announced a large-scale, multi-year investment in Huron, Ohio.  The Company confirmed that it was starting a multi-year, three phase construction project which will cover a total of 60 acres and feature the newest and latest state of the art greenhouses equipped with grow lights which extend the growing season. The constructed facility will also include a 272,000 sq. ft. distribution warehouse to support the Company’s growing US customer base. 

The Company has already broken ground on the first phase which is the construction of a 24 acre range and the Company expects produce from this facility will be available as soon as March 2018. 

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This new, state of the art facility, will include the latest grow light technology which simulates sunlight by providing or supplementing the necessary light to optimize plant growth. The use of this grow technology allows for year-round production, keeping our produce -”always in season”.

Mucci Farms already has a sustainable, successful business with a well recognized brand in a number of large US retailers. 

Expanding our operations to include a US growing facility was strategically done to meet our US customer demands for locally grown, year-round, fresh and flavourful produce. 

Making this investment in Ohio allows us to reduce the food miles for our US retailers and gives our US consumers the confidence that they can bring fresh and flavourful Mucci Farms’ produce into their homes all year round. 

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The Company has been actively exploring a number of US expansion opportunities  for the past 18 months and the site located in Huron, Ohio was a perfect fit due to its easy access to a number of current and potentially new retailer distribution facilities as  well as its proximity to our Corporate headquarters in Kingsville, ON.

The Company has enjoyed establishing a number of  working partnerships during the development stages of this expansion with the City of Huron and Erie County officials and the Company looks forward to what it expects will be a number of promising opportunities for continued  community partnerships ahead. 

As Mucci Farms continues to grow so will its work in the communities the Company is a part of. Mucci Farms understands the value of supporting all local communities in which it operates and it places equal emphasis on social interests as business interests.  The Company is confident that there are a number of inspiring things to come with this investment in Ohio and Mucci Farms looks forward to growing with the City of Huron, Huron Township and Erie County.

“The City is excited to collaborate with Mucci Farms in bringing a new, advanced technology to the region. The impact to this area is expected to be profound and transformational. Welcome.” Andy White, City of Huron, Manager.

“We are extremely pleased to be a part of this next step for Mucci Farms.  The Company’s advanced practices and reputation is well suited for our region and business community.” Abbey Bemis, Executive Director, Erie County Economic Development Corporation.

Potential Employment Opportunities

The Company anticipates that when the first phase of construction is completed it will be looking to employ up to 100 full-time positions. The Company expects this number will increase to 250 full-time positions by the completion of the third phase of construction. 

These positions will capture many different levels between professional and general labourer positions. Some key positions the Company is looking to hire right away include growers, assistant growers and greenhouse labour supervisors. For more information, please contact Carol Bendo, HR Manager.

Contact: Ajit Saxena 

Mucci International Marketing Inc.

Tel: 519-326-8881 

ASaxena@muccifarms.com

www.muccifarms.com 

Publication date: 8/9/2017

7 Offbeat Urban Farms Found Around The World

7 Offbeat Urban Farms Found Around The World

by Lyna Vuong • August 10, 2017

Urban farms are popping up all over the world as more communities are gaining interest in growing their own food as a way to address access, boost local economy, and spark conversations around our food systems. There's something magical about starting a seedling, tending to its growth, and harvesting it from the earth to eat. These days, you don't necessarily need soil or lots of space to grow food, as new ways and technologies to grow it are developed.

Below, we highlight seven ingenious and unexpected community farms. Now, how can we incorporate something similar into our own neighborhoods?

Brussels' UFU sightings: Urban Farm Units Photo by Designboom

Shipping containers are repurposed into all sorts of uses now. In Brussels, Damien Chivialle created one into an Urban Farm Unit, or UFU. The shipping container was designed with a greenhouse roof extension, and the entire unit has the ability to move and live wherever there is space. Hyrdoponictechnology is used to grow fresh vegetables to supply local residents or restaurants, and act as a public educational garden space.

Denmark's Impact Farm would be our go-to hangout if we were nearby Photos by Human Habitat

Design firm Human Habitat takes a similar lead in Denmark, but they refurbished a shipping container into a two-story timber greenhouse. This zero-waste, pop-up project is called Impact Farm, and produces two to four tons of fruit and vegetables a year using solar energy (it can also be disassembled for relocation). The structure serves as a farm hub, cooking space, food venue, and educational workshop. The ground floor is used as multipurpose work and community recreation space. We can't imagine a better way to maximize this kind of square footage.

Public Farm 1 was the iconic structure at PS1's 10th annual summer music event series Photo by Raymond Adams

PF1's farm canopy and play space Photos by Elizabeth Felicella

PF1 was a temporary art installation at MoMA's PS1 during the summer of 2008. We think it was a wonderful idea to turn a cultural destination into a community play space that incorporated food. Aside from being an impressive sculpture, it was a place that provided refuge from the sun and hosted farmers' markets. This innovative urban garden used recyclable cardboard tubes to grow vegetables, offer solar-powered cell phone charging stations, and pools of water to cool down with.

A lush oasis among N.Y.C.'s skylines Photo by Brooklyn Grange Farm

Brooklyn Grange may be the world's largest rooftop soil farm that spreads across two roofs in New York City, growing 50,000 pounds of organic food per year. They also keep more than 30 naturally-managed honeybee hives on roofs dispersed across the city. Although it is a rooftop farming and green roofing business, Brooklyn Grange hosts educational programming, offers consultation, and nonprofit partnerships that promote healthy communities.

So far, 26 lawns have been converted into lush vegetable patches through Fleet Farming Photo by Inhabitat

Fleet Farming is a community effort that rallies volunteers and cyclists to transport food Photos by Fleet Farming

Okay, Fleet Farming isn't necessarily an urban farm, but it is a principle that can be implemented in any community, including urban environments. This Orlando, Florida-based initiative is the modern neighborhood victory garden. Think about all of those empty, grassy front yards that require fertilizers and maintenance, only to not be used. This organization transforms lawns into vegetable gardens. Community members can opt to rent their front lawns and host a fleet farm. All of the produce is available for homeowners and the surplus produce is then sold at local farmers' markets or restaurants within a five-mile radius.

In Japan, urban farms find new homes in train stations Photo by Machinaka Saien

There are rooftop community gardens spread all over Japan's train stations known as Sorado Farms. East Japan Railway Company has planned to build community gardens on top of, or near, each of its stations. If you're waiting for a train, why not get your hands a little dirty? Community members are able to purchase fresh seasonal produce or rent their own plot of land to grow their own food.

Just one of the elements of Dublin's Urban Farm initiatives Photo by Dublin Globe

Urban Farm is Ireland's first rooftop farm located in Dublin. The farm stems from being an educational project to promote sustainable living, urban agriculture, cooking, and food sharing within their community. The Urban Farm aims to make growing food a more approachable subject for people to incorporate into their everyday lives. A few noteworthy programs include: ThankPotato, where 180 different heritage and heirloom varieties are grown in upcycled water coolers; Urban Oyster, which is a community outreach program that teaches people how to grow mushrooms and compost from used coffee grounds; and Social Hops engages the community to collaborate and grow their own hops to reduce carbon emissions from importing hops, encouraging locals to develop their own craft brews.

Do you know of any inspiring urban farms here or around the world? Share them with us in the comments.

In The Future, Your Grocery Will Likely Come From The Building Next To You

In The Future, Your Grocery Will Likely Come From The Building Next To You

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Tyagarajan S August 8, 2017

The green spires rise up like monstrous trees. Inside the climate regulated indoor farm, drones and robots fuss over walls of green, while self-regulating systems maintain humidity and nutrients. When they are ready to be harvested, automated delivery systems bring these fresh produce to tables in a matter of an hour or two. This self-contained farm is one of many hundreds, spread throughout the city, supplying food to those living around it.

This could be the future as mounting constraints on modern agriculture pushes us into exploring alternate ways to produce food to feed the urban mega-cities of the future. One growing movement offers to bring change nearly 10,000 year-old fundamentals of farming.

Can Farming Really Move Indoors?

Agtech Floating
Indoor vertical farms are trending. The largest agtech investment till date is a $200 million Series B funding, led by SoftBank and other investors including Bezos Expeditions, in a previously little known startup called Plenty.

In a 52,000 sq. ft. facility in San Francisco, Plenty grows various leafy greens on vertical panes. Although it is yet to sell its produce in stores, the startup (and the investors) believes that it has the technology to disrupt the market of ‘growing food’. With its new found financial muscle, Plenty wants to set up vertical farms all over the US, Japan, China and the Middle East.

Until Plenty came along, there was another company that hogged the farming revolution limelight — Aerofarms. A couple of months back, it raised a little more than $34 million as part of its Series D funding. Bowery, another indoor farming startup from New York, raised $20 million in funding soon after.

Aerofarms grows leafy greens, carrots, potatoes, etc. in its vertical farms and claims it is 130 times more efficient than a conventional farm. Source: Aerofarms

What’s all this money going to? Right now, into an experiment that lies at the convergence of the agricultural, industrial and technological revolution. Inside sterile, climate controlled buildings that resemble a chipset factory more than a farm, these startups grow produce without using soil.

In recent years, hydroponics, a technique that involves growing plants using nutrient solution and water as medium has gained popularity. But startups such as Plenty and Aerofarms use what they claim is an even superior technique called Aeroponics. The roots of the plants are suspended on a misty medium rich in nutrients.In either case, these indoor farms do away with soil and sunlight.

Farm computing
Perhaps a better term would be to call these “farm computers”.

LED lights enable photosynthesis and growth. The temperature is controlled and varied as required. Nutrients are added or removed and humidity is tightly regulated thanks to sensors that constantly monitor their levels. All of this is monitored and regulated by a farm operating system. Need less sodium in the leafy greens? Just tweak a few controls.

Japan, with limited arable land and fast dwindling workforce, is very interested. Spread, one of the country’s largest vertical farming companies, produces more than 20,000 lettuce heads everyday using hydroponics. It has set its sights on more than doubling its yield to 50,000 using automation and robotics. Fujitsu, an electronics giant, is converting unused semiconductor facilities into indoor hydroponic farms.

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When Spread opened its Kameoka plant in 2007, it had worked for six years before that to be able to scale its production. Source: Spread.

China, whose blistering growth left its farmlands toxic, is exploring indoor farming techniques as a way to feed its dense urban centers. A Chinese architectural firm is building a multi-story hydroponic vertical farm in Shanghai to grow leafy greens. In Singapore, a Panasonic-run vertical farm cultivates 40 different crops and 80 tons of veggies every year.

There have been small, niche attempts in India too. A small 1600 sq.ft. vertical farm in Goa cultivates about three tonnes of lettuce every month. Future Farms in Chennai is evangelising hydroponic farming with a handful of pilot farms although these are not indoor farms.

One projection estimates that the vertical farming market will be $4 billion by 2020. But how and why did they suddenly get so popular?

Fantasy to necessity
Over the last 10,000 years, since our foraging forefathers started settling down to farm, the fundamentals of agriculture hasn’t changed much. However, the explosion of demand and the resulting scaling up of this agriculture in our recent history has come at a price. Agriculture uses up nearly a third of our land mass (not including Antartica) and consumes 70% of all global freshwater.

Global population is hurtling towards the nine billion mark by 2050 putting a huge ask on our food production. Open arable lands are hard to come by for countries with low space (Japan, Singapore) or harsh climate (Middle East). In countries like India, climate change and poor planning have resulted in complete dependence on the vagaries of monsoon.

So when you hear Plenty claim that their technology can help produce 350 times the output of a conventional farm in the same area, you sit up and listen. Most indoor vertical farms also claim to consume about one-hundredth of the water required for conventional farming.

“Indoor farmers do not have to pray for rain, or sunshine, or moderate temperatures, or anything else related to the production of food crops, for that matter,” said Dickson Despommier who coined the term “vertical farm” when he wrote The Vertical Farm: Feeding the world in the 21st century back in 2010. It’s a promise that offers hope in the current scenario.

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Back when Dickson Despommier published the book in 2010, the concept of indoor vertical farm was being pursued seriously in few places. Today, the landscape has changed quite a bit. ©Picador

The vagaries of weather on farming is only set to get worse with the worsening effects of climate change. Countries seeking food security cannot rely only on uncertain climatic conditions to feed their growing populace.

Moreover, food production today is a black box today with increasing concerns on quality. A fifth of all arable land in China has more than the prescribed level of toxins for agriculture — the result of the industrial growth surge. As a result, the market for organic produce is surging ($60 billion market by 2020) despite the fact that the label is abused widely nor is it a guarantee that pesticides were not used. Produce grown in indoor farms promise a new level of quality. Bowery calls them “post-organic”, meaning they are grown with zero pesticides.

An indoor vertical farm in the thick of an urban center can also deliver fresh produce faster and with low delivery carbon footprint than traditional farms that need their produce to travel (sometimes) hundreds of kilometers adding to both economic and environmental costs. So, what’s holding them back?

Numbers trail the hype
In 2013, an economic feasibility study conducted to look at what it would take to supply fresh produce to 15,000 people demanding 2,000 kcal of nutrition per day, estimated that the vertical farm would need to be the size of a city-block, 37 floors high, use LED illumination and would be able to supply produce at around $3.40 to $4 per kilogram. In essence, vertical farms today can profitably cater to only high value produce for elites.

For the well funded vertical farm startups, the economics are yet to catch up with the valuations. The set-up costs are high and so are the running energy costs (climate control, LED lighting etc.).

In developing countries where power is more valuable and less reliable, the costs add up and pretty much make indoor farms out of reach for large scale adoption.

Navin Durai, chief marketing officer of Future Farms, told me a few months ago that the capital expense of setting up these farms in India is high since majority of components have to be imported (about Rs 1 crore per acre). And running them with artificial lighting pushes the set up costs even further up. Vertical farms farms relying on direct sunlight and using hydroponics will have operational costs that are a fraction of regular farms and could potentially recover initial costs in three-four years.

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Chennai based Future Farms uses hydroponics to cultivate leafy greens, tomato, bell peppers, broccoli, lettuce etc

But the dynamics are changing rapidly. The components to set up farms including sensors, regulators and the machine learning intelligence are all fast getting commoditized. For instance, the prices of LED lights have dropped by more than 90% in less than a decade. Energy prices could begin to drop if the cost of renewable energy continues to plummet. There could a case for these indoor vertical farms to become profitable in the short term and scale.

But economics isn’t the only hurdle. Google X, which works on moonshot ideas to solve large problems, killed their work on automated vertical farming project some time back. The reason: vertical farms cannot grow staples like rice and wheat that feed a vast majority of the world. Today, vertical farming can primarily produce leafy greens and some vegetables.

Countries that need to mass produce cheap food for its populations like India, China and large parts of Africa cannot still rely on indoor vertical farms to fulfill their needs. Even if the costs align, running these farms require complex expertise with a steep learning curve. These farms demand engineers, biologists, machine learning experts and data scientists.

Does this mean these farms will remain niche indulgences at best? Maybe not. The investments pouring into this could help scale up the technology and increasing commoditization could make these feasible very soon.

The future of your groceries
In a few decades, more than 70% of humanity will be living in a city. The rise of large mega-cities with millions of people and that are connected to each other through high-speed transit may be inevitable. More and more people will demand variety, quality and freshness in food. Meanwhile, climate change and pollution will continue to dwindle land available for agriculture. We’re rapidly running out of water too.

Inevitably, farms will have to get local, move closer to urban centers and be efficient in their use of resources. Detroit, once a symbol of industrial revolution that produced automobiles, is now seeing an agrarian revolution as entrepreneurs buy up old warehouses and abandoned factories and convert them into indoor farms that can generate fresh produce. In London, one startup is growing produce in the forgotten old tunnels beneath the city.

Indoor farms could become self-contained ecosystems that can just download “climate recipes” that enables simulating any climate. One could grow mangoes in Mexico and jalapenos in India. Open Agriculture Initiative by MIT Media Lab strives to do just that by bringing technology that makes indoor farming easy.

As automation increases, these indoor farms could potentially grow in size and scale. Spread is launching is fully automatic vegetable factory where all activities post seeding are done without human intervention. This will enable self-contained farm ecosystems to emerge and eventually get commoditised. Large living enclaves and communities may sport their own farms.

A smart food value chain will emerge, letting consumers order produce on demand fresh from these farms. The rise of on-demand grocery delivery service today is perhaps just the beginning. In the future, smart sensors could help track food from its origin until it reaches the consumer. Individuals may even be able to custom-grow food to their tastes. You could alter the sodium content in your leafy greens. Imagine getting food from farm to table in a matter of a minutes.

Perhaps this is the kind of grocery value chain that Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has on his mind. His personal investment fund Bezos Expeditions is one of the investors in Plenty. Earlier this year, Amazon purchased Whole Foods. It isn’t hard to imagine little automated indoor farms all across the country growing produce and then have a supply chain of drones and self-driving delivery vehicles moving groceries to the end consumers.

For when we eventually do colonize other lands, it’s likely that we’ll ship self contained farm-pods across space even before we set up large scale colonies. But much before we do that, we’ll likely get used to them on earth.

Urban Farms: Projects From Around The World

Urban Farms: Projects From Around The World

By: Henry J. Schumacher

AUGUST 6, 2017

As social entrepreneurs find novel ways to make agriculture an integral part of urban life, I would like to share 10 innovative approaches with you from around the world:

 

Philippines: Quezon City Vice Mayor Maria Josefina “Joy” Belmonte’s campaign, “The Joy of Urban Planting”

The city currently has 68 farms of various sizes found in barangays, public-elementary schools, day-care centers, parishes and non-governmental organizations. The city works with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and the Department of Agriculture, which provide financial grants. Even if city farmers fail to bring their items to market, urban farming is still a win-win situation. “If they don’t produce [enough] for selling, as long as they can eat their products to decrease the issue of malnutrition, it’s already a triumph,” Belmonte said.

GrowUp Box, London, UK

Kate Hofman and Tom Webster are giving new meaning to the phrase “box lunch” with their reinvented shipping container, the GrowUp Box.
Inside the 20-foot container, tilapia are farmed in tanks especially designed to ensure there is enough room for fish to grow, while on top, greens are cultivated in vertical columns. The water from the tilapia tanks circulates through the columns, where the fish waste provides nourishment to about 400 plants. The fish and greens are sold to area restaurants.

The project’s parent company, GrowUp Urban Farms, consults with people looking to build their own boxes and is set to start building the first commercial-scale aquaponics farm in London, Hofman said. http://growup.org.uk/#%21for-schools-and-universities/c1v6f

Beacon Food Forest, Seattle, Washington, US

The Beacon Food Forest in Seattle is turning a piece of public land into an edible forest garden. Residents will be welcome to forage in the forest, a 7-acre plot­—adjacent to a city park—featuring fruit and nut trees, a pumpkin patch and dozens of berry bushes. The goal is to mimic a natural ecosystem, creating a space that requires less maintenance and offers higher yields, cofounder Glenn Herlihy says. http://www.beaconfoodforest.org/

Farmery, North Carolina and TBA, US

Benjamin Greene, founder of the Farmery, plans to make the journey from farm to store more efficient by eliminating it almost entirely.

The Farmery is an 8,000-square-foot market with food shopping on the lower level and mushrooms, greens and fruits growing on the upper level. Whatever is not grown on site will be sourced locally. http://www.thefarmery.com/

Sky Greens, Lim Chu Kang area, Singapore

Singapore, one of the most densely populated nations in the world, has little room available for farming. So inventor and entrepreneur Jack Ng created the Sky Greens system to grow more food in less space. Think of it as a plant skyscraper.

The equipment holds up to 32 trays of greens—including lettuce, spinach and a variety of Asian greens—on a tall, narrow A-frame structure. The plants slowly rotate, as if on a Ferris wheel, so each tray gets sufficient exposure to sunlight.

Sky Greens harvests and delivers vegetables to Singaporean markets every day. http://www.skygreens.com/

Brooklyn Grange, Brooklyn, New York, US

The Brooklyn Grange comprises two and a half acres of growing space high atop a pair of office buildings. “We’re looking at ways to increase food production without increasing agricultural footprint,” Spokesman Anastasia Plakias said.

The operation grows more than 50,000 pounds of food each year, which it sells through farmers’ markets, CSA subscriptions and wholesale accounts. In addition to boosting New York City’s local food supply, the farm also absorbs more than 1 million gallons of stormwater every year, reducing the load the city’s systems must manage. www.brooklyngrangefarm.com

Deu Horta Na Telha, São Paulo, Brazil

After 30 years of building urban gardens in São Paulo, agricultural technician Marcos Victorino started running out of cultivable land.

As part of his research work at local college Faculdade Cantareira, he designed a way to turn roofs, balconies and paved areas across the city into miniature farms. Victorino turns large roof tiles upside down, creating a long, V-shaped trough that can be filled with soil.

These tile beds are elevated, making them easily accessible to children and the handicapped. Because the tiles are watertight, they hold in moisture, allowing growers to make the most of an increasingly limited water supply.

Prinzessinnengarten, Berlin, Germany

The Prinzessinnengarten is an urban farm nestled in the shadow of the former
Berlin Wall, between unused subway stops, graffitied concrete walls and aging apartment blocks. Inside vine-covered fences grows a wide range of vegetables, all planted in easy-to-move containers—recycled Tetra Paks, rice sacksand plastic crates—that allow the entire operation to be moved if needed. Visitors can pick vegetables, learn about seed harvesting and vegetable pickling, or visit the café to enjoy snacks made from the garden’s produce. http://prinzessinnengarten.net/about/

Urban Organics, St. Paul, Minnesota, US

Located in a building formerly occupied by a commercial brewery, Urban Organics is an aquaponics operation that provides salad greens and fish to grocery stores and restaurants using just 2 percent of the water of conventional agriculture. Founder Fred Haberman, CEO of Minneapolis marketing agency Haberman, hopes the for-profit farm will prove the commercial viability of aquaponics and help spur economic development in the area. “If we can do that, I believe you’ll see more of these types of facilities popping up,” he said.  http://urbanorganics.com/

Lufa Farms, Montreal, Canada

The goal of Lufa Farms in Montreal is to create a “local food engine”, says the company’s greenhouse director Lauren Rathmell.

At the heart of the operation are two sprawling rooftop greenhouses—currently totaling 1.75 acres—that produce a range of vegetables: greens and herbs, peppers and eggplants. The produce is packaged with locally sourced goods like handmade pastas, fresh bread and dark baking chocolate, and delivered to approximately 4,000 customers each week. https://montreal.lufa.com/en/

Comments are welcome; contact me at hjschumacher59@gmail.com.

A Small Missouri Company Has Big Plans For Idle Elevators To Serve As Vertical Farms

A Small Missouri Company Has Big Plans For Idle Elevators To Serve As Vertical Farms

August 7, 2017

by baggyparagraphs

Vertical Innovations’ first vertical farm is planned for this elevator. Photos courtesy of Vertical Innovations.

By Ronald Ahrens

Jim Kerns and David Geisler called up the other day from Springfield, Missouri, to ask a question of our readers: Are you aware of any municipally owned, abandoned grain elevators?

Kerns and Geisler run Vertical Innovations, an enterprise formed in December of 2014 to repurpose old elevators, making them into incredibly productive vertical farms for growing leafy green vegetables. They have developed a patent-pending method of hydroponic production, a “structure-driven design” that adapts to the circular shapes.

“The silos tell us what to do,” said Kerns, who has a background in organic farming and leads the company’s innovation, design and construction efforts. “I see them as giant environmental control structures, giant concrete radiators.”

Significant energy savings can result from implementation of circular shapes, which among other things require far less lighting and the corresponding energy use, he said.

Jim Kerns explores elevator guts.

David Geisler, CEO and general counsel, has worked out a lease for a disused elevator in downtown Springfield.

For its next steps, the company has targeted an available elevator in South Hutchinson, Kan., and approached the owner of Tillotson Construction Co.’s Vinton Street elevator in Omaha.

“What an awesome facility,” Geisler wrote in a follow-up email, thinking of Vinton Street.

Geisler and Kerns have cast their eyes far beyond the Midwest, though, from big terminals in Buffalo, N.Y., to San Francisco’s threatened Pier 92.

“We really need to save that facility if it’s structurally sound,” Kerns said. “It could put out about 50 million pounds of green leafy vegetables per year.”

Their most unique discovery source is YouTube videos posted by those who have flown drones around elevators.

But word-of-mouth works, too, and Kerns issues this appeal to readers: “Submit to us pictures and locations of concrete grain terminals in good condition all across the United States, sea to shining sea, north to south.”

Vertical Innovations can be contacted through its website.

Food Security Issues & Innovations on the Table at September Urban Agri Summit in Johannesburg

Food Security Issues & Innovations on the Table at September Urban Agri Summit in Johannesburg

Press release from: Magenta Global Pte Ltd

Urban Agri Summit to be held in Johannesburg, South Africa on 7-8 September 2017

Africa's increasing concerns for food security to feed its growing populations and sustain economic development are to be tackled head-on by the region's foremost experts, regulatory authorities and various agriculture industry stakeholders at the Urban Agri Summit 2017 happening on September 7-8 in Johannesburg.

Several agri-sector leaders herald emerging innovative solutions such as vertical farming to address the continent's increasing need for an adequate and sustainable food supply.

"Vertical Farming will inevitably be Africa`s future pathway to food security and environmental sustainability," said Aliyu Abdulhameed, Managing Director for the Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL). "NIRSAL`s participation in Urban Agri Summit 2017 will open new frontiers to better address the multidimensional needs of agricultural value chains in competitive urban agribusiness and food industry."

Prof Michael Rudolph, Director of the Siyakhana Multipurpose Cooperative, explained: "Vertical farming is becoming an important intervention for African cities as an innovative solution to supplying food, mitigating against air and noise pollution, applying water and energy conservation and combating urban food insecurity. Vertical farming will offer inner city children, youth and adults a chance to reconnect with nature and promote better environment health in the city. The Urban Agri Summit could not have come at a better time for Johannesburg as the city looks for innovative effective and efficient ways for addressing food and nutrition security as well as an environmentally healthy place to live. I look forward to robust discussions and networking with a wide range of key stakeholders during the Summit."

Mlibo Bantwini, Executive of the Dube AgriZone, added: "The agribusiness sector in Africa has tremendous potential to contribute to economic development and assist in ensuring food security. The use of methods such as vertical faming complemented with other methods of production can play a vital role in ensuring that this potential is fulfilled. We are excited to be part of the Summit. As this will be our first participation at the Summit, we hope to interact with many stakeholders and learn from their insights and build relationships with industry players."

Various initiatives have already been undertaken by South Africa to spur innovation in its agriculture sector. Together with other Sub-Saharan African cities in Nigeria and Kenya, South African metropolises are joining the footsteps of many global cities to introduce sustainable urban indoor farming. A key to sustainability, however, requires farms streamlining operations and reducing resource wastage.

"Food-producing agriculture value chains must undergo innovation to increase efficiency and yields, enhance variety, and meet the dietary demands of the growing population worldwide. To do so sustainably they must reduce waste and pollution, better manage and conserve water resources, and must be powered by renewable energy and energy efficient systems." said Nicole Algio, Regional Secretariat Manager for REEEP Clean Energy. She added: "REEEP as an endorsing partner to the Urban Agri Summit 2017, has a deep understanding of specialized research and analysis into the water-energy-food nexus and agrifood value chains globally, and supports climate smart innovation in agriculture such as vertical farming that applies the use of renewable energy and energy efficiency to reduce overall energy consumption of fossil fuels."

Angel Adelaja, Founder/CEO of Fresh Direct Produce & Agro-Allied Services, takes a fresh approach: “What if Africa no longer needed to import most of its food products, and agricultural value chains were strengthened, profitable, and were able to meet local demands for food without being environmentally tasking? This is my goal for my company Fresh Direct Nigeria and for African Agriculture. With increased urbanization, we need to secure our food systems not only rural agriculture, but with a complement of urban agriculture through technology and community. I'm excited that the Urban Agri Summit will be a gateway to unlock Africa's potentials through outside the box thinking.”

Urban Agri Summit 2017's is partnered by Gold Sponsor Nigeria Incentive-Based Risk Sharing System for Agricultural Lending (NIRSAL), and is supported by the Association for Vertical Farming (AVF) and by the Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP). 

The two-day Summit will be held at the Sunnyside Park Hotel in Parktown, Johannesburg. For more details, contact Jose at +65 6846 2366 or email jose@magenta-global.com.sg.

Magenta Global is a premier independent multi-disciplinary business media company. We are committed to providing specialist, pragmatic and high-value information and knowledge to business executives and professionals worldwide. Helmed by a team with a combined industry experience of more than 50 years, Magenta Global is dedicated to equip businesses with research information, events, trade exhibitions, training solutions and peer-to-peer executive programs. We serve clients with a global portfolio of more than 100 events covering various verticals and geographies. Key focus areas are: Energy & Renewables; Telecoms & IT; Pharmaceuticals and Healthcare; Banking and Insurance; Business Management & Strategy; Agribusiness & Softs; Mining & Metals; Infrastructure & Investment; and Maritime & Trade. 
In each of the sectors, Magenta Global organises training courses, specialist business forums and international conferences & exhibitions. Working in close partnership with both industry and governments, these events serve to provide cutting-edge information and a networking platform, acting as vehicles to promote investments, commerce and technology transfer.

Magenta Global Pte Ltd
Block 53 Sims Place
#01-150
Singapore 380053

Grow, Eat, and Learn With Urban Roots

Grow, Eat, and Learn With Urban Roots

Want to learn more?

If interested in getting involved with Urban Roots, visit their website at urbanrootsgr.org or stop by their office and farm at 1316 Madison Ave SE Grand Rapids, MI 49507.

• #urbanroots #urbanfarm #community

Megan Sarnacki 
8/11/17 02:40pm - LOCAL LIFE

Founder and Executive Director of Urban Roots, Levi Gardner, shares his thoughts on what urban farming means to him and how the community can get involved.

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/Urban Roots

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 /Urban Roots

As Founder and Executive Director of Urban Roots, what does an average day on the job look like?

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/Urban Roots

I try to start most of my days with yoga if I can and then I have breakfast. I used to skip over those things and now I find that if I don’t do them in that order, my day doesn’t work out very well. After that, there’s no such thing as an average day. I could be spending some time with my staff imagining or executing programs or meeting with members of my board. Today, I will be working at two different gardens teaching classes and workshops. The thing that I love the most about being an executive director is I feel like the conductor of a symphony and all of the various pieces are playing together and the goal is harmony. So, whether that’s working on something that’s short term or seeing into what the long term goals are or developing or envisioning strategy, I get to do that and set the things in motion. Now, since it’s summer, I get to play as well so it’s a lot time growing, thinking, imagining, dreaming, teaching, and eating.

What is your favorite part about working for Urban Roots?

Because the job is taxing, it takes a lot from me and from my family. Through our mobile classroom program or occasionally here, we just have really beautiful moments of the simple things like weeding, watering, cultivation, or pruning, the things that got me started in all of this. Last week, we sifted our first batch of compost from our bike powered compost service and it was just beautiful. It’s those moments where I actually get to touch, taste, or see the things that we are doing and not just be at a desk. I did this because I didn’t want a desk job, but I still found myself relegated at a desk sometimes. So, any of the time where I can be doing the human work is the most fulfilling for me.

How did your compost collection service come about?

This neighborhood, this community, and this land has been subjected to what's called disinvestment, which means resources being pulled out. When we define resources we don’t only mean dollars, we mean intellectual capital, experiential capital, social capital, and natural capital, which can be in the form of soil fertility. One of the questions was how do we get more resources here while simultaneously addressing a problem and a need people have which is where do I throw my organic matter because just going to the trash and being burnt in the incinerator feels like a huge waste of resources. We looked at two different problems and thought there’s actually an opportunity here for us to collect and capture resources that we can compost. It’s absolutely beautiful. It’s just gorgeous and most people on their home scale wouldn’t be able to make that happen. We pick up compost once a week, and since launching the program in April we’re at about 4,500 pounds of waste. Our goal for 2018 is 100,000 pounds of waste. That’s what we really want to get to and thus far, the responses have been amazing for people to spend $4 to $5 a week to have their compost go to something that is not the trash and build soil fertility at an urban farm while teaching people. That’s success all the way around.

Why do you hold free, farm fresh dinners at your open houses?

When you say the words farm to table, often that means it’s a very elitist, exclusive club. There’s some amazing farm to table restaurants in town that we love, and they charge a good amount because they are worth it and they value their employees and farmers. Unfortunately, farm to table sometimes doesn’t mean everybody is invited. To invite our community whether that be volunteers, donors, literal neighborhood members, and collaborators to an event and do something as simple and benign, but also something as transformational as share a meal felt like a really good idea so we do three of them a year. Our next one is coming up Friday, August 25th, and it’s just a chance for people to go share a meal together. The last one we had 80 or so people come in, and again eating a meal is this thing we all do all the time and yet we feel as if it can be transformational on how we think about place, economy, soil and food. They’ve been beautiful and we’ve loved doing them.

What other activities can people do at the open houses?

One of the things we’ve invited people to do is to just walk around, learn, see, and visualize. We have a very specific way of doing things and we’re constantly learning, but we want to invite people into growing, eating, and learning together. The meals are a specific time to eat together, but we also want to invite people to grow and learn together so every question from “What does compost look like? What is soil fertility? What is interplanting? What are the appropriate planting and harvesting dates for x, y, z crop?” There’s so much of what we call ecological literacy or agricultural literacy, which is the same way people can be literate to read a book, a person can be literate to read a farm, and we want to invite people into not tilling up land, but rather harvesting them as spring greens and throwing them in a salad because they are absolutely delicious and they pop up anywhere there is cultivated ground. Those are the sorts of things that are beautiful and wonderful to learn together as a community, and we define community really broadly to mean anyone that grows, eats, or learns together with us.

Do many people come to your open houses asking how to start their own garden?

Yeah, oh all the time! To be honest, there are very few people who don’t want a garden. It’s deeply ingrained in the human experience to want to touch and taste things that are real, whether it be wine that is connected to the vineyard, a salad, or even eating an artisanal bread and knowing that has a story connected to wheat which has a story connected to a farm. We all want that, very few people want to eat something out of a box that has no story. We want to grow those things too. Somebody can tell you the value of a carrot is 25 cents, but to the kid who planted the seed, watered it, cultivated it, and harvested it that thing is worth a hundred dollars because it’s the most amazing thing ever. I say a hundred dollars only cause that’s as abstract to the kid as the value of growing the carrot because he or she knows that it’s valuable. A lot of people want to learn and we’re continuing to learn as well. It's been incredibly valuable and we want to grow and learn with our community.

How can people get involved at Urban Roots?

You know, there’s always something. We have group service learning where we have groups come out for a workshop or a work experience and then share a meal together. We have volunteers here all the time, whether it's hilling potatoes, repairing bio-boxes, or preparing land for a shed. One of the things that is beautiful about cultivation is that it’s in perpetuity. You’re always cultivating as opposed to construction where you build a thing and it's mostly done other than tweaks. Cultivation is constantly happening because nature is constantly emerging new things. There is always something to be done here and there’s always a way to learn more.

Why should groups come to Urban Roots for service learning?

The idea of service learning is a popular one that’s starting has emerged in the academic community, which says volunteerism is a one sided thing, it’s not a transactional relationship. What we’re understanding now is that actually everything is the opportunity to be able to serve and learn so it’s mutually beneficial. In ecological terms, we would say its symbiotic that there's a symbiosis, a relationship between the two things. Sometimes people will say, “Hey, we want to volunteer,” but we’ll say, “Actually, you don’t just want to volunteer because you don’t just want to give yourself. You want a mutually beneficial relationship, which means you invest in something and you have something invested into you.” That’s the most beautiful relationship. I was reading a book on happiness that said this research coming out of Harvard said that people don’t want to be underpaid or overpaid relationally. They want equitable payment and equitable relationships. People come here and they get to give us a small donation to cover the time and cost and like I said, a tour where they learn some things, a work experience where they can contribute to something, and then a meal. That’s a great experience to learn more about themselves, their humanity, and the earth and to contribute to something good.

What do you think the future holds for urban farms?

Cultivation, which is the ongoing working of the land, is a constantly unfolding process. There's something in ecology called dynamic stability, which seems like a contradiction in terms cause stability feels like it means something is not moving and dynamic means it's changing. An urban farm can contribute to the tapestry of dynamic stability for any metropolitan region, which means things are always changing, evolving, and moving, but hopefully a growth towards redemption, reconciliation, restoration of ourselves and other humans, of ourselves and the earth, and of ourselves and our food, sun, soil, and water. My hope for Urban Roots is that we can contribute to a Grand Rapids that is a thriving one and not just thriving for certain people and certain areas, but thriving for all people. It is our human right to have healthy water, healthy soil, healthy air, safe homes, and community joy, and whatever way an urban farm like Urban Roots can contribute to the tapestry we want to be a part of that. Thich Nhat Hanh, zen Buddhist monk, has an excerpt where he says that the garbage and the rose interare. When you are creating garbage, you can see the rose in it, and when you are growing the rose, you can see the garbage in it. He’s obviously talking about compost and organic matter, and literally last week I had a group of students where I held up what used to be banana peels, coffee grounds, and food scraps and put it on a carrot that in four weeks from now I will be eating. You’ve never seen the growth of something that is going to sustain your body in your trash in that way. As humans, we are incredibly complex and so much of industrialism has pushed us away from our humanity, rather than reconcile us with the things that make us humans, and my hope is that Urban Roots and urban farming in general can restore the beauty that is our humanity.

As a community farm, market, and education center, there is always something happening at Urban Roots. On August 17th, there will be a “Compost You Can Really Do” workshop from 6:30 - 8:00 p.m., where you can learn all about how to decrease your waste. Three times a year, Urban Roots also hosts open houses where everyone is invited to learn more about the organization and share a free meal together. The next open house will be on August 25th from 4:00 - 8:00 p.m. and is kid and family friendly. On September 20th, Urban Roots will hold its first fundraising event on the farm. For $50, there will be a five-course meal made by Jeremy Paquin, the head chef from Grove, and it is a chance to gather together as a community and support Urban Roots.

About: Megan Sarnacki (Megan Sarnacki)

Megan is a student at Aquinas College studying Communications. She enjoys writing and learning about all aspects of entertainment, media, and culture.

Full Automation From Planning To Control For Indoor Farms Is Here

Full Automation From Planning To Control For Indoor Farms Is Here

Montreal, Canada | August 10, 2017

Two leading agtech companies have joined forces to offer award-winning automation software and hardware to indoor farms.

For the first time ever, growers will be able to use technology to automate processes that have previously been decided based on incomplete data.

Motorleaf, based in Montreal, is the market leader in IoT, plug-and-play sensor, and controls hardware and software for hydroponic and greenhouse automation.

Agrilyst, based in Brooklyn, is the market leader in farm management and automation
software for indoor farms. It is now possible to connect Motorleaf devices to Agrilyst’s platform. Growers can visualize all of their climate and nutrient information real-time and alongside
their crop yield data.

“The customer is the most important piece of the puzzle, and facilitating easy
access to critical information in an intuitive and plug-and-play environment are
two of the things that both Agrilyst and Motorleaf customers already experience.
Now for the first time they can do this with both companies working together on
their behalf. Welcome to the new way agtech should work for all customers,”
says Ally Monk, Motorleaf Co-Founder and CEO.

“We believe the open exchange of data between systems is critical for farm
success and have always been committed to helping farmers access and utilize
their data in better ways. We’re excited to work with Motorleaf, who is quickly
becoming a key player in advanced indoor controls technology. Connecting to
top-of-the line devices will help our customers get the best insights into their
operations possible,” says Allison Kopf, Agrilyst Founder and CEO.

For a limited time, growers who sign up for an annual commercial farm
subscription with Agrilyst will receive two free hardware units from Motorleaf worth over $1400 USD.

Growers who are interested in taking the next step in data and automation can
sign up at: https://www.agrilyst.com/motorleaf
 

About Motorleaf
Motorleaf turns any greenhouse and indoor farm, into a smart connected
operation. From a hobby grower to 100+ acres of greenhouse; Motorleaf has a
suite of hardware and software to allow the Monitoring, Automation, and
AI/Machine Learning enabled discovery to flourish. Motorleaf allows all farmers to
‘Sleep Well <while plants> Grow Well.’Sleep well, grow well,

About Agrilyst
Agrilyst is the virtual agronomist powering the horticulture industry. The company
was founded in 2015 and is based in Brooklyn, NY. The subscription-based
software helps growers automate labor-intensive processes like production
planning, crop scheduling, and task management and drive higher revenues on
the farm. Agrilyst is committed to helping every indoor farmer reach profitability.The Motorleaf Team!

Contact: Alastair Monk - Motorleaf CEO  |  monk@motorleaf.com

Alastair has a dream: allowing every single one of us to be able to grow our own crops automatically and produce our own food thanks to intelligent automated systems. To learn more about how he started his journey from zero to one, and what drives him to pursue his dream, watch this fascinating talk.

The Heartland Is Fertile For Ag Tech, But California Is Still King

Image Credit: Pixabay

The Heartland Is Fertile For Ag Tech, But California Is Still King

ANNA HENSEL@AHHENSEL AUGUST 10, 2017 10:30 AM

Last month, San Francisco-based indoor farming startup Plenty scored a win for the California ag tech scene when it secured a $200 million investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund, one of the largest rounds ever for an ag tech startup. With $2 billion invested in California ag tech startups since 2010, it’s not surprising that California is the most promising place for ag tech — it’s the state with the largest agriculture sector by cash receipts, according to the USDA. But new data from Pitchbook indicates that other states with strong farming sectors are still having trouble cashing in on ag tech.

The good news: Among the 10 states that receive the most ag tech funding are Heartland states like Missouri, Michigan, and Illinois. The bad news: Ag tech startups in California received more funding from January 2010 to June 30, 2017 than all ag tech startups in the other top 10 states for ag tech combined during that same time period. And states like Iowa, Nebraska, and Minnesota — the states with the second, third, and fifth largest agriculture sectors respectively — are nowhere to be seen.

Rob Leclerc, the cofounder and CEO of Agfunder, an online investment platform for ag tech startups, explains that just as in any other sector, ag tech startups have to consider what city will put them in close proximity to their customers, venture capitalists, and good talent before deciding where to place their headquarters. Though states like Iowa and Nebraska have larger agriculture sectors and thus offer ag tech startups closer proximity to more customers, states with smaller, yet still prominent, agriculture sectors like Illinois and Michigan are home to more large universities and cities — and thus larger talent pools, as well as more corporations to potentially partner with.

Jesse Vollmar, the cofounder and CEO of FarmLogs, a startup that provides crop management software to farmers, decided to set up its headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan after participating in Y Combinator’s accelerator program in 2012. They settled on Michigan because both Vollmar and his cofounder, Brad Koch, are from there. Additionally, Ann Arbor, home to the University of Michigan, offered FarmLogs close proximity to talent, as well as a major airport that Vollmar and Koch could reach quickly.

“We considered Chicago, but we just didn’t have an established network there,” Vollmar says. “It’s not located in as close proximity to farmers.”

While a high concentration of ag tech funding in California is great for the state, one concern is that it could lead to a lack of diversity in the types of problems that new ag tech startups look to solve.

“If you look at California, there’s a lot of local talent that allows you to solve sort of different types of problems — problems around robotics, around automation. The problems that farmers here often have are specifically around labor,” Leclerc explains. “If you go to the Midwest, what you’re dealing with is much much larger farms; the farms are often so big that you can’t possible go and survey them all entirely, so you really have a big data problem.”

While ag tech startups in places like Iowa and Nebraska may be lacking funding, there’s still plenty of enthusiasm to cultivate a large ag tech sector there. Last year marked the opening of a new ag tech accelerator in Iowa, called the Iowa AgriTech Accelerator, which secured investments from companies such as John Deere and DuPont.

Indoor Vertical Farming

Indoor Vertical Farming

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