How Vertical Farms Could Be Ready To Take-Off

12-01-2021 | LettUsGROW

Vertical farms with their soil-free, computer-controlled environments may sound like sci-fi, but there is a growing environmental and economic case for them, according to new research laying out radical ways of putting food on our plates.

View fullsize

The interdisciplinary study combining biology and engineering sets down steps towards accelerating the growth of this branch of precision agriculture, including the use of aeroponics which uses nutrient-enriched aerosols in place of soil.

Carried out by the John Innes Centre, the University of Bristol, and the aeroponic technology provider LettUs Grow, the study identifies future research areas needed to accelerate the sustainable growth of vertical farming using aeroponic systems.

Dr. Antony Dodd, a Group Leader at the John Innes Centre and senior author of the study, says: “By bringing fundamental biological insights into the context of the physics of growing plants in an aerosol, we can help the vertical farming business become more productive more quickly while producing healthier food with less environmental impact.”

Jack Farmer, Chief Scientific Officer at LettUs Grow and one of the authors of the study, adds: “Climate change is only going to increase the demand for this technology. Projected changes in regional weather patterns and water availability are likely to impact agricultural productivity soon. Vertical farming offers the ability to grow high-value nutritious crops in a climate-resilient manner all year round, proving a reliable income stream for growers.”

Vertical farming is a type of indoor agriculture where crops are cultivated in stacked systems with water, lighting and nutrient sources carefully controlled.

It is part of a rapidly growing sector supported by artificial intelligence in which machines are taught to manage day to day horticultural tasks. The industry is set to grow annually by 21% by 2025 according to one commercial forecast (Grand View Research, 2019).

Green benefits include better use of space because vertical farms can be sited in urban locations, fewer food miles, isolation from pathogens, reduction in soil degradation and nutrient and water recapturing and recycling.

Vertical farms also allow product consistency, price stabilization, and cultivation at latitudes incompatible with certain crops such as the desert or arctic.

“Vertical systems allow us to extend the latitude range on which crops can be grown on the planet, from the deserts of Dubai to the 4-hour winter days of Iceland. In fact, if you were growing crops on Mars you would need to use this kind of technology because there is no soil,” says Dr Dodd.

The study, which appears in the journal New Phytologist, lays out seven steps – strategic areas of future research needed to underpin increased productivity and sustainability of aeroponic vertical farms.

These seek to understand:

• Why aeroponic cultivation can be more productive than hydroponic or soil cultivation

• The relationship between aeroponic cultivation and 24-hour circadian rhythms of plants

• Root development of a range of crops in aeroponic conditions

• The relationship between aerosol droplet size and deposition and plant performance

• How we can establish frameworks for comparing vertical farming technologies for a range of crops

• How aeroponic methods affect microbial interactions with plant roots

• The nature of recycling of root exudates (fluids secreted by the roots of plants) within the nutrient solutions of closed aeroponic systems

The report argues that a driver of technological innovation in vertical farms is minimising operation costs whilst maximising productivity – and that investment in fundamental biological research has a significant role.

Dr. Dodd’s research area covers circadian rhythms – biological clocks that align plant physiology and molecular processes to the day to day cycle of light and dark. He recently completed a year-long Royal Society Industry Fellowship with LettUs Grow.

This involved combining Dr Dodd’s expertise in circadian rhythms and plant physiology with the work of LettUs Grow’s team of biologists and engineers to design optimal aeroponic cultivation regimens. This is a key area of investigation as these molecular internal timers will perform differently in vertical farms.

Aeroponic platforms are often used to grow high-value crops such as salads, pak choi, herbs, small brassica crops, pea shoots, and bean shoots. LettUs Grow are also working on growth regimens for fruiting and rooting crops such as strawberries and carrots, as well as aeroponic propagation of trees for both fruit and forestry.

John Innes Centre researchers have bred a line of broccoli adapted to grow indoors for a major supermarket and one of the aims of research will be to test how we can genetically tune more crops to grow in the controlled space of vertical farms.

Bethany Eldridge, a researcher at the University of Bristol studying root-environment interactions and first author of the study adds: “Given that 80% of agricultural land worldwide is reported to have moderate or severe erosion, the ability to grow crops in a soilless system with minimal fertilizers and pesticides is advantageous because it provides an opportunity to grow crops in areas facing soil erosion or other environmental issues such as algal blooms in local water bodies that may have been driven by traditional, soil-based, agriculture.”

Lilly Manzoni, Head of Research and Development at LettUs Grow and one of the authors of the study says, “This paper is unique because it is broader than a typical plant research paper, it combines the expertise of engineers, aerosol scientists, plant biologists, and horticulturalists. The wonderful thing about controlled environment agriculture and aeroponics is that it is truly interdisciplinary”

The study ‘Getting to the Roots of Aeroponic Indoor Farming‘ appears in the New Phytologist journal.

Source and Photo Courtesy of LettUsGROW

Crop One Appoints Craig Ratajczyk New Chief Executive Officer

MILLIS, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan 13, 2021

Crop One, an industry-leader in technology-driven indoor vertical farming, today announced it has appointed Craig Ratajczyk as the company’s chief executive officer, effective immediately. Ratajczyk joins Crop One with extensive leadership experience in the agriculture industry and U.S. Navy. Ratajczyk succeeds Dr. Deane Falcone who has served as interim CEO since March 2020; Falcone will continue in his role as Crop One’s Chief Scientific Officer.

View fullsize

“I am thrilled to join Crop One and continue building on its existing success, bringing my global expertise and relationships to the company,” Ratajczyk said of his new position. “We have many exciting milestones ahead and I look forward to working closely with Crop One’s expert employees, stakeholders, and Board to continue growing our business, team, and a global network of partnerships.”

Ratajczyk’s agriculture career has focused on increasing stakeholder value, developing market opportunities, and building key relationships and alliances in the food, feed, and biofuels industries. His previous careers have taken him around the world, contributing tremendously to his leadership and industry expertise. He also brings global strategic acumen acquired from serving 28 years in the U.S. Navy Intelligence community.

“Craig’s energy and enthusiasm are assets that will help Crop One achieve its operational and strategic goals. The board welcomes him to the team,” said Scott Peters, Crop One Board of Directors.

“During this transformative time for Crop One, it’s important that we have not only an astute business leader at the helm, but also someone that understands the intricacies of the agriculture industry,” said Dr. Deane Falcone, Chief Scientific Officer at Crop One. “Craig brings both of those things to the table and we’re looking forward to executing on his vision for the company.”

Ratajczyk received his degree in International Business from Southern Illinois University, a Master of Business Administration from Thunderbird - American Graduate School of International Management and is an alumnus of the Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program (AMP). He is based out of the company’s Millis, Mass. headquarters.

To learn more about Crop One, visit cropone.ag.

About Crop One

Headquartered outside of Boston, Mass., Crop One is a technology-driven indoor vertical farming company on a mission to cultivate a sustainable future to meet global demand for fresh, local food. Through its Plants-First™ approach and industry-leading technology platform, Crop One grows fresh, delicious leafy greens using 95-99% less water than field-grown produce. Because it’s grown in an entirely sealed and controlled indoor environment, growing and harvesting can happen 365 days a year, regardless of the season. Crop One sells its fresh, local produce under the Fresh Box Farms label, available at a variety of retailers across southern New England. The company also has a joint venture with Emirates Flight Catering, a partnership that will result in the construction of the world’s largest vertical farm in Dubai. To learn more about Crop One, visit cropone.ag.

View source version on businesswire.com:https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210113005471/en/

CONTACT: Media

Bristol Rice

Inkhouse for Crop One

+1 617-631-0660

CropOne@Inkhouse.com

KEYWORD: UNITED STATES NORTH AMERICA MASSACHUSETTS

INDUSTRY KEYWORD: FOOD/BEVERAGE AGRICULTURE NATURAL RESOURCES RETAIL SUPERMARKET

SOURCE: Crop One

Copyright Business Wire 2021.

PUB: 01/13/2021 09:30 AM/DISC: 01/13/2021 09:30 AM

http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210113005471/en

USA VIRGINIA: Regional Board Approves Agreement For AeroFarms To Receive $200,000 Grant

View fullsize

John Crane

January 11, 2021

AeroFarms, the company that announced in December 2019  it would bring 92 jobs to the region and invest $42 million over three years, will get a $200,000 state grant if it meets up to a performance agreement approved Monday by the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority. 

The RIFA board unanimously passed a resolution during its meeting Monday to sign a performance agreement with the company for a $200,000 grant from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services. 

View fullsize

Matt Rowe

"They have all intention of moving forward with the project in the near future," said Pittsylvania County Economic Director Matt Rowe. "I think you will see some activity out there soon."

The company plans to build the largest indoor growing facility to date in Cane Creek Centre, a joint industrial park owned by Danville and Pittsylvania County via the Danville-Pittsylvania Regional Industrial Facility Authority.

AeroFarms specializes in chemical-free vertical farming and announced in December 2019 that it plans to bring 92 jobs and invest about $42 million in the Dan River Region over three years. 

The company must meet the jobs and investment goals before it gets the $200,000 from the state’s Agriculture and Forestry Industries Development Fund, Rowe said during an interview with the Danville Register & Bee Monday afternoon. 

"It's guaranteeing to them that if they do those things, they'll get the money," Rowe said. "The company signed the agreement two weeks ago." 

The agreement is among the company, Danville, Pittsylvania County, RIFA, and the state. 

The Newark, New Jersey-based company's process involves growing such crops as leafy green vegetables in stacks at a rate said to be 390 times more productive than field-grown plants. It uses no soil, sunlight or chemicals and takes place indoors, where the environment is brought to the crops.

View fullsize

AeroFarms co-founder and CEO David Rosenberg points to an illustration of what the company’s vertical farming process looks like at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in December 2019. The company announced then that it was bringing 92 jobs and $42 million in investment to Cane Creek Centre. File photo

Vertical growing uses LED lighting and aeroponic mist on leafy greens in stacks that can reach as high as 40 feet. It mists the greens’ roots with nutrients, water, and oxygen, using 95% less water than field farming and 40% less than hydroponics, according to the company’s website.

The Virginia Economic Development Partnership worked with the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Pittsylvania County, Danville, and the Southern Virginia Regional Alliance to secure the project for Virginia.

Incentives for the company include $190,000 in grant money from the Virginia Tobacco Commission, $200,000 from the Governor’s Commonwealth Opportunity Fund, and the $200,000 that's part of the agreement approved by RIFA. 

No money will go to the company until it meets its obligations, Rowe said. 

Rowe said he was not sure when construction would start on the 150,000-square foot building for AeroFarms.

"Given the COVID situation, I don't want to go on the record for a specific time," Rowe said. 

Lead photo: Alina Zolotareva, marketing director and product champion at AeroFarms, offers some of the company’s leafy greens for sampling at the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research in December 2019. The company announced then that it was bringing 92 jobs and $42 million in investment to the Dan River Region. File photo

Tags Grant Aerofarms Rifa Agreement Matt Rowe Economics Agriculture Commerce

Finance Industry Danville And Pittsylvania County Money Danville

How COVID-19 Has Impacted Indoor Farming

View fullsize

January 11, 2021

Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman and Akiko Fujita discuss indoor farming outlook and the plant-based fresh food categories with Viraj Puri, Gotham Greens Co-Founder, and CEO.

View fullsize

To View The Video, Please Click Here.

ZACK GUZMAN: Welcome back to Yahoo Finance LIVE. Of course, 2020 was an interesting year for a lot of startups out there, particularly when it comes to being able to raise capital, as that quickly dried up when the pandemic first hit. But following that, a lot of companies were able to raise new capital to take on some pretty important goals here.

We're going to focus on two, one tied to the reopening of the economy as we continue to-- I don't want to say suffer through online events here, but one Zoom competitor, as well as our next guest here, focused on indoor farming-- a very interesting startup that is trying to challenge some traditional ways of doing things in farming. That would be Gotham Greens, which recently raised $87 million in new investment capital, and we're joined here by the co-founder and CEO of Gotham Greens. Viraj Puri joins us now.

And Viraj, I mean, we've talked about indoor farming for a few years here in the way that it's gained momentum to take on traditional agriculture in perhaps being a way that's more sustainable over the long term. But how have you seen maybe new capital getting put to work here recently as it catches on?

VIRAJ PURI: Absolutely. Well, I think to start with, this pandemic has really underscored the value proposition of more resilient supply chains. And indoor farming can really provide that because one can really farm anywhere, regardless of climate or availability of arable land, et cetera. So in our country, up to 50% of fresh produce is imported, and the balance majority comes from places like California and Arizona on the West Coast, which requires that fresh produce has to travel great distances to reach consumers throughout the country.

Conversely, indoor farming allows one to really grow anywhere, regardless of the climate, regardless of the soil conditions or land, et cetera. So I think when supply chains were really challenged early on this year with the pandemic, it has really revealed some of the benefits of indoor farming. And then, on top of that, sustainability is more of a topic that more consumers and companies care about.

And then on the third, sort of, point is food safety. We've seen more and more incidences of food safety and food safety recalls associated with that over the past decade or so, and indoor farming provides a compelling solution to reduce some of those risks. So as a result, we've seen a lot more capital rush into the space over the last 24 months.

AKIKO FUJITA: When you talk about the reliance that we saw exposed early on, in terms of where the food comes from, in particular states like California or Florida, how do you see the distribution shifting as a result? Indoor farming, of course, inherently means you can farm in any different region here. How have you seen that shift, the distribution channel shift as a result of that?

VIRAJ PURI: Yeah, similar to other sectors, we're seeing more last mile distribution centers, and we're seeing more just-in-time fulfillment, right? So with indoor farming, one can do that. The traditional supply chain is obviously dealing-- it's quite complex. A lot of middlemen, a lot of different actors along the way, and you're dealing with a highly perishable product when it comes to agricultural commodities-- many fresh agricultural commodities, particularly the ones that we grow and sell in market, including lettuce, leafy greens, herbs, things like that.

So this decentralized supply chain allows us to deliver much quicker to retailers. They don't have to place their purchase orders so far out in advance. And then it also allows us to fill those voids on the store shelves, depending on demand and supply with shoppers. So it really also reduces waste, which is a real ill that faces the food supply chain. Almost 50% of fresh produce in our country is thrown away between farm to fork, and we believe that indoor farming systems can really help create that equilibrium between demand and supply, which helps reduce that waste.

AKIKO FUJITA: Viraj, how have you seen your customer base shift? Is it-- is it restaurants that are getting in, that are expanding your base? Is it grocery stores?

VIRAJ PURI: Primarily grocery stores. I think pre-pandemic, it was really both. We did lose some food service business, restaurant business, at the onset of the pandemic, but that was more than made up for by increase in retail sales. Our revenue doubled in 2020, compared to the previous year, and a lot of that is a result of just the supermarkets wanting suppliers that can be more nimble with the supply chain.

And then increasingly, consumers are spending their dollars behind brands that speak to many of their values around ESG, around food safety, around supporting local economies. So those have been some of the factors that have really led to our doubling of our growth this last year, and we're very optimistic about the years ahead, for both our company and the broader indoor farming industry.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, in the broader space discussion, too-- I mean, I know you guys have greenhouses across five states-- New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, Illinois-- but when you think about the push here for more sustainability coming from the incoming administration, how much of that really throws fuels on the fire in terms of growth right now in expectations that there could be more friendly policy around indoor farming? Was that the impetus here to raise new capital, and if so, where do you look to put that to work in the short term?

VIRAJ PURI: I think there was a variety of factors that led to raising this capital, but primarily, it's less about the incoming administration and really more about capturing this opportunity in the marketplace to capture share from incumbents that are facing a lot of headwinds, whether it's climate issues, water issues out west, labor issues due to, sort of, you know, the reliance on migrant farmworkers to harvest and package and process product, along with food safety.

So we had actually put an expansion-- a pretty aggressive expansion plan into place prior to the pandemic, but post-pandemic, we're accelerating that change and using this capital to expand our network of greenhouse facilities across the country. As you pointed out, we currently operate-- we have manufacturing facilities in five states, and we service about 40 states. And our vision in the next few years is to really cover much of the country to truly become a national supply chain solution and consumer brand for consumers around the country.

ZACK GUZMAN: Yeah, it was interesting when you first saw indoor farming kind of taking hold here in the country and always interesting to see how fresh this stuff is in the store when I come across Gotham Greens. But Viraj Puri, I appreciate you coming on here. Co-founder and CEO at Gotham Greens. Thanks again.

Bowery Farming Expands With The Addition of A New Farm

View fullsize

View fullsize

Jan. 6th, 2021

by Melissa De Leon Chavez

NEW BETHLEHEM, PA - If the new year has you thinking about all things bigger and better, you’re not alone. Bowery Farming announced its expansion with a new farm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the company’s largest commercial farm yet.

View fullsize

Irving Fain, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Bowery Farming“

Adding our newest, most sophisticated, smart indoor farm in Bethlehem to our network is a critical next chapter in our growth,” said Founder and CEO Irving Fain. “We’re proud to transform a former industrial site into productive, modern farmland, which will create year-round sustainable farming jobs for the community and expand access to a reliable source of traceable pesticide-free produce across the region.”

The farm, which is the most technologically advanced of Bowery’s farms, features industry-leading improvements like LED lighting that reduces energy consumption and a water transpiration system designed to recapture nearly all of the water from the plants, a press release revealed.

Bowery Farming announced its expansion with a new farm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, the company’s largest commercial farm yet

View fullsize

Bowery is working with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to transform the non-arable industrial site into useful, modern farmland. The grower is also partnering with the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development and Governor’s Action Team to bring the new farm to fruition. Because of its strategic location, the farm will bring local produce to the surrounding population of over 49 million consumers and provide year-round farming jobs.

View fullsize

Tom Wolf, Governor, Pennsylvania (Photo credit: National Governors Association)“

Pennsylvania welcomes Bowery Farming to our commonwealth’s rich and diverse agriculture industry and looks forward to supporting the company’s growth as it reimagines how farming can be more sustainable and impactful on our communities,” said Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf. “Bowery’s expansion will generate new opportunities by establishing this indoor vertical farm, and will create innovative farming practices, new jobs, and a chance to address food insecurity in the Bethlehem area.”

We at AndNowUKnow will keep our eye on the newswire as more and more growers continue to push for expansion in new markets.

Bowery Farming

Packaged Salads Value-Added Bowery Farming Expansion New Farm Farm Technology Water Transpiration System Lighting Sustainability New Jobs Facility Facilities Operation Growth Growing Expand Expanding Irving Fain Tom Wolf

COMPANIES IN THIS STORY

Bowery Farming

At Bowery, we're committed to growing the purest produce possible. To us, that means using zero pesticides and non-GMO...

AppHarvest Hires Impossible Foods’ David Lee As President

Lee brings track record capitalizing on innovative disruption to meet consumer demand

MOREHEAD, Ky., Jan. 7, 2021 – AppHarvest, the leading AgTech company building some of the country’s largest indoor farms and combining conventional agriculture techniques with cutting-edge technology to grow affordable, nutritious fruits and vegetables at scale, has appointed David Lee president, reporting to Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb effective Jan. 25.

In this newly created role, Lee will develop strategy and engage in operations management, leading the sales, marketing and finance functions as AppHarvest continues to grow as a sustainable fresh foods company.

Lee will join AppHarvest from Impossible Foods where he has served as chief financial officer since December 2015. He is credited with significant growth accomplishments at Impossible Foods including securing more than $1.3 billion in funding to accelerate manufacturing, product development and distribution into key national grocery, restaurant, and hospitality venues; and to expand in international markets. Additionally, Lee served as chief operating officer of Impossible Foods from 2015 to 2019, during a period of significant transformation for the company. Lee has served on the board of

directors of AppHarvest since August of 2020 and will continue to serve in that role after the closing of the previously announced business combination of AppHarvest with Novus Capital Corporation (Nasdaq: NOVS).

“David Lee brings decades of experience across retail and consumer industries driving business transformation and optimizing organizational effectiveness from Del Monte to Zynga to Impossible Foods,” said AppHarvest Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb. “His skillset will help us build AppHarvest into an iconic brand and sustainable foods company that disrupts traditional agriculture to deliver responsibly grown American products with social impact,” Webb said.

“AppHarvest offers a unique solution to building a more resilient and responsible food system. I have seen firsthand that when given sustainable options, consumers will be the market force that helps address climate change and food supply issues, ensuring success of companies that are putting the planet first, and I am eager to invest my time in a mission-driven company with so much potential to grow.”

In January, AppHarvest expects to begin the first harvest from its flagship farm – a 60-acre facility growing tomatoes – in Morehead, Ky. The company has two additional facilities under construction – a similar 60-plus acre facility outside Richmond, Ky., and a 15-acre facility to grow leafy greens in Berea, Ky. AppHarvest also is planning for more facilities across Kentucky and Central Appalachia, with nine potential projects in the pipeline through 2025.

AppHarvest grows produce using 100 percent recycled rainwater and zero chemical pesticides. Its indoor farms are designed to use 90 percent less water with yields that are up to 30 times higher compared to traditional open-field agriculture on the same amount of land. Its location in Appalachia allows it to deliver a strong social impact by building a diversified economy in economically distressed areas of the country, while enabling its products to reach about 70 percent of the U.S. population within a single day’s drive. As a result, AppHarvest expects to deliver fresher fruits and vegetables, ripened on the vine for peak flavor and nutrition, and an 80 percent reduction in diesel consumption required for transportation as compared to produce shipped from Mexico and the Southwest of the U.S.

Lee holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from Harvard.

How is AppHarvest different from traditional agriculture companies?

• -  The company’s controlled environment agriculture facilities are designed to reduce water usage

  by 90% due to unique circular irrigation systems connected with large-scale rainwater retention ponds. The system is designed to eliminate harmful agricultural runoff, which contributes to toxic algae blooms.

• -  Strong relationships with leading AgTech universities and companies in the Netherlands position AppHarvest as a leading applied technology agriculture company. The Netherlands has developed a significant high-tech greenhouse industry, becoming the world’s second-largest agricultural exporter despite having a land mass roughly equal in size to Eastern Kentucky. Earlier this year, AppHarvest led a landmark 17-organization agreement uniting Dutch and Kentucky governments, universities, and private companies, with all committing to building America's AgTech capital from within Appalachia.

• -  AppHarvest puts the planet and people first as a registered Benefit Corporation and has also been certified as a B Corp by an independent organization.

  In just over two years, AppHarvest has attracted more than $150 million in investment into Central Appalachia and announced on September 29, 2020, its entry into a definitive agreement for a business combination with publicly-traded special purpose acquisition company Novus Capital Corporation (Nasdaq: NOVS). The combination, which is anticipated to close early in the first quarter of 2021, is expected to provide $475 million of gross proceeds to the company, including $375 million from a fully committed common stock PIPE at $10.00 per share anchored by existing and new investors – including Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, Inclusive Capital, and Novus Capital Corporation. Upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will be named AppHarvest and is expected to remain listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol APPH.

AppHarvest’s investors include Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund, Inclusive Capital Partners, Equilibrium, Narya Capital, Lupa Systems, Breyer Capital and Endeavor Catalyst. Endeavor selected AppHarvest Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb as an Endeavor Entrepreneur in 2019.

Board members include food icon Martha Stewart, Narya Capital Co-Founder and Partner JD Vance and impact investor Jeff Ubben.

About AppHarvest

AppHarvest is an applied technology company building some of the world’s largest indoor farms in Appalachia. The company combines conventional agricultural techniques with cutting-edge technology and is addressing key issues including improving access for all to nutritious food, farming more sustainably, building a home-grown food supply, and increasing investment in Appalachia. The company’s 60-acre Morehead, Ky. facility is among the largest indoor farms in the U.S.

For more information, visit AppHarvest.

Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements included in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “predict,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “future,” “outlook,” and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included in this press release, regarding Novus Capital’s proposed acquisition of AppHarvest, Novus Capital’s ability to consummate the transaction, the benefits of the transaction and the combined company’s future financial performance, as well as the combined company’s growth plans and strategy, future operations, estimated financial position, estimated revenues and losses, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward- looking statements. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of AppHarvest’s management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction, or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of AppHarvest. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in Novus Capital’s registration statement on Form S-4, filed with the SEC on October 9, 2020 (the “Registration Statement”), under the heading “Risk Factors,” and other documents Novus Capital has filed, or will file, with the SEC. If any of these risks materialize or our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect AppHarvest’s expectations, plans, or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. AppHarvest anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause its assessments to change. However, while

AppHarvest may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, AppHarvest specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing AppHarvest’s assessments of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

Important Information for Investors and Stockholders

In connection with the proposed transaction, Novus Capital has filed the Registration Statement with the SEC, which includes a preliminary proxy statement to be distributed to holders of Novus Capital’s common stock in connection with Novus Capital’s solicitation of proxies for the vote by Novus Capital’s stockholders with respect to the proposed transaction and other matters as described in the Registration Statement, as well as the prospectus relating to the offer of securities to be issued to AppHarvest’s stockholders in connection with the proposed transaction. After the Registration Statement has been declared effective, Novus Capital will mail a definitive proxy statement, when available, to its stockholders. Investors and security holders and other interested parties are urged to read the proxy statement/prospectus, any amendments thereto and any other documents filed with the SEC carefully and in their entirety when they become available because they will contain important information about Novus Capital, AppHarvest and the proposed transaction. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the preliminary proxy statement/prospectus and definitive proxy statement/prospectus (when available) and other documents filed with the SEC by Novus Capital through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov, or by directing a request to: Novus Capital Corporation, 8556 Oakmont Lane, Indianapolis, IN 46260. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, the websites referenced in this press release is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this press release.

Participants in the Solicitation

Novus Capital and its directors and officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies of Novus Capital’s shareholders in connection with the proposed business combination. Security holders may obtain more detailed information regarding the names, affiliations and interests of certain of Novus Capital’s executive officers and directors in the solicitation by reading the Registration Statement and other relevant materials filed with the SEC in connection with the business combination when they become available. Information concerning the interests of Novus Capital’s participants in the solicitation, which may, in some cases, be different than those of their stockholders generally, is set forth in the Registration Statement.

"The Push For Urban Farming Solutions Has Only Intensified"

With significant population growth and urbanization both underway and projected across the globe, the push for urban farming solutions has only intensified. The search for innovative solutions has generated many questions surrounding best agricultural practices and how to build a sustainable urban farm.

Agricultural consulting company Agritecture was developed to address exactly those questions. Agritecture was founded in 2011 when its CEO Henry Gordon-Smith began blogging about urban agriculture and subsequently received numerous inquiries from entrepreneurs looking to start urban farms. Within a few years, Agritecture began to officially offer consulting services and quickly built a portfolio.

View fullsize

Sustainable urban farming solutions
“With a mission to empower impact-driven organizations to develop sustainable urban farming solutions, Agritecture focuses on turning business ideas into practical realities,” says Agritecture’s media strategist, Briana Zagami. The breadth of services offered by Agritecture allows the company to meet the needs of entrepreneurs at various project stages.

Ask Agritecture is the company’s entry-level service through which entrepreneurs can schedule a 30-minute phone call with a consultant to discuss economic and technological aspects of the project and recommend future steps. The company also offers premium consulting services, which are “backed by several years of operational data and a team of experienced growers, agricultural engineers, sustainability managers, and marketing experts”, according to Briana. Furthermore, Agritecture uses its feasibility tools to help urban farmers and entrepreneurs obtain real-world financial estimates for a greenhouse or vertical farm project in any location.

Education 
Agricultural education is another cornerstone of Agritecture’s mission, which the company achieves through its Commercial Urban Farming course, which presents best practices in six comprehensive lessons complete with short video modules and additional resources. Agritecture also provides free educational content in the form of its blog, podcast and videos.

The most recent addition to Agritecture’s service offerings is the Agritecture Designer, which was launched in April 2020 and is the world’s first digital platform for the planning of urban farms. According to Briana, “the goal was to take our years of experience as leading industry consultants and translate this into a digital platform to help expedite the planning stage and avoid common pitfalls.”

Future 
In 2020, Agritecture’s digital audience is now comprised of 100,000 + users around the world. The team has consulted on over 120 projects spanning more than 26 companies. When asked how Agritecture has responded in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, Briana explained that “Agritecture reinvented itself in the wake of COVID-19 and offered insights from its learnings to other small businesses and advisory firms that are struggling to find new business. We launched several new online initiatives in April and May to better connect with our audience and saw a nearly 3x increase in inbound consulting requests.”

So how does Agritecture envision the development of urban agriculture? According to Briana, “urban agriculture will continue to grow around the world due to the innovative spirit of farmers and the rising demand for fresh, sustainably-grown products.” With the development of supportive policies and standards in key cities, Agritecture expects that urban agriculture will only continue to grow and push past its niche status.

View fullsize

For more information:
Agritecture
www.agritecture.com

View fullsize

Publication date: Wed 6 Jan 2021

Certhon's First Results of Indoor Strawberries Trial

Martin Veenstra, Indoor Farming specialist at Certhon: “This way of growing strawberries is unique because all grow parameters can be precisely controlled during the entire growth cycle. From start to finish. This ensures optimum quality, yield, and fruit sizes, independent of the growing season. All grown without any pesticides and with a choice of both traditional as well as organic nutrients.”

The Certhon Innovation Centre consists of multiple indoor farms equipped with state of the art systems for LED lighting, climate control, CO2 dosing and irrigation systems which are all managed by Certhon's farm control system. In these farms, many crop trials are conducted for the indoor growing of a wide variety of plants, ranging from leafy greens to many vegetables and soft fruit. We would like to share exciting results of our trials with growing strawberries in our indoor farming system. 

View fullsize

Results
Yields vary off course per strawberry variety, but at least a minimum of 26 up to 30 kg per m² per year with a consistent BRIX of 8 or higher is now available to every grower. Also, fruit sizes are much more consistent compared to open field or even greenhouse growing.

"At Certhon, we focus on the consistent and uniform top quality of the produce with an improved shelf life. In addition to optimizing the yield, we also put a strong emphasis on minimizing the power consumption for lighting and climate control. Also reducing water consumption is a strong focus point."

Martin: “We are continuously improving our trials and see even more potential in the very near future. Besides strawberries, we are also testing with tomatoes, lettuce, and raspberries.” 

View fullsize

For more information:
Certhon
ABC Westland 555
P.O. Box 90
2685 ZH Poeldijk
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 174 22 50 80
Fax: +31 174 22 50 81
www.certhon.com

View fullsize

5 Jan 2021

Greenhouse Villages To Sprout In Metro Manila

Louise Maureen Simeon

12/22/2020

View fullsize

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture will start establishing greenhouse villages in Metro Manila to help ensure a sustainable food supply in the country.

The Agricultural Training Institute (ATI) recently partnered with four barangays in Caloocan and Quezon for the creation of greenhouse villages as part of the urban agriculture program of the government.

Urban agriculture is one of the flagship programs of the Plant Plant Plant initiative of the DA to boost supply amid the pandemic.

Barangays 179 and 180 in Caloocan and barangays Payatas and Tandang Sora in Quezon City will serve as pilot areas for the project.

Under the partnership, ATI will provide funding assistance for the establishment of a greenhouse village per barangay.

This will feature one unit of high greenhouse with an administration office and storage area, one unit of seedling nursery with micro-sprinkler irrigation, and one unit of production area with drip kit irrigation system.

The agreement also calls for 10 sessions of training program from the construction phase until harvest time.

Through this, the DA and ATI aim to showcase doable technologies of protective farming systems.

The partnership also targets to increase the production of vegetables and to make these available in the barangay level throughout the year amid varying weather conditions.

DA’s urban agriculture program has been gaining positive feedback from more institutions as it continues to help stabilize food supply, foster social integration, and protect the environment through eco-friendly methods and innovative gardening methods.

It was launched in April as an immediate response to the food supply disruption due to the pandemic.

Grower To Flexible Packaging

Forward Greens' vertically farmed edible plants packaging was changed twice before finding the best metrics-based sustainable option, an OPP pillow pack.

View fullsize

Rick Lingle |

January 04, 2021

Sometimes the best of intentions doesn’t turn out as expected, which is why the phrase “if at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again” was crafted for those whose persistency pays off.

Taking that to heart was Forward Greens, an indoor “vertical farm” brand in Vancouver, WA, that went from PET clamshell packaging to tetrahedral-shaped oriented polypropylene bags to OPP pillow-pack bags. The final iteration was part of a major rebrand this year that centered on using the most sustainable packaging. Ken Kaneko, the company’s founder, and CEO provides answers regarding the packaging and decision-making process.

How did your sustainable journey begin?

Kaneko: Forward Greens’ process for developing a sustainable packaging solution for our greens started with researching waste stream management with local municipalities to understand how we could integrate with the existing infrastructure. Along with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality and Portland Metro, we ran a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) to understand the impact of production, logistics, and disposal for available packaging options. From this, we learned that material mass was the largest driver in carbon emissions and that most plastics, even compostable ones, are not accepted by the municipalities. After synthesizing all the information, we concluded that flexible plastic packaging demonstrated the lowest material mass and thus the lowest carbon emissions.

View fullsize

Forward Greens

It would be helpful to know more about your products and customers.

Kaneko: Forward Greens currently has 9 products across baby greens and microgreens, all delivered from farm to market within 48 hours of harvest. We’re unique in that it takes about 19 days from seed to market shelf for our baby greens and about 9 days from seed to market shelf for our microgreens.

Our target customer is anyone who is interested in locally grown, healthy greens — to use for salads, as ingredients, or toppings. We hope we attract those who are especially conscious of their impact on the environment, knowing that with our products, customers are not extraneously stressing the planet. That of course includes our packaging, but also in how we grow the plants themselves. Our sustainable indoor farming practices use 95% less water and 99% less land than outdoor agriculture. We skip the use of herbicides, pesticides and fungicides, and use only non-GMO seeds.

Why was the polymer choice made?

Kaneko: When we rebranded to Forward Greens this summer, we shifted from PET clamshell packaging to OPP flexible packaging to better reflect our mission. The OPP film uses 92% less plastic than traditional clamshells, 12 times less plastic, and produces eight times fewer carbon dioxide emissions compared to, for example, a recycled polypropylene tub.

View fullsize

Forward Greens

Comment on the tetrahedral design (seen above).

Kaneko: Forward Greens initially decided to adopt a tetrahedral shape for our packaging to help the product stand out, but also for two primary logistical reasons. First, the tetrahedral shape allows for more volumetric space for the greens with the same amount of plastic material. Second, the tetrahedral shape uniquely helps our greens stay safe and avoid getting crushed throughout the distribution process from farm customer’s plates.

Why didn’t that work and what was behind the change to the pillow pack?

Kaneko: There are a few reasons why Forward Greens decided to switch from the tetrahedral shape to the pillow pack. The primary reason is that retailers merchandise based on existing shelving units, which are often paid for by incumbent or slotted brands. Trying something new in that environment is very difficult, both for new brands and the retailers. Even though Forward Greens did receive initial buy-in from our retailers and staff, when it came time for the new packaging to rollout, it was more complicated to accommodate the new shape on the shelf than expected, so we adopted the pillow pack to streamline that process for everyone involved. 

View fullsize

Forward Greens

Also, we used to be known as West Village Farms, but changed our brand to Forward Greens this summer to better reflect our dedication to sustainable practices and our hope to move the entire industry forward. The packaging change from our clamshells to the tetrahedral packaging shape was part of that brand launch. The most-recent package change from the tetrahedral shape to the pillow pack uses the same look that debuted this summer, but in the pillow-pack shape.

As an indoor farm, Forward Greens is constantly trying to improve yields and reduce production costs. Our recent switch from the tetrahedral packaging design to the pillow pack shape increased our content volume and net weight by 33%.

Talk about the timeframe for these changes.

Kaneko: The process for developing both our new packaging and rebrand as Forward Greens from West Village Farms was a huge undertaking. We began the initial planning and development for the new brand in late 2019. The new packaging and brand officially launched the summer of 2020 in the midst of the pandemic.

Switching from the tetrahedral shape to the pillow pack took about four months.

Can you credit the other companies involved?

Kaneko: We worked with Grady Britton, a Portland, OR-based marketing agency, to develop our new brand and packaging design. We wanted the new look to bring to life what we stand for, so the packaging reflects a love of community, food, and the planet while sparking joy. The new-look is vibrantly colorful, and part of that is because bagged greens is a crowded market. The new brand design stretches accepted notions of produce packaging design while ensuring the product still looks appetizing. The bag also offers a windowed look inside so customers can see how fresh the greens are.

What feedback have you received?

Kaneko: Forward Greens’ customers and retailers appreciated the effort and unique look of the new packaging shape. We may have just been a little bit ahead of the curve for the greens industry with the tetrahedral packaging shape.

What lessons did you learn in the past months?

Kaneko: Brands need to be selective about trying new things at retailer sites. There is a certain speed at which retailers move and it’s very different from the speed at which a company, like Forward Greens, moves. Regardless of the change back to the original pillow pack packaging shape, our fundamental goal is that our packaging has one of the lowest environmental impacts available, all while helping retailers merchandise our greens to the customers who want to buy our products.

TAGS: SUSTAINABLE PRACTICES SUSTAINABILITY EXTRUSION: FILM & SHEET

Who Will Win In Indoor Agriculture?

According to Allison Kopf, CEO of Artemis, there are five ways big players will enter indoor agriculture. "The indoor agriculture (both greenhouse and vertical farming) market is one of the fastest-growing industries. Big companies in agriculture and technology are trying to figure out ways to capitalize on the rapid growth of the industry."

"Artemis, the leading software infrastructure company in the industry, which allows us to have a front-row view of how the industry is growing and what the industry needs," says Allison. "Our market has historically been fragmented, where legacy companies have been growing for decades and new players have emerged more recently with innovative models to stake their ground as market leaders. Most of the growers are trying to displace traditional field-grown commodities and increase domestic (i.e. in their local country) production of fresh produce; and we’re seeing this shift, as well."

Allison says that in the 1990s in the United States, the number of tomatoes consumed grown in greenhouses was negligible. Now, only 20 years later, close to 40% are grown indoors. This shift isn’t just happening with tomatoes, it’s happening with crops best suited for indoor growth, such as lettuce, herbs, cucumbers, peppers, and increasingly berries.

"In this industry, unlike more traditional commodity markets, we have no dominant suppliers (inputs, chemicals, finance, technology) yet. Bigger companies have largely left the market open for smaller specialized companies and startups. But this is about to change. The indoor market has shown it’s a lasting and major component of our agricultural supply chain and someone will enter this market with a goal of winning. So, who will it be?"

"I believe the winner will own one or more of the areas below," says Allison. 

View fullsize

Data
Companies who understand grower workflow, farm financials, operational data, and biological data will have a distinct advantage in the battle for the market. This creates an opportunity for folks like lighting, breeding, climate control, greenhouse manufacturers, lenders, and others.

According to Allison this isn’t just about getting closer to the farmer, it’s also an opportunity to develop technologies faster and to have commercial R&D capacity at your fingertips. "Lighting, for example, is one of the most impactful components for growing indoors. Yet, lighting companies have no access to yield information or quality information from the growers."

With access to on-farm information, lighting can become proactive and intelligent, rather than the PLC technology of the past. Signify and Osram are already leaders in horticultural lighting and are likely in a strong position to start offering intelligent lighting solutions. "Watch out for breeding companies here too. Unfold recently launched with $30m in funding from Bayer to breed indoor crops. I would expect others like Syngenta and Rijk Zwaan to follow with similar initiatives," Allison affirms. 

Finance
There is an estimated $20 billion gap in project finance over the next 3-5 years for greenhouse and vertical farm construction in the United States alone. Agricultural companies who have lending capabilities, like ADM, Bunge, Cargill, Dreyfus, and others will find indoor agriculture opportunities less risky from a growing standpoint than traditional commodity investments. Lenders will need to get comfortable with the relationship-heavy buying market and the lack of offtake contracts in produce but should be able to underwrite with growers who sell to known retailers, like Costco, Walmart, and Target.

"Many growers also have a need for an operating line of credit, often needing to buy in bulk for consumables like seeds, growing media, and chemicals to obtain better pricing. With some buyers, growers face long receivables periods, which also hurt operating cash flow," says Allison.

Ultimately, legacy agriculture companies who lend to agricultural producers will win by creating financial products for the indoor agricultural space and by partnering with the technology producers who can help de-risk the investment. This opportunity will open up billions of dollars in new revenue for someone on a relatively short timeframe.

Traceability
Product recalls and supply chain blind spots hurt everyone in the ecosystem. Bigger agricultural companies have started adding traceability to their strategic plans. Many are testing out blockchain-based technologies. Allison says that others are focused on digital workflow platforms. For the most part, companies haven’t yet figured out how to stretch all the way back to the farmer and this is where the most opportunity lies with indoor agriculture, in particular. 

Because indoor agriculture is more predictable, companies who can track product from input to crop to finished good and all the way through the supply chain will have a critical advantage over others. Retailers like Walmart and Target are making this a priority and have the potential to disrupt their supply chains dramatically with indoor agriculture.

"Let’s say Walmart partnered with indoor producers for 100% of their salad greens, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and berries. While implementing this, they set traceability standards for producers and required compliance with those standards. This would not just ensure safe products that are normally high-risk for consumers, it would also enable stable year-round supply of products (with accurate forecasting) for Walmart and would lay the groundwork to move the needle dramatically on sustainability. This means less food waste, more efficient production, stable year-round products, safer, and more sustainable production," says Allison. 

It’s not just retailers who can set the bar when it comes to traceability. Large technology companies like Schneider Electric who have their technology in the hands of all the components of the supply chain, from grower to retailer, are also in a unique position to offer end-to-end traceability products.

Consumables
Consumables are another exciting opportunity for more traditional players entering the indoor agriculture market. Today, growers buy products from many individual suppliers. This drives the price up and makes reliability difficult. If one supplier is out of a product, growers are forced to buy new untested products or find another supplier on short notice.

Large greenhouse growers are often importing products from other countries and buying in bulk just to try to reduce price. And there’s a severe lack of transparency for both pricing and performance. Because the industry is moving so quickly, growers are left to buy based more on marketing claims than on actual performance.

Allison adds: "Indoor growers spend a lot of money on inputs each year and are willing to do so because quality has a direct impact on pricing. This is a drastically different approach from traditional commodity markets where yield is the prime, if not only, driver for financial performance. Because of this, growers tend to pay a premium for inputs to impact not just yield but quality as well."

Farmer’s Business Network has created a marketplace to solve for exactly this type of challenge in the inputs space. This market is ripe for an offering like this. Large chemical companies like OCP and ICL should also be paying attention to this market as specialty products will likely emerge as one of the largest product categories over the next few years.

Digital workflow
Companies like Trimble, John Deere, Syngenta, and Corteva have started making inroads in digital workflow products. None of the products designed for workflow in the field cover the workflow of indoor agricultures.

"In indoor agriculture, you need to couple the traditional cultivation processes and biology of growing with a manufacturing mindset. In indoor agriculture, the growth times are dramatically shorter than in field, so the challenges are more aligned with a factory. You’re thinking about how to manage space, time, and throughput on a continuous basis. It’s just-in-time inventory management," Allison states. 

Understanding this workflow is critical to all of the other items listed above. This is what drives proper data collection, ensures traceability, and enables models like financing or a consumables marketplace. Companies who have a deep understanding of inventory management, like NetSuite, Sage, SAP, and Microsoft might do well capitalizing on this new industry. Other agricultural companies who also work in the construction and manufacturing space, like Trimble, might also win here.

View fullsize

For more information:
Artemis 
Nathalia Delima
ndelima@artemisag.com 
www.artemisag.com 

View fullsize

Publication date: Mon 4 Jan 2021
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com

Université de Sherbrooke Students Create Greener Greenhouse

Off-Grid VG360 Greenhouse Project Can Feed

A Family of Four For A Year

View fullsize

Spencer Van Dyk · CBC News · Dec 28, 2020

Three engineering students at l'Université de Sherbrooke spent three years designing and building their perfect greenhouse.

They set out to build a smart green building, which would be entirely off-grid, and a model for future construction projects, while also promoting food autonomy.  

The three-by-six-meter structure — called VG360 — is made of cedar, with an inclined south-facing window wall, solar panels, and a red metal roof. 

And it does not need a power source. 

"We believe it is possible to build greenhouses — and other houses — using less power," said Valerie Pouliot, one of the students on the project. "We want to build green to be better for the environment." 

View fullsize

The angled south-facing window wall is designed to bring heat from the sun into the greenhouse, while thick insulated walls keep it in, so the structure can stay warm throughout the cold winter months. (Spencer Van Dyk/CBC)

The team started by excavating five feet into the ground, and then added insulation using rocks and sand, essentially creating an underground cooler, into which the greenhouse will pump hot air, explained building engineering student Raphael Boisjoly-Sallafranque.

The double-beamed walls and roof each have more than a foot of insulation, so all the heat that's brought into the building thanks to the window and solar panels will stay inside, keeping the greenhouse warm during the cold winter months. 

"It's gonna be our first test winter, so we're gonna be able to see the performance of it," Boisjoly-Sallafranque said. "Which is why we haven't released the plans yet, because we want to make sure the concept is viable."

The solar panels generate electricity, which can be stored and used for at least three days in the event of inclement weather, Pouliot explained. 

"Just with the sun coming in, you can do all that, so it's not harder than being aligned with the sunlight," she said.

A hot air collector near the ceiling of the greenhouse will then push all the hot air down into the soil, where all the plants will grow directly in the ground.

View fullsize

Building engineering student Raphael Boisjoly-Sallafranque says the greenhouse's battery acts as its grid, and it stores energy in the event of inclement weather. (Spencer Van Dyk/CBC)

The group intends to release the plans for the greenhouse, including the structure itself and the technology, via open-source, so anyone can have access to it. 

The prototype, which was built over four months this summer at a farm in Durham-Sud, 50 kilometres northwest of Sherbrooke, cost about $25,000. 

But Pouliot says future builds will cost less because anyone hoping to have their own off-grid greenhouse wouldn't have the same data collecting costs the students had. 

She said especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, people seem to be working toward being more self-sufficient and sustainable, and she thinks an off-grid greenhouse aligns with those goals. 

View fullsize

The greenhouse's mechanical system, which includes its solar panel controls, battery, and a pump to send hot air into the soil to help plants grow. (Spencer Van Dyk/CBC)

While energy-efficient buildings are fairly common, the team wanted the food security and food autonomy elements of the project highlighted. 

"Our grid is like the battery system, so it's like a typical off-grid with a battery bank system," Boisjoly-Sallafranque said. "There are a bunch already out there, but the thing is to put it inside of a greenhouse."

The team plans to get seeds in the ground in the next few weeks and will spend the winter months tracking the greenhouse's efficiency.

"Now it's the hard part, and the fun part for myself, particularly because I love the control world and the data collecting part of this," Boisjoly-Sallafranque said. 

The students hope to release the open-source plans by late Spring 2021. 

Lead photo: CBC's Journalistic Standards and Practices|About CBC News

Agtech Attracts Celebrities

View fullsize

January 3, 2021

Amy Wu Contributor

Forbes Women

I report and write about food, farms, and farm tech.

Food and farming are attracting celebrity investment including from Meghan Markle, Oprah, and Katy Perry to name a few.

While food and farming are increasingly in the limelight in part driven by the pandemic. COVID-19 has catapulted food and farming to the forefront of the minds of ordinary folks who have had first-hand experiences related to food shortage, food supply, and food safety surfaced.

Now the sector has piqued the interest of investors too including celebrities. 

In 2020 there was a steady stream of investments in a sector that has traditionally struggled to attract investors especially venture capitalists who seek fast returns.

Agtech has seen robust investment in recent years. Growers are increasingly seeking solutions for challenges including a severe labor shortage and water and land management issues, and open to adopting innovations that increase yield and efficiency.

A growing number of investors are also banking on companies that support sustainability and promote conservation. In 2020, venture capitalists invested $4 billion in startups in the agtech space, according to Crunchbase a research company. This is up significantly from the $2.8 billion that venture capital investors placed in agtech startups across the globe in 2019. 

Little surprise that public figures are jumping on the bandwagon too.

“Celebrities have access to tech thought leaders and see what they are excited about and want to be in on the new trend,” says Jaleh Daie an entrepreneur and seed investor with a focus on agtech. Daie observes that the agrifood tech sector is climbing and has yet to see its peak.

Pam Marrone, the founder of Marrone Bio Innovations and investor in agtech start-ups, notes: “More than ever, consumers care about how their food is produced and processed. Celebrities are tuned into this trend and see that they can help shift us along to a more transparent and sustainable food system that reduces food waste and improves people’s health.”

Below are a few high profile investments by household personalities in 2020:

Meghan Markle invested in Clevr Brands a Santa Barbara, California-based company that specializes in instant oat milk latte. The company, led by CEO and founder Hannah Mendoza, asserts that its products are green-friendly and ethically sourced.

View fullsize

Meghan Markle (Photo by Max Mumby/Indigo/Getty Images)

Oprah Winfrey and Katy Perry invested in Apeel Sciences a California-based foodtech company that produces coasting for fruit that is edible. Among her various properties, Winfrey also owns and lives on a farm.

Perry, Serena Williams, and Jay-Z invested in Impossible Foods a company in Redwood City, California that develops plant-based substitutes in lieu of meat.   

Finally, tech magnates Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft, and Eric Schmidt the former CEO of Google have been expanding their investment in agtech. In 2020 Microsoft announced that it had launched Azure, a suite of tch tools and resources to help agtech start-ups in India. The Schmidt Family Foundation made food and agriculture one of the four areas of investment.  

View fullsize

A visitor takes a picture of vegetables growing under artificial light on a Grow Stack vertical farm at the 2019 RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London on May 20, 2019. (Photo by Daniel Leal-Olivas/AFP via Getty Images)

Coming in 2021

Marrone forecasts that agtech and food tech will continue gaining momentum in 2021 when it comes to interest and investment. Consumers are becoming more focused on eating healthier and interested in where their food comes from. On a global scale, there is a growing interest in food supply chain transparency through blockchain technology.

Vertical farms and indoor agriculture, plant-based protein substitutes, and companies tackling food waste attract significant attention.

“There is a burgeoning startup ecosystem of B2B agbio and agtech companies getting funded that are focusing on tackling the problems and inefficiencies of chemical fertilizers and pesticides,” Marrone says.

Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

View fullsize

Amy Wu

I am award-winning writer and documentary filmmaker for the women’s ag and agtech movement, and previously covered agriculture for The Californian in Salinas, Calif. I am also the founder of From Farms to Incubators, an online platform that profiles minority women entrepreneurs in agtech and includes an award-winning documentary that has screened at SXSW and Techonomy. I have over 24 years of experience working as an investigative journalist including at Time magazine, the USA Today Network, and The Deal. I earned my master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. 

Lead photo: FUJI CITY, JAPAN - A worker inspects lettuce plants at the hi-tech Innovatus farm. Sensors collect information on all the factors that affect the development of plants. (Photo by Jonas Gratzer/LightRocket via Getty Images)

VIDEO: IRELAND: Could Vertical Farming Help Avoid Brexit Supply Issues?

View fullsize

11 Dec 2020

By Fran McNulty

Agriculture & Consumer Affairs Correspondent

Ireland's network of disused mushroom houses could be the ideal infrastructure to develop a hydroponic farm system which could, in turn, reduce our dependence on imports of herbs, salads, and small greens.

Hydroponic farming uses water rather than soil to grow plants.

It uses much less water than conventional growing, a tiny amount of space, and is immune from adverse weather conditions because it is indoors.

One farm in Tipperary has started the transition. Near Ballyporeen, one of eight mushroom tunnels is now converted into a vertical farm.

Brian O’Reilly had been growing mushrooms for almost two decades, but tight margins and anxiety over the potential impact of Brexit made him change course.

"The risks were too high so we decided to step back. Tighter margins were number one and Brexit was the number two reason, and labour was a problem too," he said.

Now, he has turned to basil. His first crop will be harvested in the coming days and will be sold into the catering industry.

Mr. O'Reilly said the process of growing herbs and small greens is similar to mushrooms. There is a cycle and within 32 days from planting a seed, the basil is finished.

It is grown in tiny pods on shelves with the roots stretching down to nutrient-rich water. Bright LED lights encourage the growth, as does hot air blowing into the tunnel.

A wind turbine nearby generates the electricity and a hot humid house means the plant thrives. But the lights are also powered down for hours in order to let the plants sleep.

It looks a million miles from any conventional farm. The tunnel is filled with rows of white plastic shelves, with tiny holes through which the plants appear. Water is circulating under the shelves and overhead there are strips of lighting; white, red, and blue.

It is bright and humid with the constant hum of air being pumped in and there is a gentle trickle of water flowing through the system.

Farmony, an Irish technology company, has developed the technology being used in Ballyporeen.

It has built farms in several countries and said the system could make Ireland self-sufficient in herbs and small greens within a few years.

Farmony's John Paul Prior said the range of plants that can be grown is vast and goes way beyond herbs.

He said: "In Ireland, we grow between May and September/October. Imagine if you could recreate that perfect summer's day all-year-round.

"That is what we are doing with controlled environment farming, so we could come close to self-sufficient with all your leafy greens, all your microgreens, and all your herbs."

Ireland imports the vast bulk of those products and the development offers a huge opportunity to expand the horticulture sector in Ireland.

It is environmentally positive too. If mushroom houses are used, it is utilizing something that has limited suitability for anything else. Farmony claims that the system uses 90% less water than conventional farming methods and is pesticide-free too.

The tunnel in Ballyporeen is part-funded by the Department of Agriculture as a pilot project and Mr O'Reilly is already testing crops other than basil.

"We are growing microgreens, peashoots and coriander at the moment. We are experimenting with them, we can change our model at any time and grow to what the customer wants," he said.

"When you think of it, this basil which we are growing would normally be imported, sometimes from thousands of miles away, from Morocco, Kenya, Israel, Spain or the UK. We are replacing that. The food miles are being dramatically reduced and we can do it without worrying about the weather outside."

Abandoned mushroom farms are dotted all over the country. There were more than 400 growers at one point, now there are just a few dozen. It is a tight margin business, which is dominated by a few companies and is almost entirely export-dependent.

Last year, Ireland exported €102m worth of mushrooms. Up to September this year, we exported more than €82m worth of mushrooms.

Any delays at ports after Brexit could have a huge impact on delivering fresh product to supermarkets in the UK. The possible imposition of tariffs is also an issue.

The Government wants to expand Ireland's horticultural offering. It is lower-emitting than sectors such as beef and dairy and there is huge scope for expansion.

Often, our climate is an issue. We have a shorter growing season than other countries and they can also offer scale and a cheaper cost base.

There are some areas of Ireland that grow high-quality vegetables, but it is a sector in decline over recent years.

The dominance of the big multiples as the primary buyers has tightened margins and many growers complain that the sector is controlled by too few buyers. Up to September this year, Ireland imported €146m worth of vegetables alone.

Its dependence on UK imports of potatoes and other vegetables could be a problem after Brexit, but it is something which the sector is aware of.

Farmony hopes that developing a network of vertical farms could dramatically reduce our food miles, reduce reliance on imports, and also create jobs and revitalize a declining sector.

Lead photo: Hydroponic farming uses water rather than soil to grow plants

The Salad Days of AI

Nidhi Jain has never had much luck growing plants. "I've tried to work with plants, but they didn't want to work with me," said the senior computer science major from California. "So I've stuck to succulents."

Green thumb or no, Jain and her classmates in the School of Computer Science's "Autonomous Agents" course this fall-applied their knowledge of artificial intelligence, including machine learning and computer vision, to grow lettuces and radishes in small, automated greenhouses. Without ever seeing or touching their plants in person, they worked in groups of three to nurture their sprouts, writing programs that made all of the decisions on adjusting light, humidity, and soil moisture based on sensor data.

Reid Simmons, who teaches the course with Stephanie Rosenthal, said using AI to grow vegetables is a good way for students to put the knowledge of AI-based autonomous agents that they learned in class into practice. Agents have applications in many areas, such as self-driving cars, intelligent factories and smart homes. Another — automated greenhouses — proved a good match to the need for a course exercise. 

View fullsize

The autonomous farm

"We wanted something that was physical, that would have to interact with the environment," explained Simmons, a research professor in the Robotics Institute and Computer Science Department (CSD) who directs SCS's undergraduate AI degree program. And they wanted these agents to run for two weeks at a time. "Most of the alternatives were robots and the likelihood that a robot would work for two weeks was very low." 

Plants grow — and die — slowly, so they don't provide the immediate, dramatic feedback of, say, a robot running into a wall. But students said they nevertheless learned a lot about the pitfalls of autonomous agents during the two growing periods during the semester.

"Deployment isn't as easy as you think," said Vicky Zeng, a senior artificial intelligence major from Singapore. The autonomous agents receive input from temperature, humidity, soil moisture, and light sensors, which they interpret to make adjustments on light, watering, and fan operation. Faulty soil moisture sensors, however, plagued all of the teams, resulting in plants going without needed water. "Even if your agent is running fine, it can end up making poor decisions if it's getting bad sensor data," she said.

"Some of what they're learning is that relying only on your sensor values can be problematic," said Rosenthal, an assistant teaching professor in CSD. During the second growing period, she noted, moisture sensors showed there was plenty of water in the soil despite most teams never having watered, "but after a week we know the plants probably need water." In that case, the students were allowed to make a one-time adjustment to prevent all their plants from dying.

Autonomous agents thus must be designed to cope with errors, Zeng said. More than that, "we can't be waiting to see errors; we have to have methods for predicting errors. Sometimes things are out of your control but you try to prevent them from getting into that state." One solution: setting a maximum number of days that the plants can go without watering. 

View fullsize

The harvest

Arthur Dzieniszewski, a senior computer science major from New Jersey, comes from a family of gardeners and was immediately intrigued by the "Autonomous Agents" course when he heard about it. Many courses in computer science are heavy on theory, so having a course grounded by growing plants makes it more interesting and relatable, he said. 

Overall, the teams had great success in the two growing periods. Though they were graded based on the first two weeks of growth, Simmons and Rosenthal allowed the plants to grow an extra two weeks so they had a chance to grow big enough for harvesting.

The vegetable-growing exercise proved popular with the students, Rosenthal said, and several chose to take the course, in part, because of it. Dzieniszewski has even created his own automated greenhouse that is functionally equivalent to what the class used. Though he doesn't have any plants growing yet, he can control the greenhouse remotely and use an autonomous agent to run it.

After each growing period, the teams would make presentations to the class, summarizing their experiences and lessons learned. Jain said this was one of her favorite parts of the class. Another highlight, she said, was when Simmons harvested some of the vegetables from the first growing period and ate the radishes during class.

"This was really exciting because I was finally able to have some success at growing some plants," Jain added.

View fullsize

For more information:
Carnegie Mellon University
www.cmu.edu 

View fullsize

21 Dec 2020

Horticultural Glass Price Doubles From Growth In Solar Market

Since September, the price of horticultural glass has changed dramatically. “The glass price has been almost stable for ten years, it only drops a little bit year after year. Yet a couple of months ago, the price almost doubled,” says Michael Lee with Planti. “It’s bad news for everybody, not in the least for growers and builders.” The cause for the price change is the high demand for low-iron glass from the solar industry.
 
Low-iron glass is a type of glass with – the name might give it away – very low amounts of iron, meaning that it is much clearer than glass with a high iron rate. This type of glass is highly in demand for greenhouses and is also being used in the solar industry.

“This summer the solar business in China developed a lot. It’s a very volatile market usually, but since this summer it has been a strong market, meaning that solar manufacturers are buying a lot of glass for their future business. Many factories like ours, have seen orders from solar panel buyers. The demand for the raw goods is high, and so is the pressure on the factories,” Michael explains. Planii solely serves the horticultural market and does not focus on the solar business. “But since solar panels come in a fixed size and are much easier and quicker to produce, suppliers can make more profit by delivering glass for them, instead of growers. There’s a big shortage of glass in the market.”

View fullsize

The higher price has an effect on greenhouse builders and on growers, depending on whether the price is enclosed in their services or whether they made a fixed price. “Then also we used to deliver glass within a month when we had an order, but due to the pressure on the market the delivery time is higher now: two months or even more.” And it’s not the end of the story. Also, the price of shipping has increased. “Shipping costs from China to Ontario have been stable for many years, yet on top of everything also these costs are higher than before. With a 50% increase, it’s a big issue with great effect on the project prices.”
 
It’s another unexpected trend that Planti, a relatively young company, is dealing with. Starting in 2017 with HPS and LED lights and expanding rapidly in horticultural glass, the company has seen fast growth. Although they started with the lights as their core business, the horticultural glass now is the majority of the business. “Although last year we delivered more than 10,000 sets of HPS lights in Middle Asia – another reason for the growth we’re enduring,” Michael says. “Yet the demand for horticultural glass rises even faster.” 
 
“We see that diffused glass is being used on every market. Before mainly America and Europe opted for it, nowadays we also send it to Saudi Arabia. Growers all over the world are buying diffused glass instead of clear glass. Then also more growers opt for high haze instead of low haze,” Michael says.

View fullsize

In Europe, most growers buy medium haze, but in the rest of the world, they go for 70% haze, which is a high haze. “Once they’ve made up their mind about the benefits of diffused glass, they want the high diffusion and the higher the haze, the more the light is diffused. This is good for the crops, for the plants to grow in a uniform way – both in flowers and vegetables.”
 
2020 has of course been challenging for the company as well – both in terms of production and in terms of logistics, yet fortunately, the delays caused by COVID were overcome over the summer. In order to help more growers, the company has decided to keep their focus solely on the horticultural industry, not supplying glass to the solar business. “It’s a stable business. Of course, this market provides challenges, but that’s why we work hard – to deal with these challenges”, Michael says. “We’re working hard to develop the market and believe this is possible since we have more orders every year.”

Yet despite their dedication to the greenhouse industry, they are still dealing with the higher prices for raw materials and pressure on the market. “Horticultural glass is difficult to make, whereas solar glass is easier since it’s a fixed size. Robots can be used to produce glass for solar panels, so nowadays many glass factories are expanding their production. It will take two to three months to start a new line and another two before it runs smoothly, meaning that the prices will stay high until summer next year.”

View fullsize

For more information:
Planti
info@plantiinc.com 
www.plantiinc.com 

View fullsize

Publication date: Wed 23 Dec 2020
Author: Arlette Sijmonsma
© HortiDaily.com

OUR NEW FUTURE: German Firm Says Indoor Vertical Farm in Singapore Will Produce 1.5 Tons of ‘Leafy Greens’ Every Day

stock photo/ @rebecca_lee_creative

KEY POINTS

• Henner Schwarz, CEO of German firm &ever, said that his company’s new indoor vertical farm in Singapore will produce 1.5 tons of “leafy green” produce per day.

• Schwarz said he expects produce from his firm’s new research and development facility in Changi will reach a lot of Singaporeans over time and “make a small contribution to food security in Singapore.”

• &ever already has an operational indoor farm in Kuwait, which has become a testing ground for indoor vertical farming.



The boss of German firm &ever has said that his company’s new indoor vertical farm in Singapore will produce 1.5 tons of “leafy green” produce every day when it is up and running in the fourth quarter of next year.

Henner Schwarz, Chief Executive Officer at &ever, told CNBC on Monday that he expects produce from his firm’s new research and development facility in Changi will reach a lot of Singaporeans over time and “make a small contribution to food security in Singapore.”

The company, which competes with more conventional food producers, sells living plants to customers that can then be harvested at home as and when they’re needed. As a result, it tastes better and fresher, Schwarz said.

Schwarz said Singapore is “not the easiest market for indoor vertical farming” as electricity is fairly expensive and there are “lots of cheap imports.”

However, &ever has been awarded a grant by the Singapore government, which decided to speed up plans to increase locally produced food after seeing how the coronavirus pandemic impacted food supplies.

Singapore’s land scarcity makes conventional farming a real challenge and the country is keen to embrace solutions that don’t have a large footprint.

In terms of price, Schwarz said: “We think that we’re pricing our products similar to existing premium organic produce that you can find on the Singapore market today.”

He added: “The price point for indoor vertical farming products in many markets in the world, for example in the U.S., is very expensive. Our system is really geared towards making a meaningful contribution and we have taken quite some time to get things right, and to have the most energy efficient solution on the market.”

In order to reduce energy consumption at its Singapore site, &ever plans to use a combination of sunlight capture systems and LED lights. It is teaming up with lighting producer Signify to carry out a number of experiments.

Wikimedia | Valcenteu

Kuwait farm

&ever already has an operational indoor farm in Kuwait, which has become a testing ground for indoor vertical farming as it has similar, but different food security issues.

“We launched our farm in Kuwait just when Covid really hit in March,” said Schwarz. “It has been quite difficult to ramp production capacity up. However, the reception in the market has really been great thus far, and the Kuwaiti people really like our produce.”

When it comes to farming, access to fresh water is a problem in many areas of the world. “We need 95% less fresh water than traditional farms,” said Schwarz.

He added: “We expect that over time, as our efficiency becomes better and better, the price points can become lower and lower.”

Sam Shead@SAM_L_SHEAD

PUBLISHED TUE, DEC 22 2020 - 2:11 AM EST | UPDATED TUE, DEC 22 2020 - 2:12 AM EST

10 Ways Square Roots’ Farm-Tech Platform Empowers The Next Generation of Farmers

Square Roots is building a distributed network of indoor, modular farms, farmed by a new generation of farmers, to grow local food for people in cities all over the world. Here’s why it’s working.

Square Roots Super Farms are scalable, resilient and smart, and can be built fast. (Image: Via Chicago Architects + Diseñadores)

Square Roots’ scalable “farmer-first” platform brings fresh, healthy food to urban areas year-round, while simultaneously training future generations of farmers. With production farms in Brooklyn, New York, and Grand Rapids, Michigan (with more to come in 2020!), Square Roots has a mission to bring local, real food to people in cities across the world while empowering the next generation of leaders in urban farming.

Whether we’re in the farms tweaking CO2 levels, or in a board meeting plotting a pathway for what the company looks like in 2050, every decision we make is guided to help us achieve our mission faster, smarter, and with as much impact as possible.

Choices we’ve made around our technology platform are a good illustration of that. Our platform needs to bring fresh, healthy food to urban areas year-round, consistently, sustainability, and on any continent in the world. At the same time, it must also be a welcoming environment, conducive to training future generations of farmers to be productive, fast.

Central to our platform is the decision we made very early in the company’s life to build a distributed network of modular Climate Containers, as opposed to following the plant factory template.

Inside a Square Roots Climate Container, data-empowered farmers work with optimum growing conditions, all year round.

There are a lot of smart people in this industry, many with different visions for the optimum architecture and model for indoor farming (e.g. plant factories). But all working hard to bring better food to market — which, given our wider vision to bring real food to everyone, is wonderful to see. The more of us working on the real food revolution the better — and we want all of these systems to flourish. But here are 10 reasons why we think container farming rocks:

1. Speed to Market

Today we can enter a new market and open a Square Roots “Super Farm” — with 25 Climate Containers, cold storage, biosecurity infrastructure, and everything else you need to run a food-safe farm at scale — in less than three months, like we did in partnership with Gordon Food Service last Fall. That time period is only coming down. In comparison, building a plant factory can cost tens of millions of dollars, as well as take years to construct. We want to get real food to more people, and fast!

2. Easy to Scale

To meet increasing market demand, we simply add Climate Containers to any existing deployment. This means just-in-time capital deployment, and also just-in-time technology deployment. This is really important in an industry where the technology is improving fast. You don’t want to spend years and millions to open a big farm full of old tech that immediately needs a refresh.

3. Climate Control

I was an early investor in Chicago’s Farmed Here, one of the first and largest plant factories in the US. There, I saw first-hand how much the team struggled to control the climate in a building that size. Plants don’t like it when you get it wrong. And neither do landlords — the humidity can wreak havoc with the underlying infrastructure. In our programmable Climate Containers, each one built inside a 320 square foot shipping container, optimum conditions for a variety of crops can easily be maintained. The perfect climate for each variety can be seamlessly replicated — in any market — to ensure consistent quality every time, at every harvest.

Alyssa Patton, Square Roots Next-Gen Farmer, harvesting fresh, local basil inside a Climate Container in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

4. Diversity of Products

Multiple containers on our Super Farms allow for multiple climates, which lets us grow multiple crops at the same time to satisfy local market demands. For example, basil requires a completely different climate than chives to grow well, so it’s practically impossible to grow these two products together in a way that tastes good if you have a giant farm with one mono climate. The ability to grow multiple quality SKUs is particularly important in the retail market, where product variety is key to getting shelf real estate. Having multiple climates also means we can tackle many niches in any local market (e.g. using one container on a Super Farm to grow something exotic like Shiso or Mustard Greens), giving us a lot of business flexibility while keeping things interesting for our teams of farmers.

5. Sustainable Systems

As with most hydroponic growers, Square Roots uses zero pesticides, and 90% less water than outdoor farms. We can also be clever about energy usage. For example, we make it “daytime” in the farm by turning on our grow lights overnight when there is excess energy in the grid, and the cost per kilowatt-hour is lower. However, if for some reason we need to be in the farms during “daytime,” we can put a Climate Container into “harvest mode” — which dims the lights, and configures the climate to be optimum conditions for people at work — before seamlessly switching back to plant growing mode once we’re done.

6. Location

Our modular architecture means we can be very creative in repurposing existing city infrastructure when we look for locations to build a farm. We can pop up on an empty parking lot like we did in Brooklyn, New York, or build a campus on the headquarters of a major distribution company like we did with Gordon Food Service, or even build into a new development. This flexibility means we can build our Super Farms literally in the same zip code as the end consumer. This means fresher and tastier products for the customer, fewer food miles (most industrial food is shipped in from the other side of the world!), and less food waste. It also helps to get consumers more connected to their food and the people who grow it — they can simply jump on a subway or in their car, and come visit one of our farms!

7. Food Safety and System Resilience

All indoor farms need to be prepared for bad things to happen. While there is way less risk in a controlled environment versus an outdoor farm, it’s inevitable that you will get some sort of pest outbreak, powdery mildew, or some other issue at some point while you’re managing a complex ecosystem full of living, breathing plants. If that ever should happen in one of our Climate Containers, we can quickly shut it down and reboot that single node while the rest of the network keeps going strong. I’ve seen this happen in a plant factory, with one big mono climate, and you lose all your crops.

8. Faster Learning

Our farms are cloud-connected, and we collect millions of data points that we analyze to determine how changes in certain environmental parameters can impact factors like yield, taste, and texture of the final product. More climates in more containers means more feedback loops, which means faster learning. To systematize this learning, we’ve built The Square Roots Farmer Toolbelt — a software which is now the OS for the whole company as we all learn faster together.

9. The Network Gets Smarter as it Scales

Square Roots’ cloud-connected farms and data-empowered farmers learn from each other, enabling us to replicate success from one location to another, seamlessly. Working with Gordon Food Service to build farms across their network of distribution centers and retail stores brings us closer to the vision of a distributed network of indoor farms, bringing local, real food to people in cities across the world—while empowering thousands of next-gen leaders in urban farming through our unique training program.

10. Sense of Responsibility

Perhaps this is unique to Square Roots and our Next-Gen Farmer Training Program, but because we grow in modular Climate Containers, we’re able to give all our young farmers a personalized understanding of their individual impact on the overall business. The Square Roots Farmer Toolbelt provides day-to-day instructions on a per-farmer and per-crop basis, as well as a means for data capture, and real time analysis of both plant health and business metrics. All this information is accessible from the tablets that everyone on our farm team carries everyday. This system also ensures that we track every aspect of production — who does what, when, and how, from seed to sales. This is a goldmine of data, that not only helps us improve operations, but also implicitly provides traceability. In December 2018, we started exposing this data to consumers in the form of our Transparency Timeline. On every package of Square Roots produce, you can simply scan a QR code and get a complete story of where your food comes from — seed to shelf.

Simply scan the QR code on every Square Roots package to see where your food comes from.

Our Super Farm platform is exciting in terms of scalability, resilience, and efficiency, and it’s a really wonderful environment for our farmers to farm in. For urban consumers it means local farmers growing your food with love — which is why it tastes absolutely delicious. And technology enables us to grow a ton of food in a very small area, in ways that make a lot of business sense too. It’s a classic example of “doing well by doing good”.

It has been an exciting journey to our Super Farm platform. When we launched Square Roots back in 2016, we were very focused on figuring out the Farmer Training Program model — as we knew that farmers bring love to the food, the program would create enormous impact over time, and it would also be a long term engine of growth. So we partnered with a number of 3rd parties who could provide parts of the growing system for us, while we got the training program right. (In many ways, that was like Tesla sourcing our chassis from Lotus for the first Roadster). After that initial phase, and finding out what the urban farming world needs — i.e. higher quality yields with much lower costs to drive scalable unit economics, and ultra-high standards of biosecurity to support operations that are first class in food safety—we have developed our own technology specifically tailored to our model. This enables us to grow local food at incredible scale in ways that make sense for people, planet, and profits.

Our partnership with Gordon Food Service was announced at the end of March 2019, and our first co-located farm opened just six months later in Grand Rapids, Michigan — marking our next step of bringing local food to people in cities all across North America while training thousands of future farmers. Which, in a neat and circular way, brings us right back to the mission statement we started this post with.

Of course, we still have lots of work to do and we have a lot of exciting announcements coming this year as we grow! And, we’re always looking to talk with great people — from hardware and software engineers to farmers and plant scientists. So feel free to check our website and get in touch.

This article was originally published on the Indoor Ag-Con blog by Kimbal Musk on March 4, 2020.

Published by Dani Kliegerman for iGrow News

Agrifood Tech Firms Are Flocking To Singapore, With Perfect Day The Latest To Land

View fullsize

December 20, 2020

Jack Ellis

US alt-dairy startup Perfect Day revealed today that it will set up an R&D facility in Singapore, with the city-state’s minister for trade and industry predicting “many other companies” will be joining it to take advantage of the growing agrifood tech ecosystem there.

View fullsize

A*STAR's headquarters in Singapore. Image credit: A*STAR

California-based Perfect Day is establishing the joint R&D center in collaboration with Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology, and Research (A*STAR.)

This center will bring together A*STAR’s expertise in areas such as taste analytics, cell biology, and protein biotech. The aim of the collaboration is to “build analytical platforms to characterize and quantify the key components in dairy food products that provide their distinctive taste and feel,” the startup said in a statement.

Founded in 2014, Perfect Day produces ‘animal-free’ dairy products using microflora to ferment sugars to create the same proteins, casein, and whey present in animal milk.

The startup is just the latest international agrifood tech company to set up shop in Singapore.

Invest with Impact. Click here.

Last month, German indoor farming firm &ever said it would establish its global R&D center in the city-state to carry out research into energy efficiency and yield optimization for indoor vertical farms. It’s also constructing a “mega-farm” in the east of Singapore with an annual production capacity of over 500 tons that is set to open by the end of 2021.

In October, US alt-protein startup Eat Just announced it would invest a total of $100 million with investor Proterra to build Asia’s first plant-based protein factory in Singapore. Earlier this month, the city-state handed Eat Just the world’s first regulatory approval for a cell-based, cultured meat product, clearing its ‘lab-grown’ chicken bites for sale to the public.

Swiss food industry majors Buhler and Givaudan announced the launch of a joint innovation center in Singapore in February to explore textures and tastes for plant-based protein products. French animal feed firm Adisseo set up an aquaculture R&D center in Singapore back in December 2019 to research aquatic animal health and nutrition.

Citing data from AgFunder, Singapore Minister of Trade & Industry Chan Chun Sing said that the global agrifood sector is “primed for growth” with investment into agrifoodtech startups growing 47% year-on-year in 2018 and a further 17% in 2019 to reach $19.8 billion. [Disclosure: AgFunder is AFN‘s parent company.]

With its “unique farm-to-fork ecosystem and track record for technical capabilities, quality branding, and intellectual property [IP] protection, Singapore aims to capture a significant share of the wave of economic opportunities in agrifoodtech,” Chan told reporters at a press conference announcing Perfect Day’s partnership with A*STAR.

Alt-protein products like those being developed by Perfect Day, Just Eat, and local players including Shiok Meats and TurtleTree Labs — which announced its $6.2 million pre-Series A round last week — have a critical role to play in feeding countries and cities like Singapore, where arable land is minimal and primary food sources are typically located far away.

“Alternative proteins will add to the suite of options we have without being restrained by factors like the [amount] of land and other natural resources we have. Overall, [they provide] a much more efficient, sustainable way to feed the population, across Asia, where demand will go up proportionally with the growth of the middle class,” Chan said.

But the buck doesn’t need to stop at Singapore securing its own nutritional needs, he added.

“We are not limiting our aspirations just to the domestic market. The larger market for this sector is really [the] growing needs for the Asia-Pacific, that we hope to capture. Look at China, Indonesia, India – as people become more affluent, as they seek higher quality food products, there will be a bigger market for these kinds of products. How do we feed a growing population in a sustainable manner that is also good for the environment? So our sense is not just how big the local market is, but how big the global market can be.”

“We want to make sure the core IP, the core R&D happens here – so the high-value part of the value chain is housed in Singapore, and we can attract the investment and the people to come here,” Chan said.

He noted that in addition to the arrival of foreign startups and corporates, as well as the growth of local players, a variety of domestic and international investors are contributing to the development of Singapore’s agrifood tech ecosystem.

“We are also building a vibrant cluster of financing firms across various stages, for example, New Protein Capital, EDBI, Temasek, and Proterra, as well as a base of global agrifood accelerators [such as] Big Idea Ventures‘ alternative proteins accelerator and GROW Accelerator […] Our eventual aim is to build up the talent pool with the expertise to deploy more than S$90 million [$67.5 million] of capital.” [Disclosure: GROW Accelerator is operated by AgFunder, AFN‘s parent company.]

Returning to Perfect Day’s R&D center announcement, Chan said it is another “milestone in our ongoing journey.”

“There will be many other companies joining us to build up our ecosystem,” he continued. “We’re optimistic this can become a new pillar of our economic development, providing us with greater [economic] diversity, food security for Singapore, and new opportunities in countries beyond Singapore.”

Singapore sovereign fund Temasek led Perfect Day’s $140 million Series C round in December 2019.

Got a news tip? Email me at jack@agfunder.com or find me on Twitter at @jacknwellis

• alt dairy, asia, Europe, Germany, indoor agriculture, indoor farming, singapore, United States, urban agriculture, urban farming, vertical farming

VIDEO: Pete's Introduces Hydroponically Greenhouse Grown Packaged Salad Varieties

December 17, 2020

Pete’s, the California-based produce company specializing in hydroponically grown living lettuce and cress varieties in addition to butter lettuce wrap kits, will debut an innovative and sustainable new line of packaged salad varieties, Greenhouse Fresh, in retail locations in and around the West Coast in early January.

Available in four varieties — Benevolent Butter, Hydro Spring Mix, Indoor Romaine and Nice & Crunchy — Pete’s Greenhouse Fresh offers environmentally-conscious consumers a range of fresh and sustainable packaged salad varieties that use 90 percent less land and water compared to field grown product.

These indoor-grown lettuce varieties are also protected from outside elements and do not use triple washing post-harvest the same way many traditionally grown greens do, resulting in less water used during the harvesting process.

In addition, Greenhouse Fresh packaging containers are made from 100-percent post-consumer recycled material, are 100-percent recyclable, and their flexible, resealable closures use less plastic and emit less CO2 than rigid plastic closures.

Pete’s is also partnering with 1 percent For The Planet, pledging 1 percent of Greenhouse Fresh sales to The Recycling Partnership in an effort to help improve the recycling system.

“We are honored Pete’s chose to expand its dedication to sustainability by joining The Recycling Partnership, and by nominating The Partnership to receive funds through its 1 percent For the Planet commitment, ” said Beth Schmitt, senior vice president of corporate engagement at The Recycling Partnership. “Pete’s investment helps us further our goals of assisting every household to recycle more, recycle better, and to catalyze a circular economy.”

Pete’s is an employee-owned and operated company, and all team members play a key role in the company’s short and long-term sustainability efforts.

“All of us at Pete’s are thrilled to introduce a line of packaged salad varieties, that as we like to say, are as green as greens can get,” said Brian Cook, chief executive officer of Pete’s. “At Pete’s, we work as a team and everything we do, we do for the greater good of people, of the planet and of course our leafy greens. Greenhouse Fresh is a perfect example of how our new products ladder back to our broader company mission, vision and values.”

Pete’s Greenhouse Fresh will be available at West Coast area retailers beginning in January and can be found in the Produce Department.