Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
Big Win For Indoor Farming: Hydroponics Can Be Certified Organic
Big Win For Indoor Farming: Hydroponics Can Be Certified Organic
November 2, 2017
Statement of Jack Griffin, President, Metropolis Farms on Action by the National Organic Standards Board.
I want to congratulate the National Organic Standards Board for reaching the correct decision to continue to allow produce from hydroponic farms to be certified organic.
The bottom line is, indoor hydroponic agriculture is good for the environment; it’s good for consumers, and it’s good for farmers.
Yesterday, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) rejected a proposal developed by the organization’s Crop Subcommittee that would exclude hydroponics from organic certification. The vote was held during NOSB’s semiannual meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. The NOSB typically meets twice per year in various locations around the United States.
In comments filed with the NOSB and the US Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS), Griffin cited report language provided by the FY2018 House Agricultural Appropriations bill, H.R. 3268, which recognized urban hydroponic farms among the non-traditional methods of agricultural production (which) have the potential to reduce the use of water and pesticides, improve yields for particular crops, serve lower-income populations, and provide year-round crops at the local level.
About Metropolis Farms Metropolis Farms is a technology company changing the vertical farming industry. Metropolis Farms has created affordable outdoor and indoor vertical farming systems that can grow anything and empowers farmers to start a profitable year-round local farm, regardless of location. The system lowers costs with dramatically reduced use of chemical fertilizers, pesticides, herbicides, water, machinery, and energy.
For more information, contact Dave Juday (202) 251-6320
About NOSB The NOSB is a Federal Advisory Board which considers and makes recommendations on a wide range of issues involving the production, handling, and processing of organic products. The Board’s role is to assist the USDA in the development of standards and advise the Secretary of Agriculture on any other aspects of the implementation of Organic Foods Production Act of 1990. www.ams.usda.gov/rules-regulations/organic/nosb
A Growing Battle in The $47 Billion Organic Food Industry Could Fundamentally Change The Program — And Some Farmers Are Worried
A Growing Battle in The $47 Billion Organic Food Industry Could Fundamentally Change The Program — And Some Farmers Are Worried
A display of WindowFarms hydroponic growing system. AMNH\R. Mickens
The National Organic Standards Board, an advisory committee to the US Department of Agriculture, voted to allow some crops grown hydroponically and aquaponically to have organic labels.
- Organic food sales totaled $47 billion in the US in 2016.
- Some traditional organic farmers are threatening to leave the NOSB, the program they helped create, over the controversial vote.
The United States organic industry — whose 2016 sales totaled around $47 billion — is facing a battle between traditional farmers and high-tech producers.
In recent years, hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic farms — which grow produce in nutrient-rich solution without soil, often indoors — have boomed. Some of these businesses have been granted the organic label for their products.
But that trend has dismayed some traditional farmers, who argue that allowing non-soil producers to label their food organic weakens the integrity of the program. True organic farming, they say, requires nurturing, natural soil.
But in a series of close votes on Wednesday night, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB), an advisory committee to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), voted to allow the majority of these high-tech operators to stay in the National Organic Program. The decision creates an organics standard for non-soil farming, which did not exist previously.
Dave Chapman, a longtime organic tomato farmer in Vermont, is not happy with the decision, which he calls a "tragic failure."
"The National Organic Program has failed at the very thing it was created to do: creating trust and transparency between organic farmers and eaters," he told Business Insider in a statement. "After a publicized series of failures in defending organic integrity, the Organic Program's Advisory Board decision to embrace hydroponic production as the 'new organic' is the final straw."
Chapman said he is considering leaving the program. He and other critics of the board's decision say that hydroponic farming does not meet the USDA's definition of organic due to its lack of soil.
Organic traditionalists point to the ideas of Albert Howard, an English botanist who inspired the organic farming movement. In 1940, Howard wrote that "the health of soil, plant, animal and man is one and indivisible."
Inside Plenty, a Silicon Valley-based urban farming startup that scored the largest ag-tech investment in history. Plenty
Lisa Stokke, cofounder of farmer advocacy group Food Democracy Now said in a statement that the USDA's definition "reflects the beliefs of the international organic movement."
"To suggest calling hydroponic 'organic' is to completely misunderstand the meaning of organic," she addd.
But hydroponig growers argue that they're growing what consumers expect from the organic label: crops produced without synthetic pesticides.
Plenty, a California-based hydroponic farming company, gained organic certification earlier this year. Matt Barnard, the company's CEO, told Business Insider that he was pleased with the NOSB's vote.
"We are growing fresh fruits and vegetables that are as organic as any other method," he said. "People have spent 35 years understanding what 'organic' is, which is a long time. We, as a business, did not feel it would've been fair or equitable to cause a just-as-organic farming operation to have to explain to people something as convoluted as 'Oh, it's just as organic as ... but not organic.' That would've cost us an amount of money and years that we don't have the budget for."
Organic farmers who grow their crops in soil participate in a protest in Stowe, Vermont, in 2015. AP Images
The NOSB issued its recommendation in four parts. It voted to allow hydroponic systems, which grow plants in water-based nutrients, as well as aquaponics, which combine hydroponic systems with fish farms, to remain in the Organics Program.
The committee chose not to tighten its rules on container growing, a type of hydroponic agriculture that grows crops in a solution made of water, nutrients, and organic matter. Several large organic berry growers, including Driscoll’s and Wholesum Harvest, have implemented container growing.
But aeroponic farming — which grows plants suspended in the air with exposed roots — will be kicked out.
Overall, the decision may signal a new direction for the organic industry, since it will include farmers who don't produce crops in fields.
But some pioneers of the sustainable farming movement believe the vote could splinter the organics industry.
"At the very time that we most need the leadership of the organic community, the corporations have completed a hostile takeover of the National Organic Program," Chapman said. "We will have to start again."
NOW WATCH: A nutritionist explains which foods you should buy organically
Jeff Bezos-Backed Indoor Farming Startup Plenty Opens 100K Square-Foot Facility in Seattle Region
Jeff Bezos-Backed Indoor Farming Startup Plenty Opens 100K Square-Foot Facility in Seattle Region
BY TAYLOR SOPER on November 3, 2017 at 7:04 am
Plenty CEO and co-founder Matt Barnard. (Photos via Plenty)
An indoor farming startup backed by some of the biggest names in tech that wants to change how people eat fruits and vegetables has arrived in Seattle.
Plenty grows its plants in 20-foot tall towers inside a climate-controlled facility with LED lights.
Plenty today announced that it will open a 100,000 square-foot farm in Kent, Wash., where the 3-year-old company will grow pesticide-free, “backyard quality” produce for consumers in Seattle and Vancouver, B.C. It’s the first time the startup has expanded beyond its home markets in South San Francisco and Wyoming; it will also be the company’s first “full-scale” farm.
Plenty grows its plants in 20-foot tall towers inside a climate-controlled facility with LED lights. It does not use pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, or GMOs. There is plenty of technology used, with thousands of infrared cameras and sensors collecting data in the farms that is then analyzed with machine learning to optimize how the plants grow.
Plenty said its technology can achieve yields of up to 350 times greater than traditional agriculture while using 1 percent of the water and barely any land compared to conventional methods. Plenty’s farms can also grow plants — up to 300 variants of produce — all year-round, regardless of seasonality changes, which helps increase efficiency; its proximity to cities also means that produce doesn’t sit in trucks for days and weeks on end before ultimately arriving on your kitchen table.
Investors are bullish about the company’s potential. Backers of Plenty’s $200 million round it raised this past July include folks like SoftBank (via its Vision Fund); Alphabet Chairman Eric Schmidt (through Innovation Endeavors); Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (through Bezos Expeditions); DCM Ventures; Data Collective; Finistere Ventures; and Louis Bacon.
In an interview with GeekWire, Plenty CEO and co-founder Matt Barnard said that Seattle’s lack of access to local produce and the region’s emphasis on healthy food made it a perfect place to expand.
“As we looked at the West Coast, Seattle was the best example of a large community of people who really don’t have much access to any fresh fruits and vegetables grown locally,” he explained.
Plenty will hire 50 people at the farm in Kent, and expects to double the size of its team, Barnard said. Fresh produce will start shipping to a few restaurants initially in mid-2018, and then to other buyers that will be announced at a later date. It also plans to open more farms across the country and eventually around the world.
Plenty, which has raised $238 million to date, is not the first company to try and build a business around indoor farming. Local Garden Vancouver, a similar crop-yielding greenhouse concept, declared bankruptcy a few years ago and other startups in the space have struggled over the years.
But Barnard, who started the 100-person company Nate Mazonson and Nate Storey, said that costs of indoor farming have lowered enough while the technology has advanced to the point where Plenty can promise “Whole Foods Quality at Walmart Prices,” as this Bloomberg headline noted last month. Barnard called it a “giant optimization problem.”
“We give plants the perfect environment to both grow fast and taste the best,” he added.
Barnard noted that the percentage of fruits and vegetables eaten by U.S. consumers and grown outside of the country continues to rise due to rising labor and land costs — up to 35 percent today, from zero a few decades ago. There is also shrinking available land that is fertile enough to grow high-quality produce, he said.
“This isn’t a matter of a zero-sum game, and it’s not a matter of competitors,” Barnard added. “It’s a matter of, how do we meet this unmet demand and how do we add a new set of agricultural practices to our portfolio as a society to be able to address demand and these secular trends of essentially declining agricultural capacity.”
Plenty’s business model “will be relatively similar to what people know,” Barnard said, but he hinted that the company is thinking of new ways to make revenue.
“We are always working to figure out how to get food into people’s hands and onto their tables in as few minutes as possible,” he said.
Barnard’s interest in creating a new way to grow food started at an early age when he grew up on a commercial food farm in Wisconsin.
“There were whole crops that we couldn’t grow on the farm in Wisconsin that I didn’t even know I liked until I moved to California,” he recalled. “I couldn’t understand why in the world people loved watermelon so much because all I knew was the stuff I had in Wisconsin, which was pretty gross because that stuff was exhausted and spent a week on a truck. Watermelons aren’t meant to spend a week on a truck.”
Barnard, who previously spent time working in utility technology infrastructure and cellular smart grid production, has also dealt with an autoimmune condition while his wife was later diagnosed with stage-4 breast cancer four years ago. Both of those personal life events made him realize the importance of eating healthy and he ended up conducting research into how our food affects health.
“While we don’t know as much as I would love for us to know in 2017, one thing we do know is that a nutrient-rich diet generally leads to a happier, healthier life for people — and we get most of our nutrients from fruits and vegetables,” the CEO said.
Love space and science? Sign up for our GeekWire Space & Science email newsletter for top headlines from Alan Boyle, GeekWire’s aerospace and science editor.
Taylor Soper is a GeekWire staff reporter who covers a wide variety of tech assignments, including emerging startups in Seattle and Portland, the sharing economy and the intersection of technology and sports. Follow him @taylor_soper and email taylor@geekwire.com.
National Organic Standards Board Decrees That Hydroponic Can Be Organic
National Organic Standards Board Decrees That Hydroponic Can Be Organic
By Dan Nosowitz on November 2, 2017
A row of hydroponic greens | Aqua Mechanical onFlickr
On November 1st, the National Organic Standards Board finally made a decision on one of the most divisive issues in the organic world: should crops grown in water, containers, or otherwise not in the ground be allowed to call themselves organic?
The decision is thus: hydroponic and container gardens will remain eligible for organic certification.
This is a debate that’s much more complicated than it seems. Hydroponics and other types of high-tech farming get a lot of attention, most of it positive, for utilizing spaces that previously couldn’t house farms (abandoned factories, shipping containers, that kind of thing). They can potentially be very energy-efficient and reduce water usage. And there’s rarely a need for pesticides at all, since many of these operations are indoors.
Among those pleased with the decision is the Recirculating Farms Coalition, a group of eco-conscious high-tech farmers and innovators. “By siding with current science and recognizing that existing law purposely leaves the door open for various farming methods, the NOSB is sending a critical message that sustainability and innovation are valuable in U.S. agriculture,” wrote RFC executive director Marianne Cufone in a release.
But many of the farmers who were behind the original push for an organic certification program are vehemently opposed, and it’s not because of groups like the RFC. Two main groups benefit from hydroponic farms being able to get organic certification (and thus charge much more for their wares): techie farmers, like those Cufone represents, and large agribusiness firms. Those firms, which include Driscoll’s and Wholesum Harvest, operate gigantic hydroponic operations for their organic food, and many organic activists, like the Cornucopia Institute, see those as a cheap and easy way to charge a premium without actually doing any of the stuff the organic program is really about.
At its core, say those activists, organic food is about an entire ecosystem: taking care of the soil, recharging nutrients with crop rotation, providing for natural pollinators and pest control. It is a way for farming, which can often be ecologically destructive, to work with the planet. And massive hydroponic and container operations like Driscoll’s do not do that: they are willfully separate from the environment. They do not contribute to soil health (partly because they don’t use soil) nor to the overall health of the natural world. For their part, those companies say that they follow the rules in terms of pesticide use and therefore should be allowed to use the label. Organic activists say this is a loophole—a way to get the big bucks an organic label can secure by following the letter, rather than the spirit, of the law.
In some ways, it’s an unfortunate debate, because it pits people against each other who have many of the same goals in mind. Organic activists and small hydroponic farmers both want to grow food sustainably, at their core. But, as with most of the agricultural developments during the current administration, this decision isn’t about small farmers.
It may seem like a small thing, allowing hydroponics to call themselves organic. But to many organic farmers, this is a total perversion of what the term is supposed to mean and achieve. What’s the point of following all of these expensive and difficult planet-saving rules if a huge corporation can just build a factory and undercut your prices with a product that doesn’t work toward the same goals?
Futureworld: The IoT-Driven ‘Vertical Farm’
Futureworld: The IoT-Driven ‘Vertical Farm’
Source: Aerofarms
Imagine a farm without herbicides, insecticides or pesticides; a farm that cuts water consumption by 95 percent; that uses no fertilizer and thus generates no polluting run-off; that has a dozen crop cycles per year instead of the usual three, making it hundreds of times more productive than conventional farms; a farm that can continually experiment with and refine the taste and texture of its crops; a farm without sun or soil. That’s right, a farm where the crops don’t need sunlight to grow and don’t grow from the ground.
Such a farm – an “indoor vertical farm” – exists, it’s located in that grittiest, most intensely urban of inner cities, Newark, NJ, in a former industrial warehouse. Visiting there, you go from a potholed, chain linked back street into a brightly lit, clean (visitors wear sanitary gowns, gloves, masks and head coverings), 70,000-square-foot facility. Walking in, you get that rare, uncanny sense of having stepped into the future. Way into the future.
The farm consists of large, flat platforms stacked 10 levels high (“grow towers”) of leafy greens and herbs thriving in seeming contentment under long rows of LED lights, irrigated with recycled water that sprays the exposed roots hanging, suspended, from the crops, under the watchful “eye” of IoT sensors that, with machine learning algorithms, analyze the large volumes of continually harvested (sorry!) crop data.
Aerofarms began developing sustainable growing systems since 2004, and has adopted a data-driven technology strategy that’s a showcase for the IoT and deep learning capabilities of Dell Technologies.
By building farms in major population centers and near major distribution routes (the Newark farm is a mile from the headquarters of one of the largest supermarket chains in the New York City area), the company radically shortens supply chains and lowers energy resources required to transport food from “farm to fork” while also decreasing spoilage. It enables local farming at commercial scale year-round, regardless of the season. It tracks and monitors its leafy greens from seed to package so that the source of food, if some becomes tainted, can be quickly identified. Taken together, AeroFarms claims to achieve 390 times greater productivity than a conventional field farm while using 5 percent as much water.
“We are as much a capabilities company as we are farmers, utilizing science and technology to achieve our vision of totally controlled agriculture,” said David Rosenberg AeroFarms co-founder and CEO. The company’s vision, he said, is to understand the “symbiotic relationships” among biology, environment and technology, to leverage science and engineering in ways that drive more sustainable, higher-yield food production.
IoT comes into play via AeroFarms’ Connected Food Safety System, which tracks the “growth story” of its products, analyzing more than 130,000 data points per harvest. The growth cycle begins when seeds are germinated on a growing medium that looks like cheesecloth, receiving a measured amount of moisture and nutrients misted directly onto their roots that dangle in a chamber below the growing cloth, along with a spectrum of LED lighting calculated to match the plants’ needs throughout a 12- to 16-day growing cycle.
Rosenberg said Aerofarms decided to partner with Dell because it “offers a comprehensive infrastructure portfolio that spans our IT needs, from edge gateways and rugged tablets to machine learning systems and network gear.”
At the edge, sensors and cameras in the aeroponic growing system gather data on everything from moisture and nutrients to light and oxygen and then send operating and growing environment data to Dell IoT Edge Gateways for processing. Information is then relayed over their farm network to Dell Latitude Rugged Tablets and a local server cluster, making it available to Aerofarms workers for monitoring and analysis. AeroFarms’ precision growing algorithms allow just-in-time growing for its selling partners. Once the plants reach maturity, they are harvested and packaged onsite and then distributed to local grocery stores.
Aerofarms is developing a machine learning capability that identifies patterns based on analysis of images and a combination of environmental, machine and historical growing data.
The company said it may expand its use of Microsoft Azure to conduct more analytics in the cloud while leveraging geo-redundant data backup, collect disparate data from its multiple vertical farms and multiple data sources, including information interpreted in historical context, leveraging data previously collected and analyzed over time to improve taste, texture, color, nutrition and yield.
Aerofarms'
David Rosenberg
Aerofarms said it also is working on real-time quality control through multi-spectral imaging from its grow trays. Cameras with integrated structured light scanners send data to Dell Edge Gateways, which create 3D topological images of each grow tray. When an anomaly is detected, the gateway sends an alert to operators using Dell Latitude Rugged Tablets on the farm floor.
“For me, the journey started with an appreciation of some of the macro-challenges of the world, starting with water,” said Rosenberg. “Seventy percent of our fresh water goes to agriculture. Seventy percent of our fresh water contamination comes from agriculture.”
Land is another problem.
“By U.N. estimates, we need to produce 50 percent more food by 2050, and we’ve lost 30 percent of our arable farm land in the last 40 years,” he said. “Looking at all those macro-issues, we need a new way to feed our planet.”
United Nations: Vancouver’s ‘City Farmer’ One of Seven Small-Scale Urban Agriculture Initiatives Featured at UN Secretariat Building in New York!
United Nations: Vancouver’s ‘City Farmer’ One of Seven Small-Scale Urban Agriculture Initiatives Featured at UN Secretariat Building in New York!
Linked by ilovewushu
See City Farmer’s submission exhibited at the United Nations. Click image to see larger file.
Out of the many submissions received from across the Americas, seven have been selected to be featured in a print exhibit showcased at the UN Secretariat
Nov 1, 2017
Our “Feed Your City – a showcase of small-scale urban agriculture initiatives in the Americas” exhibit is up in the UN Secretariat lobby. Please stop by and learn more about some of the many wonderful community gardens across North, Central and South America committed to sustainability, community and connection between people and planet!
We are very excited and happy to announce that the selection for the first annual Feed Your City showcase has officially been completed! Out of the many submissions received from across the Americas, seven have been selected to be featured in a print exhibit showcased at the UN Secretariat starting today, 30 October!
These submissions, along with another six qualifying submissions, will be published on the UN Food Gardens website and shared through social media in recognition of their outstanding efforts to further sustainable urban agriculture and community involvement! A special thank you to UN-HABITAT, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and World Food Programme for participating in the review and selection panel.
Print exhibit:
North America
462 Halsey Community Farm – Brooklyn, New York, USA –www.462halsey.com
Kelly Street Garden Bronx – The Bronx, New York, USA
City Farmer’s ‘Demonstration Garden’ – Vancouver, Canada –www.cityfarmer.info and http://www.cityfarmer.eco
South America
Plantando e Aprendendo – Piracicaba, São Paulo, Brazil – (Casa do Bom Menino)
Horta Das Corujas – Vila Beatriz, São Paulo, Brazil –https://www.facebook.com/groups/hortadascorujas/
Horta Comunitária de Calçada Cristo Rei – Curitiba, Paraná, Brazil
Central America
Huerto Urbano La Arboleda – San José, Costa Rica
Co-Founder of The East London Start-up, Tom Webster, Explains how He is Spearheading Aquaponic Farming in The UK
NOV 2, 2017
Co-Founder of The East London Start-up, Tom Webster, Explains how He is Spearheading Aquaponic Farming in The UK
I co-founded GrowUp Urban Farms with my business partner Kate Hofman in May 2012. Our vision is to contribute to a more sustainable food system using aquaponics – a combination of aquaculture (fish farming) and hydroponics (growing plants in a nutrient rich solution other than soil). The farming methods we have developed enable us to produce a year-round harvest of fresh fish, leafy salad crops and herbs, in an energy-efficient controlled environment.
We started out by creating the GrowUp box, a demonstration system that we built in a shipping container at London Bridge, then, in 2015, we moved to Unit 84, at London Industrial Park in Beckton, and built our first farm.
The farm is essentially comprised of two separate systems. The first is a recirculating aquaculture system where water passes through a series of fish tanks, into a filtration system, and then back to the tanks. That water continually moves round and round between the tanks and the filters. At Unit 84 we have 12 tanks in the system, each containing roughly 400 Tilapia fish. It takes around six months to grow them from the fingerlings that we buy in. All our adult fish go to the Thai restaurant chain Rosa's. We've worked with them for years and it's a great restaurant run by great people. Tilapia is a very mild-flavoured fish, similar to cod. It takes on flavours really well, so it's well suited to Asian cuisine. It's also a very good source of protein and makes a great replacement for chicken.
The other system we use is essentially a normal hydroponics system, with three fundamental differences. Firstly, there is no natural light– we use LED lighting instead. Secondly, instead of it being on a horizontal plane, we have lots of hydroponic benches stacked on top of each other, which we call vertical farming. This allows us to maximise the growing potential of urban spaces. Thirdly, instead of feeding freshwater into the system (that we would need to add all the necessary nutrients to), we bring in water from the fish farm, which already contains 80 per cent of the nutrients the plants need, which come from the fish waste. That's the only water that goes into the hydroponics system, and we just top it up with the other 20 per cent of nutrients that are necessary, particularly things that aren't in the fish's diet, like iron.
We've grown all sorts of microgreens – coriander, micro basil, fennel and rocket – tiny, beautiful leaves that are used to decorate plates and add a lot of flavour. We've also had a range of salad crops like pea shoots, sunflower shoots, watercress and baby kale, but our main focus is the more traditional baby leaf salad crops that you see in the supermarket, such as full-sized rocket and watercress, spinach, lettuces and pak choi. The UK currently imports a lot of these crops. They are widely consumed, widely imported and very perishable.
At the moment leafy salad is predominantly grown in Spain, Italy and Africa, so it travels a long way to reach us, which is not very environmentally friendly. These open-field crops are also at the mercy of the weather and climate change. As we saw in early 2017, the supply chains for salads got completely cut off when there was an unexpected frost in Italy and a snowfall in Spain, which meant that salad crops were decimated. The supermarkets were importing lettuce from the USA, at a loss, just to keep it on the shelves. In a world with an increasingly unstable climate, we need to look at producing more of our food in controlled-environment growing systems to safeguard against these kinds of devastating events.
The farm at Unit 84 is a commercial test bed we created to research, develop and prove our ideas and methods. We've worked with leading horticultural engineers and fish scientists in the UK to figure out the best way to make the system work at scale and we are now looking at sites for the next farm, which we plan to start building before the end of 2018. It will be much bigger and designed to be a profitable farm, feeding into the larger supply chains. Our focus is really on those baby leaf salads that everyone is already eating. We've learned to grow these properly, in an environment that's perfect for them – the right lighting, the right temperature, the right humidity – so once the next farm is built we're ready to go.
Agriculture happens on such a humongous scale that if we're going to have an impact we need to do something that fits into supply chains that already exist. For this reason we are looking to develop and operate farms near big food hubs, such as supermarket distribution centres and wholesalers, so we can get the produce to them as quickly as possible after it's been harvested, minimising the time, cost and environmental impact of transporting these perishable goods.
Our vision is not to create premium bagged-salads and niche products. We want to be the basic salad and fish fingers on the supermarket shelf. Protein and salad that people consume on a daily basis. It might sound like a strange thing to say, but that is when we will really be making an impact, so that's the gold standard for us and where we want to be – producing at scale, supplying to existing supply chains.
It will still be a drop in the ocean, but it will be a drop in the ocean closer to where we want to be.
Images © Miles Willis; growup.org.uk
Japan’s Spread to Expand Vertical Farming Concept to Middle East
Japan’s Spread to Expand Vertical Farming Concept to Middle East
Posted By: Guest contributor: October 31, 2017
In: Agriculture, Environment, Food, Industries
BY DR GAIL BARNES
SUSTAINABILITY SPECIALIST
At the beginning of 2016 I wrote an article about indoor or vertical farms being the future of growing produce, describing the progress of Spread in Japan with the creation of the world’s first farm manned entirely by robots capable of harvesting 30,000 heads of lettuce per day.
Fast forward to July 2017, and a new indoor farming investment inflection point was reached with the announcement that the SoftBank Vision Fund was leading a $200 million investment in Silicon Valley indoor farming startup Plenty. Now there is news on Spread too – the expansion of its automated Techno Farm concept to the Middle East, starting with the UAE.
Increased demand for fresh produce
An arid, desert environment, lack of water resources and other geographical factors pose challenges for growing produce in the Middle East, which has led to a reliance on imported goods. This is becoming increasingly expensive as a growing population, and changing and healthier eating habits, are driving an increased demand for vegetables and produce such as lettuce.
Vertical farming solutions, like this one from VertiCrop, could be part of the future of the food industry. ©Valcenteu/Wikimedia
Container farming offers stable supply
“Spread is responding to these challenges with the solutions found in its next-generation vegetable production system, Techno Farm, which was created based on Spread’s ten years of experience in operating a vertical farm and incorporates automation and advanced water recycling,” according to Spread.
“In October 2017, Spread entered into a memorandum of understanding with Madar Farms, a company that has established a container farming business in the UAE, for a strategic partnership for developing the Techno Farm business in the Middle East.
“In June 2017, Spread and Toyo, a global engineering company with abundant knowledge in the construction of industrial-scale facilities, entered into a memorandum of understanding for Techno Farm engineering services overseas.”
The aim of the partnership is to provide a stable supply of safe and high-quality vegetables such as lettuce to the Middle East. According to Spread, construction of the first Techno Farm is planned to begin in 2018 with completion slated for 2019. Moving forward, 20 facilities are planned for construction in the Middle East, starting with the UAE.
Shenandoah Herb Grower is Expanding Across The U.S.
Shenandoah Herb Grower is Expanding Across The U.S.
October 27, 2017
Shenandoah Growers produces organic plants in greenhouses and
indoor growing rooms. Courtesy Shenandoah Growers Facebook
Shenandoah Growers, a Harrisonburg-based organic herb grower, continues to expand its system of automated greenhouses and indoor LED growing rooms around the country.
The company’s Rockingham County farm complex serves as the eastern hub of operations, with spokes in the mid-Atlantic, Midwest and South Central markets. It recently opened its third indoor growing facility in Sherman, Texas. The other two are in Virginia and Indiana.
The combination of greenhouses and indoor growing rooms changes the way highly perishable produce can be grown and distributed, says CEO Timothy Heydon. Shenandoah Growers is able to produce more than 30 million certified-organic plants per year — from arugula to thyme — under these controlled conditions.
With the latest expansion, “we start the plants in Virginia and then we ship partially finished plants to Indiana and Texas. They finish growing fresh there for the markets,” Heydon says. “With the advances in growing with LED lights, we can get a high-quality plant, good value and good shelf life.”
Shenandoah Growers also plans to implement an indoor farming hub and spoke system on the West Coast next year. A location has not yet been chosen.
“LED growing is only part of our system. We use it as tool where it makes the most sense,” Heydon says. “Our approach is to use LED at the more critical stages of growth. When plants germinate, we put them into the LED room, where we can control plants at a younger stage of development. The plants then are transferred to greenhouses.”
The benefit of this approach, he says, is that “we can have a smaller unit in a regional facility, without having to build an entire infrastructure from seed. It’s a more efficient way to use resources.”
Since the company was founded in 1990, “we’ve evolved. We put a lot of emphasis on research. We’re organic USDA certified. Our systems are built on the principles of sustainability,” Heydon says. For example, “we collect rainwater from our buildings and use it to irrigate our plants.”
The company now has more than 1,200 employees working at farms, production facilities and logistics operations in 11 states.
NatureFresh™ Farms & Eminent Seeds NL Introduce “The World’s Smallest Tomato”
NatureFresh™ Farms and Eminent Seeds NL reached a proprietary agreement within North America. NatureFresh™ Farms will exclusively grow and market Tomberry® tomatoes in Canada, United States and Mexico.
NatureFresh™ Farms & Eminent Seeds NL Introduce “The World’s Smallest Tomato”
NFF-Tomberries-30 Oct 2017 NatureFreshFarms
Leamington, ON (October 30th, 2017) This past PMA Fresh Summit in New Orleans, NatureFresh™ Farms and Eminent Seeds NL reached a proprietary agreement within North America. NatureFresh™ Farms will exclusively grow and market Tomberry® tomatoes in Canada, United States and Mexico. Jan van Heijningen, Director at Eminent Group, and John Ketler, Farm Manager at NatureFresh™ Farms, finalized the agreement during the tradeshow.
In the spring of 2018 NatureFresh™ Farms will begin growing and commercially marketing this exciting new variety of tomato from its Leamington Ontario Greenhouse. Plans are to expand the production of the Tomberry® tomato over the next few years, as the category grows to meet consumer demands for snacking tomatoes.
This past year NatureFresh™ Farms trial and development team has worked with Eminent NL Seeds to explore new tomato varieties that would fit the growing trend in the snacking category. Not only does the Tomberry® deliver in flavor, it brings a new look and ingredient to the culinary world of food service. These attractive berries are very versatile in the use of salads, hot dishes, and visually appealing. “The World’s Smallest Tomato”, The Tomberry® tomato is about 0.5 to 1 cm in diameter with an average fruit weight of 1 to 2 grams, perfect for snacking.
“The Tomberry® is unique in size and has caught the interest of our retail partners” explained Matt Quiring, Executive Retail Sales Manager. “The snacking trend in North America has exploded and we continue to search for new items that will help grow our snacking category. This pearl sized fruit’s unique size is something hard to miss and even more difficult to pass by without picking up. Once a consumer tries them, we are confident that they will be coming back for more. Visually, it is candy to the eyes. From a sensory standpoint, we can back that up.”
“We are pleased to partner with Eminent NL” said Peter Quiring, President and Owner of NatureFresh™ Farms. “This is a perfect fit to complement our TOMZ® snacking category and our brand strategy. We want to grow and market the best tasting tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers and we are excited to offer this for the first time from our Leamington Ontario greenhouse starting next spring. Our research team works hard at identifying these new varieties that taste exceptional, and we look forward to the new opportunities they provide for future consumers.”
Over the next few months, NatureFresh™ Farms will be developing packaging and branding for a launch scheduled in spring 2018. For more information about this exciting new tomato contact NatureFresh™ Farms Sales. 519-326-1111
Eminent Seeds NL ABC Westland 118 2685 DB Poeldijk the Netherlands
NatureFresh™ Farms 634 Mersea Rd. 7 Leamington, Ontario Canada, N8H 3V8 www.naturefresh.ca
About NatureFresh™ Farms -
NatureFresh™ Farms has grown to become one of the largest independent, vertically integrated greenhouse vegetable growers in North America. Growing in Leamington, ON and Delta, OH, NatureFresh™ Farms prides itself on exceptional flavor & quality. Family owned NatureFresh™ Farms ships Non-GMO greenhouse grown produce year-round to key retailers throughout North America.
SOURCE: Ray Wowryk | rayw@naturefresh.ca
Director of Business Development | NatureFresh™ Farms T: 519 326 1111 | www.naturefresh.c
Urban Crop Solutions Wins the FoodNexus Innovation Award in Belgium
Urban Crop Solutions Wins the FoodNexus Innovation Award in Belgium
Urban Crop Solutions was awarded on Thursday evening October 26th the FoodNexus Innovation Award. Out of many innovative companies, a jury of experts in the agriculture and food industry selected Urban Crop Solutions as the most promising company in the Belgian agri-food industry. Urban Crop Solutions will defend Belgium in the European FoodNexus competition, together with another Belgian company from the French-speaking part of the country, during an event in Wageningen (the Netherlands) on December 13th.
FoodNexus is a European consortium of international food companies and leading knowledge institutions that strives to create a robust and sustainable European Food System. The Belgian FoodNexus challenge was organized for the first time in collaboration with Flanders’ FOOD, the Universities of Ghent and Liège, Food2Know and many other partners. The core business of the young, participating companies must be related to one of the three following areas: food safety and sustainability, food quality, and health and well-being. The aim of the challenge is to identify and stimulate the most promising young companies, and connect them to leading European corporates in the agri-food industry. This allows the companies to scale their innovations to benefit people and planet, with the support of these partners. Urban Crop Solutions was chosen as the young company of the year by a panel of corporate and scientific experts from the agricultural and food industry.
“This award is yet again a highlight for our company. It’s a valuable recognition of the efforts that our team has already made for Urban Crop Solutions. We thank this award to their infinite commitment We want to keep on improving and creating the best indoor vertical farming solutions for our customers everywhere in the world”, says Maarten Vandecruys, CEO of Urban Crop Solutions. “This award is also a recognition for our business model and our global approach. We commit ourselves to bring to our clients Belgians top expertise in growing crops and automation and robotics”, adds Frederic Bulcaen, Chairman of Urban Crop Solutions, with a big smile.
Since 2014 Urban Crop Solutions develops for its client's tailored plant growth installations. These systems are turnkey, robotized and able to be integrated into existing production facilities or food processing units. Urban Crop Solutions also has its own range of standard growth container products. Being a total solution provider Urban Crop Solutions can also supply seeds, substrates, and nutrients for clients that have limited or no knowledge or experience with farming. Currently, the company has a growing list of more than 200 varieties of crops that can be grown in closed environment vertical farms and that have been validated. These plant recipes (ranging from leafy greens, vegetables, medicinal plants to flowers) are developed specifically for indoor farming applications and sometimes exclusively for clients by its team of plant scientists. Urban Crop Solutions has started activities in Miami (Florida, US) in 2016 and is soon to open a division in Japan.
For more information on this press release, on Urban Crop Solutions or on the products and services of Urban Crop Solutions you can contact Maarten Vandecruys, Co-founder and Managing Director (mava@urbancropsolutions.com), Frederic Bulcaen , Co-founder and Chairman (frbu@urbancropsolutions.com ) or visit our website (www.urbancropsolutions.com):
Company headquarters:
Grote Heerweg 67
8971 Beveren-Leie (Waregem)
Belgium
Regional headquarters:
800 Brickell Avenue, 1100 Suite
Miami (FL 33131)
Facebook: www.facebook.com/urbancropsolutions
Twitter: www.twitter.com/U_C_Solutions
LinkedIn: bit.ly/UrbanCropSolutionsLinkedIn
YouTube: bit.ly/UrbanCropSolutionsYouTube
Mucci Farms Expansion to Create Largest Greenhouse Strawberry Grower in North America
The company that mainly grows greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers wants to grow strawberries year-round using artificial lights in the expanded acreage and is banking on freshness and not using pesticides to compete with field berries. Greenhouses tend to use native insect predators for pests.
Mucci Farms Expansion to Create Largest Greenhouse Strawberry Grower in North America
SHARON HILL, WINDSOR STAR
Published on: October 26, 2017
Mucci Farms is spending $12 million on top of its $24-million investment in greenhouses built just for strawberries to become the largest strawberry grower in North America under glass.
The company that mainly grows greenhouse tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers wants to grow strawberries year-round using artificial lights in the expanded acreage and is banking on freshness and not using pesticides to compete with field berries. Greenhouses tend to use native insect predators for pests.
“Mucci Farms can proudly say we are putting Kingsville, Ontario, on the map for having the largest strawberry greenhouse not only in Canada but in North America,” Joe Spano, a vice-president of sales and marketing, said before a Thursday ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Danny Mucci, the other vice-president of sales and marketing, said the 36 acres of greenhouses — when 12 acres are added next year to the 24 acres of strawberries under glass at the Road 2 East site — may end up being the largest indoor production of strawberries in one spot worldwide.
The $12-million expansion will include artificial lights and getting a lower electricity price was key in the decision to expand, Spano said. Mucci Farms is building greenhouses in Ohio where hydro is cheaper but those greenhouses won’t grow strawberries, he said.
“We’ve come to terms with Ontario Hydro on a couple pilot projects that they’ve supplied some discounted pricing allowing us to expand our footprint here,” Spano said.
He said without the pilot project, the company likely wouldn’t have been able to expand in Kingsville. Spano didn’t divulge details of that agreement.
Mucci Farms employs about 1,200 people in Leamington and Kingsville and will add about 100 workers since 300 are needed to pick strawberries at the peak harvest times.
Mucci said the farm may grow other fruits. The berries are sold as Smuccies Sweet Strawberries.
“We think we can (compete). We have a superior product. The quality’s going to be fantastic. If they have inclement weather outdoors — whether it’s rain or too hot of temperatures — we feel that we still have a better berry,” Mucci said.
“It is the cleanest strawberry out in the marketplace because we do not spray any pesticides.”
Unlike California berries that are trucked over days to grocery stores, Spano said Smuccies will be on shelves within 24 hours and the marketing in Canada and the United States will focus on freshness. It won’t hurt that Christmas, New Year’s and Valentine’s Day fall in the winter.
“Local strawberries on Valentine’s Day would be a win-win for everybody,” Spano said.
Smuccies were sold at $4.99 and $5.99 for a 12-ounce clamshell container in local stores and Spano said they were competing with California berries in a slightly smaller one pound container at $5.
“We were selling out so the consumers are speaking volumes. They like the cleanliness. They like the sweet flavours,” Spano said. “We can compete, yes. I think actually they’re going to have a problem competing with us.”
Greenhouse strawberries have been big in Europe for more than a decade and Mucci said the European strawberry market is about 65 per cent from greenhouses.
While other local greenhouses grow strawberries, they aren not on the scale of Mucci Farms.
The Thursday announcement included a media peek at the first harvest in Phase 2 of the expansion and treats including chocolate-covered strawberries and champagne poured over strawberries.
Urban Farm, Set to be Largest In The US
Urban Farm, Set To be Largest In The US
By Katy Mumaw - October 25, 2017
The Hilltop Urban Farm in South Pittsburgh has plans to be the largest urban farm in the nation. (Submitted image)
PITTSBURGH — A farm in the city? Yes, and just like other farms, the first step in converting land to fields is removing the “rocks.” This fall volunteers are doing just that, preparing part of a 107-acre plot to be Hilltop Urban Farm, by removing rocks and debris from the land and cutting down trees and shrubs on the ungroomed acres. It is soon to be the largest urban farm in the nation, said Sarah Baxendell, the farm’s manager.
In August the Hilltop Alliance, a nonprofit organization, hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony to make the official opening of the Hilltop Urban Farm in South Pittsburgh.
Discussions began in 2012 about what do with the space, which was once used for subsidized housing, that was demolished in 2010. After a feasibility study was conducted, Baxendell was brought on to serve as the alliance’s green space manager in 2015.
“You can tell where the buildings were in some places — rocks, foundations and pipes still exist,” Baxendell said.
Land access
There are 107 acres, in Pittsburgh’s St. Clair neighborhood, owed by the city’s Housing Authority. The Hilltop Alliance has started to clean it up under an expanded site access agreement.
The Allegheny Land Trust will eventually hold the property in perpetuity and will have a lease agreement with Hilltop to operate. The project is projected to cost $9.9 million, said Baxendell. The plan is for 23 acres to be farmland, 12 acres to be used for green spaces and the rest potentially for new housing.
Andy Collins of Penn Hills, one of the 11 communities part of the Hilltop Alliance. The alliance is managing an urban farm project Southern Pittsburgh. Collins chops at a tree, as he volunteers his time to clear the farm. (Katy Mumaw photo)
Baxendell is the seventh generation to live in this neighborhood. Her father grew up three doors down from the gate of the farm. She has a degree from the University of Delaware in business administration and marketing. She has also worked with the University of Indiana in their urban agriculture programs.
Big plans
The land has been surveyed and divided into different areas.
The Hilltop Alliance has big plans, which include; a three-acre community supported agriculture farm (CSA), three-acre farmer incubation program, one-acre youth farm, a farmers market building, 5,000-square-foot event barn, stormwater retention ponds, fruit orchards, community gardens and an education center. The events barn will serve as a revenue generating resources to offset the costs, she said.
Youth farm
The youth farm will be the first focus.
“Across the road from the site are 665 elementary students within our reach,” Baxendell said. “We plan to partner with the school, teach the kids about horticulture and get their hands dirty.”
The plan is for the youth farm to provide after-school and summer programs for families to learn about raising food, nutritional information and get a chance to work outside.
Farm incubator
In the farm incubator program, the alliance plans to divide the area into 16 plots and start with eight people interested in farming.
They are working with the Penn State Center at Pittsburgh and the College of Agriculture as they already have farm training programs.
“We are taking some of PSU’s existing programs and curriculum and making some adjustments for our needs,” she said.
In the farm incubator program, participants will pay a nominal fee to be provided land and resources to start a farm. “The goal is to give them a test run at farming to see if it is something they want to do long term.”
There are several hurdles, like city zoning, Baxendell has to overcome first. Right now, she can’t create any permanent structures or do any digging.
The Hilltop Alliance represents 11 South Pittsburgh neighborhoods, each neighborhood has a seat on the board.
The alliance focuses in three areas; green space, property stabilization and business development.
Volunteers
Sept. 29 was the first volunteer day. More than 20 volunteers picked up rocks from the fields, mowed, trimmed weeds and worked to chop down bushes and trees.
“All of the trees and bushes will be chipped and then the chips will be spread back over the field as compost,” Baxendell said.
Volunteers work to mow untamed land. This was once the site of subsidized housing, and is soon to be part of a youth farm to help educate the community about horticulture and food production. (Katy Mumaw photo)
Andy Collins, a volunteer, who lives in Penn Hills, a neighborhood east of Pittsburgh, worked to clear the site of the future youth farm.
“I heard about the project and thought it was pretty cool. I wanted to come out and do my part to make it happen,” he said.
Some areas have been tilled and compost spread and cover crops planted.
Progress
The Hilltop Alliance and contractor Go Supreme, owned by Amy Mangham of Beltzhoover, another Pittsburgh neighborhood that is part of the alliance, have cleared more than five acres of brush, laid compost and planted cover crops.
“I just can’t wait to see the entire thing come together,” said Mangham.
Today, in cleared fields you can see rye, radishes, oats and winter peas growing as cover crops.
Funding for the project has come from Hillman Foundation, PNC Foundation, The Heinz Endowments, Birmingham Foundation and Neighborhood Allies.
“I’ve been working on this for three years — 60 hour weeks — and this isn’t my only project,” she said.
“Success will be having an infrastructure established in a year, so in five years we have farmers ready to go out on their own and be successful financially.”
The farm will focus on food-production education and youth engagement, a huge value to communities like these, Baxendell said, with youth who may have never seen a tomato on the vine.
Green Sense Farms to Expand Its Vertical Farming Operations In The U.S. and China
Green Sense Farms to Expand Its Vertical Farming Operations In The U.S. and China
OCTOBER 24, 2017 URBAN AG NEWS
Originally published in Issue 13, April 2016
To meet the increasing demand for clean, safe produce in both the U.S. and China, Green Sense Farms looks to open additional vertical farming operations along with a training facility to create job-ready graduates to grow in controlled environments.
Robert Colangelo, founding farmer and CEO at Green Sense Farms, in Portage, Ind., knows what it takes to be successful in emerging markets.
“I have been very fortuitous in my career,” Colangelo said. “I have been at the forefront of three emerging markets. In the 1990s I operated one of the first companies in the Soviet Union and rode that wave of democratization and privatization of state-owned Russian businesses.
“I was at the forefront of the brownfield industry. Redeveloping contaminated properties, repositioning them for new and productive use. And now I have been lucky to be at the forefront of the emerging vertical farming market.”
Colangelo said all of the new markets he has been involved with have very similar patterns.
“They all require tenacity as the early phase of the market ebbs and flows until it reaches a critical mass,” he said. “They require flexibility and the ability to manage technology. It’s the culmination of my previous experiences that have allowed me to have a diverse amount of skills required to make vertical farming work. This is probably one of the more complex ventures I have ever undertaken, but I love it. I also have a great partner, Carl Wenz, who is a CPA and has complementary skills to mine.
“To be successful in vertical farming, you really have to understand the produce business, have a good understanding of fundamental business operations and be able to integrate many different technologies into a working system. You have to understand plant physiology, packing and post-harvest processes. And you have to have marketing and sales skills and be able to raise capital. That is a unique skill set for one person and requires an experienced team. If you’re not good at all of those areas of expertise, then you’re going to have a real challenge succeeding in the vertical farming market.”
Starting out with “big” partners
Even though Green Sense Farms has only been producing crops since 2014, the company was formed in 2012 and has been doing research and development since 2009. The company’s vertical farm operation is located in a 120,000-square-foot industrial warehouse building. It leases 20,000 square feet in a multi-tenant building.
“We have two grow rooms,” Colangelo said. “Each room measures 60- by 60- by 25-feet tall. One room is dedicated to lettuce. It has nine vertical towers that are 14 levels high. The second room has seven towers with 10 levels in which we produce baby greens, including kale, arugula, bok choy, watercress, upland cress and culinary herbs. About 80 percent of the product goes to grocery stores and 20 percent goes to produce companies, which service restaurants and institutions.”
Colangelo said in order for his company to be a major player in the vertical farming industry required picking “big” partners.
“We looked at lighting and picked a lighting partner,” he said. “This allowed us to focus on building the best vertical farm and our lighting partner can provide us with constant R&D on LED lights. We picked a fertigation partner that could take a well-defined fertigator from the greenhouse industry and customize and tweak it so that it would work in an indoor vertical farm and create the automation controls that link all the different systems together. We formed a partnership with a climate control company so that we just don’t treat our air and filter it and cool it, but we also adjust the humidity because plants transpire and put a lot of moisture in the air. Lastly, we are working with a seed company that together with our LED company can breed non-GMO seeds that grow best under LED lights in indoor controlled environments. This enables us to not only maximize our yields, but through using the right seed with the right LED light recipe, we can double our yields and productivity. This is complex stuff and you have to pay attention to the details. And you have to be at a scale that is big enough to make this economical.”
Expansion in the U.S.
Green Sense Farms is in the process of building additional farms in the U.S.
“We have formed a partnership with Ivy Tech Community College in South Bend, Ind., to build a hands-on training center on the campus,” Colangelo said. “This will be a working commercial farm.
“One of the challenges in this industry is that there are not enough trained people. So we are creating our own “farm team” to mine talent. The training center will be similar to McDonald’s Hamburger U. in Oak Brook, Ill. We plan to train 15 students every six months. At the end of the six months the students are job-ready to work in the ag industry and to also work in vertical farms. We call it “earn to learn.” The students will be paid to work at the farm. This facility will be larger than the one we are operating in Portage.”
Green Sense Farms produces lettuce, baby greens, including kale, arugula, bok choy, watercress, upland cress, and culinary herbs. About 80 percent of the product goes to grocery stores and 20 percent goes to produce companies, which service restaurants and institutions.
Green Sense Farms is also in discussion to put a vertical farm at distribution centers in the Indianapolis area operated by grocery store chains.
“Our goal is to blanket the Midwest,” Colangelo said. “Our strategy is to put these vertical farms at the points of consumption and distribution. We are planning to build farms at perishable food distribution centers and at institutional campuses, including hospitals, colleges, corporate campuses and military bases.
“After Chicago, Indianapolis is the next up-and-coming Midwest city. There is a great food scene. It is also an entrance to the South. The Midwest is a good location because of its short growing season and its cold winters. With the vertical farms we can grow indoors 24/7 and harvest 365 days a year.”
Expansion in China
At the same time that Green Sense Farms is expanding its vertical farms in the U.S., it is also building a network of farms in China. The company’s goal is to build 100 farms in China with its local operating partner Star Global Agriculture. It began work on its first China facility in March 2015. Located in the city of Shenzhen, the vertical farm is expected to start growing produce in June.
“Shenzhen is located right across the border from Hong Kong,” Colangelo said. “There are 48 million people within 50 miles of our farm. Our plan is to build 10 farms in the city in the next 24 months. They would serve Hong Kong and Macau, which is considered the Las Vegas of the East.
“China has 1.4 billion people. The country is transforming from a manufacturing economy into the largest consumer economy. In a very short time China is going to have incredible buying power. As a middle class emerges, Chinese consumers are demanding higher quality food.”
Colangelo said China’s transformation over the last 25 years into one of largest industrial manufacturing economies ate up a lot of farm land and produced heavy pollution.
“A lot of the food supply has been affected by the industrialization,” he said. “There is heavy air pollution, ground water has been contaminated in the large cities and there are terrible traffic jams. Putting vertical farms in the cities close to the people reduces congestion, controls the cleanliness of the food, and supplies emerging markets that want to eat healthy, fresh greens.
“There is a tremendous amount of capital available. In China there aren’t as many rules and regulations as we have had to deal with in the states so we can move much more quickly. Even though we started in the U.S. and we will continue to build our network here, with the availability of capital and less regulations to deal with in China, we feel that we can build a network of farms much more rapidly there.”
Colangelo said the company’s goal in China is to pioneer the lettuce market.
“We know there is an emerging lettuce market. We feel that we can dominate that,” he said “But we also know that we have to grow different greens for the Chinese palette. Some of the crops include Chinese onions, baby bok choy and mustard greens. Some of the herbs will also be different such as coriander.”
Colangelo said with China’s population the potential market is immense.
“Initially we will put as many farms as we can in Shenzhen,” he said. “Then we’ll blanket Shanghai, Beijing and Chengdu. Those cities have large population centers (20 million plus) where we can build a circle of farms around the cities.
“The traffic congestion is so bad in China that it would be better to build smaller farms closer to consumers. Even in a small area it takes a long time to go a short distance during rush hour. It’s better to have several small farms then to have a big farm in a central location.”
The future of vertical farming
Colangelo said the indoor vertical farming market in the U.S. is a rapidly emerging market.
“There are a lot people rushing into vertical farming either because they see it as a way to stop world hunger, as a lifestyle change or they see it as a responsible and sustainable way to grow,” he said. “All those things are great. Vertical farming can help those things, but it is not a panacea.”
He said vertical farming has raised the bar for sustainable farming.
“You are seeing some field farmers becoming much more sustainable, as they use precision farming techniques to conserve water, fertilizer and pesticides,” he said. “Greenhouse growers are also becoming much more responsible on how they minimize water and fertilizer use.
“Each of those methods of farming are targeted to grow different crop types better. Field farming is fantastic for commodity crops like corn, wheat and soybeans. Greenhouses are great for tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Vertical farming is a great way to grow leafy greens. Vertical farming really takes a skilled practitioner with a good management team, a good understanding of the produce business and good understanding of controlled environment agriculture and patient capital.”
Colangelo sees more people rushing into vertical farming which will result in a high failure rate.
“I expect that eventually a few companies will emerge in the long run that will be large scale companies,” he said. “Internationally I see vertical farming growing in constrained markets where produce travels great distances. There is either a lack of water, a lack of land or heavy pollution that drive the creation of farms.”
Colangelo said the vertical farming market is rapidly expanding at the same time it is maturing quickly.
“When I started in this industry in 2009, it was a cottage industry,” he said. “Today you really need to bring your A team to start a vertical farm. You have to have a strong management team. You have to be well capitalized. You have to be strategically focused with a cogent business plan. You have to have an experienced growing team in place. You have to have a good command of the technology that’s ever changing. And you have to be willing to constantly innovate and be agnostic towards your current technology.
“Our first grow room is going on three years old and it’s already a museum. We have already retrofitted it with new technology. We have farm designs that go way beyond where we’re at now and we’re just getting started. The only constant in life is change, either be the catalyst for change, be changed or die.”
UGA Professor: Today’s Students Will Live to See Food Shortages
Posted October 24, 2017 03:02 pm
By Lee Shearer | lee.shearer@onlineathens.com
UGA Professor: Today’s Students Will Live to See Food Shortages
University of Georgia students will see food shortages in their lifetimes, UGA professor David Berle predicts.
It’s impossible to tell how a future of food scarcity might play out, or how deep that scarcity could be, Berle said in a recent talk in the auditorium of UGA’s Odum School of Ecology.
A 2011 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization estimated world food production would have to increase by as much as 70 percent to feed the expected world population of about 9 billion in 2050, Berle said.
Scientific and demographic studies have also predicted water shortages.
SEE ALSO
Tant: 60 years ago, Sputnik launched the Space Age
Day of Caring: 500 volunteers help at Athens area agencies
A revision of the report suggests agricultural production may not have to increase that much, but it’s clear change is coming, Berle explained.
Various solutions have been proposed, but none of them is a magic bullet, and some may not even be good ideas, according to Berle, a professor of horticulture who helped begin and now oversees the student-run organic UGArden on university land near the State Botanical Garden of Georgia.
Indoor farming is energy-intensive, for example, and vertical agriculture — or wall growing — still requires the delivery of water and nutrients to plants.
Some companies and people tout the use of genetically-modified crops, but it’s unclear how much if any more yield genetically-altered plants can provide.
Cutting back on food waste is another proposed solution, but one with uneven applications. Some have estimated we throw away up to 50 percent of food in the United States. But in less wealthy parts of the world, waste is much less.
Growing food locally is a good idea, but that also can only go so far, Berle said. Many of the foods we eat aren’t suitable for growing in the local climate.
Climate change is also altering growing conditions in many places.
The still-growing organic agriculture movement is a bright spot.
A few years ago, when the idea of growing crops with minimal use of pesticides or chemical fertilizers and pesticides began taking hold, studies showed that organic farming was less productive.
But more recent studies show, said Berle, that organic farming can come close to high-output farming in yield.
Follow Lee Shearer at www.facebook.com/LeeShearerABH orhttps://twitter.com/LeeShearer.
Saudi Arabia Is Building a Futuristic Mega-City That Will Cost $500 Billion
Saudi Arabia Is Building a Futuristic Mega-city That Will Cost $500 Billion
It'll be 33 times the size of New York City.
TALIA AVAKIAN
OCTOBER 25, 2017
Saudi Arabia is building a mega-city that will span three different countries.
The country’s Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, announced the $500-billion plan, which will create a futuristic city in the northwestern region of the country.
Dubbed NEOM, the mega city will cover 26,500 square kilometers in total, spanning territory within Egypt and Jordan as well.
The city is set to be the world’s first independent economic zone, operating with its own laws, taxes, and regulations.
NEOM will be powered completely by renewable energy from solar and wind panels, with its transport system also running on 100 percent green energy.
Vertical urban farms, seawater farming, and solar-powered greenhouses will help provide residents with fresh food supplies, and the zone will also be a space to test out new technological advances like passenger drones and self-learning traffic systems.
Located next to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aqaba, the massive city will also provide a serene landscape composed of more than 290 miles of coastline and vast desert terrain.
The city's coastline includes a variety of untouched beaches and coastal reefs and its valleys are cradled by mountains, creating a more moderate climate than that of nearby areas.
Plans also include the creation of sports and visual arts venues, a variety of marinas and waterside restaurants, record-breaking theme parks, natural parklands, a water park with a wave pool where Olympians will practice, and what officials say will be the world’s largest garden.
The move comes as the world’s largest oil exporter looks to boost its economy after falling oil prices.
Construction is already set to begin, with the first phase planned for completion by 2025. You can follow the progress of NEOM’s development through an interactive map on the project’s website.
IKEA & Top Chef David Chang Round Out Financing for $40 Million Series D Round for AeroFarms
AeroFarms just built its ninth farm to date in Newark, New Jersey that is the world’s largest indoor vertical farm based on annual output. Having raised in total over $100 million in corporate and project financing, AeroFarms will used the latest round of funds for continued investment in leading R&D and technology and additional farm expansion around the world.
IKEA & Top Chef David Chang Round Out Financing for $40 Million Series D Round for AeroFarms
October 27, 2017
AeroFarms, the pioneer and leader for indoor vertical farming since 2004, closed $40 million in Series D financing led by an international
Vertical Farming: Key to Meeting Princeton University Sustainability Plan
Dr. Paul Gauthier, a postdoctoral research associate in the geosciences department, created the Princeton Vertical Farming Project (PVFP) this past April. The project is situated in Moffett Laboratory, which adjoins Guyot Hall, and was funded by the University’s Office of Sustainability and is directly related to the University’s SustainabilityPlan.
In 2008, as part of the a larger plan to promote sustainability, the University committed to reduce its overall carbon dioxide emission levels to those of 1990 by 2020. The University's plan also set several more goals in the area of environmentalism and sustainable energy meant to address pressing environmental issues such as climate change, water scarcity, and air pollution.
According to Gauthier, the PFVP is a present-day attempt to expand upon these goals from almost a decade ago. Indeed, Gauthier identified the project as a key addition to the University’s larger sustainability plan.
“The goal of the project [PFVP] is to help students familiarize themselves with vertical farming here [at the University] and eventually create start-ups that employ the technique outside of the University,” explained Gauthier, adding that another goal of the project is to eventually provide produce to the dining halls as a step towards the University becoming completely self-sustaining.
Gauthier explained that, globally, the majority of start-ups utilizing vertical farming shut down after only a couple of years. This short life, he said, stems from the startups' inability to generate enough profit to meet the costs of applying vertical farming to produce farming. PFVP, he hopes, will help advance vertical farming technology from a scientific standpoint to remedy this problem. This kind of technological advancement, he added, will encourage students to build their own start-ups utilizing vertical farming technology.
Gauthier noted that the issues with popular use of vertical farms include a shortage of adequate technology as well as a lack of proper experimental data on the optimization of vertical farming efficiency. To study these problems, Gauthier's team is currently measuring the effectiveness of different vertical farming settings by testing how different lighting and water environments impact plant growth.
As a result of months of experiments and research, Gauthier and his team have enhanced the efficiency of vertical farms in a number of ways, such as reducing water usage and utilizing LED lights instead of sunlight to provide photosynthetic catalyst.
“We are using approximately 0.5 gallons of water for every kale plant,” noted Gauthier. “This is considered very efficient, and will save a significant amount of water when applied to large-scale fields.”
Gauthier added that vertical farming can be utilized not only as a reliable source of food in the future, but also as a means for capturing carbon dioxide emissions.
According to Gauthier, vertically farmed produce is not only sustainable and efficient, but grows rather quickly and is comparable in taste to commercial produce. Gauthier explained that basil plants in the vertical farm take approximately a month to grow, and with the use of special LED lights, are almost indistinguishable from basil sold in markets. According to Gauthier, this is attributable to his focus on the taste and quality of the vertical farm products rather than the quantity.
Kyra Gregory ‘19, a communications assistant for the Office of Sustainability and PVFP website manager, has been working with Gauthier from the start of the project and believes it will contribute to the University’s larger sustainability initiatives.
“Overall, seeing the vertical farm progress from its initial stage to where it is now is very inspiring for me. The amount of growth and student interest gives me hope for sustainability efforts at Princeton and in our generation in general,” said Gregory. She also explained that the PVFP team, which includes other students, hopes to make a meaningful impact on sustainability at Princeton and to highlight the benefits of vertical farming.
In addition to being a great chance to improve sustainability on campus, PFVP has left a mark on the team members for other reasons. “It's wonderful being involved with a team where people from different academic and social backgrounds can come together to work on this project that we all care deeply about,” Gregory said.
Reached out to Dr. Shana S. Weber, Director of Sustainability Office, and Ms. Kristi Wiedemann, Assistant Director of Sustainability Office, were unable to be reached for comment before publication.
Urban Farms Gain Support
In this 2014 photo, urban gardener Jo Bartikoski picks dill from her garden patch at the Dundee community garden in Omaha, Nebraska. Some are looking to expand so-called urban farms to produce more healthy food for city residents. (AP Photo/Nati Harnik)
Urban Farms Gain Support
October 15, 2017
New York City is known for its tall buildings, financial markets and centers for the arts.
But America’s most populated city is becoming known for something you might not expect -- farms.
New York City’s government announced last month that it is providing $500,000 to create two urban farms. Both will use space in New York public housing developments. The new farms will join four other farms already operating with city government help.
The idea is to get more fresh fruits and vegetables to communities in the city. City officials see it as a public health issue.
“These new urban farms will not only provide access to healthy produce, but also provide jobs to young residents,” said New York City Councilman Ritchie Torres.
The new farms will be in the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and the Bronx.
Farming businesses in the city?
These farms are supported by the local government. But, there are also privately run farms in the city.
In the New City neighborhood of Tribeca, Robert Laing has opened up a privately-run indoor farm called Farm.One. He grows many kinds of herbs. His customersinclude well-known restaurants in New York City.
The restaurants can pick up fresh herbs hours before they are needed for that night’s dinner because his “farm” can be reached by bicycle from much of the city. Laing's website tells customers that they can buy fresh herbs, even in a snowstorm.
Farm.One is very different than farms in less populated communities. The major difference is size. It is only 112-meters. The U.S. Department of Agriculture says the average farm in America is 176 Hectares.
Farm.One’s crops are grown on vertical shelves so more can be grown in less space.
“The nice thing about farming vertically indoors is that you don’t need a lot of space,” Laing said. “I can see some bodega (a small grocery story) setting one up on the roof.”
Robert Laing of Farm.One.
Urban farms are growing in other cities besides New York City.
The website Inhabitat.com recently released a list of the top four U.S. cities for urban farms. They are Austin, Texas; Boston, Massachusetts; Cleveland, Ohio and Detroit, Michigan.
Urban farms still need to develop more
The Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future released a report on urban farms in 2016. It said there are important benefits to turning unused land into sources of healthy food.
But it said that urban farming still has a long way to go to produce the environmental and health benefits claimed by supporters.
“In some cases, the enthusiasm is ahead of the evidence,” the Johns Hopkins research said.
For example, the report said that supporters of growing food close to the people who eat it claim that it reduces pollution compared to transporting food long distances.
But the researchers found that smaller farms do not do as a good a job as larger farms in reducing use of water and other natural resources.
Indoor farms: a controlled environment
The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research based in Washington D.C. wants more urban farms. It said the benefits are almost unlimited.
The group announced last month that it will give $2 million to help pay for a new farm in Newark, New Jersey, just outside of New York City.
Aero Farms will work with scientists from Cornell University in New York State and Rutgers University in New Jersey. The goal is to grow salad greens with improved taste and color.
The funding announcement said that because the farm is indoors the farmers can control the environment, including temperature, to improve their crops.
Sally Rockey is executive director of the Foundation for Food and Agriculture.
She said that more than half the world’s population lives in cities and that it is important to provide healthy food to this population. Whenever possible, Rockey said, food should be “grown locally.”
Brian Massey writes and farms. He recently wrote about managing an urban farm in a Washington D.C. neighborhood near Howard University. His report appeared on the website, civileats.com.
He said that a lot of people liked the fresh fruit and vegetables his farm produced. But he said others worried the farm was there to help the newly arrived, wealthier residents, not the poor.
There was a concern that the farm would add to Washington’s continuing shortage of low-income housing, Massey wrote.
I’m Jill Robbins.
And I’m Bruce Alpert.
Bruce Alpert reported on this story for VOA Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.
Trending: Spiders, Butterfly Wings Inspire New Solutions for Urban Agriculture, Renewables
Trending: Spiders, Butterfly Wings Inspire New Solutions for Urban Agriculture, Renewables
October 23, 2017
Image Credit: Boris Smokrovic
Innovators continue to look to nature to create new solutions to tackle everything fromwater scarcity and depletion to climate change.
An international team based in New York City has developed a prototype product that mimics the way living systems capture, store and distribute water, which could be deployed to help meet growing demand for sustainable, local food production. Designed by NexLoop, the prototype has been awarded the 2017 $100,000 Ray C. Anderson Foundation Ray of Hope Prize in the Biomimicry Global Design Challenge. The challenge is an international design competition and accelerator program that crowdsources nature-inspired climate change solutions for issues such as food systems, water management and alternative energy.
Dubbed AquaWeb, the product aims to help urban food producers collect, filter, store and distribute atmospheric moisture with a modular, all-in-one water sourcing and management system. Instead of drawing on groundwater, AquaWeb harnesses rain and fog and uses passive strategies to distribute water so that urban farms, including greenhouses, indoor vertical farms and container farms can save energy and become more resilient to disturbances.
Natural systems inspired each design element of NexLoop’s solution: It borrows heavily from the examples of cribellate orb weaver spider webs that collect fog from the air, drought-tolerant plants such as the crystalline ice plant that stores water and mycorrhizal fungi such as the Jersey cow mushroom which distributes water. The team also looked to the dwarf honey bee’s hexagonal nest structure for AquaWeb’s efficient and modular design.
“NexLoop is an impressive team across the board,” said John A. Lanier, Executive Director of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation. “They have a deep understanding of how biomimicry aids in the design process and their plans for hyperlocal water capture and storage in urban settings could play a crucial role in scaling local, sustainable agriculture. We are proud to award them this year’s Ray of Hope Prize.”
The trustees of the Ray C. Anderson Foundation also awarded a $20,000 prize to second place team Windchill from the University of Calgary, Canada, which created an electricity-free refrigeration system inspired by how animals regulate body temperature. The $15,000 third place prize went to Evolution’s Solutions from theUniversity of California, San Diego, which created a food waste nutrient recycling and supply system inspired by bacteria that helps hydroponic farmers grow food more efficiently and sustainably.
A total of six international teams spent the past year in the world’s only Biomimicry Accelerator program, developing working prototypes with the help of biomimicry experts and business mentors in order to create viable, market-ready solutions. The Biomimicry Accelerator is a commercialization platform for biomimicry entrepreneurs to bring needed sustainability solutions to market faster.
“Our vision moving forward is to help seed biomimicry and biomimetic thinking as the default position for design, industry, economy and culture,” said Kenny Ausubel, Co-Founder and CEO of Bioneers. “The Biomimicry Global Design Challenge doubles down on innovation, providing a business incubation process as potential investment capital for the finalists to accelerate market-ready, scalable biomimetic solutions to our greatest challenges. As such, we are honored to be continuing and deepening our partnership with them.”
Meanwhile, researchers at the California Institute of Technology and Karlsruhe Institute of Technology have developed thin film solar cells that mimic the delicate black wings of the rose butterfly to better absorb light. According to reports, the solar cell is capable of gathering light two times more efficiently than traditional solar cells.
The key to the discovery, the results of which are published in the journal Science Advances, are the disordered nanoholes in the wings’ scales, which not only allow the wings to be lighter, but allow the butterfly to better absorb heat. The random ordering, in particular, is what makes the technology tick. After studying the butterfly’s wings under a microscope, researchers discovered the position and order are important for absorbing light. They then used the model to recreate the structure with thin sheets of hydrogenated amorphous silicon sheets with similar holes that scatter light onto a silicon base. In addition to collecting twice as much light as conventional solar cells, they can also be created quickly — in the range of five to 10 minutes, to be exact.
Another advantage of the team’s discovery is that the sheets have the capacity to expand the capabilities of existing solar systems. Solar panels are typically installed on an angle and therefore capture sunlight only during a specific time window. Solar panels equipped with this new technology could generate for longer periods of time, and ultimately take solar technology to the next level.
Launched in 2006, Sustainable Brands has become a global learning, collaboration, and commerce community of forward-thinking business and brand strategy, marketing, innovation and sustainability professionals who are leading the way to a better future. We recognize that brands today have… [Read more about Sustainable Brands]