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How To Grow Arugula Microgreens
How To Grow Arugula Microgreens
March 13, 2018
Do you know how to grow arugula microgreens? Well, you'll know how to grow them after this reading this post. You won’t regret missing out on this! We promise.
What is Arugula
Arugula is a leafy green plant that belongs to the genus Eruca and the family Brassicaceae. It is closely related to radish, kale, and cauliflower. Arugula has a number of different names depending on what area of the world you are in. These various names include garden rocket, rucola, roquette, and colewort. Arugula microgreens grow to a height of 2.5-10 cm (1-3 in) tall – depending on the variety you choose, your yummy microgreens are ready. It is grown on a large scale for commercial consumption but it also exists as a wild species throughout the world. It is predominantly used in the Americas, Europe, and North Africa.
Arugula Nutrition Facts
Arugula is a leafy green plant packed with vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. It is a good dietary choice for a healthy body and keeping the mind clear and focused. It contains high levels of folic acid and antioxidants like vitamin C, vitamin K, and vitamin A, which makes it integral in the fight against free radicals. It is packed with carotenoids, as well as many other minerals like potassium, manganese, iron, and calcium, all of which are beneficial and necessary elements in a person’s diet. Arugula contains phytochemicals, which are beneficial in preventing cancer. It is also superior to some other leafy greens because unlike other varieties, arugula is low in oxalates, which are chemicals that actually inhibit the absorption of minerals into the body. All in all, arugula is a low-calorie, nutrient-rich food.
Health Benefits Of Arugula microgreens
The vitamins, minerals, phytochemicals, and antioxidants packed in every leaf of arugula are certainly beneficial to those who incorporate it into their diet.
Detoxifies Body
Arugula is a great source of antioxidants and can greatly increase a person’s ORAC value (Oxygen radical absorbance capacity), which is a method for measuring antioxidant capacities. Antioxidants function to maintain a healthy balance of enzyme reactions within cells, while actively seeking out and destroying the disease-causing free radicals that can attack your system. Your immune system will also thank you for choosing arugula, because antioxidants work to bolster your defenses against simple illnesses like the common cold as well as more complex afflictions, such as cancer, heart diseases, and premature aging
Boosts Bone Health
The presence of vitamin K in arugula gives an anti-inflammatory boost to your body. Vitamin K also spurs an osteotropic activity in cells, meaning that promotes bone formation. The gradual degradation of neural pathways, found in conditions like Alzheimer’s disease, can be slowed down by an increase in intake of vitamin K. As a good source of Vitamin K, the consumption of arugula has been cited as a preventative method of such diseases.
Arugula’s combinative effects of low oxalate levels (allowing more minerals into the system) and the presence of so many minerals in the plant itself make it a strong support system for healthy bones. Sufferers of osteoporosis can see improvements, and arugula can be used as a preventative step as well, ensuring bone health and strength before the age/activity-based effects of bone degeneration become serious.
Boosts Immune System
Arugula is loaded with vitamins and minerals that in some way bolster the defenses of the body’s immune system. The body is stimulated to create white blood cells from the copper in arugula, and the plant has a number of other ways to improve the strength of your immune system.
Vitamin C is one of the best defenses for your body to seek out dangerous, inflammatory free radicals and eliminate them from your body before they can cause real damage. This well-known vitamin is found in large quantities in arugula and helps prevent cancer and maintain good health by giving an extra push to your immune system.
Prevents Cancer
The phytochemicals found in large quantities within arugula inhibit the activity of cancer-causing cells. Phytochemicals are substances like thiocyanates, sulforaphane, or indoles that are effective in countering cancer-causing tendencies in the body’s own processes. Studies suggest that these compounds help fight prostate, breast, cervical, colon, and ovarian cancers.
Pre-natal Care
For mothers who are expecting, arugula is a wonderful choice to add to their diet. Folates, a classification which includes folic acid, have been shown to decrease occurrences of certain mental defects in newborns. It is rich in folates, as are many leafy vegetables.
Increases Metabolism
Another benefit of arugula is the presence of B-Complex vitamins that promote metabolism. Eight B vitamins participate and aid in all different cell activities, including energy production, fat synthesis, the production of red blood cells, and many other vital processes for cell and metabolic health.
Improves Eyesight
Arugula is a well-known source of carotenoids, which are naturally occurring pigments that have long been famous for improving a person’s ability to see properly. In fact, carotenoids slow down the process of macular degeneration, which is when the center of a person’s field of vision becomes compromised. In most instances, this causes cataracts, which then, have to be removed. By increasing the amount of carotenoids in your diet (and arugula is a great source for them), arugula eaters may be able to slow down this classic symptom of old age.
Weight Loss
The inclusion of arugula in a diet is the same as any other low-calorie, vitamin or nutrient-rich plant, and it will inevitably have a positive effect on any attempts at weight loss. By satisfying so many nutritional needs, it is an easy way to watch your health and keep your system balanced, without making drastic changes to your diet.
Improves Overall Health
Vitamin A is one of the antioxidants mentioned above, and its significant presence in arugula also guarantees the ‘garden rocket’ eaters improved condition of their bones, teeth, and eyes. The flavonoid compounds in all leafy vegetables similar to arugula have been shown to protect against skin, lung, and various oral types of cancer.
Here is our recipe to grow at home
1. Grab a 10X20 tray with drainage holes and fill it 1" thick with moist coco coir.
2. Weigh 14 grams of arugula microgreens Seeds into seed shaker, then broadcast evenly across the 10X20 tray.
3. Apply an even mist of water to the tray, then cover it with a humidity dome, black 10x20tray or place it in a dark space.
4. Germinate for three days in a dark location with at least 80% humidity. Water as described in step three at least once a day.
5. Uncover your tray on day three/four. Then begin feeding plants your favorite fertilizer using a low flood/continuous flow method of irrigation.
6. Micro Arugula will be ready for harvest around 10-14 days, They will need about 10 to 16 hours of light with a typical fluorescent grow light about 12"-15" from the base of the plant.
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Cultivate Professionalism: "Recruiting and Staffing Services for the Modern Gardening Industry.”
Cultivate Professionalism:
"Recruiting and Staffing Services For The Modern Gardening Industry.”
Mac & Fulton Talent Partners are the premier recruiting service in the modern horticulture marketplace. As such, the M&F Talent team is constantly networking with some of the best and brightest professionals relating to Controlled Environment Agriculture, Hydroponics Equipment, Nutrient Lines, and Vertical Indoor Farming.
The breadth of knowledge, as well as the network at M&F Talent, extends into sales, management, engineering, chemistry, and horticulture.
The team at Mac & Fulton sees a real societal value in the burgeoning urban agriculture movement and are looking forward to networking with industry front-runners.
If you would like to learn more about Mac & Fulton, or would simply like to strike up a synergistic dialogue, please contact:
Kent Gruetzmacher
Letter From The Chairwoman of The AVF (2018)
The Association for Vertical Farming is evolving from an emerging movement into an industry organization ready for the next steps.
Letter From The Chairwoman of The AVF (2018)
FEBRUARY 21, 2018 URBAN AG NEWS
A Letter from AVF Chairwoman Christine Zimmermann-Loessl
Dear AVF Members,
The Association for Vertical Farming is evolving from an emerging movement into an industry organization ready for the next steps. To quote Alibaba founder and philanthropist Jack Ma, “The next generation of globalization should be inclusive and create opportunities for young people to get involved. The last 30 years of globalization was controlled by 60,000 big companies. In the next 30 years, we will have 6 or 16 or 60 million companies get involved in globalization.”
At the AVF, we have taken this quote to heart based on experience from the past and with members feedback, we are adjusting the overall AVF strategy by bringing changes to the board and staff to ensure that the Association is ready and able to pick up the priorities that we agreed on at the Annual General Meeting in Munich on the 1st of December 2017.
We will want to engage with our members at the core of our mission and interact more effectively with policy makers, the horticulture industry and our partners. Also important is the further development of our global network of members and acquisition of new members – to meet that goal we are planning an upcoming AVF summit in Hong Kong in September.
The AVF is now developing into a more professional organization. We are changing the way we work and in the course of that process we have also made some changes to AVF staff. A few well-known names have now moved on in a different direction, such as Henry Gordon Smith, Zjef van Acker and Mark Horler. I would like to thank them for the contributions they have made to the Association in the past years and wish them all the best in their future in the vertical farming industry.
With this, the AVF team is looking forward to helping our members turn 2018 into a successful and prosperous year and encourage all of you to reach out to us with your ideas and suggestions @ members@vertical-farming.net.
New AVF Staff – Our team is eager to work with you and help you succeed.
Anne Flour, European Affairs Manager,
Anne is a highly motivated EU Project Manager with extensive experience in agriculture and environment. As an independent, she supports organisations to thrive in the European Union context.
Gus van der Feltz, Head of Member Relations
Gus is a self-employed entrepreneur and Vertical Farming expert. Between 2014 and 2017 Gus was responsible for Vertical Farming at Philips and Philips Lightning
Yanni Garica Postigo Operations Manager,
Yanni is the co-founder of PlantHive. Formerly business controller @ St. Gilles Municipality, International-minded and curious!
New Board of Directors
Thomas Zöllner, Vice-Chairman
Tom is an entrepreneur and expert for innovation in agri-tech, with a solid base in the Vertical Farming Industry.
Penny McBride, Vice-Chairwoman
Penny is a start-up/strategic advisor in the urban agriculture industry in the US and internationally.
Key objectives for the Association for Vertical Farming in 2018 / 2019:
1. Standardization and Certification (S&C): With our members, AVF will lay out the groundwork for standards and reference data for agri-tech crop production. We will soon announce a proposal for committee composition and the roadmap for partnerships with our members and regional organizations.
2. Education (E): The AVF will facilitate education & training for the agri-tech industry while integrating a new e-learning platform. Additionally, we will strive to publish relevant industry white papers in multiple languages to help distribute knowledge into the global market.
3. Policy Advocacy (PA): Policy development, already started with the successful Summit in Washington DC, will continue to foster advocacy with policymakers, pursue grant opportunities, partnerships and lobby on behalf of the members in the EU and USA. We have established an office in Brussels and registered officially as a lobby organization at the EU.
Finally, a short reminder of membership payment – please remit, membership is due 01. January of each Year. If you have not received your invoice yet, please contact us at info@vertical-farming.net
At The Harvard Law Forum: Karen Washington on Urban Farming and Food Justice
At The Harvard Law Forum: Karen Washington on Urban Farming and Food Justice
Posted by Pete Davis on March 3, 2018 in Forum
Karen Washington is a New York City community activist, community gardener and board member of the New York Botanical Gardens.
She has worked with Bronx neighborhoods to turn empty lots into community gardens, helped launched a City Farms Market, is a member of the La Familia Verde Garden Coalition, is a Just Food board member, is a board member and former president of the New York City Community Garden Coalition and is the co-founded Black Urban Growers (BUGS). She is also the co-creator of Rise & Root Farm, a cooperatively run farm in the black dirt region of Orange County, New York.
On February 22, 2018, she came to Harvard Law School to share her insights and experience on what lawyers can do to promote urban farming and food justice.
Unilever Grows U.S. Urban Farming Commitment With New Mission-Based Brand
Unilever Grows U.S. Urban Farming Commitment With New Mission-Based Brand
Growing Roots, an organic, plant-based food brand, will donate half of all profits to support Unilever's urban farming partnerships
NEWS PROVIDED BY Unilever United States, Inc.
Mar 06, 2018
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, N.J., March 6, 2018, /PRNewswire/ -- Unilever announced today the expansion of its U.S. urban farming efforts with the launch of Growing Roots, a new organic, plant-based food brand that will support urban farming with every purchase. The brand builds on Unilever's multiyear commitment to urban farming initiatives, which establishes and funds partnerships to unlock access to fresh foods and nutrition education in communities across the country.
Green City Force Corps Member at Wagner Farm (Photo Credit: Unilever)
"What's so special about Growing Roots is that it started as a social mission that our employees were passionate about, borne from the belief that everyone should have access to affordable, nutritious food," said Matthew McCarthy, Vice President of Foods, Unilever North America. "Seeing the transformational impact urban farms have in communities, we created a brand from the ground up to help fulfill and extend that mission."
Partnership at Howard Farm (Photo Credit: Unilever)
In 2015, Unilever joined an innovative, public-private partnership with the city of New York's Building Healthy Communities initiative and Green City Force to create six urban farms in New York, which together have already generated approximately 32,000 pounds of organic produce. In addition to the company providing funds, Unilever employees volunteer thousands of hours each year to these efforts. Based on the program's successful community impact in New York, Unilever has extended outreach to Los Angeles, Houston, Miami and Chicago as well. By directing 50 percent of its profits to urban farming initiatives, the Growing Roots brand allows Unilever to build a sustainable model for long-term community impact.
Growing Roots Snack Bites and Clusters (Photo Credit: Unilever)
"Green City Force is pleased to be part of a New York City initiative that places young people from public housing communities at the forefront of community engagement and access to fresh produce and vibrant open spaces," said Lisbeth Shepherd, Founder and Executive Director of Green City Force. "We value Unilever's partnership in this work in New York and are grateful for their continued support of urban farming."
Marking Unilever's entry to the U.S. organic snack category, the Growing Roots product line includes snack bites and clusters made from organic ingredients like coconut, corn, and seeds. Growing Roots snacks feature simple, plant-based ingredients with delicious, bold flavors in uniquely sweet and savory combinations:
- Cocoa Chipotle: The richness of cocoa gets a kick from chipotle peppers for a deeply flavorful snack experience.
- Pineapple Coconut Rum: Real pineapple, a splash of rum and a dash of cinnamon come together to bring you a sweet and tangy tropical taste.
- Maple Bourbon: Blended with a touch of real maple syrup and a dash of nutmeg for a lightly sweet and warming crunchy snack.
- Coconut Curry: A balance of coconut with turmeric and lemongrass to create a savory, spicy flavor.
Growing Roots snack bites and clusters are available in ShopRite stores in the Northeast beginning March 2018, retailing for $3.99 per 4-oz. pack. Unilever will be expanding to nationwide distribution with more retailers throughout 2018, including Amazon Fresh and Amazon.com.
The new line is USDA-certified organic, certified gluten-free, certified vegan and an excellent source of ALA Omega-3 (contains 480-640mg of ALA per 28g serving which is 30-40 percent of the 1.6g Daily Value for ALA).
Growing Roots will make its trade show debut this month at Natural Products Expo West, Booth N134, March 7-11. For more information, visit www.growingrootsfoods.com. Growing Roots is on Instagram and Facebook @growingrootsfoods.
About Unilever United States, Inc.
Unilever is one of the world's leading suppliers of Personal Care, Food & Refreshment and Home Care products with sales in over 190 countries and reaching 2.5 billion consumers a day. In the United States, the portfolio includes brand icons such as Axe, Ben & Jerry's, Breyers, Caress, Country Crock, Degree, Dollar Shave Club, Dove, Good Humor, Hellmann's, I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!, Klondike, Knorr, Lever 2000, Lipton, Love Beauty and Planet, Magnum, Nexxus, Noxzema, Pond's, Popsicle, Promise, Pure Leaf, Q-tips, Schmidt's Naturals, Seventh Generation, Simple, Sir Kensington's, St. Ives, Suave, Sundial Brands, Talenti Gelato & Sorbetto, TAZO, TIGI, TONI&GUY, TRESemmé and Vaseline. All of the preceding brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Unilever Group of Companies.
Unilever employs approximately 8,000 people in the United States – generating more than $9 billion in sales in 2017.
Unilever's Sustainable Living Plan underpins the company's strategy and commits to:
- Helping more than a billion people take action to improve their health and well-being by 2020.
- Halving the environmental impact of our products by 2030.
- Enhancing the livelihoods of millions of people by 2020.
The USLP creates value by driving growth and trust, eliminating costs and reducing risks. Globally, the company's sustainable living brands are growing 50% faster than the rest of the business and delivered more than 60% of the company's growth in 2016.
For more information on Unilever U.S., its brand's visit and the USLP visit: www.unileverusa.com
Contact:
Mallory Zuckerman, Edible
Mallory.Zuckerman@edible-inc.com
202-300-2908
SOURCE Unilever United States, Inc.
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This Hydroponic Farm Is Speeding Up NYC's Farm-To-Table Process
Hydroponic farming is becoming an increasingly popular option in cities with a high demand for fresh produce. Farm One is one such system that is providing their restaurant clientele with microgreens, herbs, and edible flowers grown right in Manhattan, Inhabitat reports.
This Hydroponic Farm Is Speeding Up NYC's Farm-To-Table Process
BY AIMEE LUTKIN
March 1, 2018
Hydroponic farming is becoming an increasingly popular option in cities with a high demand for fresh produce. Farm One is one such system that is providing their restaurant clientele with microgreens, herbs, and edible flowers grown right in Manhattan, Inhabitat reports. They claim they can reach 90 percent of their buyers by bike within 30 minutes. That's fresh.
Farm One is part of the Institute of Culinary Education, so it's a place for learning chefs as well—which is also a great way to build up a network of people who know about and support it. The hydroponic farm was built in April of 2016, with 150 different varieties of crops on rotation.
The space was developed by urban agriculture firm Agritecture, whose managing director Henry Gordon-Smith told Green Matters in an email that it's a really special place that is building a roadmap for future hydroponic growing technology.
"Farm One isn't like other vertical farms: for one, they grow the most unique and rare crops on demand for the most curious and sophisticated chefs. Additionally, each farm is optimized to match the urban site they set up an operation in, embracing the positive attributes of the space to the demands of their customers. Farm One is leading the way in the production of crops that have often never been grown in vertical farms to inspire chefs, cities, and customers to ignite their senses with the future of local agriculture," wrote Gordon-Smith.
The indoor farm is lit by LEDs, and the interior is monitored for conditions that are primed to grow greens. They use zero pesticides or herbicides, and the hydroponic system requires 95 percent less water than in a traditional garden. The main waste product from the enterprise is plant matter, which is composted.
Farm One is also committed to variety. They say on their website that they "scour the world" for "rare seeds" in an effort to promote biodiversity. It also doesn't hurt that the growers are themselves chefs, which means an interest in variety and flavor for its own sake. The farm is growing, but remains committed to staying local and minimizing travel time for their produce. If you can grow lettuce in the basement, you never need to eat a wilted leaf again.
Unilever Launches Brand To Support Urban Farming
03/07/2018
Unilever Launches Brand To Support Urban Farming
Source: Specialty Food News
Unilever has launched Growing Roots, an organic, plant-based food brand that will support urban farming. The brand will direct 50 percent of its profits to urban farming initiatives. The product line includes snack bites and clusters made from organic ingredients like coconut, corn, and seeds. Flavors include Cocoa Chipotle, Pineapple Coconut Rum, Maple Bourbon, and Coconut Curry.
The new brand builds on Unilever's multi-year commitment to urban farming initiatives. In 2015, Unilever joined a public-private partnership with New York's Building Healthy Communities initiative and Green City Force to create six urban farms in New York. Based on the program's success in the city, Unilever extended outreach to Los Angeles, Houston, Miami, and Chicago.
"Growing Roots is USLP in action: coupling the USLP with the DRT to improve lives in low-income neighborhoods."
Alfie Vivian - Marketing VP
Growing Roots – Improving Lives and Driving Sales in urban Low-Income Neighborhoods Across The U.S.
In a nutshell
Growing Roots, in partnerships with the local government and non-profit organizations that focus on common goals, is making a positive impact in urban low-income neighborhoods across the U.S. by improving access to fresh food and providing education on how to cook with it.
What’s the issue?
Low income communities in American cities are often “food swamps”, which means that while there are some grocery stores that carry fresh produce, there are far more fast food restaurants and bodegas that don’t offer fresh and nutritious options. This poor access to fresh food and lack of education on how to cook with it can contribute to worsening health conditions. For example, compared with the Upper East Side, East Harlem, a low-income neighborhood a short drive away, has 3 times more cases of diabetes and obesity.
What’s the story?
In New York, Unilever is directly funding one of the 6 urban farms built in public housing developments across the city (Wagner Houses Farm). Each farm will produce an annual average of 1 ton of produce that will be provided free of cost to the public housing residents to inspire cooking at home. Throughout the year, we are teaching the local residents how to cook with these fresh ingredients by leading cooking classes that feature Unilever products and demonstrating our recipes at food festivals and other nutritional events.
Since piloting the project in New York City last year, we have expanded our work to make an impact in three other cities – Miami, LA, and Houston. In each of these cities, we have partnered with Whole Kids Foundation to build 5 school gardens in low-income neighborhoods to bring under-served kids an edible garden space to learn about how fresh food grows and tastes. We have also partnered with the Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture to train high school teachers on a curriculum to inspire their students to become “food citizens”, individuals who understand that their food choices have a meaningful impact on themselves, the environment, and their community. Watch the video.
What are the outcomes and impact?
Growing Roots made a positive impact by raising awareness of and access to sustainable nutrition. In face-to-face interviews with over 100 residents at the Wagner Houses, they reported to cook more frequently at home and are more aware of the importance of eating fruits and vegetables every day.
Growing Roots also had an overwhelmingly positive impact on Unilever and the brands involved in the program.
• There was a significant improvement in brand awareness and usage for Hellmann’s, Knorr Sides, and Knorr Bouillon.
• Frequency of consuming spreads, mayonnaise, and bouillon all grew significantly.
• Almost 60% of the residents have seen our in-store displays.
What are the future plans?
Throughout the year, we will reach millions of consumers through event marketing and a radio campaign in all four cities to spread the word about sustainable nutrition. With the Perfect City program, we are leveraging the Growing Roots proposition as a sell-in tool for the Dedicated Retail Team to increase our footprint in independent supermarkets. We have designed and will execute a whole series of In-Store Visibility to communicate our key message to the low-income shoppers at the independent retailers. We have also unlocked unique partnerships with key regional retailers that will allow us to execute custom shopper marketing programs to engage shoppers throughout their consumer journey.
In the New York metro area, we’ve built a program at ShopRite that include a 6-month long custom pallet placement, a digital quiz that let’s shoppers enter a sweepstake to win free produce, monthly ads on grocery and produce pages, and cooking demonstrations with retail dietitians. In addition to reaching shoppers at pre-shop and in store, Wakefern has committed a $100K donation to support the Bay View Houses urban farm in Brooklyn. Our partnership with Wakefern is a perfect example of the work we’re doing to improving the access of fresh food for low-income communities and how we are extending our Growing Roots proposition to higher income shoppers in the traditional retail channel.
In Summary
“It’s probably one of the most exciting programs that we have in our hands now because it’s literally the USLP in action. We are coupling what we’re doing with the USLP with the Direct Retail Team to execute this on a store-by-store level, creating value for the communities where we will be activating the program and creating value for the brands in the Unilever business.” – Alfie Vivian
To learn more, please contact: Tracy Shepard-Rashkin, Tracy.Shepard-Rashkin@unilever.com
Categories: Industry Operations; Suppliers
Tags: organic
The Farm of The Future Is Magenta
The Farm of The Future Is Magenta
What color do many green plants like? The opposite of green: magenta. Nanoco
After the US, guess what country is the second largest exporter of food by dollar value? The Netherlands. One of the smallest countries in the world has become one of the biggest exporters of food.
Dutch farmers have become masters of indoor farming, as National Geographic reports. With advanced greenhouses using LED lights, hydroponics and more, they're able to grow more food, faster and in a smaller space. It's a growing trend (pun intended).
Lighting is one of the biggest costs of indoor farming, but some wavelengths (colors) of visible light are more useful than others. Magenta, for example, is a favorite of green plants. Quantum dots are can be tuned to produce magenta light efficiently.
By using wavelengths the plants want most, less overall light and power needs to be used. No power is wasted creating green wavelengths that a specific plant species doesn't need, for example.
Lights augmented by quantum dots can promote faster growth, not just on a per-plant basis, but even depending on where that plant is in its growing cycle. Certain wavelengths can be used for a young plant, and slightly different wavelengths for a more mature plant.
Researchers have also been able to grow plants faster. Nanoco, makers of the lights you see in the image at the right and above, claim that in some cases plants can grow twice as fast as with standard LED lights.
Quantum dots could be the key to indoor farms producing significantly more food, or small farms being able to produce vastly more food. Indoor farms can also exist in places not typically conducive to farming, such as the cities where most of the world now lives.
And if you look even further ahead, this would be a pretty fantastic way for us to grow a lot of food quickly in space, on the Moon or Mars, and beyond.
Land Trust, NH Farms, CitySeed Become Roomies
Land Trust, NH Farms, CitySeed Become Roomies
by ANEURIN CANHAM-CLYNE | Feb 28, 2018
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Posted to: Environment, Food, Wooster Square
ANEURIN CANHAM-CLYN
Justin Elicker, Russell Moore, and Amelia Reese Masterson at the grand opening of New Haven Farms and New Haven Land Trust’s new offices.
“Nonprofits don’t often work well together,” Justin Elicker said at the grand opening a new working space Tuesday night to be shared by the New Haven Land Trust and New Haven Farms.
Well, at 817 Grand Ave. they now do.
The Land Trust, which Elicker runs, and New Haven Farms have moved into a space connected to the farmers market group CitySeed. Tuesday the executive directors of the three organizations joined board members, employees, high school students and community members at an informal celebration of the new shared space.
The three nonprofits realized their missions overlap, so sharing an office opens opportunities, said Russell Moore, the executive director of New Haven Farms. Moore’s organization operates several urban farms in and runs a 16-week nutritional education and gardening program for low-income New Haveners with nutrition-related diseases like diabetes. Moore’s organization partners with the New Haven Land Trust to run a garden incubator program that helps graduates of the Farm-Based Wellness program.
“We have so many ideas for how to eliminate food insecurity in New Haven. This space helps us do that much better,” Elicker said.
CitySeed, which has been at the site for several years, welcomed its new neighbors. CitySeed manages several farmers markets and runs culinary programs, including a Sanctuary Kitchen that helps refugees in New Haven celebrate their cultures and make healthful food, and has an industrial kitchen in its office. This kitchen is one of the main points of connection among the organizations, according to Executive Director Amelia Reese Masterson. In CitySeed’s kitchen, high school students in the Land Trust’s Growing Entrepreneurs program make pesto, sauces and other food products from food they grow in the Land Trust gardens.
Guests at the celebration
All three organizations share a common goal, according to Reese Masterson: to grow an equitable and sustainable food system in New Haven. Elicker said the organizations will, through weekly meetings, develop more programs and partnerships than was possible before.
“All of us embrace that vision. Working together will bring that much closer to reality,” Moore said.
Kenny Delgado, a junior at Metropolitan Business Academy and a member of New Haven Land Trust’s Growing Entrepreneurs program, said the office has a great atmosphere. Delgado said enjoys the commitment displayed by the workers at the organizations, who he said avoid taking themselves too seriously.
Rasha Abuhatab, another Growing Entrepreneur and junior at MBA, said the new office afford opportunities that weren’t available when she started there through the Youth-At-Work program over the summer. Thanks to CitySeed, the Growing Entrepreneurs can attend more community programs, access more resources, and have a space to make the sauces they sell to local businesses.
Elicker addressed the assembled workers, board members and guests, calling the cooperation among these organizations a model for a city with many nonprofits but not enough collaboration.
“It’s symbolic of what a lot of other groups in the city should be doing,” Elicker said.
LUCY GELLMAN FILE PHOTO
Xavier Hernandez at the “Growing Entrepreneur” plot at Grand Acres.
The Economic Colonization of Rural America
The mechanization of farming changed the community-based farming model after WWII. Photo by Charles Knowles,used under the CC BY 2.0 license.
The Economic Colonization of Rural America
- By John Ikerd
- February 28, 2018
The transformation of the American economy was supposed to usher in a new era of prosperity via a “rural renaissance.” Where has that dream gone and how do we bring it back?
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is adapted from a paper presented by agriculture economist John Ikerd to the Wisconsin Farmers Union annual convention in Wisconsin Dells earlier this month. Ikerd is a University of Missouri professor emeritus who has written six books on sustainable agriculture and sustainable economics. He lives in Fairfield, Iowa, and has worked locally, nationally, and internationally to help focus agricultural development on restoring and building communities, rather than on maximizing shareholder profits for corporations.
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When I was a kid growing up on a small farm in southwest Missouri, we still had strong farming communities. The community I grew up in was an interwoven network of people who knew each other—mainly out of necessity. Most farms in those days couldn’t actually be farmed by a single farmer or farm family. Farming was a community affair. There were crews who traveled from farm to farm to fill silos, harvest grain, or put up hay. Each farmer brought along with their share of farm equipment and labor. For my dad, it was mostly labor—as there were three growing boys in the family. The men and boys worked hard, but a lot of socializing—horsing around—also took place at these gatherings.
The “farm wives” also renewed relationships at the time of harvest. Several women and girls would gather at the host farms on harvest days to help the host wife prepare the noon meal for the harvest crews. The farm women also had their individual groups who gathered periodically to make quilts to keep their families warm in winter and to help each other can fruit and make preserves or cut meat and make sausage on butchering days. The work was often tedious and tiresome but the conversations helped to pass the time.
These networks or “communities of necessity” were interconnected through local churches and schools. Everybody knew everybody in their own churches as well most folks as in the others churches nearby. The parents of kids who went to school together all knew each other. Visiting on Sunday wasn’t limited to kinfolks; it included neighbors. People also visited at the country store and at the barber shop, filling station, and farmers’ cooperative exchange in town.
“Giving someone a hand” wasn’t limited to helping out in emergencies but was given anytime someone “needed a hand.” These communities, created out of necessity, were communities that not only helped rural people make a living but only gave them a common sense of purpose. Relationships are difficult and disagreements naturally arose. But, rural folks knew they needed to get along to get by in life. Furthermore, this strong sense of community also added a sense of meaning and quality to day-to-day rural life. Rural communities were considered good places to live, work, and raise a family. They were “livable communities.”
But “times changed” in Rural America. The industrialization of American agriculture, which began after World War II, removed the necessity for community-based farming. Individually owned field choppers eventually replaced the big silo crews, individual combines replaced big threshing crews, and inexpensive hay balers replaced big haying crews. Farmers were free to harvest their own crops whenever they choose, rather than wait for their turn to be helped by the big crews of neighbors. Modern kitchen conveniences and household appliances also eliminate the need for farm wives to share meal preparation and other “housework.”
John Ikerd.
Social circles in farming communities began to narrow and narrowed further as farms grew larger and surviving farmers became fewer. New people moved into rural areas—seeking low-paying jobs of factory farms or escaping high living costs in cities. Most people didn’t bother to get to know their new neighbors because they “didn’t need to.” Rural folks eventually became like “city folks”—not only not knowing but not really wanting to know their neighbors.
People tended to accept the changes in agriculture and the rural-urban migration of farm families as the inevitable consequences of economic progress. Agricultural production was increasing but industrial agriculture employed fewer farmers, creating negative impacts throughout rural communities. People were leaving rural areas for employment opportunities elsewhere. People were simply responding to the economic incentives of impersonal markets. It wasn’t until the “farm financial crisis of the 1980s” that many people, including myself, began to feel that something was fundamentally wrong with what was happening in rural America.
In 1993, I made a public presentation calling for a Rural Renaissance at a conference in rural Arkansas. My presentation paper later became a chapter in my book, Crisis and Opportunity; Sustainability in American Agriculture.[i] Many farming communities had been devastated by the economic recession of the 1980s. A dramatic drop in agricultural commodity prices caught many “good farmers” with large debt, at high interest rates, that they could not repay. A new wave of family farmers were driven off their farms thought financial pressures, including foreclosures and bankruptcies. Other farm-related businesses also failed with the collapse of the farm economy. I wrote:
Over the past 50 years, many rural communities seem to have lost their purpose. The trend during this period has been toward fewer, larger, and more specialized farms. The result has been declining rural populations, declining demand for local markets and locally purchased inputs, and a resulting economic decay of many rural communities.
Some communities attempted to diversify their economy to reduce their dependence on agriculture, and others abandoned agriculture entirely as a source of economic development. Industry hunting became a preoccupation of many small town councils and chambers of commerce. Jobs, any kind at any cost, seemed to be the primary development objective in some declining rural communities. Any lack of a geographical foundation to support sustained development was given little, if any, consideration.
Many development activities, lacking a geographic foundation, were rooted in nothing more than short-run exploitation of undervalued human and natural resources in rural areas. The number of working poor – workers with full time jobs who live below the poverty line – in rural areas has continued to rise. In addition, many manufacturing companies and branch plants that initially relocated in rural areas eventually move to other countries where laborers are willing to work even harder for far less money.
Some new rural economic activities such as tourism, vacation homes, retirement communities, and rural residences can have strong geo-economic foundations in climate, landscapes, or proximity to urban employment. Such activities have helped some rural communities survive the harsh reality that they no longer had any important purpose, other than to facilitate the forced migration of rural people to the cities. However, most American rural communities continue to search for a new purpose for their existence.”
My assessment might have seemed a bit harsh at the time. However, I was still hopeful—if not optimistic—about the future of rural America. I pointed out that scientists had concluded that everything on earth tends to evolve in cycles—that trends never go on forever. [ii] At some point, the forces that drive trends in one direction run their course by creating the conditions that force the future to evolve in a fundamentally different direction. I cited anthropological evidence indicating that people have concentrated in large cities in centuries past, but later, for a variety of reasons, have abandoned those cities and dispersed themselves across the countryside. The flight from city centers to “suburbia” and then “urban sprawl” suggested that a reverse, urban-to-rural, migration had already begun.
At that time, some popular futurist also were suggesting that such a rural renaissance was possible, if not outright probable. Alvin Toffler was distinguished by frequently being quoted by both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich. In his book, PowerShift, Toffler contended that the forces of industrialization had run their course and are already reversing.[iii] He wrote, “The most important economic development of our lifetime has been the rise of a new system of creating wealth, based no longer on muscle but on the mind.”[iv] “Because it reduces the need for raw material, labor, time, space, and capital, knowledge becomes the central resource of the advanced economy.”[v]
Peter Drucker, a noted business consultant, wrote of the coming “Post Business Society,” in his book, The New Realities. He states:
The biggest shift – bigger by far than the changes in politics, government or economics – is the shift to the knowledge society. The social center of gravity has shifted to the knowledge worker. All developed countries are becoming post-business, knowledge societies. Looked at one way, this is the logical result of a long evolution in which we moved from working by the sweat of our brow and by muscle to industrial work and finally to knowledge work.[vi]
Robert Reich, U.S. Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration, addressed future trends in the global economy in his book, The Work of Nations.[vii] He identifies three emerging broad categories of work: routine production service, in-person service, and symbolic-analytic services. Symbolic-analysts are the mind workers in Reich’s classification. They include all the problem-solvers, problem-identifiers, and strategic-brokers—engineers, public relations executives, investment brokers, doctors, lawyers, writers and editors, musicians, and teachers. Reich pointed out that mind workers often work alone or in small teams, which are connected only informally and flexibly with larger organizations. In other words, mind workers could choose to live and work anywhere—including rural areas.
John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene in, Megatrends 2000, called the empowerment of individuals as the great unifying theme at the conclusion of the century.[viii] Their mind workers were called “individual entrepreneurs.” They wrote that empowered individuals, while working alone or in small groups, would choose not to face the world alone but would seek community. Many rural communities already were technologically linked to urban centers and many others would follow. The emergence of a new “electronic heartland” was one of the megatrends they identified for the new century. They wrote, “In many ways, if cities did not exist, it now would not be necessary to invent them.”[ix]“Free to live almost anywhere, more and more individuals are deciding to live in small cities and towns and rural areas.”[x]
Drucker added that the real-estate boom and the associated new skyscrapers in big cities in the 1970s and 1980s were signals of the beginning of the end of the central city. He wrote,
The city might become an information center rather than a center of work – a place from which information (news, data, music) radiates. It might resemble the medieval cathedral where the peasants from the surrounding countryside congregated once or twice a year at the great feast days; in between it stood empty except for the learned clerics and its cathedral school.[xi]
People had already abandoned the cities for the suburbs for quality of life reasons: lower crime rates, better housing, and recreational opportunities. Many people were now free to abandon the suburbs for rural area for additional quality of life reasons: more space for living, a cleaner more pleasant living environment, and perhaps most important, to regain a sense of community—a sense of belonging. The new challenge of rural economic development was to create places where mind workers could be productive, raise families, and grow, where both immigrant and homegrown mind workers would choose to relocate or stay. Community livability would give rural communities a new purpose for being.
Each community obviously is different, but I would sum up the common characteristics of livable rural communities as clean water, clean air, good food, affordable housing, pleasant landscapes, a sense of place, and people who care about each other, know how to have fun, and are willing to invest in the future of their community. [xii] In livable communities, money is simply one means of affording a livable lifestyle—not the purpose for living. Economic development is simply a means of acquiring the material essentials for a meaningful life in the complex, impersonal environments of modern societies.
So what happened to the rural renaissance envisioned by the futurists at the turn of the century? Like many other economists, I had simply accepted the economic ups and downs of rural economies as the natural consequences of an inevitably cyclical economic evolution. Farming communities had served their initial purpose by supporting family farms and were now in the process of finding new purposes as livable communities. While there was an element of truth in this conclusion, I have since come to realize that rural areas were and still are suffering the consequences of prolonged “economic colonization.”
Economic colonization is a term typically used in reference to neoliberal economic development in nations previously colonized politically. Rather than being colonized by national governments, most economic colonization today is carried out by multinational corporations, which is the case in rural America. Much like colonial empires of the past, transnational corporations have been extending their economic power to dominate people in rural places all around the globe. Rural people are losing their sovereignty, as corporations use their economic power over local economies to gain control of local governments. Irreplaceable precious rural resources, including rural people and cultures, are being exploited – not to benefit rural people but to increase the wealth of corporate investors. These corporations are purely economic entities with no capacity for caring or commitment to the future of rural communities. Their only interest is in extracting the economic wealth from rural areas. This is classic economic colonialism.
Historically, political colonialism was defended by the ethnocentric belief that the moral values of the colonizer were superior to those of the colonized – that those colonized ultimately would benefit from the process of civilization. Today, rural economic colonialization is defended by the urban-centric belief that rural people are incapable of developing their own economies and must rely on outside investment for rural economic development. That corporate investments will bring badly needed jobs and local income and will expand local tax bases. That economically depressed rural communities will be afforded the opportunity for better schools, better health care, and expanded social services, and will attract a greater variety of retail businesses. These are the same basic promises made to previous political colonies.
Many people in rural America are led to believe they have been left behind by the rest of society, and accepting outside corporate investments are the only means by which they can hope to catch up. In cases where such promises of prosperity have failed to persuade the people, corporations have resorted to economic favors promised to local leaders or outright “bribery.” If all else fails, they simply use interstate commerce or free trade laws to claim the economic right to force their way into communities where they are unwanted. These are the same basic strategies colonial empires have used with the indigenous peoples of their colonies throughout history. As with political and economic colonies of the past, the promises of economic development are soon replaced with the reality of economic extraction and exploitation.
Whether intentional or coincidental, industrial agriculture has been a primary means of colonizing rural America. As with other industries, the industrial practices of large-scale, corporate agriculture are extractive and exploitation. Industrial farming operations erode the fertility of the soil and pollute the air and water with chemical and biological wastes—more like mining operations than traditional farming. Comprehensive corporate contractual arrangement have replaced thinking, caring family farmers with far fewer “farm workers.” Communities are supported by people, not simply production. It takes people not only to buy farm supplies and equipment at local dealers but also to shop for clothes, cars, and haircuts on Main Street, to fill desks in local schools, pews in local churches, and seats on town councils and school boards.
Most rural kids today grow up, leave, and don’t come back. Those who choose to “stay home” are labeled as not being among the “best or brightest.” Some are “bribed” by parents who help them get long term loans they must stay to repay. New rural residents are more likely to be immigrants desperate for work or people fleeing the cities for cheaper places to live. The sense of community is lost. When the sense of community is lost, the sense of common commitment and shared hope for the future is lost. A recent Wall Street Journal article calls “Rural America the New Inner City.” [xiii] The article documents that levels of unemployment, chronic illness, teen pregnancy, crime, and drug abuse in many rural areas now exceed those of inner cities.
Wendell Berry summarized the current plight of rural America in a recent letter to the book editor of the New York Times:
The business of America has been largely and without apology the plundering of rural America, from which everything of value—minerals, timber, farm animals, farm crops, and “labor”—has been taken at the lowest possible price. As apparently none of the enlightened ones has seen in flying over or bypassing on the interstate highways, its too-large fields are toxic and eroding, its streams and rivers poisoned, its forests mangled, its towns dying or dead along with their locally owned small businesses, its children leaving after high school and not coming back. Too many of the children are not working at anything, too many are transfixed by the various screens, too many are on drugs, too many are dying.”[xiv]
The economic colonization of rural America has turned the hope for a rural renaissance of livable rural communities into the reality of rural ghettos.
The quest for livability in rural America has been replaced by a quest for economic, social, and cultural survival. What went wrong? I think the futurists failed to realize the economic and political power of the corporate defenders of the economic status quo. The industrial economy was not going to voluntarily reverse course to make way for a new sustainable economy—simply because economic growth was creating more environmental and societal problems than economic benefits. Industrialization had evolved from a means of manufacturing to become the conventional “way of thinking.” The industrial mindset of specialization, standardization, and consolidation of control now permeates virtually all aspects of American society.
Corporate consolidation has allowed economic power to be transformed into political power. In today’s large, publicly-traded corporations corporate profits take priority over the well-being of people—within or outside the corporation. The few livable communities that have escaped colonization are being acquired and reserved as havens for the “rich and famous,” not places for ordinary people to work and live. Wealth has become synonymous with quality of life. Economic growth has replaced the pursuit of happiness.
Corporate agriculture has used its political power and the hard-won reputation for integrity of family farmers to transform the “right to farm” into a “right to harm.” A corporate strategy to turn rural areas into “agricultural sacrifice zones” is revealed in a progression of laws protecting factory farms from public scrutiny and exempting industrial agriculture from environmental and public health regulations. In vast rural areas zoned for “agriculture,” corporate agriculture will be free to pollute and plunder as it pleases.[xv] The quality of life of rural and town residents alike is threatened by the relentless, unbridled corporate colonization of American agriculture. Against such powerful economic and political forces, what can people in rural communities do?
Rural people must again join together, as communities of necessity to restore the fading hope of a rural renaissance and secure their future as livable communities. This is a not a farm-versus-town or rural-versus-urban issue. This is a matter of community necessity for those who care about the future of their communities. Margaret Wheatley, a leading thinker on institutional and cultural change recently identified three major trends in American society:
1) “A growing sense of impotence and dread about the state of the nation.”
2) “The realization that information doesn’t change minds anymore.”
3) “The clarity that the world changes through local communities taking action—that there is no greater power for change than a community taking its future into its own hands.”
I agree with Wheatley. First, as I have suggested, I believe the prevailing mood in rural America today is one of “impotence and dread.” Second, I agree that information no longer changes minds. We now have more than 50 years of “sound science” and the real-world experience of people in rural communities confirming the negative environmental, social, and economic impact of industrial agriculture. The agribusiness corporations have responded with a multimillion dollar a year public relations campaign to “greenwash” industrial agriculture by creating a set of “alternative facts.” Many public officials continue to promote CAFOs. The general public doesn’t know who to believe.
So where is the hope for the future of rural America? The hope is in the clarity that the world changes through local communities taking action. People in rural America should use every legal means available to protect themselves. But, they also must also find ways to change our laws—including changing those who make our laws, if necessary. People must come together—farm and non-farm, rural and urban—as communities of necessity with a common interest and commitment to stopping the economic colonization of their communities.
Many communities in rural America are still livable communities, with clean water, clean air, scenic landscapes, and people who care for the land and care about each other and are willing to invest their time and money to secure the future of their communities. The things of nature and society they are protecting and sustaining belong to all of us—rural and urban, farm and non-farm. We know how to produce plenty of agricultural products without destroying the natural environment or quality of life in these places. Family farms and rural communities of the future will be different from those of the past, but they must be rooted in the values of traditional family farms and rural communities of necessity.
Perhaps the family farms and livable communities are “ideals” or myths—that never existed in reality. But if so, no more so that than the “ideal” of the American Democracy. Regardless, these are “ideals” we must continue to strive to achieve. Our democratic ideal is embodied in our unalienable rights of “life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.” In individual liberties tempered by equity justice for all. The 9th and 10th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution give “the people” the authority and the power to protect their unalienable rights when the federal and state governments fail to do so.
What can possibly be more essential to our unalienable “rights to life and the pursuit of happiness” than clean air, clean water, and safe, nutritious food? We simply cannot allow the economic rights of corporations to take priority of the democratic rights of rural people. Information may not change minds, but “ideals” can change minds. It may not be quick or easy, but together, we have the power to reject economic colonization. If we each find our unique purpose and do our part, together, we can reclaim a sense of purpose of rural communities and can create a new and better future for rural America. “There is no greater power for change than a community taking its future into its own hands.” There is no power greater than the power of the people—in community.
End Notes
[i] John Ikerd, Crisis and Opportunity; Sustainability in American Agriculture, Chapter 11, (Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2008).
[ii] Robert Pool, “Science Literacy: The Enemy is Us,” Science, 251, No. 4991, (1991): 267.
[iii] Alvin Toffler, PowewShift (New York: Bantam Books, 1990).
[iv] Toffler, PowerShift, 9.
[v] Toffler, PowerShift, 91.
[vi] Peter Drucker, The New Realities (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc., 1989), 173.
[vii] Robert B. Reich, The Work of Nations (New York: Vintage Books, Random House Publishing, 1992).
[viii] John Naisbitt and Patricia Aburdene, Megatrends 2000 (New York: Avon Books, The Hearst Corporation, 1990).
[ix] Naisbitt and Aburdene, Megatrends 2000, 332.
[x] Naisbitt and Aburdene, Megatrends 2000, 329.
[xi] Drucker, New Realities, 259.
[xii] Partners for Livable Communities, “What is a Livable Community?” http://livable.org/about-us/what-is-livability.
[xiii] Janet Adamy and Paul Overberg, RURAL AMERICA IS THE NEW ‘INNER CITY’, TheWall Street Journal, May 26, 2017, https://www.wsj.com/articles/rural-america-is-the-new-inner-city-1495817008 .
[xiv] Wendell Berry, “Southern Despair,” New Your Times Review of Books, Reply to Nathaniel Rich, http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2017/05/11/southern-despair/ .
[xv] David Osterberg and James Merchant, “CAFOs and the Diminished Defence of Public Health,” March 2017. https://iowapolicyproject.org/2017docs/170322-nuisance.pdf
Jillian Hishaw, Founder & Director of Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S), was Interviewed by Shonna Etienne of Intellectual Chocolate, Sponsored by The Black Business School
Jillian Hishaw, Founder & Director of Family Agriculture Resource Management Services (F.A.R.M.S), was Interviewed by Shonna Etienne of Intellectual Chocolate, Sponsored by The Black Business School.
Special thanks to the Sponsor the Black Business School and Ms. Shonna Etienne, Real Estate Expert and Internet TV Host of Intellectual Chocolate for interviewing Jillian Hishaw about her work with Black farmers in the South! The segment focused on land retention and estate planning challenges of landowners!
Please take look at the interview.
Ms. Jillian Hishaw, Esq. F.A.R.M.S., Founder, Director and Agricultural Attorney states “We need more young Black farmers, the median age of our farm clients is 75 years old. Each time a Black farmer passes away or slowly leaves us while living due to dementia, we lose hundreds of years of history. I have found what the farmer knows at 85 was passed down five generations previously.”
F.A.R.M.S., is a regional nonprofit dedicated to protecting the family farm against land loss through estate planning and education while relieving hunger in the farmer's community. To keep up to date with Ms. Hishaw’s latest activities please visit www.jillianhishaw.com and to support F.A.R.M.S. work visit www.30000acres.org and sign up for our newsletter. Please follow us on social media T: FARMS30000 Instagram: f.a.r.m.s FB: F.A.R.M.S.
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Bringing New Technology In Farming To The Emirates
Bringing New Technology In Farming To The Emirates
The new pay – off of Levarht ‘Bringing the best together’ is matching our new project in the Emirates in full. Together with our business partner GrowGroup, we are bringing technology in vertical and horizontal farming to the next level. In close cooperation with our knowledge partners Philips Lighting, Rijk Zwaan, and Delphy. All specialists sharing their unique expertise and knowledge in making this new venture a success!
Green Factory
In Al Ain, in the United Arab Emirates, we will set up a sustainable green factory for the production of lettuce, baby leaves and herbs in a chemical-free environment. A unique combination of vertical & horizontal farming, with our own propagation area. And in addition to that a connected packing facility, which allows us to mix and pack 100% clean mix salads. Non washed and all ready-to-eat.
Tasty, Fresh & Clean, the perfect match
Our joint objective is to serve the final consumer fresh lettuces and herbs, and completely free from any chemicals or other forms of crop-protection. By selecting the tastiest crops, the strongest varieties and creating a clean production, we are able to serve the consumer the best produce within 24 hours after harvest … ready-to-eat. Because our products are so clean, we don’t even have to wash before packing.
Sustainability, the future of farming
By creating a completely closed environment in production, using the latest generation of LED lighting, we can reduce the usage of water and energy to a minimum.
We also see a great opportunity in growing closer to the stores and the final consumer. Local production enables us to reduce mileage and imports. So not only fresher produce on the shelves, but also a step forward in protecting the environment.
Bringing the best together
We have found in each other strong partners, who share the philosophy of not only changing but especially improving farming technics and serving the consumer fresher, cleaner and tastier product. Partners sharing their unique expertise … the best example of “Bringing the best together”.
January 30th, 2018
Microgreens We Love To Grow
Microgreens We Love To Grow
March 2, 2018
Do you know which Microgreens we love to grow? These are our favorite Microgreens but we’ll also be giving you some seeding procedures too! You won’t regret missing out on this! We promise.
Pea Shoots
Crunchy, juicy texture and the same yummy taste as fresh peas. Perfect for sandwiches and on pizza, rice, and soup dishes! Try your pea shoots at different times/stages while they’re growing – their flavor, texture and look is best when they’re about 3” tall. Here are the procedures for growing theses beautiful pea shoots yourself!
These large seed varieties are grown using a different method than the other microgreens, So we will cover them first. The same technique is used for peas, can be used for sunflowers and any other large seed variety (such as popcorn seeds). Pea seed should be soaked prior to planting for 8 - 12 hrs. (soak seeds when you leave your farm at the end of the day)
Preparing the pea seed for planting:
10 oz of pea seeds per 10x20 black tray
To soak the pea, a plastic food grade container works well (5-gallon bucket with paint strainer bag).
Fill the container with enough water to rise above the seeds 2”. The seeds will swell as they absorb water, and you’ll want to make sure they stay below the water line and must remain covered.
Allow seeds to soak overnight. They are now ready to be spread on the microgreens pad.
Soaking The microgreens pad
The special microgreens pads are made of untreated all natural loose weave plant-based materials. The grow trays are 10"x20", so 1 microgreens pad are laid end to end in the tray. This makes them easier to handle at harvest time when they must be removed from the tray with the crops attached. The microgreens pads usually come in a pack of 10 - 10"x20" and don't need to be cut. If you lay the pad in the tray dry, they would not lay flat, and the seeds would go rolling off the high spots and end up crowding up in the low areas. The microgreens pad would also have a hard time becoming evenly damp, to begin with. Before placing the pads in the tray PRE-SOAK THEM in a 5-gallon bucket of vegan boost water for a few hours before seeding. This helps them lay flat in channels, which makes planting a lot easier and helps gives your seeds a germination boost.
Fill the bucket with RO water or tap water.
Place one tsp of vegan boost in bucket (mix properly).
Fold and place the pads in bucket.
Soak for 1 hr to 24 hrs. They are now ready to be used.
Place the soaked pad into the tray.
Smooth out the pad until it is completely flat.
Evenly shake the seeds in each tray, one tray at a time, using a gentle shaking motion with a cup.
Evenly spread seeds on the microgreens pad using your hands.
Place tray in darkness for 48 hrs to 72 hrs till seedlings sprouts up 2".
Place tray in sunlight or artificial grow lights
Microgreens - Red Rose Radish
A classic winter radish that is best planted later in the season, and then harvested for winter storage. China Rose produces an attractive rose-colored exterior and delicious white flesh. As its name suggests, this radish hails from China and was introduced to the occidental world by Jesuit monks in the 1950's.
Place the soaked pad into the tray.
Smooth out the pad until it is completely flat.
Weigh out the appropriate amount of seed for each variety to be planted
Red Rose Radish seeds per 10"x20" tray = 21 grams
Evenly shake the seeds in each tray, one tray at a time, using a gentle shaking motion with a season shaker.
Spray each tray, one at a time, spray generously (rule of thumb is to count out loud for each tray).
Spray humidity dome for a few seconds.
Cover 10"x20" tray with humidity dome.
Place tray in darkness for 48 hrs to 72 hrs till seedlings sprouts up 1.5".
Place tray in sunlight or artificial grow lights.
If you enjoyed this, you might also enjoy these post:
"Foolproof growing tips for microgreens"
"Rules for growing microgreens indoors"
Tags: microgreens growing microgreens peashoots shoots red rose radish
Ontario Greenhouse Grower Wins PAC Award For Veggies To Go
Ontario Greenhouse Grower Wins PAC Award For Veggies To Go
Mucci Farms announces that they have been awarded a Best In Class Award in the New Brand – Food & Beverage category at the 2018 Packaging Consortium (PAC) Awards. Highly regarded as a global industry leader, PAC is a not-for-profit corporation that includes over 2,500 members throughout the packaging value chain. Their networking process includes webinars, seminars, conferences, competitions, facility tours, education programs, trade shows, technical work groups and social activities throughout the year.
“We are excited and honoured to receive another award for Veggies To Go™," said Emily Murracas, Director of Marketing. “Having been recognized within the produce industry for this product and package, it’s particularly exciting to be recognized in a broader context amongst well established world class brands and packages.”
From left to right Ajit Saxena – Digital Media Coordinator, Fernanda Albuquerque – New Product Development Manager and Wayne St-Denis – Senior Graphic Designer
The annual PAC Awards were judged by a panel of international brand design packaging experts from around the world. Well over 200 entries were judged on a variety of criteria requiring entrants to submit detailed responses to several questions pertaining to sustainability, food safety, cost, packaging material, graphic design, print process, practical usage and the story of the product from inception to market.
“Veggies to Go™was an exciting and challenging project that took us three years to bring to the market, so it’s very rewarding to have it received so well by retailers, consumers and now industry packaging experts” said Fernanda Albuquerque, New Product Development Manager.
Veggies to Go™has received several awards including the Freggie Approved award at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association’s Convention & Expo recognizing the best kid-centric product and package, and most recently won the Award for Best New Package Promo at the PMA’s 2017 Fresh Summit Conference and Expo. The PAC Awards were presented at Brand Experience Magazine’s BXP Live! Conference in Bonita Springs, Florida on Tuesday February 27th, 2018.
A team from Mucci Farms was on hand to accept the award. Veggies to Go™ will be featured in the new product showcase at the SEPC’s Southern Exposure Conference this week in Tampa, Florida.
One of The World's Largest Indoor Farms Is Located in Faribault, Minnesota
One of The World's Largest Indoor Farms Is Located in Faribault, Minnesota
February 28, 2018
Living Greens Farm's founder, president, and chairman Dana Anderson is the brains behind one of the largest indoor farms in the world. And as it turns out, it's located right here in Faribault! To keep this huge production running, Anderson utilizes a computer system to control different aspects of the farming process such as light, CO2, humidity, and temperature. All of that combined with aeroponics is what makes Living Greens Farm so successful!
For those of you that don't know, aeroponics is when you grow plants upside down and, instead of planting the roots in soil, they are sprayed with a nutrient-rich solution.
Aeroponics was by no means invented by Anderson, but he did invent and patent the vertical growing and traversing misting systems which is a super efficient way of farming. Kind of reminds me of a Miracle-Gro AeroGarden. According to Anderson in his interview with Twin Cities Business, it's "the fastest way to grow plants." Living Greens Farm recently expanded and they have even more room to grow in the future.
Currently, the farm's greens are being sold in Lunds & Byerlys, some Cub Foods, and Hy-vee stores, Fresh Thyme, as well as other food co-ops.
Pure Flavor® - IFCO Partnership Ensures Year-Round Delivery
Pure Flavor® - IFCO Partnership Ensures Year-Round
Delivery of Quality Fresh Produce Across North America
Use of Shared and Reusable “Smart Packaging” Maximizes Operational Efficiency
Tampa, Florida (February 27, 2018) - Pure Flavor®’s use of IFCO Reusable Plastic Containers (RPCs) has had a positive impact for the Leamington, Ontario-based, a vertically integrated provider of a wide variety of fresh produce products year-round to retailers across North America. After six years of collaboration, Pure Flavor®’s use of IFCO RPCs has continued to grow rapidly to include packaging for a wide range of products, including tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and eggplants.
“IFCO is a valuable partner,” said Jason Veno, Packaging Operations Manager for Pure Flavor®. “Not only do they provide us with ‘smart packaging’ that protects and cools our products extremely well, they maximize our operational efficiency by ensuring we have an adequate supply of RPCs year-round, even during peak growing seasons. That predictability means we can continue to serve our customers and their shoppers efficiently, effectively and on time”, said Veno.
IFCO now provides Pure Flavor® with over one million RPCs annually. They are used to package fresh produce at locations in San Antonio, Texas, Romulus, Michigan, and Leamington, Ontario, and are then shipped to retailers throughout the U.S. and Canada.
“IFCO’s partnership with Pure Flavor® is based on thoughtful collaboration and the shared goal of providing consumers with a constant supply of high quality, safe, nutritious and affordable produce each- and every- day,” said Daniel Walsh, President, IFCO North America. “Our RPCs are tailor-made for growers like Pure Flavor® that want the best possible efficiency and sustainability for their packaging, and we are proud to work side-by-side with such a visionary company. We are also proud of our presence and expansion in the Canadian marketplace, as well as the supporting infrastructure we have established there to better serve our many Canadian customers.”
IFCO and Pure Flavor® have developed a forecasting model that tracks the company’s produce orders and growing seasons and ensures on-time delivery of the right number and type of RPCs throughout the year. In addition, some RPCs are stored on-site, providing the Pure Flavor® operations group with greater flexibility to manage its product flow.
Ongoing collaboration between Pure Flavor® and IFCO will continue to optimize supply chain operations, as well as reduce the companies’ environmental footprint in the months and years ahead.
IFCO and Pure Flavor® will be exhibiting at the upcoming Southern Exposure Convention & Trade Show in Tampa, FL on March 3rd. IFCO will be located at Booth #120. Pure Flavor® will be located at Booth #605. Retail partners are encouraged to stop by the Pure Flavor® booth to learn more about the company’s greenhouse vegetable products as well as the expansion to Georgia with a new 75-acre high tech greenhouse facility.
NYC’s Farm One Delivers Rare, Ultra-Fresh Produce In Just 30 Minutes
In April 2016, Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education planted its very first on-site farm with over 150 crop varieties. The hydroponic gardens are lit by LEDs and feature high-tech systems that provide specific growing conditions for even the rarest of greens.
NYC’s Farm One Delivers Rare, Ultra-Fresh Produce In Just 30 Minutes
- February 26, 2018
- by Nicole Jewell
The farm-to-table movement has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years – and now NYC chefs can pick up sustainable, 100% “nasty-free” produce grown within city limits. Farm One is a Manhattan-based hydroponic farm that grows hundreds of rare herbs, edible flowers, and microgreens, which can be delivered to 90% of NYC restaurants by bike in just 30 minute
In April 2016, Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education planted its very first on-site farm with over 150 crop varieties. The hydroponic gardens are lit by LEDs and feature high-tech systems that provide specific growing conditions for even the rarest of greens. The grow room is 100% free from pesticides and herbicides, and it uses around 95% less water than traditional gardens.
The garden organizers have spent years researching and growing rare seeds from all over the world. Farm One is currently one of the city’s largest providers of edible herbs and greens, and it’s a major resource for chefs looking to cook with fresh produce. The system is so efficient that local eateries can have their greens on-site just minutes after being harvested.
In addition to delivering fresh, sustainably-grown produce immediately after harvesting, Farm One offers classes and workshops on hydroponics and indoor farming for budding chefs or home cooks. The Tribeca location also hosts tours where guests can taste dozens of rare plant varieties – most of which cannot be found anywhere else in New York.
Via Uncrate
Images via Farm One
- under Agriculture, Gallery, Manhattan, Urban Farming, Vertical Garden
Foolproof Growing Tips For Microgreens
Foolproof Growing Tips For Microgreens
February 27, 2018
Ever feel like growing microgreens is a bit like being stuck in a blizzard? We promise that these foolproof tips will help you out a lot. Growing microgreens doesn't have to be brain science. It should be like strolling on a tropical island with no worry in the world. Easier said than done, right? We sure wish that someone would've told us these tips when we were first attempting to harvest.
Water Quality
At the start of a microgreens crop, a hydroponic system is filled with water. Water is continually being lost from the system, mainly through the leaves of the microgreens crop by a process known as transpiration. The volume of water in the system is, however, maintained constant by the automatic replacement of the water that is lost. This is achieved by a float valve in the catchment tank, which allows water to flow into the microgreens system from an external source as required. This makeup water will normally contain dissolved substances in it. The nature and quantity of the substances in solution in the water will differ by locality. If these substances are not removed from the water by the microgreens crop plants at a faster rate than they are being supplied in the makeup water, then their concentration in the recirculating water in the microgreens system will increase, until a concentration of one ion will be reached at which growth is adversely affected, and eventually a toxic concentration will occur. The best water for growing microgreens is rainwater or water condensed from the moisture-laden air. Water from these two sources has virtually no dissolved substances in it. Consequently, there is no build-up of excess ions coming into a hydroponic installation with the makeup water.
Filtration
Very little filtration should be required in a microgreen hydroponic system. If the makeup water does not contain solid particles in suspension, and if the method of supporting the young microgreens plants does not release solid particles into the recirculating solution, then filtration will not be necessary. The only precaution to take would be to site the inlet of the circulation pump in the catchment tank, as far as possible from any solution returning from the microgreens hydroponic system to the tank, and also near the surface of the solution in the tank. the tank will act as a sedimentation tank and the solution recirculated by the pump will thus be drawn from the clear solution near the surface. Yet, if there is a problem with solid particles in suspension, a course filter should be fitted over the outlet end of the catchment pipe so that the returning solution discharges into the tank through the filter.
Root Death
In a microgreens crop, the root system can be inspected readily. Consequently, if any roots should die. their demise is quickly seen and observed in all its tragedy. Roots are so basic. If too many roots should die, will not the whole microgreens plant die? In soil grown microgreens crop, the death of roots cannot be seen. The phenomenon of root death has been most extensively studied in tomatoes. Three english research workers at the Chestnut Experiment Station (Leonard, Head and Cooper) in the 50s, using glass sided inspection trenches dug besides rows of soil grown tomatoes, recorded the root growth visible through the glass. All three workers studied plants from December sowing dates, because at the time, most commercial tomato crops in southern England were not sown before December. They all reported a sudden and marked loss of roots in the month of May; from 50% to 90% of the roots visiblein the glass panel suddenly died and decomposed. The phenomenon was given the name of the 'May Check', because there was also a reduction in the growth rates of the tops of the plants.
Without these tips, you'd possibly be stuck in These tips are foolproof. If you follow these basic guidelines you can't possibly go wrong. These are the essentials needed to grow microgreens. Remember consistency is key!
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Tags: microgreens growing microgreens growing tips hydroponic system
This Swedish Indoor Urban Farm Wants To Revolutionize How We Live And Eat
03/02/2018
This Swedish Indoor Urban Farm Wants To Revolutionize How We Live And Eat
But people can’t live on microgreens and exotic salads alone.
Oliver Balch On assignment for HuffPost
PLANTAGON
In the basement of a landmark 27-story tower in Stockholm’s central Kungsholmen district, Owe Pettersson is hoping to sow the seeds of an indoor urban farming revolution.
Pettersson is the chief executive of Plantagon, a new Stockholm-based urban farming venture set to kick off operations in the basement of an office block in the Swedish capital later this month.
“This will be one of the most advanced food factories located in a city that we have today,” says Pettersson, who has spent more than 25 years in the insurance and banking industries.
He is by no means the first enthusiast for indoor farming, which has become increasingly fashionable in recent years. Claims for the practice of growing food in basements or warehouses range from feeding people in desert environments to reversing the negative environmental effects of monoculture farming.
“Nature will repair itself if you give it a chance, and indoor farming gives it that chance,” says Dickson Despommier, author of The Vertical Farm and a vocal proponent for this novel approach to agriculture.
Plantagon’s early promises echo this nascent optimism. Pettersson calls the farm’s approach “agritechture”: the combination of agriculture, technology and architecture hoping to revolutionize how we live and eat.
The term may be new, but the concept isn’t. Indoor farming is made possible by agricultural technologies such as hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aeroponics (in which plants are grown in air strung over containers). Food can be produced without direct sunlight or soil.
The Swedish startup says it will be more efficient than similar enterprises. While that’s impossible to prove at this stage, in theory the company’s main bases seem covered.
Plantagon plans to grow high-value foods ― mostly salads and herbs ― in a pumice-like substance rather than soil. Water for the plants is measured with scientific precision. It will also dehumidify the air and reuse any excess water to ensure zero waste.
In conventional agriculture, the amount of water required to produce a kilo of food can vary from about 130 liters (34 gallons) for lettuce, to 3,400 liters (900 gallons) for rice. In contrast, Plantagon says it will only need to use one liter per kilo for its crops.
Energy is also a key issue for indoor urban farms, which have to create artificial sunlight. Although advances in the efficiency of LED lights have helped bring down energy consumption in recent years, plants use only about 1 percent of the artificial light produced. This leads to a colossal waste of energy, most of which disappears as heat.
Plantagon says it will capture around 70 percent of this wasted heat in its 6,500-square-foot basement farm, and pipe it into the heating system of the office block above. Oxygen produced by the plants will be sent to office workers via the building’s air conditioners.
PLANTAGON
The office block which will house Plantagon’s farm.
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“This is the basic way we get interest from real estate developers to rent out their basements or other spaces to us,” says Pettersson.
Indoor urban farms may be proliferating, but the ability to produce affordable food, at scale, and in a manner that is economically viable escapes many in this nascent industry. Plantagon hopes to reverse this trend and turn a profit.
The firm’s recent crowdfunding campaign raised 4.4 million Swedish krona ($559,000) that will help its ambition to install up to nine more urban farms across Stockholm over the next three years. The inaugural farm, which cost about $863,000, was backed by a group of private investors.
Plantagon also has a charitable arm, which owns 10 percent of the business and commits to invest in innovative for-profit companies that seek to address societal challenges. People can invest in “generation shares” in the charity that cannot be cashed for seven generations.
The firm’s confidence that it can be profitable rests in part on reducing expenses, with lower costs for energy and water, and savings on rent. Plantagon has negotiated a three-year, zero-rent deal in exchange for the heating and clean air that its farm provides to the building.
“Most [indoor farming] projects are difficult to make economically viable because they tend to focus only on the technology and the growing. You also need to find a business model that works,” says Pettersson.
Keeping operations hyper-local will help meet that requirement, the startup says. It intends to set up a retail pop-up stall in the foyer of its host building, and sell produce to a local supermarket and nearby restaurants. Its virtually non-existent supply line will keep transport costs to a minimum, while its “ready-to-sell” distribution model will eliminate the need for expensive and wasteful packaging.
Plantagon says its business model answers many of urban farming’s critics, who argue that the approach is energy-intensive and expensive.
Some will never be convinced. For Stan Cox, a U.S. writer and plant breeder, converting sunlight directly or indirectly (via fossil fuels) into electricity to help grow plants is “about as wasteful as a system can be.” Plantagon uses solar energy, but it’s still no replacement for natural sunlight, hardened critics like Cox argue.
As for the venture’s business model, even Pettersson admits that all the pieces of the puzzle have to be in place to stand any chance of success. That limits the model’s scalability, he concedes. “It’s a completely new supply chain model that you need for each project [so] we won’t do these projects just anywhere.”
Nor, as some hope, will hydroponics meet the world’s nutritional needs. While Plantagon has a guarantee from the local supermarket not to sell its products above market rates, thus tackling questions of affordability, its nutritional scope is limited. People cannot live on microgreens alone.
Even if they could, production volumes would fall well short. Expanding the scope of high-tech ventures like Plantagon’s to roof gardens, allotments and other more conventional forms of urban farming would still see cities struggling to feed themselves. As a recent paper published in the Journal of Social Change concludes, agriculture in cities represents a “secondary source of food” at best.
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Packaging Solutions For The Vertical Farmer
Vertical farming is on the rise in big cities around the globe and new growers and distributors are hustling to get into the market. In fact, by 2023, the vertical farming market is expected to reach 6.4 billion U.S. dollars around the world.
Packaging Solutions For The Vertical Farmer
Vertical farming is on the rise in big cities across the globe and new growers and distributors are hustling to get into the market. In fact, by 2023, the vertical farming market is expected to reach 6.4 billion U.S. dollars around the world. One company is poised to back this trend’s growth.
“More produce means more packaging—and that’s where we come in,” says Michael Esposito, Vice President of Orange Packaging, a fully integrated manufacturing facility in Newburgh, New York. With 150,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 10 production lines, the team at Orange Packaging is ready to assist vertical farmers with their packaging needs at a moment’s notice.
I’m so encouraged by the growth of vertical farming across our area,” says Esposito. “The fact that it allows farmers to produce more food using less resources makes it a win in my book. It sounds like a viable, long-term solution and we’d like to help it succeed.”
Orange Packaging’s facility is filled with a diverse array of tools and equipment to meet any packaging need. Their Thermoforming tools have created packaging for every type of grower—from the top produce companies sold at big box retailers to the smaller, local farms you’d find at a local grocery store or farmer’s market.
Orange Packaging also offers a variety of Thermoformed packaging materials like small herb clamshells, bulk lettuce containers, tubs and bins in several different materials like food-grade APET and rPET as well as corn-based PLA.
“Partnering with hard-working business owners is what we do best—and that includes local farmers and growers,” says Esposito. “Let us help you get your product to market. Whether that’s the farmer’s market or the supermarket—we’re here for you!”
Packaging isn’t the company’s only forte. The company also specializes in designing and engineering POP displays and custom molds. The team can even handle fulfillment and has the ability to drop ship anywhere in the world. Their expansive facility allows them to run high-volume orders quickly. They keep stock items on hand that can be purchased immediately, while custom orders can be produced in as little as 3-4 weeks.
For more information or to set up a quote, contact michael@orangepkg.com.