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Feeding The Future of Agriculture With Vertical Farming
Hunger and malnutrition issues persist, especially in developing countries. Food scarcity problems have also been linked to political unrest and violence. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, record-high food prices in 2008 prompted riots in 48 countries, including fragile states like Somalia and Yemen.
Feeding The Future of Agriculture With Vertical Farming
The technology-driven model of agriculture may offer a means to address farm output and food security in the years to come.
By Mark Esposito, Terence Tse, Khaled Soufani, & Lisa Xiong
Dec. 27, 2017
Average global food prices have gone up by 2.6 percent annually in the past two decades. If that trend continues, not only does it threaten a baseline quality of life as more disposable income goes toward food, it also threatens our overall food security.
Hunger and malnutrition issues persist, especially in developing countries. Food scarcity problems have also been linked to political unrest and violence. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, record-high food prices in 2008 prompted riots in 48 countries, including fragile states like Somalia and Yemen.
Rising food costs reflect underlying trends leading to failures with traditional agriculture. Vertical farming, a technology-driven model of agriculture, may offer a means to address farm output and food security in the years to come, even if it may not impact food prices in the many months ahead.
Why is conventional farming frustrating us?
Field farming requires labor, amenable weather conditions, adequate sunshine for photosynthesis, irrigation, and often pesticides to protect crops. That hasn’t changed, but we can detect reasons why conventional farming is no longer working as well as it used to by using a framework we developed. While it may appear that the world’s economies are significantly affected by unforeseeable events, the DRIVE framework is based on the notion that certain interrelated large-scale processes, which drive the behavior of businesses, governments, and societies, also influence the future. By analyzing demographic and social changes, resource scarcity, inequalities, and volatility, scale, and complexity, we can forecast how the future may unfold. Analyzed together, these megatrends can reveal the root causes behind the shifts in conventional agriculture.
- Demographic and social changes
The global food supply cannot keep up with the growing global population. According to theFood and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, food production must increase by 70 percent before the year 2050 in order to meet global food needs. This growth must happen against a headwind—urbanization is taking over arable land while simultaneously pushing people away from farming as a profession.
- Resource scarcity
Agriculture sucks up 70 percent of our global water consumption, adding to its total cost. Given the estimate that half of the world’s population will experience water scarcity by 2030, agriculture’s production methods are unsustainable. Supply chain inefficiencies compound the scarcity effect. Perishable crops blemish and spoil during harvesting, packaging, processing, and distribution. According to a Natural Resources Defense Council report on food from field to fork to landfill, up to 40 percent of all crops are ultimately wasted.
- Inequality
In addition to longstanding problems with malnutrition and widespread poverty in developing countries, inequalities related to food prices have also arisen in industrialized countries. In places like the United States, the cost of fresh foods have led vulnerable populations to opt for fat- and sugar-laden processed foods with little nutritional value. The consequence of these food “choices” is a nationwide obesity epidemic as well as an increase in diet-related diseases like diabetes. At the other end of the spectrum, higher-income households are driving demand for more health-conscious “superfoods” like antioxidant-rich kale and protein-packed quinoa. As global food requirements and the costs of agriculture continue to rise, the prospects of improving health and nutrition conditions are dire for low-income families in industrialized and developing countries alike.
- Volatility
Agriculture remains one of the most vulnerable industries when it comes to natural disasters. Climate change has caused more frequent extreme weather events, which can damage an entire season’s worth of harvest. Higher temperatures are also leading to rampant spreading of crop pests. In addition, government policy can also affect food production and prices. For instance, in the United States ethanol mandates diverted corn fields used for food production to fuel production, and resulted in price hikes from $2 or $3 to $7 a bushel. Such forces, which determine the direction of price volatility, are here to stay.
Through the lens of the DRIVE framework, we can see how conventional agriculture alone will be unsustainable as a reliable and affordable source of food production.
Vertical farming born out of challenges
One answer to these food supply problems is emerging from high-tech structures to our dining tables. Vertical farming, a term coined by Dickson Despommier, is the practice of producing food in vertically-stacked layers. These “farms” make use of enclosed structures like warehouses and shipping containers to provide a controlled environment to grow crops in a hydroponic or aeroponic system. Electronic sensors ensure that crops receive the right amount of LED light, nutrients, and heat. The benefits include independence from arable land, year-round growing capacities, less water consumption, and improved crop predictability.
(iStock)
For example, AeroFarms, a 70,000-square-foot vertical farm in a renovated steel plant in New Jersey, claims 95 percent less water use and 390 times more productivity than a commercial field farm with the same square footage. The company Growtainer sells easy-to-operate 20- or 40-foot shipping containers set up as insulated hydroponic farms. The goal is to help communities grow leafy vegetables in the same places where they will be consumed, such as schools, food banks, restaurants, and military bases.
Vertical farms can help meet our growing population’s needs by offering an additional way to produce food that does not share the same volatility and risk as conventional agriculture. While vertical farms require less water and arable land than conventional farms, they are not carbon neutral. Their climate footprint depends heavily on the source from which they draw their electricity to power lighting and control the indoor environment. As renewable energy sources become adopted more widely, the carbon cost of vertical farming will continue decreasing. From a market perspective, it may not bring down prices, but on a societal level, the hope is that vertical farming can help address gaps in overall food demand where conventional agriculture fails.
Tasty prospects but not one-size-fits-all
The social, ecological, and economic promise of vertical farming has been embraced but not yet scaled. Due to various factors related to geographic location, cultural difference, political support, investor dynamics, and local agricultural market conditions, what works for the companies described above might not work for others entering vertical farming. Moreover, there are limitations to what plant species can be grown in an indoor environment. For instance, fruits and vegetables that have a lot of inedible weight, such as leaves, stems, and roots, would not make good use of vertical farming space or resources. For commercial farmers interested in expanding into vertical farming and social entrepreneurs who see potential for using vertical farming to address local food and hunger issues, there are ways to minimize the expensive learning curve and improve their chances of success:
Change the perception of the farming profession
Traditional farming has been characterized as labor-intensive and remote to a modern and urbanized lifestyle. In some places, farm work is associated with poverty and isolation, but in the vertical farm, farmers must be data analysts, bio-scientists, and system supervisors in addition to working with crops. Should urban farms continue to scale, this could result in displacement of existing low-skilled labor. Such a shift is typical of any major industry transformation—economists call this the rebound effect. Understanding this transformation in farming provides professionals who are either entering or already in the vertical farming industry with leverage when communicating the need to embrace vertical farming with different stakeholders.
Educate consumers
Vertical farming is not Frankenstein food, but might as well be without any efforts to educate the public. Companies can use promotional campaigns to clarify the value of non-field farming crops and educate consumers on the nutritional and environmental benefits of vertical farming. Food-tasting events can also provide consumers the opportunity to sample hydroponic and aeroponic produce and judge the taste for themselves.
Support local food economies
Governments and industry groups can be valuable allies who view local food production as economic development. In Canada, for example, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) actively supports a regional food strategy, with project support ranging from promotional campaigns to the creation of farmers markets and funding for agricultural companies to buy new equipment. With OMAFRA’s support, the sector added $1.3 billion in GDP and created more than 34,000 jobs between 2013 and 2015. Such government support is a sign that local food movements are a credible source of economic development with no signs of abating.
Encourage continued investment
Investors are essential to helping vertical farming scale. While some major investments in vertical farming are already happening—Silicon Valley startup Plenty recently received $200 million to support its global expansion—others may have to strategize a bit more, particularly since some vertical farm startups have failed in that same timeframe. AeroFarms, for instance, secured equity funding of $95.8 million by positioning itself not as a nontraditional farm but rather as “an urban agriculture and cleantech company.” Other trends that are attracting investment include using vertical farming technology to grow nutrient-specific crops likeFujitsu’s low-potassium lettuce.
Revamping the future of agriculture
Though vertical farms can never be expected to replace traditional farms, it is likely that they will have to complement each other if we are to meet the food demands of tomorrow. It is economically sensible, environmentally friendly, tech-savvy, and most importantly, health-sensitive. Vertical farming is not a fairytale; it is happening now.
Mark Esposito (@Exp_Mark) is a professor of business and economics at Hult International Business School and Grenoble Ecole de Management. He is a member of the teaching faculty at Harvard University’s Division of Continuing Education and a fellow in the Circular Economy Center at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.
Terence Tse (@terencecmtse) is an associate professor at ESCP Europe and a research fellow at the Judge Business School. He is head of competitiveness studies at i7 Institute for Innovation and Competitiveness and a fellow in the Circular Economy Center at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.
Khaled Soufani is a professor of management practice and director of the executive MBA program at the Judge Business School. He also directs the school’s Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the Circular Economy Center. His current research interests relate to fast-expanding markets and the economics of innovation.
Lisa Xiong is a doctoral candidate in business administration at Ecole des Ponts Business School. She is a teaching associate for business schools in Europe, the United Arab Emirates, and China. Her research interests cover inequalities, Chinese economic development, entrepreneurship, and open innovation. She researched vertical farming during a doctoral residency at the Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.
UW Architectural Engineering Graduate Embarks on Exciting Career Path
UW Architectural Engineering Graduate Embarks on Exciting Career Path
December 20, 2017
Yara Thomas, a May 2017 UW graduate, is now working as an energy systems engineer for Plenty, a leading field-scale vertical farming company based in San Francisco. (Yara Thomas Photo)
Yara Thomas has always had a connection with the University of Wyoming, and it led to a life-changing opportunity this summer.
Originally from Jackson, Thomas took summer trips to the Laramie area to be near her grandmother, and her family spent time at a homestead near Arlington. She attended Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., as a freshman. After a year, however, she had a change of heart and headed back to her home state.
“I chose to transfer to UW because of the incredible value for your education,” Thomas says. “I wanted to switch from physics, my original major, to engineering, which was not offered at Lewis & Clark. Additionally, I was an art major and was lucky enough to start at UW the year the new facility was open.”
The College of Engineering and Applied Science made an immediate impression on Thomas, who graduated with a degree in architectural engineering earlier this year.
“In my opinion, the best thing about engineering at UW is the incredible support that I received from the professors,” she says. “Because UW is still relatively small compared to other institutions, individuals with ambition and work ethic have almost unlimited opportunity to shine. Hard work is recognized and appreciated.”
Her hard work led to a chance to work for an up-and-coming company in California shortly after she graduated in May. Thomas now is an energy systems engineer in San Francisco with Plenty, after she was recruited by the company’s co-founder and Chief Science Officer Nate Storey, a UW graduate. Plenty is a leading field-scale vertical farming company.
“I was acquainted with the company this summer when Nate Storey reached out to me after hearing about my thesis research on sustainable greenhouse design,” Thomas says. “At Plenty, I work on the mechanical engineering team. I have been designing our unique air distribution system and aiding contracted engineers on heating, ventilation and air conditioning equipment.
“Additionally, I build and coordinate models to represent energy flows through our system. These models will help to identify areas in which we can reduce our energy consumption and help to optimize our system.”
In summer 2017, Plenty acquired Laramie-based Bright Agrotech, a leader in vertical farming production system technology. Per a company press release, “Bright’s technology and industry leadership combined with Plenty’s own technology will help Plenty realize its plans to build field-scale indoor farms around the world, bringing the highest quality produce and healthy diets to everyone’s budget.”
Founded by Storey, Bright has partnered with small farmers for more than seven years to start and grow indoor farms, providing high-tech growing systems and controls, workflow design, education and software.
“We’re excited to join Plenty on their mission to bring the same exceptional quality local produce to families and communities around the world,” Storey says. “The need for local produce and healthy food that fits in everyone’s budget is not one that small farmers alone can satisfy, and I’m glad that, with Plenty, we can all work toward bringing people everywhere the freshest, pesticide-free food.”
Thomas didn’t necessarily envision working in her current industry while she was studying at UW. But, she definitely is embracing the chance to make a real difference for people and use her engineering degree to its full extent.
“I have found engineering to be one of the most reliable paths toward a job and rewarding career,” she says. “Architectural engineering particularly offers flexibility into civil, structural, architectural and MEP (mechanical, electrical and plumbing) professions.”
Which Hydroponic System Should You Use? 4 Best Options
Hydroponics is an outstanding approach l. of growing microgreens, baby greens and lettuce 365 days a year. It's an extremely popular horticulture technique, however, new indoor growers should know that it requires a certain amount of maintenance and skil
Which Hydroponic System Should You Use? 4 Best Options
December 26, 2017
Do you ever stop and wonder if there is other hydroponic system out there? What if it turned out that all this time you've been missing the right information on hydroponic systems?
Introduction
Hydroponics is a outstanding approach of growing microgreens, baby greens and lettuce 365 days a year. It's a extremely popular horticulture technique, however new indoor growers should know that it require a certain amount of maintenance and skill.
Nutrient Film Technique (NFT)
Nutrient film technique (commonly known as NFT) is a method of growing in which the microgreens have their roots in a depth-less stream of recirculating nutrient enriched water, in which are dissolved all the ingredients required. There is no solid rooting medium. A root mat is not fully in the depth-less stream of recirculating water and partly over it. The stream is very shallow and the upper surface of the root mat which develops above the water, it is slightly damp, is in the air. Around the roots which are in the air, there is a film of nutrients - hence the name nutrient film technique. If the root system is immersed in water, a situation comparable with water logged soil condition is achieved. The only oxygen accessible will be the dissolved oxygen in the recycling water. In order to bypass this situation, it is necessary to maintain the nutrient film principals.
Ebb and Flow / Flood and Drain
Ebb and flow systems (commonly known as flood and drain systems) mimic the way that plant root on the sides of streams are exposed to air when the stream is low but are in the water when the stream level is high. The grow medium is above the reservoir tank, which distributes the nutrient water to the flood tray and grow medium at a set time, so throughout the day the plant will go through moments of dryness as the nutrient water returns down through the roots back into the reservoir tank. The level of the water is measured so that the nutrient water doesn't overflow the flood table. An overflow drain in the flood tray also helps control flow by allowing the water to return back into the reservoir tank. The ebb and flow system recycles the nutrient water at timed intervals. These systems are mostly flat to ensure that the nutrient is delivered to all the plants. The system has a separate reservoir that sits underneath the system. A tube connects the reservoir to the system and a pump is used to send the nutrients from the reservoir and into the flood tray, where it will return back down into the reservoir tank. This system requires less pumping than an NFT system, in a few cases pumping nutrients to the plants only two or three times a day. Hydrocorn clay pebbles are the most popular medium to be used in the net pots in an ebb and flow system.
Drip Irrigation
Most outdoor growers irrigate giant plots by setting up tube systems that can span over big distances on soil. In some cases a well is created to supply the water. A pump pushes the water up from the well and filtered. This is crucial because fresh water contains particles that will clog an irrigation system. A o-ring filter is a common type of filtering system used with drip irrigation. The water is pumped slowly through a main tube that splits into lines along the way. Each line is kept quite close to each plant, so plant spacing is critical. Some pressure valves and back flow valves may be needed to have the system work perfectly. The key to drip irrigation system is to keep the water close around the plant. Drip irrigation only puts water where the roots will get it right away and conserves a lot of nutrients and water. Drip irrigation works just like the ebb and flow method, except nutrients are carried to and from the plants much slowly, thru the drip irrigation ring. Drip irrigation is something that ebb and flow users can changeover to conserve nutrients. Rather or throwing out a reservoir and filling it up with new nutrients, drip irrigation uses up everything. Drip irrigation uses the least amount of water desired to grow leafy greens and is relatively simple for the experienced hydroponic grower to do.
Aeroponics
Aeroponics improves the use of air around the root zone for plants to take in nutrients through water vapor for plant growth. The roots are dangling in the air and fed with a fine vapor of nutrient water for a very little period of time with more recurring interval. The standards of aeroponics are based on growing plants whose roots find the perfect condition with regards to oxygenation and dampness. These conditions take into consideration better plant nutrient intake in a more balanced way, with rapid development of plants. Excellent growing condition by controlling the temperature and humidity reassures a grower with high yields. Even the consumption of plant nutrient that is given to a closed system of the plant container is very limited allowing water savings. To produce a 2 lbs of eggplants in a traditional farm consumes about 66 to 92 gallons of water, growing hydroponically consumes about 17 gallons of water, while only 4 to 7 gallons is consumed in aeroponics. This system offers the opportunity to enhance crop production and diminish costs compared to traditional farming methods. Aeroponics successfully takes advantage of every vertical space for farming or production of the greenhouse and can be used for maximum production of food per area.
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growingmicrogreens nutrientfilmtechnique nftsystem ebbandflow floodanddrain
hydroponicsystem hydroponics aeroponics dripirrigation nft indoorfarming
3 Cities That Are Reinventing The Urban Farm
3 Cities That Are Reinventing The Urban Farm
DECEMBER 25, 2017READING TIME: 5 MINUTES
Urban farmers in Paris, Tokyo and Rotterdam are finding ways to make locally-grown produce more accessible by reinventing the urban farm.
Leena ElDeeb | JUNIOR JOURNALIST
A Cairo-based free spirit, with a growing passion for anthropology.
As global food insecurity rises, companies and cities are looking for ways to transform the urban farm into something more than a yuppie pastime. But urban farming isn’t confined to agriculture; urban farmers are looking to cattle-rearing and organic dairy production to reduce food miles and produce locally-grown alternatives for communities as well. These three cities are allowing innovative companies to exploit every nook and cranny to secure locally-grown goodness.
Farming Under A Parisian Neighborhood
Courtesy of La Caverne.
Cycloponics, a local indoor urban farming startup based in Strasbourg in France and harvesting lettuce, herbs and mushrooms, recently expanded its operations to subterranean Paris. The startup has made a home for its seedlings under the city’s eastern La Chapelle neighborhood, calling it “La Caverne” or the cave.
The underground urban farm is cultivated in a garage under a 300-unit affordable housing complex, encompassing 37,700 square feet (3,502.4 square meters). Production varies from two kilograms per square meter per month for aromatic herbs, to 300 kilograms per square meter per month for endives. “We aim at providing [the tenants above La Caverne] with our products at a preferential tariff, at making educational workshops and we also want to hire local people,” reads La Caverne’s website.
La Caverne has ten members working together to maintain hydroponics systems (a system where crops are cultivated in water) to grow vegetables, ensure the optimum growth of the farm’s mushroom crop and sell their products on the market. The farm’s oyster and shiitake mushrooms are grown on composted manure bricks. The farmers at La Caverne also harvest chicory, a root often used in coffee, which does not need sunlight to grow. The team aims to ultimately produce 54 tons of vegetables and mushrooms per year.
Courtesy of La Caverne’s Facebook page.
The absence of sunlight underground is not a problem for the urban farmers. “We opted for cultivations adapted to our underground environment. Mushrooms do not require a lot of light to grow and chicory grows without any light: our energy consumption is actually rather low,” the website reads. For leafy vegetables which need light such as salads, microgreens and aromatic herbs, the urban farmers use Light-Emitting Diode (LED) lamps. “[These] consume less energy than usual lamps and produce also less heat: we can adjust the light spectrum for an optimized development,” they write.
They are using what they call the “underground market gardening” to cultivate, within the same space, different species of vegetables that interact in a positive way. “The [carbon dioxide] generated by the mushrooms is used by the microgreens to grow up, the natural materials are composted for our cultivations… Those methods are widely inspired by permaculture!”
Urban Farming Under The Tokyo Metro
Tokyo’s underground subway. CC: Philippe L PhotoGraphy
“I never thought that I would be growing vegetables when I joined a railway company,”says 33-year-old Tokyo Metro overseer Remi Takahara, reflecting on the trial-and-error process that led to the subway operator’s greens’ cultivation. Under the name “Tokyo Salad,” Japanese subway operators Tokyo Metro Co. and Metro Development Co. have taken it upon themselves to grow an urban farm of lettuce, assorted salad greens and even herbs in a cultivation warehouse under the elevated train tracks of the Tokyo Metro Tozai Line.
Seeds are placed on a sponge with tweezers, and the young seedlings are moved once they begin sprouting. Similar to the Parisian underground urban farm, LEDs provide the plants with light for 16 hours a day and the liquid nutrients are cycled through the system 24/7. It takes roughly three to five weeks for a plant to reach maturity.
The urban farm uses neither fertilizer nor soil, and the seven rows of plants grow hydroponically instead. Frill lettuce, basil along with rare finds such as red coral lettuce and red kale are among the 11 varieties regularly grown, with roughly 400 plants being grown per day. The urban farm’s lettuce and other products have been on the market since April 2015.
Rotterdam’s Floating Urban Farm
In 2016, Peter van Wingerden, Carel de Vries and Johan Bosman of property development company Beladon transformed the Dutch port city of Rotterdam through the construction of a €2.5-million ($2.9 million) dairy farm floating on the Rhine–Meuse –Scheldt river, making Rotterdam home to the world’s first floating farm – dubbed Floating Farm.
“Dutch farmers were asking themselves: ‘Do cows get seasick?'” says Minke van Wingerden of Beladon, explaining that a trip on the floating farm will be as still as that on a cruise ship. “The world’s population is rising, and most cities in deltas are sinking because of more and more concrete,” adds van Wingerden, who is married to Beladon CEO Peter Wingerden. She explains that her husband happened to visit New York during Hurricane Sandy, and when there, he saw empty shelves and what food remained would suffice for just two days. “He thought we had to do things in another way, and the idea came: why not build a floating farm?” The architects’ idea is to bring food production as close as possible to the consumer, even when the available space to do so is limited.
Beladon’s farm shelters a total of 40 cows on a 1,200 square meter floating platform, producing 800 liters (211 gallons) of milk a day, which are pasteurized and processed into yogurt in a dairy on the floor below. The cattle pasture is lit by LEDs and the seeds are germinated on special beds in short cycles. The cattle can eat fresh food every day since this system ensures that pasture is produced everyday. The cattle should find themselves comfortable just like they would at the meadows. The cows themselves determine when they want to be milked by the milking robot; creating a system based on free choice, in terms of being inside or outside, getting milked, eating or resting under the trees.
The walls of the floating farm are transparent so that the dairy farming cycle can be viewed by passersby with the aim of educating them.”People often don’t know where their food comes from, and I’d like to show them close up. But I also want to create awareness among farmers so that they know where their produce goes,” said Albert Boersen, one of the floating farm’s operators. “My parents sell their milk through [dairy collective] FrieslandCampina so it’s an anonymous project. I think that’s a shame.”
Whether it is venturing underground or putting cattle on water, if these projects indicate anything, it is that farmers are seizing the opportunity to be endlessly imaginative as they forge new grounds to feed the world’s population.
How 3D Printing is Transforming Urban Farming
How 3D Printing is Transforming Urban Farming
BEAU JACKSON DECEMBER 21, 2017
With limited green spaces and temperate environments, cities are a challenging habitat for growing herbs and vegetables. The perfect addition to any dish, high quality fresh produce often comes with a designer price tag too. With the help of 3D printing though, a number of projects are here to prove that it can be done – without costing the earth.
Farmshelf is a company based in Brooklyn, New York, that makes a living by setting up compact shelving units for plants. Installed in restaurants, homes and residential communities, each Farmshelf is realized by custom parts made on a desktop FDM 3D printer.
And, in a side project from Jake Clark, co-founder of North Dakota 3D printing hub Fargo 3D Printing, FDM technology is used to make an Indoor Garden that helps manage the water content of your carrots.
A touch of blue sky thinking
At Farmshelf, 3D printing has enabled the company to bring its products to market much faster than anticipated. The customizable, modular layout out of each shelving unit can be designed, tested and refined on site in a fraction of the time and cost that it would if relying on traditional manufacturing.
The company uses an Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer for product development, and Andrew Shearer, CEO and Co-Founder of Farmshelf, believes that the tech has been key to the company’s success. “As we approached prototyping all of these parts,” says Shearer, “Ultimaker proved to be a great solution,”
“For all the different needs we’ve had, from prototyping to small batch, short-run production parts, this technology enabled us to push forward our timelines, and keep this company on the fast track.”
Andrew Shearer, CEO and Co-Founder of Farmshelf tends to seedlings on 3D printed pods. Photo via Ultimaker
Shelving brackets and small plant pods capable of holding enough soil to root a seedling are made on the Ultimaker 2+.
In turn, FDM technology has enabled Shearer to rethink Farmshelf’s business model, and devote more time to blue-sky ideas. Shearer adds, “As a company, you can now look at 3D printing as a way to involve more people in the building process, and involve more in the prototyping and dreaming process, thanks to how easy it is.”
A 3D printed Farmshelf prototype plant pod. Photo via Ultimaker
Home farming
With simple single-part planter designs and a grow-your-own project, Fargo’s Jake Clark puts carrot farming in the hands of anyone with access to a 3D printer.
Noticing a trend for handy household projects on sites like Thingiverse and MyMiniFactory, Clark explains, “It started out as something to see if I can grow plants while using 3D printing.”
Design of Jake Clark’s Indoor Garden Carrot Pods. Image via Fargo 3D Printing
In the first iteration, it is possible to grow a batch of 49 carrots, each enclosed inside its own protective pod. Taking great care in the design of his Indoor Garden modules, Clark added a well at the bottom of each planter that allows for runoff if a carrot is over watered.
“I’m hoping to add additional things later next year once I get past the first growing cycle (~80days) such as automated watering,” he adds. In a step by step summary, he also details how home users can add a 132w LED to give sunlight to the plants, and manage day – night duration. The modules were designed with Fusion 360, and test printed on a MakerBot Replicator Z18.
The .stl files of Clark’s Indoor Garden can be found online here.
A complete 3D printed Indoor Garden. Photo by Jake Clark/Fargo 3D Printing
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Featured image shows an Ultimaker 2+ 3D printer used by Farmshelf. Photo via Ultimaker
Growing In A “Perfect” Greenhouse Climate
Growing In A “Perfect” Greenhouse Climate
NOVEMBER 30, 2017 | DAVID KUACK
Originally published in Issue 16
Although it may be difficult to create the perfect greenhouse climate for growing plants, there are variables growers can control to maximize plant growth.
Regardless of the type of crop being grown in a greenhouse, the climate a grower is trying to achieve requires controlling the same variables.
“Greenhouse growers are trying to control temperature, humidity, light level, carbon dioxide, and in some instances, airflow and air distribution,” said mechanical and agricultural engineer Dr. Nadia Sabeh, founder of Dr. Greenhouse. “Depending on the crop, these variables have different set points. They also might have different acceptable maximum and minimum ranges or levels.
Dr. Nadia Sabeh said carbon dioxide is most useful to plants when there is a lot of light and good temperature and humidity levels or vapor pressure deficit (VPD).
“Depending on the crop, these variables can be changed during different times of the day. For instance, a tomato crop wants a daily average temperature around 72ºF. If the plants experience high temperatures during the day, if the temperature is able to be cooled down during the night, as long as the average temperature is 72ºF, the tomato plants are happy. For lettuce, a grower may not be able to manipulate the day or night temperature to make up for exceeding the maximum temperature that occurs during the day or night. That’s one way these crops differ.”
Sabeh said when it comes to controlling the greenhouse environment growers usually focus first on temperature.
“The first line of defense against warm temperatures is not shading,” she said. “Growers are trying to maximize as much light into the greenhouse as possible. As soon as a shade curtain is closed the solar input is reduced. The first line of defense for cooling a greenhouse is ventilation, either natural or mechanical.
“If ventilation can’t achieve the temperature a growers needs, then some form of cooling is added. Typically cooling is done through evaporative cooling. This could be wet pads and a fan system, high pressure fog or a low pressure misting system in combination with mechanical and natural ventilation. If that doesn’t work, then a shade curtain can be pulled. A shade curtain is usually only drawn for two to four hours during the day. It’s pulled during the peak solar heat gain period. A shade curtain can cut the temperature by 2ºF-4ºF.”
The challenge of reducing humidity
Sabeh said between controlling the greenhouse temperature and humidity, humidity is the more challenging variable, especially if it is for dehumidification.
“If a grower is trying to remove moisture from the greenhouse, that presents a lot of challenges,” she said. “The standard method of removing moisture from the greenhouse is through ventilation. But that assumes that the moisture level or the humidity outside the greenhouse is lower than it is inside the greenhouse.
Evaporative cooling can be used in dry climates to increase the humidity and lower the temperature in a greenhouse.
“If a grower is looking to increase the humidity or humidification, for a greenhouse located in the southwest U.S. where it is very dry, moisture can be added to the greenhouse using evaporative cooling. Another benefit of evaporative cooling is a reduction in the temperature that cools the greenhouse temperature. Evaporative cooling works very well in a dry climate to do both of those things.”
Sabeh said growers in the Midwest and Southeast can experience more challenging climates because they have a high heat solar gain like growers in the Southwest experience, but they also have high humidity levels requiring them to ventilate.
“The climates in the Midwest and Southeast make it very challenging to grow plants in a greenhouse because of the humidity,” Sabeh said. “The only line of defense for growing plants in that kind of climate is ventilation. Growers want to exchange as much air as possible with the outside to remove moisture and solar heat gain during the day. Typically that is inadequate. If the outside temperature is 90ºF and the relative humidity is 90 percent, growers certainly don’t want those conditions in their greenhouses.
“If the temperature and humidity are high, growers don’t have the opportunity to use evaporative cooling because they can’t reduce the temperature enough,” she said. “They can shade the greenhouses, but that only lowers the temperature by 2ºF-4ºF from outside conditions. If it is 90ºF and 90 percent humidity, pulling shade results in 86ºF and 90 percent humidity, and that is not going to provide the vapor pressure deficit a grower is trying to achieve.”
Sabeh said growers might consider closing up their greenhouses to avoid bringing in hot, moist air, but that creates additional challenges.
“Closing the greenhouse can cause the greenhouse to heat up from the sun plus the plants are releasing moisture resulting in the greenhouse just getting hotter,” she said. “So far I haven’t really seen anyone come up with a very cost effective method to mitigate that heat and moisture. Certainly a grower could use a refrigerant-based cooling system similar to an air conditioning system that would provide dehumidification. But the size and scale of those systems are cost prohibitive.”
Typically greenhouse cooling is done through evaporative cooling. This could be wet pads and a fan system, high pressure fog or a low pressure misting system in combination with mechanical and natural ventilation.
Sabeh said temperature and humidity are very closely linked through the vapor pressure deficit (VPD).
Maintaining the proper vapor pressure deficit
“As long as a grower is able to control the greenhouse temperature, that usually means he is able to control the humidity level to the point where the vapor pressure deficit is where it should be,” she said. “Even if VPD is not the target that a grower is going for, that is actually the target that he is trying to reach with temperature control with or without humidity control.”
VPD is the difference between the amount of moisture in the air and how much moisture the air can hold when it is saturated.
“There is an optimum level for VPD,” Sabeh said. “For leafy greens and culinary herbs, which prefer a lower VPD, the accepted VPD range is 0.65 to 0.9 kilopascal (kPa) with 0.85 kPA being optimum. Tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers tend to like it drier. The VPD range for tomatoes is 0.9 to 1.2 kPa.
“For leafy greens there is more surface area for moisture to escape the plants. The plants like to be in a more humid space so they don’t release too much moisture too fast.”
Providing adequate airflow
Sabeh said airflow in the greenhouse is really important for breaking up the layer of moisture around the leaf surface of the plants.
“If the leaves are transpiring water, the leaf surface itself is considered saturated,” she said. “The leaf surface is exchanging moisture with the air around it. The more moisture in the air around the leaf surface, the less tendency to transfer moisture from the leaf surface to the air around it.
“This is basically what the vapor pressure deficit is. It is the difference between how much moisture there is at the leaf surface at a given temperature vs. how much moisture there is in the air at that same temperature. If it is within the right range, then the plants are happy because the leaves are freely exchanging moisture with the air. If the vapor pressure deficit is too low that means the air has a lot of moisture in it so there is going to be less transfer of moisture from the leaves to the air. The plants can’t transpire as quickly and nutrients can’t be delivered as quickly to the rest of the plant. If the vapor pressure deficit is too high, the air is really dry, and the plants shut down. As a protection strategy, the plants will close their stomata so that they don’t transpire moisture to the air because it would occur too fast. The loss of water through transpiration would occur faster than the plants could take up water.”
Sabeh said horizontal airflow fans are the traditional method for producing airflow and air currents in a greenhouse.
“Horizontal airflow fans are usually suspended from the trusses or the structure of the greenhouse and blow air in a circular pattern over the tops of the plants without actually blowing directly down on the plants,” she said. “Just the circulation and motion is enough to create turbulence to cause air mixing around the plants to encourage transpiration and convection.
“By breaking up the little saturation pocket of air around the leaves, it facilitates that moisture transfer from the leaves to the air. Under more humid conditions, as air is blown over the leaf surface, a grower can facilitate more transpiration from the plants than if no airflow was blowing over it. Airflow is one of those variables not addressed as often as temperature and humidity control. It is sorted of neglected.”
With the increasing interest in vertical farms, Sabeh said growers are using large grow racks to try to create temperature and humidity conditions in three dimensions.
“Under these conditions it is very easy for air to get trapped over the center of a rack,” she said. “Vertical farmers are really cognitive of airflow because they see these hot spots or these wet spots in the middle of the grow racks so they know they need airflow.
“It is the same situation as if plants are grown in a greenhouse. If more airflow is provided in a greenhouse, more moisture could be removed from the plant surface and help the plant with cooling by convection.”
Maintaining the proper carbon dioxide level
Sabeh said although carbon dioxide is not necessarily impacted by the outdoor climate, greenhouse growers are controlling it relative to the outdoors.
“In a greenhouse where growers are burning fuel to generate carbon dioxide and ventilating at the same time there is a challenge of how much carbon dioxide should be delivered and how is it going to be retained? Is there a way to mitigate the carbon dioxide’s immediate loss to the outside air through greenhouse ventilation?
Tomato crops want a daily average temperature around 72ºF. Dr. Nadia Sabeh said if the plants experience high temperatures during the day, but the temperature can be cooled down during the night, as long as the average temperature is 72ºF, the tomato plants are happy.
“One strategy for not overusing carbon dioxide is to provide plants with a boost from carbon dioxide enrichment. Carbon dioxide can be provided first thing in the morning during first light before the greenhouse vents are open. Basically, the plants take a deep breath when the sun starts to come out and the stomata open. The sunlight or the supplemental lights are turned on and the plants take up that carbon dioxide. When a grower starts to ventilate because the moisture has built up overnight or the temperature starts to increase because the sun is rising, enrichment with carbon dioxide can be stopped so that it is not being blown out of the greenhouse through the vents and exhausted by the fans. Some growers use carbon dioxide enrichment all day as long as there is enough light from the sun or from artificial light.”
Sabeh said growers can mitigate the loss of carbon dioxide by trying to deliver it as close to the leaves as possible.
“Some growers use under-floor or under-bench ducts to deliver carbon dioxide,” she said. “Some growers may use PVC tubing or fish tubing to distribute carbon dioxide through the crop and directly to the leaves. This is ideal if a grower can find a way to deliver the carbon dioxide in an effective manner without getting in the way of all of the other equipment and people working in the greenhouse.
“This is why some people are looking at the potential advantage of growing in vertical farms. There is an enclosed space and in most cases, it is being done in buildings that are not leaky. There are some growers who have considered closed greenhouses. The cannabis industry is really interested in this, but the problem is there is an outrageous energy bill to try and close the greenhouse and not use any ventilation or mechanical cooling.”
Relationship between greenhouse climate variables
Sabeh said the optimum level of carbon dioxide varies for each crop. She said 700-1,500 parts per million carbon dioxide is the level that most growers are trying to use.
“Carbon dioxide is most useful to the plants when there is a lot of light and good temperature and humidity levels or a good VPD,” she said. “Carbon dioxide is transferred through the leaf stomata, the same as moisture through transpiration. At the right VPD the stomata are open to the maximum and are letting out moisture and gulping up carbon dioxide.
“The first thing is having the right VPD to maximize stomata opening. The second thing is photosynthesis, which is driven by light. If the air is being enriched with carbon dioxide, but the light level is very low, much of the carbon dioxide will be wasted. There has to be enough light to facilitate a high enough rate of photosynthesis or the plants can’t use the carbon dioxide. All three of these variables work together. A good VPD is needed for stomata opening. An adequate light level is needed for photosynthesis. And carbon dioxide is needed to maximize the photosynthesis cycle.”
For more: Nadia Sabeh, (916) 775-3724; nadia@doctorgreenhouse.com,
http://www.doctorgreenhouse.com.
Before ‘Plantscrapers’ Can Grow Food in The City, They’ll Need to Grow Money
Before ‘Plantscrapers’ Can Grow Food in The City, They’ll Need to Grow Money
By Dyllan Furness — December 24, 2017
When Hans Hassle imagines the future, he sees urban farms and office spaces growing side-by-side. He sees half-green high rises providing Stockholm with lettuce, spinach, and swiss chard. Herbs grow underground. During winter, heat from grow lamps is recovered to help heat the buildings. Employees might not smell the crops growing across the hall, but they breathe their filtered air and they’ll probably eat them for lunch.
“If we will farm the same way we do today, we will have to grow food in cities.”
Hassle envisions a similar scene in every big city. There might be more bok choy grown in Singapore or napa cabbage in Seoul. Crops may differ depending on a city’s tastes preferences and population density. But no city is exempt for being too tropical or too temperate. Hassle hopes his company, Plantagon, can provide solutions for any climate.
With the right infrastructure, major cities around the world may someday grow a fraction of their produce in towering “plantscrapers,” hybrid buildings that combine vertical farms with residential or business spaces. In fact, Hassle thinks they’ll have to.
GROWING CROPS FOR A GROWING WORLD
Agriculture accounts for over 37 percent of all land area use on Earth, according to the World Bank, and that figure is set to increase as the global population continues to rise, particularly within cities, where 80 percent of the population is projected to live by 2050.
“If we will farm the same way we do today, then the lack of land issue will be one reason to try to grow food inside cities,” Hassle tells Digital Trends. “That would put food as close to consumers as possible.”
Urban agriculture is practically as old as civilization itself, but locally-grown food movements have increased interest, as communities search for more sustainable ways to feed themselves.
Bringing crops closer to consumers means eliminating much of the financial and environmental strain caused by transportation, sometimes including thousands of miles between farm and table. But, since few cities have the real estate available to convert buildings into conventional farms, a handful of innovators are looking for solutions upwards and underground.
One such innovation is multilayered greenhouses called vertical farms, which can be erected in urban areas like skyscrapers.
“There’s little land [in cities] because most is already used,” Hassle says. “And you don’t want to use, for example, recreational areas. So if you start to discuss how to grow food with little land inside a dense city, then you end up talking rooftops, basements, and vertically.”
Unfortunately, real estate comes at premium in cities, even when a building’s footprint is relatively small. And that makes finding a profitable solution difficult.
Thomas Zöllner
“Making a commercial viability out of growing food in an urban setting is primarily challenged by the expense of the land that your building on,” Thomas Zöllner, Vice Chair of the non-profit association of Vertical Farming, says. “When you’re doing that calculation and you talk to real estate developers, they’ll quickly tell you that you have to generate quite a good return on investment with whatever you do in order to pay for this square footage.”
Plantagon plans to address that problem with by leveraging the proven side of real estate to support the economically risky urban agriculture side. Rather than developing buildings that are strictly dedicated to vertical farms, Plantagon is pushing for hybrid structures that could integrate with our living spaces, satisfying a number of needs and functioning as a symbiotic system. In other words, the main tenants might be office spaces or residences, while a portion of the building would be reserved for crops. The company uses the term “agritechture” to describe the process of weaving urban agricultural interests into contemporary architecture in an effort to meet local food demands.
THE PLANTAGON APPROACH
There are a lot of startups focusing on urban vertical farming in cities around the world. Besides its agritechture idea, Plantagon brings to the table a series of techniques to make the process more efficient. For example, the company has introduced a vertical production line that rotates crops from floor to ceiling as they grow. Working something like a merry-go-round, the system brings crops back to floor-level once they’ve grown for ease of harvesting. Its other innovations relate to energy and climate control.
“If you can’t reuse the energy that the LED lamps use, it’s difficult to compete with normal prices,” Hassle says. “But if we can reuse the energy if the supply chain is short enough, then we can compete with wholesale prices.”
“Vertical farming has still not been proven to be commercially viable.”
Vertical farms won’t replace conventional farms anytime soon. They’ll be limited by the kinds and quantity of crops they can grow while still turning a profit. For now, Plantagon has focused its efforts on leafy green and herds, but Hassle says, “We don’t want to develop all this technology to only grow herbs for people. That won’t solve the upcoming food crisis.”
Plantagon boasts that its technology has “infinite scalability,” which is to say it’s constrained only by the size of the buildings themselves. Still, implementing such systems is expensive and developers proably won’t be very keen to allocate half of their shiny new building to food production without proof of profitability.
“Vertical farming has still not proven that you can make a living growing food on multiple layers,” Zöllner says. “It’s proven that you can do it on a single layer with the help of LEDs or other lights sources, but it hasn’t been proven that you can do this from a grower’s perspective on a multilayer.”
Other experts agree that vertical farming shows promise but lacks evidence as a sustainable, large-scale approach for the future of food. To Hassle’s own calculations, vertical farms may only supply ten to fifteen percent of our future produce needs. While that helps, it certainly won’t feed the planet.
GROWING PAINS
At least two more challenges face Plantagon and the vertical farming industry at large, according to Zöllner — the needs for labor and food safety standards.
“Today, the real challenge for a vertical farm trying to scale is finding people to run, direct, and operate it,” he says. “And to find enough people willing to stick to the job, doing simple things like harvesting.” Still, in the not so distant future, automated machines may well take on the workload.
As for food safety, Zöllner thinks that a vertical farm’s apparent cleanliness could lull operators into a false sense of security.
“The vertical farm space is a very clean space, it will be less chemically intensive than a lot of the conventional agriculture, but it also creates and environment where you have a lot of issues with bacteria growth,” he says. “The moment a company sells something that gets a consumer sick, that will be a real blow to the industry. They’ll have to start planning now with conventional food safety on hand to try to prevent a disastrous outcome like that.”
Zöllner has followed Plantagon for a few years and says he’s been impressed with the company’s unique approach, but is careful not to get too enthusiastic.
“It’s interesting,” he says, “the dimension of a vision combined with resources and translating them into something feasible. The sad part is they haven’t yet built their building.”
Despite the buzz it’s created, Plantagon has struggled to erect its plantscrapers in the real world. The company broke ground on its “World Food Building” in 2012, but the project remains in slow progress. Located a couple hours south of Stockholm, in the city of Linköping, the World Food Building is designed as a massive greenhouse and office space that Plantagon says will produce 500 metric tons of food annually once fully functional. Earlier this month, the company also launched a crowdfunding campaign called CityFarms, a series of underground farming operations in Stockholm.
The world might not yet need Plantagon and its technology, but Hassle plans to be there once it does. “The challenge for us being so early in development, is to implement the technology with the market now before it really needs these big scale vertical farms,” he says. By then, Hassle hopes to see his vision come to fruition.
Why Engineer Ajay Naik Sold His Successful Startup To Become A Hi-Tech Farmer
Letcetra Agritech is a hydroponics farm that occupies just 150 square metres of space but grows three tonnes of lettuce a month.
Why Engineer Ajay Naik Sold His Successful Startup To Become A Hi-Tech Farmer
Rakhi Chakraborty December 23, 2017
Letcetra Agritech is a hydroponics farm that occupies just 150 square metres of space but grows three tonnes of lettuce a month.
“I am an early adopter. Early adopters of any new technology are few and far between, but in business, there is no reward without risk. The ones who can see the vision when no one else can, and work on it like there is no tomorrow, will succeed. The rest will follow,” says Ajay Naik, the Founder of Letcetra Agritech Pvt. Ltd.
Founded in 2016 and built at the intersection of agriculture and technology, Letcetra Agritech grows organic vegetables using hydroponics and sells them across hotel chains, supermarkets and farmers markets. “We also help set up commercial hydroponic farms for large-scale growers,” says Ajay.
Second Innings
Ajay had a successful mobile apps company which he sold to a German firm. For his second innings in the startup game, he chose a field radically opposite to his background of software engineering – agriculture. Although since he is an engineer, it was a given that his farming enterprise would be a technological one as well.
“I was looking for agricultural technologies that help grow organic food and I came across hydroponics, in which one can grow healthy food without using soil in a controlled environment with very less land, water, and labour. After doing research for two months, I decided to start a hi-tech vertical hydroponics indoor farm to grow top-quality pesticide-free exotic vegetables,” says Ajay.
Hydroponics
Apart from enabling the growth of produce that is 20-30 percent higher on quality than traditional agriculture allows, hydroponics also helps save water and resources during farming. Using hydroponics, one can grow crops in any environment- be it sterile unproductive lands or bustling urban centres. “It helps cutting down on expensive intermediaries and shipping costs and reducing our carbon footprint. It is user-friendly so that any grower with a will can apply it successfully,” he had stated in a previous interview.
Experts estimate that earth has only sixty years of topsoil left. If the current trend of destructive agricultural practices continues, we will not be able to grow food in six decades’ time. Our population is booming while our ability to feed that population is fast deteriorating. Hydroponics can be a viable alternative to this looming crisis. For now, Ajay is one of the few pioneers of this system in India.
ALSO READ: How these guerrilla gardeners are reclaiming urban spaces to grow food
Letcetra Agritech
Ajay says, “After seeing the lack of technology in farming, I wanted to understand the economics of the business. After assessing that I plunged headlong. In all this, we have always wanted to be farmers who use technology to grow pesticide-free, high quality, and affordable vegetables. Our success will always be measured by how much we grow versus how much we earn.”
Ajay’s indoor farm occupies an area of 150 square metres in which he grows three tonnes of lettuce a month. His company’s name Letcetra is a cheeky derivative of lettuce. “Lettuce etc.,” he says. In the future, he plans on adding more variety of crops, but for now, lettuce and salad greens are a good return on his investment. “Goa is a conducive place to start a farm, as the state sees visitors from all over the world and they all have a need to be served fresh and high-quality vegetables,” he says.
Business Model, Revenue, and Growth
Though a hydroponics farm assures financial returns in the long run, setting one up is an expensive affair. For thosesetting up a hydroponic farm in a poly house, the initial investment is approximately Rs 560 per square foot. The majority of this goes towards setting up pumping systems and electrical equipment.
For those setting up their farm indoors, the expense is considerably higher at approximately Rs 3500 per square foot. This is because you’ll be swapping sunlight for LED lights and air conditioners and heaters for temperature control. Ajay found growing exotic vegetables a quick way to recoup his investments. Given the perennial demand for fresh and organic salad greens, he is confident his lettuces will continue to pave the path to profitability.
“As of now, I have two investors, whose angel investment was key to our development. On the operational cost front, we are profitable even though we are just a year old. As for the rest we expect to break-even in a year from now. We are expanding to a bigger farm now and also in the process of expanding to Bengaluru. We want to become the largest producers of pesticide-free vegetables in India. We are expanding, and targeting a production of five tons of pesticide-free exotic vegetables per day by the first quarter of 2019,” says Ajay.
Personal Journey
There are two key challenges Ajay has faced while becoming a successful hydroponics farmer. One has been fighting the status quo. He says, “The hardest part of becoming an entrepreneur is keeping yourself motivated to keep fighting. When you are trying something, which no one has dared to try before, everyone around you will tell you that you are taking a foolish risk. Keeping yourself going is very important.”
The second has been finding people who connect with his vision. “Even with all the difficulties, I am happy with what I am doing as I am being able to live my dreams while making a positive difference in our society,” he adds.
Having overcome many rigorous obstacles since starting Letcetra Agritech, Ajay is gearing up to face an equally demanding but bright future. He says, “The executive chef of one of the most reputed seven-star hotel chains in India told us after tasting our lettuce that we have cracked the formula to grow the best lettuce in India. We have a very bright future. We are a country whose population is rapidly growing and we are here to feed this behemoth. We are working very hard on research and trying to make sure we can get the formula right at scale, which will be a great investment.”
India is an agrarian country but the exploitative agriculture industry is seen as the least lucrative of livelihoods. With millennials like Ajay marrying technology with the traditional, one hopes that such ventures appeal to the young upstarts looking to make a positive difference in the world through their work. Ajay’s advice for them: “I believe in what LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman said – ‘Entrepreneurs are those who jump off the cliff and build a plane on their way down.’ If you are seeking to make a switch, just jump.”
How This Startup Produces 700 Tonnes of Fruits and Vegetables Without Soil
Triton Foodworks started as an experiment in urban farming in September of 2014 by four friends — Deepak Kukreja, Dhruv Khanna, Ullas Samrat, and Devanshu Shivnani.
How This Startup Produces 700 Tonnes of Fruits and Vegetables Without Soil
Foraying into urban farming, a group of friends has set up a green enterprise that is based on hydroponics.
There is growing concern in urban and semi-urban areas about the dangers of the pesticide-ridden food that is sold in the market.
Following the Green Revolution in the mid-1960s, the use of pesticides in India has increased. Although the period saw the boom in agriculture like never before, the flip side of this revolution has left the country consuming poisonous food. Food production in large quantities at the cost of their health has made people wary and look for alternatives.
In the confines of an urban setting, four youngsters from Delhi are venturing into hydroponics to provide an organic and healthier option for the urban populace.
Hydroponics is the method of growing plants in a water-based, nutrient-rich medium, without the use of soil. This method essentially cuts down the amount of water being used compared to the method in which plants are grown in soil. In some cases, up to 90 percent less water is used in the hydroponics method compared to the traditional soil-based agriculture — a boon for water-starved urban areas. One can plant four times the number of crops in the same space as soil farming.
An Experiment In Urban Farming
Triton Foodworks started as an experiment in urban farming in the September of 2014 by four friends — Deepak Kukreja, Dhruv Khanna, Ullas Samrat, and Devanshu Shivnani.
In early 2014, Ullas was exploring ways to develop his agricultural land in Mohali for his mother, who suffers from ILD, a degenerative disorder of the lungs. When the doctors told him that life on a farmhouse would in fact be counterintuitive for his mother due to dust and other issues related to farming, he became obsessed with finding a way to farm in a clean and hygienic manner.
Dhruv, who was in Singapore at the moment working on his tech startup, wanted to come back to India and start something here. On a catch-up call, the two got discussing how much fun it would be to start a business together; especially something that made sense economically and ecologically. Following a lot of research, they zeroed in on hydroponic farming, something that connected with both of them. Dhruv visited a few hydroponic farms in Singapore to see firsthand how it works. Ullas met Deepak online while researching on hydroponics. The team quickly realized that to make this thing big, they needed a formal structure and a financial disciple — which is when Devanshu was roped in.
“We were just a bunch of friends who wanted to do something in the space of food and agriculture. We were very excited by the opportunities of rooftop farming and farming within the limits of the city. We did a pilot to grow strawberries in Sainik Farm of Delhi. We used an open system with vertical towers to grow eight tonnes of strawberries out of 500 sqm of land. Eventually, we decided against setting rooftop farms due to feasibility issues. Instead, we set up full scale, commercial farms in the outskirts of cities,” says 38-year-old Deepak, technical Co-founder, who takes care of the farming aspect of the business.
Like any bootstrapped startup, Triton Foodworks also faced a huge number of issues at every step. Their farm at the Sainik Farm was demolished by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) because the team refused to pay a bribe.
“We went to the Delhi government to ask for some sort of help in setting up farms in Delhi; we were called ‘food terrorists’ to our face. Quite a few vendors still owe us money for our early projects, something which is a huge issue in this industry. We had no previous data to map our progress against, no previous players who could be used as a yardstick in the field,” says 27-year-old Devanshu, who takes care of the finances and the financial modelling for the business.
Taking Hydroponics Ahead
“Toxic food is the biggest issue we are trying to resolve. People don't realise how toxic their food really is. We don't use chemical pesticides for our plants. The second issue is the fact that we are running out of land and water to grow food. Lastly, we are addressing the problem of traceability, consistency and, by extension, accountability in farming. You buy a bag of chips and you can trace it back to the field in which the potatoes were grown, but if you pick up a tomato from your vegetable vendor, there is no way to know where it came from, who harvested it, when was it harvested, and what all did he put in it to grow. We are teaching people to ask these questions by offering them answers even before they realise this information is important,” says 27-year-old Dhruv, who looks after operations and marketing.
The team relies on Ayurvedic recipes and bio control to fight off pests and other infections, as an alternative to pesticides and insecticides. The team grows the same amount of food grown under conventional farming with just about one-eighth of the area and using 80 percent less water.
The team has successfully set up more than 5 acres of hydroponic farms across three locations in India. The strawberry farm in Mahabaleshwar grows 20 tonnes of strawberries a year and a 1.25 acres facility in Wada district of Maharashtra that produces about 400 tonnes of tomatoes, 150 tonnes of cucumbers, 400 heads of spinach, and over 700 bunches of mint.
Triton also operates an acre facility in Shirval, Pune that grows tomatoes and cucumbers, which are used to feed farmers' markets in Pune. The team also advises companies in Hyderabad, Manesar and Bengaluru that are interested in incorporating hydroponics.
Triton currently has over 200,000 sqft of area under hydroponic cultivation in various locations in the country. Using hydroponics, it produces more than 700 tonnes of residue-free fruits and vegetables every year.
“Our systems enable us to save around 22 crore litres of water per year as compared to traditional agriculture. In terms of volume, our vertical systems grow food comparable to 10,00,000 sqft of land when using traditional agriculture methods, which translates into a saving of more than 800,000 sqft of land to grow the same amount of food. Since our farms are located within a 100-km radius from cities, our produce carries lesser food miles,” says 27-year-old Ullas.
The team is currently in the process of setting up stalls in farmers' markets in Pune and Mumbai.
Tokyo Rail Operator Explores 'Train To Table' Urban Farming
As urban farming becomes increasingly popular across the globe, Tokyo's most-used rapid transit system, Tokyo Metro, is dabbling in hydroponic farming in an unused warehouse space below the system’s elevated transit lines.
Tokyo Rail Operator Explores 'Train To Table' Urban Farming
BY TESSA LOVE
December 20, 2017
As urban farming becomes increasingly popular across the globe, Tokyo's most-used rapid transit system, Tokyo Metro, is dabbling in hydroponic farming in an unused warehouse space below the system’s elevated transit lines.
The project, called Tokyo Salad, takes the idea of urban farming to the next level. Celebrated as a way to save resources by bringing food closer to the people who consume it, urban farming often takes place on rooftops or the walls of hip restaurants. Tokyo Salad, however, is both using an under-utilized space and growing food where millions of people pass through every day.
The Tokyo Salad facility houses 400 plants of 11 varieties of greens, including basil, kale and lettuces. The greens are grown without the use of soil or fertilizers under LED lights that shine on the plants 16 hours a day. The plants are watered with a mist that contains necessary minerals such as zinc, phosphorous and potassium.
Hydroponic farming has many benefits. It reduces energy and water use, creates a perennial food system, and can be done anywhere. But Tokyo Salad says it's system is even more sophisticated: It can turn seeds to greens in just five weeks with a method that it's calling a "trade secret," and though the plants are growing beneath a railway system, its operation is "uber-hygienic."
Like in most parts of the world, urban and hydroponic farming is just getting off the ground in Japan and won't change the food system on a mass scale quite yet. For now, most of Tokyo Salad’s customers are high-end restaurants in Tokyo, not the food halls and mom-and-pops that make up most of the country's food system. But nonetheless, this style of farming could help solve some of the problems that are unique to Japan.
Japan's population is decreasing and is expected to continue decreasing in the coming years. The country's farming population is aging out of the business, but a new generation of farmers isn't stepping to take their place. Farm lands are being abandoned as more young people move to the urban centers, creating a shortage of home-grown food in the country.
Innovations like Tokyo Salad offer solutions to these problems on several fronts. By taking place in a city, urban farming can attract a new generation of workers that don't want to live in rural areas while also regenerating the supply of locally grown food. On top of that, the fact that Tokyo Metro is taking this on shows an innovation for a business that is based on high populations—with the popultion dropping, metro ridership will drop, forcing railway operators to consider supplemental businesses to stay up-and-running.
"Technology could help Japan scale up its local food production, especially if unused spaces long assumed hostile to raising food, like old warehouses, can increasingly do so cost effectively and at a profit," according to Triple Pundit. "And if that technology transfer can move across borders and become affordable, urban farming could feed the world and create a new wave of jobs."
Growing lettuce in unused parts of a train station just might be the answer.
Urban Farms Can Help Plant Seeds For Cities’ Growth Around Them
Since 2011, Gotham Greens has operated a 15,000- enclosed rooftop greenhouse in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, N.Y., that produces over 100,000 lbs of leafy greens annually.
Urban Farms Can Help Plant Seeds For Cities’ Growth Around Them
In Detroit, an “Agrihood” takes shape.
GAME CHANGERS | DECEMBER 20, 2017 | JOHN CAULFIELD, SENIOR EDITOR
On two acres within Detroit’s North End, the Michigan Urban Farm Initiative grows 300 varieties of leafy vegetables that it distributes free to 2,000 families who live within two miles of the farm. Like many urban farms around the country, MUFI has spurred redevelopment in its surrounding communities. Photo: Michelle and Chris Gerard
Urban farms have been impacting cities’ agribusiness—and, on some cases, their redevelopment—for decades.
In Philadelphia, for example, the success of Greensgrow Farms—whose 6,000-sf flagship greenhouse celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2017, and whose three locations (which include a retail garden center and farmstand) draw 15,000 people per year—has spurred numerous competitors, and has helped gentrify its surrounding working-class neighborhoods.
Since 2011, Gotham Greens has operated a 15,000-sf enclosed rooftop greenhouse in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, N.Y., that produces over 100,000 lbs of leafy greens annually. The greenhouse is a tenant of the Greenpoint Manufacturing Design Center, a nonprofit developer dedicated to revitalizing Brooklyn’s industrial spaces for small-scale entrepreneurial manufacturing.
Gotham Greens also operates a 20,000-sf greenhouse in the Gowanus section of Brooklyn that grows over 200,000 lbs of greens, herbs, and tomatoes; a five-story, 60,000-sf greenhouse in the Hollis section of Queens, N.Y., that employs 50 full time workers and produces over 5 million heads of leafy greens; and a 75,000-sf greenhouse on two acres of Chicago’s south side that opened in 2015 and now produces 10 million heads of greens and herbs annually.
MUFI is developing what it’s calling America’s first “Agrihood,” which will include the adaptive reuse of several buildings on its three-acre complex. A now-vacant, three-story apartment building that dates back to 1915 (pictured) is being converted into a 3,200-sf Community Resource Center. Catalyst Partners is supervising these rehab projects for MUFI, and Integrity Building Group is the AOE and CM. Other Building Team members include Ingalls Engineering Group (M/PE and net-zero energy consultant), IlluminArt Lighting, a division of Peter Basso (EE), Insite Design Studio (design and CE), Jeremy Ziegler (architect). Photo: Michelle and Chris Gerard
Several urban farms operate in Detroit, including the six-year-old Michigan Urban Farm Initiative (MUFI), which grows 300 varieties of vegetables on two acres in the Motor City’s North End. Since 2012, MUFI has produced more than 50,000 lbs of produce, which it distributes free to 2,000 households within two square miles of the farm.
In November, during the Greenbuild Expo, MUFI announced its plans to develop what it’s calling the first sustainable “Agrihood” in the U.S., as an alternative neighborhood growth model.
Working with such high-profile partners and sponsors as BASF, Herman Miller, and General Motors, MUFI is converting a vacant 102-year-old three-story apartment building across from its urban garden into a 3,200-sf Community Resource Center. The Center will include two commercial kitchens on the first floor and allow for future production and packaging of valued goods.
On land next to the CRC, MUFI intends to open a healthy food café. It also plans to convert an existing single-family home on the farm’s premises to housing for the farm’s interns. The foundation of another single-family home has been fortified to support a two-bedroom home made from a shipping container. And the basement of a recently fire-damaged and deconstructed home on the farm’s border is being converted into a 12,000-gallon rainwater harvesting cistern that will be used to irrigate the farm and prevent runoff into Detroit’s sewer system.
Integrity Building Group is AOR and provides architecture services and construction for the farm. One of MUFI’s partners, Sustainable Brands, will debut the CRC and café at its conference in Detroit’s Cobo Arena next May.
“Cities are the future, but we can’t just rebuild the same inefficient buildings of the past,” says John Beeson, LEED AP BD+C, EBO+M, a project manager with Catalyst Partners in Grand Rapids, Mich., which is supervising these reconstructions for MUFI. “The question we’re trying to answer is whether we can do urban infill better.”
Tyson Gersh, MUFI’s cofounder, says that while urban redevelopment “was not on our radar screen at first,” it has become a priority, partly for political reasons, but also because “it’s hard for an urban farm to justify itself on its own.”
Gersh observed “quite a few people” who were buying blighted homes around the farm. (He’s identified at least $3.5 million in purchases so far.) Several of those new owners told Gerson they wouldn’t have heard of this neighborhood were it not for the farm.
MUFI is now working with several developers—including The Platform, Basco, Terranova Development, and South Oakland Shelter—on another residential project that would be two blocks from the farm.
Photo: Michelle and Chris Gerard
High-Tech Shipping Crates, Precision Technology Poised To Revolutionize Urban Ag
December 19, 2017
Image credit: Freight Farms
Between a growing global population — which is estimated to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 — rapid urbanization and climate change, shifting agricultural to a more sustainable model is essential for safeguarding the future of our food system. Startups in the United States and Singapore are ready to rise to the challenge, championing food sustainability through new technologies and infrastructure solutions designed with urban environments in mind.
Reconnecting consumers with their food is a critical component of future-fitting the food system, but heading straight to the source — farms themselves — isn’t always an option. To close the gap, Boston-based startup Freight Farms developed the Leafy Green Machine (LGM), a refrigerated shipping container repurposed as an indoor hydroponic food growing unit.
The 40-foot containers can be installed just about anywhere — schools, corporate campuses, restaurants, hospitals, retail stores, etc. — and are capable of growing between two to four tons of produce a year (as much as a 1.7-acre farm). The controlled environment eliminates the need for herbicides and pesticides, and the system uses 90 percent less water than traditional farming methods — approximately one gallon per week.
What’s more, Leafy Green Machines use only about 120 kWh of electricity a week — the same as a family of four — to run its heating, cooling, lighting and irrigation systems. A smartphone app is used to monitor and control the growing process. In total, it only takes around 20 hours a week to care for the 9,000 plants housed within the LGM.
High schools in Rhode Island have begun exploring the idea of adding Leafy Green Machines to their campuses in an effort to incorporate fresh, organic produce into their school lunch offerings and teach students about sustainable food production. Cumberland High School has already installed one of the systems. According to Clean Technica, students will be involved in the maintenance of the farm and Sodexo will serve the farm-fresh food in the school cafeteria. Similar projects have also been rolled out at the Boston Latin School, Georgia State University, Stonybrook University and UMASS Dartmouth.
Leafy Green Machines are also being deployed by small businesses and soil farmers: The system is at the heart of Houston-based startup Acre in Box, which supplies kale and lettuces to local restaurants, and helped Karma Farm in Monkton, MD diversify its crops and expand its operations. The farm now supplies local farm-to-table restaurants in the Baltimore area with fresh and local produce.
Meanwhile, a new food sustainability accelerator in Singapore is helping startups bring their sustainable food solutions to scale.
A joint initiative of social impact startup incubator UNFRAMED and the Croeni Foundation, an environmental NGO, Makanpreneur is a four-month holistic training program that offers startups tackling food sustainability challenges comprehensive support from seasoned entrepreneurs and industry experts, training, funding and networking opportunities to develop sustainable food alternatives.
Two of the four startups selected for the program are focusing their efforts on enhancing food-system resiliency in Singapore via local production and precision technology.FarmX is harnessing the power of blockchain and IoT to create a precision farming technology that allows farmers to communicate with their plants. Sensors collect real-time data on temperature, humidity, soil moisture and nutrients, which farmers can access on their smartphones. The data can then be used to help urban growers increase productivity, reduce costs and reduce the likelihood of crop failure. Ecolution is also using precision agriculture technologies to take polyculture farms to the next level by boosting productivity and competitive advantage.
The Makanpreneur accelerator program will run until 28 March 2018, when participating startups will present their ideas to an audience of key players in the food industry and impact investment space. Winners will receive up to $10,000 in funding from the Croeni Foundation to scale their solutions.
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]
Regina Food Bank Greenhouse Fills Shelves With Garden-Fresh Goods
Regina Food Bank Greenhouse Fills Shelves With Garden-Fresh Goods
Greenhouse project connects people with fresh food and the art of growing
CBC News Posted: Dec 09, 2017
The greenhouse features multiple towers that are similar to barrels, each with 72 pockets from which food can be grown. (Submitted by B. Paul)
The tastes and smells of garden fresh food is bringing light to the winter, as the Regina food bank plows onwards with its year-round greenhouse project.
From the light crunch of lettuce to the earthy flavours of sweet basil, the food bank's greenhouse is not only producing fresh food, but also putting people back in touch with where their food comes from, community greenhouse co-ordinator Kimberley Wenger told CBC's Saskatchewan Weekend.
- "Growing our own food as a food bank is a really good way to look at what we do on a bigger scale and provide not only fresh food but also education to the clients and community about where food comes from, what it looks like, what it smells like, what it tastes like," she said.
Ultra-efficient technology
The greenhouse launched its Four Seasons Urban Agriculture Project earlier this year, using garden towers. The technology is ultra-efficient, featuring multiple towers that are similar to barrels, each with 72 pockets from which food can be grown.The centre of each tower is filled with compost which is produced by red wriggler worms, who live in bins at the greenhouse. These worms are fed waste the food bank won't be using, with the worms converting 31 kilograms of inputs each week into fertilizer. This fertilizer, in turn, is fed back into the garden towers as nutrients for the plants.
Kimberley Wenger is the community greenhouse co-ordinator with the Regina Food Bank. (Submitted by B. Paul)
"It's vertical gardening and indoor growing. Controlled environments are definitely a popular thing right now," said Wenger.
Wanting to share community asset
Outreach is also a major part of the greenhouse project, she explained. In the launch of this outreach program, students from five schools learned all about the garden tower, with the food bank delivering students with their own garden towers and all the materials they would need to grow food in their own classrooms through the year.
"We have a lot of interest from people that want to extend their season. There's so many opportunities with this place. It's really an asset to our community and we want to be able to share that."
For herself, Wenger said she's learned a lot about gardening since getting involved in the greenhouse project.
"It's been a very transformative process for me," she said. "I never really grew up around gardening and so a lot of this information was new but it was just about being optimistic and tackling a challenge. And that's something I've always enjoyed doing."
With files from CBC Radio's Saskatchewan Weekend
Seasons' Greetings!
Seasons' Greetings!
Have you been on FreshBoxFarms.com? Visit us for product descriptions, indoor agriculture info, FAQs & SO much more!
Our team at FreshBox Farms is delighted to have shared another amazing year with our community of leafy green eaters, retailers, distributors, and all those who have supported us on our journey to improve local produce.
We sincerely wish each and every one of you a peaceful and relaxing Holiday season. Please enjoy this little poem that we wrote last year for our friends, and cherish your celebrations!
Polar Permaculture Grows Fresh Food In One of The Coldest, Darkest Regions on Earth (Video)
We've heard about how holistic and nature-inspired permaculture design techniques can green a desert and transform ordinary gardens into ultra-productive "food forests." But what about practicing permaculture principles to help grow food in the cold Arctic region -- is it possible?
Polar Permaculture Grows Fresh Food In One of The Coldest, Darkest Regions on Earth (Video)
Kimberley Mok (@kimberleymok)
Science / Sustainable Agriculture
December 21, 2017
© Polar Permaculture
We've heard about how holistic and nature-inspired permaculture design techniques can green a desert and transform ordinary gardens into ultra-productive "food forests." But what about practicing permaculture principles to help grow food in the cold Arctic region -- is it possible?
That's something that American-born professional chef and foodie Benjamin Vidmar is exploring with his project, Polar Permaculture. Based out of Longyearbyen, a town of 2,500 that's located on Svalbard, Norway's archipelago of islands (yes, the same place with the so-called doomsday seed vault), Vidmar is experimenting with innovative ways to grow fresh food and creating a "circular economy" in a rugged, cold place that is dark for 3 months out of the year, and where most supplies have to be shipped in. Watch him explain in this short feature on NBC:
Vidmar is trained as a professional chef and has worked in hotels and cruise ships around the world. In 2007, he landed a job in one of Longyearbyen's hotels, and has stayed there since, raising his family. However, since childhood Vidmar has always been interested in sustainable agriculture, and a few years ago he got tuned into permaculture, recently getting trained in permaculture design practices.
© Polar Permaculture
He's since brought these skills back to Longyearbyen, setting up a geodesic greenhouse, and bringing in red worms to help with composting the locally produced organic waste, which can then be used to grow food here. This is an important point that's not to be taken for granted; on Svalbard, the soil is extremely poor and unsuited for growing food, so if it were not for the worms and compost, soil would literally have to be shipped in.
NBC/Video screen capture
On an island where everything is transported in, and waste is either dumped into the ocean or shipped back to the mainland for disposal, Vidmar's aim is to look for ways to close the loop, reusing and recycling outputs back into inputs whenever possible:
I had initially wanted to do a permaculture project in Florida where I presently spend a month each year, but something told me to do it here in Longyearbyen. There was a huge need for it is as we presently dump all sewage directly into the sea without any treatment facility. We also mine and burn coal. All produce is shipped and flown in, so I basically believe the place chose me to complete this mission, to help make this place more sustainable.
Surprisingly, one of the biggest obstacles has been local politics: the island is socially conservative and has no agricultural zoning regulations in place. It took Vidmar a year and a half to get permission to import his worms. "So with our permaculture project we are basically rewriting all of the history books, looking to change the laws and grow food here once again." says Vidmar.
NBC/Video screen capture
Polar Permaculture/Video screen capture
Currently, Polar Permaculture is the only supplier of fresh, locally produced food on the island, serving all the major hotels and restaurants. The greenhouse is used only when the sun is out, otherwise they grow their veggies -- mostly microgreens, chilies, tomatoes, onions, peas, herbs and so on -- inside their lab -- basically a converted room in one of the local hotels. They've also recently set up a small quail farm, and are producing eggs to eat. The future goal is to scale things up, and to increase food security and reduce waste on this remote island, says Vidmar:
Before we started this project, there was no one speaking about composting, or having locally grown food. All around the Arctic, many people are farming and growing food, but here we were only relying on shipments. After starting this, we now have much more support to expand and increase what we are able to produce. We want to install a biogas digester and also set up a system that can process most of the cities sewage and turn it into biogas that we can use to heat our greenhouses.
Growing food in one of the planet's harshest regions seems like an impossible task, but it appears that through the principles of permaculture, and a lot of dedication, it can be done. Besides growing food, Polar Permaculture offers courses, tours, and gourmet cooking classes. For more information visit Polar Permaculture.
How Farmwall Plans to Revolutionise Dining By Helping Eateries Grow Their Own Food
THE mission? Reduce “food miles”, waste and packaging while bringing food production closer to where the food is eaten. The solution? Small-scale “farms” inside the very produce.cafes and eateries that will use their
How Farmwall Plans to Revolutionise Dining By Helping Eateries Grow Their Own Food
Claire Heaney, Herald Sun
December 6, 2017
In the Herald Sun’s ongoing series on Victorian entrepreneurs with great ideas, we meet the team bringing farm freshness to Melbourne eateries — without the need for a paddock.
THE mission? Reduce “food miles”, waste and packaging while bringing food production closer to where the food is eaten.
The solution? Small-scale “farms” inside the very cafes and eateries that will use their produce.
It’s a revolution that an enterprising Victorian start-up business, Farmwall, wants to usher in.
Founded by Geert Hendrix, Farmwall provides small, vertical gardens that are similar in dimension to bookcases.
Geert Hendrix wants eateries across Melbourne to grow their own food. Picture: Tony Gough
The gardens, planted with microgreens — young, edible greens — will initially be installed at cafes and in kitchens.
Based at Alphington, in Melbourne’s inner north east, the social enterprise uses aquaponic principles, which combine aquaculture and hydroponics so fish and plants are grown in an integrated system.
Farmwall undertook a successful crowd-funding campaign, raising more than $30,000 to get the business started.
Each Farmwall prototype cost $10,000, but Mr Hendrix says he expects that as the system is finetuned, the cost will be substantially reduced.
The Farmwall prototypes cost about $10,000, but the cost is expected to fall.
They will be made available on a subscription basis, where businesses pay for use of the vertical farm and for weekly upkeep.
Mr Hendrix says the business came about after he quit his long-time job as a sales manager in March last year and became an Uber driver while he worked out the next step.
“I was really keen to get back to basics,” he says.
He read widely and was looking for something that would give him a sense of purpose and an income.
Mr Hendrix, right, assembled a team to fuel the venture, including Serena Lee, who has branding and marketing experience.
The challenge was building on activities he enjoyed, including spending time outside, to create a business that would combine passion and talent, and earn an income.
“I also drew on the idea of Japanese Ikigai, which means having a reason to get up in the morning.” he says.
“I was doing the morning runs to the airport and was meeting some interesting people. It was always a good opportunity to have a conversation about things that could change the world.”
He assembled a core team including Serena Lee, with branding and marketing experience, and Wilson Lennard, an aquaponics expert.
He also has an advisory group of other experts who provide know-how and have equity in the business.
He says the idea of the Farmwall urban farms was to replicate what a large farm could do, but in an city environment.
Mr Hendrix says the business was fortunate to have the operator of cafes Top Paddock in Richmond and Higher Ground in the city take an interest.
In coming weeks, the Farmwall will be installed at the restaurants, ensuring fresh crops of microgreens are on hand for chefs.
Melbourne’s vibrant cafe scene is ripe for an in-house garden revolution, Farmwall believes.
In the meantime, a Farmwall established at a business incubation hub is supplying five local businesses with microgreens. Mr Hendrix says the enterprise is seeking feedback and suggestions from those businesses.
He expects that in the future, businesses may pay for Farmwall gardens through financing deals offered by companies that specialise in leasing out equipment. The benefits of Farmwall are many, he says, including cutting water and energy costs and providing fresh produce.
Cafes and restaurants go through a lot of microgreens and they are expensive and often do not keep well packaged in plastic, he says.
The Farmwall is one metre long, 40cm deep and two metres high.
The cafe industry is always evolving, Mr Hendrix says, and is looking to differentiate itself and embrace new ways of doing things.
The business is at an early stage, he says, but he can see a time when Farmwalls could be installed at aged-care facilities, in schools and at residential apartment buildings.
While grateful for the help of crowd-funding, Mr Hendrix says the process can be exhausting. But, he says, entrepreneurs have to get out of their comfort zones to make crowd-funding work.
Many people espouse the virtues of crowd-funding, he says, but those people often need to be prompted and reminded that they are “the crowd”.
What our experts say ...
John Downes
Business coach, Acorro.com.au
WELL done Geert, Serena and Wilson. Microgreens grown at the place of consumption, reducing food miles while maximising freshness and adding visible eco-sustainability features to the restaurant — I’d love that at home.
Business coach and social media guru John Downes is the director of the Acorro business advisory group.
Two issues: What is your implementation and deployment plan to get the first three Farmwalls installed with customers?
Conceptualising and prototyping a product for a production run of one is gruelling. Delivering on scale in the field takes a whole new realm of skills, relationships, communication, planning, management, compliance, quality systems, redesign, and even more capital than you expect.
How are you managing these, and do you have a plan capturing the learnings?
Secondly, consider your tribe. Since the crowd sourcing, the social feed has pretty much fallen away.
This is understandable as there is so much going on to deploy the systems. But it is vital to have regular communication updates sharing your progress.
At least once a fortnight, share where you are at, what has been done in the past two weeks, what is planned for the next two weeks, the challenges and what you have learned. This keeps the tribe informed, includes them in your process, can be a source of inspiration and problem solving and keeps them actively promoting your project.
Vivian Vo
Mentor, Melbourne Innovation Centre
CONGRATULATIONS Geert and team on running a successful crowd-funding campaign. Your pitch is passionately presented with a value proposition that impacts the community from a social and environmental perspective.
Vivian Vo is a mentor for the Pitch a regular feature in the Herald Sun. Picture: Sarah Matray
Preparation has definitely paid off: not only has Farmwall raised its crowd-funding target, the campaign’s wide audience validated the concept.
As a start-up, you are constantly testing, measuring and learning from your customers. Be mindful of the difference between being customer friendly and customer-centric.
Start-ups that are customer-centric spend enormous amounts of energy on providing a solution-based product instead of a product they only think customers want.
Now that you are ready to test your product in the market, the biggest challenge will be determining whether the product is leading to real progress. Measure progress by using metrics such as customer engagement, customer lifetime value, and cost of acquisition.
These metrics will offer valuable insight into customers and their reactions to your product, and can demonstrate growth and be desirable when pitching to investors.
Learning is the essential unit of progress for start-ups, and validated learning is demonstrated by positive improvements in metrics.
Bruce Hall
Mentor, Small Business Mentoring Service
OCCASIONALLY you come across a product or idea that has the potential to make a real difference.
Bruce Hall is a mentor at the Small Business Mentoring Service.
Not only does the Farmwall significantly contribute to sustainability but also gives restaurants and cafes a real point of difference — something that will delight consumers and give them a story to share.
From a marketing perspective, the framework of a great story is there, but flesh needs to be put on the bones. The website looks great but a lot more copy is needed to increase its reach.
The stories can be around sustainability and the ”journey” of the concept, its evolution, the problems and challenges overcome.
You could include information about how the product can help restaurants and cafes provide a better experience, attract customers and enhance their offerings.
To be found, pages and posts on the site also need to be optimised for search. Page titles such as Produce, Market, Impact and so on should be changed to terms potential customers will be using when searching for information on micro herb suppliers, sustainability and similar subjects.
The chosen phrase then needs to be incorporated into meta headings and copy to give the page “search relevance”.
Finally, I suggest the site header be made “sticky”, and adding a contact number.
This Underground Farm Helps Power The Building That Houses It
Plantagon is a company that develops vertical farm technology, and they have some pretty big dreams for how food will be produced in the future. Their current projects suggest that the future is actually not very far off. The Plantagon CityFarm will be opening in Stockholm in 2018, Fast Company reports.
This Underground Farm Helps Power The Building That Houses It
BY AIMEE LUTKIN
12-07-17
Plantagon is a company that develops vertical farm technology, and they have some pretty big dreams for how food will be produced in the future. Their current projects suggest that the future is actually not very far off. The Plantagon CityFarm will be opening in Stockholm in 2018, Fast Company reports.
Once it is built, the indoor farm will not only be equipped to grow plants, but the excess heat used in their production will be channeled to other parts of the building, saving the 26-floor office building 700,000 kilowatt-hours of energy a year. As of now, Plantagon has a lease from the building for three years. They don't pay rent. How? Because the money saving abilities of their system is projected to be three times what the previous tenant paid.
Plantagon cofounder Hans Hassle told Fast Company that figuring out a way to make growing indoors cost effective is as important as trying to figure out how to make things grow at all.
“[The building owner] agreed to give us a free lease for three years, so we don’t pay one single Swedish kroner for the room,” said Hassle. “This is the challenge, very often, for urban farmers: If you really want to grow things in the city, you have to find new business models that actually make the food not too expensive in the end.”
Plantagon is so sure of their models, they're crowdfunding to build an entire structure for urban farming, an ambitious project that could change not only urban farming, but agricultural systems everywhere.
The 16-story “plantscraper” will be used to grow food, but will also have rentable office space, and an underground farm much like the one in Stockholm, used to produce heat for the building. They're hoping to open in the city of Linköping, about two hours away, by 2021.
The indoor farm system saves energy, but it is also appealing to the area's demographic. Buying food from where it is grown in your office is about as local as you can get, if you don't have your own backyard. And that's important to a lot of people.
“In Sweden, we have a higher demand for locally grown food than we do for organic food,” Hassle explained. “People tend to want to know where the production comes from.”
Hassle argues that buying local creates a much smaller carbon footprint than buying organic foods that have traveled long distances to get into your basket.
The Plantagon system isn't just local, it's designed to use far less water than traditional farming, and filters carbon dioxide out of offices to be fed to the plants. They're hoping to open ten more similar underground locations in offices around Stockholm, as its success is proved. Despite the rapid growth, the business is run in part by a non-profit company, in an attempt to keep them honest, and crowdfunding from interested people in the community.
“To us, food production is not like running any business–food is like water, it’s a human right,” said Hassle. “So it’s not only business as usual. This has lots to do with social responsibility and of course with environmental responsibility. That’s why we’re inviting people to be part of owning these facilities because they should have input.”
Sounds like a good thing to buy into.
Organic Hydroponics With Industry Pioneer Michael Christian
Organic Hydroponics With Industry Pioneer Michael Christian
DECEMBER 20, 2017 JIM PANTALEO
At Urban Ag News, we’re all about educating our readers with the goal of providing valuable input from a wide variety of industry professionals. Without question, Michael Christian, founder of American Hydroponics, fits that bill. I was delighted to sit down with him recently to learn of his 30-plus year career in the hydroponics industry and how his insight, in particular about the often contentious argument of what actually constitutes the definition of the word “organic,” pertains to growing plants.
Does a plant need to be grown in soil to be truly organic? Can all the biological elements required by the plant be safely replicated to meet the definition? Will soil purists ever find common ground, no pun intended, with hydroponic growers?
These questions are essential to continuing the debate over the word “organic” including the USDA National Organic Standards Board’s (NOSB) own definition written in April 1995: “Organic agriculture is an ecological production management system that promotes and enhances biodiversity, biological cycles and soil biological activity. It is based on minimal use of off-farm inputs and on management practices that restore, maintain and enhance ecological harmony.”
Seems like a fair definition, but not so fast. To say the least, the subject is a complex one and I’m hoping Michael will shed some light, pun intended, on the subject from his point of view. If anything, I’d like for an olive branch (yes, again pun intended) to be laid upon those soil purists who don’t believe hydroponic growers either have a heart nor are working, as they certainly are, at making the world a healthier and more verdant place for all.
(L-R) Fred Lau of Mari’s Garden and Fred Humphrey of Island Growers with Michael Christian at the AmHydro research greenhouse in Arcata, Calif.
Photo courtesy of AmHydro
For some background, Michael started the business in 1984 in the beautiful northern California agrarian community of Arcata, initially to meet the needs of small, hobbyist growers, and for full disclosure, those growing cannabis. Side note: Also known as the Emerald Triangle, the counties of Mendocino, Humboldt and Trinity make up the largest cannabis producing region in the United States. And perhaps the most often maligned by federal law enforcement over the past 40 years. This could all change in November when Californians will have the opportunity to vote on the ballot measure entitled the Adult Use of Marijuana Act.
As Michael states, in those early days he essentially moved to the top of a mountain to raise kids and make some money. It wasn’t until 1994 and a trip to Australia where he saw NFT (nutrient film technique) hydroponics everywhere. In his words, “That just blew me away as there was nothing like that in the U.S.” The following year he made the decision to target the commercial market. To this day AmHydro, as it is known, is a well-established and trusted provider of hydroponic equipment to commercial farms and greenhouses worldwide.
Success did not come easily however, and it’s only been within the last eight to 10 years that AmHydro found its groove with robust sales primarily of NFT systems into urban areas where demand for locally-grown produce is very high.
Michael recently sold a majority of his interests in AmHydro, but remains on staff to consult on various projects. He is now spending more time focusing on life’s more important endeavors, including his grand kids and fly fishing.
JP: Michael thanks so much for sitting down with Urban Ag News today, please tell us why you believe there is an (often) adversarial relationship between hydroponically grown (soil-less) produce versus soil-grown when it comes to the definition of “organic?”
MC: I think it’s in the interpretation. I don’t know if it’s in the DNA of people who have always seen plants come from soil. When they hear the word “hydroponics” they are kind of intimidated and whatever images they have, be they generated from media or who they talk to, has fortified their interpretation and they actually get angry at you. They say “No way I’d ever do hydroponics and give up my gloves!”
It triggers all kinds of madness, especially many years ago. However that all has changed in the last eight to 10 years. But usually it’s because of people’s ignorance as to what it is or the value of it or having never tasted it or thinking it’s chemical or synthetic or bad or unnatural. All these images are associated in their heads.
One of the contentions is the biological activity in the soil is fundamental because the plant is interacting through the roots by releasing compounds and nitrates and therefore it’s feeding and colonizing microbes. That’s part of the health of the soil but that also happens in hydroponics and NFT. The roots actually become a rhizosphere. It’s a predominant life form. It just shows up so all that biological activity whether in a foam cube or in a peat and coco plug; that biological activity is in the root zone. It really doesn’t have much to do with the mechanical structure that holds the plant up. And this is what they are getting down to in the “sand box” argument.
JP: I’ve previously read your reference to “a nitrogen atom is a nitrogen atom.” How would you directly address the naysayers that produce using soil-less methodologies are designated “organic” because all the inputs and amendments are also deemed “organic?”
MC: That’s a tricky statement because fundamentally in hydroponics all of those elements in a hydroponic nutrient solution or an inorganic mineral are elements. You can’t make elements. They are on the periodic table. You can only extract them from nature. And whether you’re growing chickens and collecting chicken poop, the food is being produced somewhere. Somewhere every input is coming from elsewhere.
It gets down into a difficult conversation or which is the most sustainable source for whatever input you are bringing in to develop whatever it is you are doing. If it’s an organic farm, what are you using in your soil? Where is it coming from? What’s feeding it?
I think fundamentally it goes back to the NOP (the USDA National Organic Program) and what their definitions are and what they think is correct.
Michael Christian visits with Pierre Sleiman Jr. at Go Green Agriculture in San Diego, Calif.
Photo courtesy of AmHydro
JP: That dovetail’s nicely into my next question: Do you believe the USDA (in a 2002 statement) was premature in designating the word “organic” without the mentioning of soil (in the definition)?
MC: That was then and this is now and we have a different set of constraints in the world. The word “organic” has lost a lot of credibility as big ag is now in it and of all the projects I’ve seen, there’s no way they are all organic. Somehow they jumped through the hoops and paid the fees and now they can benefit from the increased margin of organic produce. So really, the whole thing has shifted. It’s going more in the direction of localizing food production. That’s where the power is and that’s what people are starting to appreciate more. We have a different set of challenges now than we ever had before. The real problem is in the nitrogen cycle; there really isn’t enough nitrogen-fixing ability of the soil to support the number of people we have on the planet right now without synthetically producing it with natural gas and electricity. That’s where the really big problem is.
I read an article in Scientific American magazine, back in 1997, and I was pretty blown away with the information they were presenting. The fact is that when you look at population growth you look at a graph and then you look at ammoniacal nitrogen production.
There was a process in the late 1800s where they were actually using natural gas and electricity in making urea (which is ammoniacal nitrogen). You can have just junk soil and then put this nitrogen in there and plants grow.
It wasn’t until the 1950s when they began a process called the Haber-Bosch process in Germany and they were able to lower the cost (of creating nitrogen) by 90 percent. By the time they started making ammoniacal nitrogen, there was a direct correlation (and spike) with population growth.
The other method of nitrogen creation is from chicken or cow poop, for example, and the farmer is bringing that in and constantly adding it to the soil. When you look at the primary crops in the world which are basically legumes, grains and potatoes; those are the main crops that sustain the population. And this is where all the nitrogen tonnage is going into, not lettuce or tomatoes.
The scientific community believes there may be more than four billion people alive today because of synthetic ammonia. That’s a sobering thought when you think of the carrying capacity of the earth in that all these inputs are derived from somewhere and they are just moved around. At some point, phosphorous, for example, is just going to run out and when that does happen, how can you replace an element?
This little organic debate pales in comparison to all this other stuff.
JP: Why does the organic certification matter to the farmers and growers you know and work with?
MC: It allows them (to make) more margin. But that’s changing too. I’d say maybe eight years ago all the markets would ask “Is it organic?” And the response would generally be “No, it does not qualify as organic but it is pesticide- and herbicide-free.” That allowed farmers and growers to take ground as people would actually prefer that over the designation of organic, especially when it’s sitting next to some really ugly looking organic produce. This and the inability of produce managers (in grocery stores) to risk putting something on their shelves that people didn’t know about.
So it’s been an educational process that’s really been successful over the last eight years. I mean, a 25 percent extra margin is pretty decent.
JP: Do you believe the organic versus inorganic argument would hold true if the plants produced were flowers or medicinally-based?
MC: There’s a couple parts to this. One is inorganic or organic, is this in a sun-lit environment like a greenhouse or is this LEDs? Because one thing that I’ve come to understand through the years is when they talk about PAR light (photo synthetically active radiation) they don’t know (squat) about that! The electromagnetic spectrum of sunlight is so huge we only see a fraction of one percent. Our machines may be able to tell wavelengths and nanometers but as far as what a plant is actually taking in and what’s affecting it, we just don’t know. For me, having done a lot of LEDs inside, there’s no way that (plant) tissue is as healthy or as terse or as strong. I just haven’t seen it. Whether it is inorganic or organic in an artificially lit environment, I don’t see the health of the plant as I do with sunlit environments.
JP: Do you believe the adage that humans, for the most part fear what they do not know, has been a catalyst to the adversarial relationship between soil-grown and soil-less? Or is this fear based on the increase in indoor vertical farming operations and the soil growers essentially fear they will lose business and market share?
MC: I think it’s all of those. I think they do fear what they don’t know and a lot of these big guys, especially big ag with all their machinery, have been doing that (growing in soil) for hundreds of years. They know that they get so much per acre and they can get organic certification if they talk to “Jack” and they jump through hoops.
But meanwhile, all these localized, food production farms have such high production rates. In 8,000-square-foot greenhouses these guys are producing 6,000 heads of lettuce a week, year round. And when you look at 28 million heads of lettuce produced in the U.S. per year, you can see that all you need is maybe 15 or 20 acres located near cities and you’re going to put a hurtin’ on big ag. People prefer, instead of shipped-in produce at a lesser quality, they prefer locally grown. And the locally-grown guys are expanding like crazy because the market is just so open and ripe right now.
People prefer to know that the grower who is growing the food they are eating lives down the street. And why would he mess with them and put pesticides in their food? It’s becoming more of a community operation.
The whole issue of pricing, distribution and organic…people just want to get food from their neighbor. People don’t want to feel powerless and they can do something by going to their local store and buying something locally produced. They can make a difference by doing that. That’s an act of power and has more value than the word “organic”.
JP: Thank you Michael. You are a gentleman and a scholar and I hope you catch some big fish!
For more: AmHydro (American Hydroponics), 286 South G St., Arcata, CA 95521; (800) 458-6543; http://americanhydroponics.com/.
Salad Made in Panasonic's High-Tech Indoor Farm Hits The Market
Salad Made in Panasonic's High-Tech Indoor Farm Hits The Market
From left: Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia Pacific managing director Tatsuyoshi Ishii, Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore CEO Lim Kok Thai, Panasonic Singapore managing director Paul Wong, Tong Chiang Group’s CEO Lisa Zou and group executive chef Gary Wu.ST PHOTO: MARK CHEONG
December 1, 2017
The SingaSalad mixes locally grown vegetables with dressings inspired by two Singaporean dishes
Catering company Tong Chiang Group has come up with a new salad using locally grown vegetables supplied by Panasonic, and salad dressings inspired by two popular local dishes - chilli crab and Hainanese chicken rice.
For a start, the SingaSalad is now available only on the menus of eight of Tong Chiang Group's subsidiary catering companies. Consumers will be able to buy retail packs at selected supermarket outlets sometime next year.
The company's chief executive Lisa Zou, who prefers to eat healthily, says it has always been her goal to give customers healthier food choices.
She says: "Now that we have a supply of fresh and pesticide-free vegetables from Panasonic, we created the SingaSalad to encourage consumers to eat healthier and support home-grown produce."
Panasonic's vegetables are grown at the company's high-tech indoor farm located at the Panasonic Factory Solutions Asia-Pacific's premises in Jalan Ahmad Ibrahim. The Japanese electronics giant ventured into vertical farming here in 2013. Its 1,154 sqm indoor farm, about the size of 11/2football fields, now produces 81 tonnes of vegetables annually, which are sold to restaurants and supermarkets.
Vegetables supplied to Tong Chiang Group's central kitchen are harvested and delivered the same day, directly from Panasonic's indoor farm.
Mr Paul Wong, managing director of Panasonic Singapore, says: "We are happy to have a collaboration with Tong Chiang Group which shares our vision of promoting locally farmed produce which contributes to Singapore's food security."
The SingaSalad vegetable selection includes green leafy lettuce, red leafy lettuce, mizuna, mini red radish, mustard wasabi and a range of microgreens.
The salad dressing recipes are developed by Tong Chiang Group's group executive chef Gary Wu. He says: "By providing our Chilli Crab and Hainanese Chicken Rice dressings, we want to encourage consumers to eat healthier without missing out on the flavours of our local classics."
Vertical Farming Concept to Help Food-Insecure Community
Vertical Farming Concept to Help Food-Insecure Community
Company looking to build its SQF vertical farm in Ontario
A Toronto, Ontario-based company has brought his proof of concept vertical farming system to be part of an initiative to grow food for the non-profit community in Windsor.
Zale Tabakman with prototype unit.
Local Grown Salads, in a partnership with Science City, set up the indoor farm in an under utilized high school building built in 1922. Zale Tabakman, president of Local Grown Salads, says the initiative hopes to create a systemic change in the community. “Windsor-Essex is a very agricultural integrated, manufacturing environment. The ag component of what I’m doing is very interesting to everybody here,” says Tabakman, founder and owner of Local Grown Salads.
Windsor doesn’t have the same property value in other parts on Ontario, such as Toronto and surrounding area. “Rent and property is incredibly inexpensive. It’s a very good use of space but we’ve designed our systems to be cost competitive even in Toronto,” says Tabakman.
Local Grown Salads’ vertical farm grows greens, peas, cucumbers, cherry/heritage tomatoes and strawberries. “Future consumers of this (food from the project) in the community will be able to benefit from nutritious high calorie food,” he says.
The community members involved are currently fundraising for the farm and hoping to have it up and running in early January 2018. They already have the space and people to manage the project; Tabakman says the only thing remaining is a matter of getting funds together. “The execution will be very quick.” Once established the community itself would be producing the vegetables, the community will be responsible for harvesting, cleaning, prepping the food. The 2,000 sq. foot facility would be able to create about 500,000 salad meals a year “possibly more depending on operations. They can decide how to maximize the space to grow the appropriate type of foods possible for their clients.”
English thyme grown on the vertical farm
One of Tabakman’s favorite things to grow is sorrel, a Russian green. “It’s like having a little drop of lemon. You can imagine how you can create a very tasty high calorie meal just using vegetables. From a nutrient dense point of view kale and arugula are almost as dense as meat.”
The ultimate goal for Science City is to create community not-for-profit hub, which will include the Local Grown Salads vertical farm. Food would be consumed by community members who are food insecure and also sold to traditional retailers and food service companies to support the operation of the building.
According to Tabakman, 1.2 billion pounds of leaf lettuce was grown in the US last year and 2.5 billion pounds of romaine. “If I were to set up my farms doing salads and vegetables I could produce I would need 1,600 farms just to support the city of Toronto – that’s the benefit of indoor vertical farming.” Moving forward into the for-profit sector, Local Grown Salads is focused on a SQF standard ready-to eat-salad. (HCAP). The food-safe ready grow unit system is designed to fit into a standard 14-foot ceiling warehouse.
Tabakman is currently doing presentations to investors and groups across the country and overseas to generate interest to raise money to set up his first SQF vertical farm, which will be located in Ontario between Windsor and Toronto.
For more information:
Zale Tabakman
Local Grown Salads
Publication date: 11/28/2017
Author: Rebecca D Dumais
Copyright: www.freshplaza.com