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Atlanta Suburb Working With Organizations, Government To Build Up Urban Agriculture
Atlanta nonprofit Food Well Alliance is a collaborative network of local food leaders heading up a new program it believes will be a game-changer for urban agriculture in cities across metro Atlanta
City of East Point Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham signs the City Agriculture Plan MOU with Allison Duncan, Atlanta Regional Commission Principal Planner (left) and Food Well Alliance’s Kim Karris, Executive Director; Will Sellers, Deputy Director and Sarah Benedict, Operations Coordinator.
Photo © Caleb Jones
The City of East Point has been selected to pilot a new City Agriculture Plan in partnership with the Atlanta Regional Commission
August 28, 2019
Posted by Patrick Williams
Atlanta, GA — Atlanta nonprofit Food Well Alliance is a collaborative network of local food leaders heading up a new program it believes will be a game-changer for urban agriculture in cities across metro Atlanta. According to a press release, the City Agriculture Plan will do exactly what its name says: bring growers, community leaders, and city officials together — guided by the planning expertise of the Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) — to develop city-wide plans that prioritize urban agriculture. The end goal? Thriving community gardens and urban farms providing greater access to locally grown food across the metro Atlanta region, which translates to healthier people, environments, and communities.
After a thorough exploration process with seven metro cities earlier this year, Food Well Alliance has announced the City of East Point has been selected to pilot the new City Agriculture Plan. The plan will begin with a community engagement and asset-mapping phase led by Food Well Alliance, followed by a six-month planning process undertaken with support from ARC. Once the plan is developed, Food Well Alliance will guide the implementation of the plan and provide a minimum of $75,000 in funding to help the community bring it to life.
“We are thrilled the City of East Point will be joining us in this exciting new endeavor,” said Food Well Alliance Executive Director Kim Karris. “We believe that East Point is uniquely poised to take bold steps and become a national model for urban agriculture. The work begins today, and it couldn’t come at a more crucial time. Metro Atlanta is one of the fastest growing regions in the country, and our cities are rapidly becoming more developed. This threatens the long-term viability of community gardens and farms. The City Agriculture Plan paves a way for city officials to work directly with growers and community leaders to determine the policies, ordinances, and programs that will move the needle most effectively.”
As the City Agriculture Planning process gets underway in East Point, six other metro Atlanta cities that rallied to pilot the program will receive funding support to catalyze their own urban agriculture initiatives: Alpharetta, Clarkston, Hapeville, Lawrenceville, Lovejoy, and Pine Lake. “The level of enthusiasm demonstrated in all seven cities shows us that we are onto something - that people want community spaces to reconnect to where their food comes from - so we are going to keep building on the momentum,” Karris said.
Nearly 500 people attended Community Food Forums held in the seven cities this February and March to learn more about City Agriculture Planning and share their ideas. Over time, Food Well Alliance aims to help develop City Agriculture Plans in all 54 cities in its five-county region serving Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton, and Gwinnett counties.
Funding for the City Agriculture Plan pilot has been made possible by The Zeist Foundation and Food Well Alliance founding benefactor, the James M. Cox Foundation.
“We are truly humbled and honored by being selected to create and implement the first City Agriculture Plan in the region,” said City of East Point Mayor Deana Holiday Ingraham. “This amazing partnership with Food Well Alliance and the Atlanta Regional Commission will be impactful and transform our City. The intense focus on community engagement and leadership throughout our City Agriculture Planning process will help ensure sustainability of the projects implemented to systemically address our food access challenges.”
“The City of East Point is extremely excited about its partnership with Food Well Alliance,” said Maceo Rogers, CEcD, director, Department of Economic Development for the City of East Point.
“It marks the beginning of a new collaboration between the City, residents, businesses and metro area organizations all uniting together to take a holistic approach to transforming the overall health of the community through access to local food production, community gardens, and farms.”
“Local agriculture is a key part of developing healthy communities,” said Sam Shenbaga, manager of ARC’s Community Development Group. “ARC is proud to support community agriculture and put our resources behind initiatives that improve our region starting at the local level."
Can Indoor Vertical Farming Deliver Exceptional Returns For The Planet, Consumers, And Investors?
Food security, food quality, and resources scarcity are the main challenges the global agri-food system is facing. Indoor vertical farming promises to partially address these challenges by producing locally and efficiently fresh, chemical-free, and nutritious food
© kalafoto
Get Agroecology Capital’s full report on indoor vertical farming.
This report covers investment trends since 2010 and Agroecology Capital’s key investment drivers.
Food security, food quality, and resources scarcity are the main challenges the global agri-food system is facing. Indoor vertical farming promises to partially address these challenges by producing locally and efficiently fresh, chemical-free, and nutritious food. New farming systems increase yields, use less land and water, and allow a close quality and safety monitoring.
These promises and the ability of indoor vertical farming to industrialize high-value crop production have created a perfect window of opportunity to disrupt a multi-billion market (just for the U.S. leafy greens market), leading investors to respond favorably by investing large amounts in this industry.
Venture capital investment in indoor vertical farming is getting a strong traction
To assess the magnitude of these investments, Agroecology Capital’s report listed publicly available deals in indoor vertical farming between 2010 and 2019, globally. This report narrowed the scope of the analysis to companies that have developed comprehensive growing solutions with a substantial innovation component. Thus, companies with stable technologies (i.e., conventional greenhouses) or that only produce components (i.e., LED lighting) have been excluded from the scope.
The selected deals comprehend 31 different startups that, collectively, have received $873m between 2010 and 2019 (see the list of startups on the report).
Source: Agroecology Capital Research, 2019. Figures from Pitchbook, Crunchbase, CB Insights, and market data
Indoor vertical farming has represented a significant and increasing share of total AgTech venture capital investments. Large rounds such as AeroFarms (2013 and 2017) and Plenty ($200 million in 2017) led this vertical’s share to boost in 2013 and 2017 (10% in 2013 and 15% in 2017). Unsurprisingly, the U.S. has concentrated 89% of total investments between 2010 and 2019.
Source: Agroecology Capital Research, 2019. Figures from Pitchbook, Crunchbase, CB Insights, and market data
Despite a strong value proposition, several key aspects are still unclear from an investment perspective
Production costs for indoor vertical farming suffers when compared to conventional agriculture. Main production inputs, which are freely available in nature (i.e., light, air, water, CO2), have to be supplied at cost in indoor vertical farming. According to some startups, costs for an indoor-grown salad can reach twice those for an outdoor-grown one, putting energy efficiency[1] as a critical factor to optimize.
The high capital intensity required for scaling a vertical farming business is also a challenge for an industry that can neither compete on cost nor benefit from a network effect to establish pricing power. Moreover, the potential economies of scale are still unclear, if not insignificant. Although, energy prices might be subject to negotiation with energy suppliers, this case has not been witnessed yet given the small scale of current players.
Further, indoor vertical farms are currently able to grow only a limited number of crops. Leafy greens and herbs are easy to grow indoors, but other crops might be harder to grow at scale. The lack of readily available applied scientific research and data might also add risk on this vertical.
No player so far has proven that there is a sizable addressable market ready to pay more for a superior product or a product grown differently. The ability of the industry players to price discriminate might be a critical factor not only in reaching profitability but also in supporting an attractive business model.
Finally, there is no clear winner to date, and the range of current business models such as licensing technology and/or operating farms (the two main ones) might be a sign that the industry is still searching for an appropriate business model.
Venture Capital investment in indoor vertical farming: vertical integration vs. specialization
© Michael Sapryhin
Indoor vertical farming’s value chain might ultimately parallel that of traditional farming. Most of the value creation might be captured either by oligopolistic players at critical steps of the value chain (seeds bioengineering platforms, mass-market brand builders, and production technology providers) or by players with compelling business models.
Developing specific seeds for indoor vertical farming (i.e., optimized for Controlled Environment Agriculture and miniaturized crops) might lead to an improvement in yield and better-quality crops. Increasing crops variety, at an economically viable price, might also expand the addressable market. Startups focusing on seeds breeding and bioengineering for seeds adapted to indoor vertical farming might create attractive venture capital investment opportunities.
Demonstrating the outstanding quality of indoor-grown products will help to create strong brands and decommoditize these products, which might constitute a category of their own. Price positioning indoor-grown products as premium goods will ultimately allow growing companies and retailers to capture a significant share of the value.
Full suite of proprietary technologies (hardware and software) could increase product quality, operations efficiency, and reduce production costs. Data will undoubtedly play a central role in increasing yields and stabilizing/optimizing production. However, growing a crop, unlike improving the performance of chips, do not obey Moore Law. Improvement of production technologies will in fine lead to marginal gains, and value might shift to hardware, software, and ultimately data.
Innovative business models might help solve the capital intensity challenge by outsourcing the capital expenditure required to build facilities. Franchise model, for instance, might allow players to focus their resources on their proprietary technologies (including seeds bioengineering) while having franchisees invest in building facilities.
“In a Gold Rush, Sell Shovels”
Indoor Vertical Farming delivers outstanding returns for consumers (food security, safety, and quality) and probably for the Planet (less water and chemicals use vs. increase in energy consumption?).
However, the industry still needs to demonstrate a clear path to profitability and scalability. In its search of this path, proprietary technology providers (seeds bioengineering and production technology) might play a prominent role while mass-market brand builders might establish a new premium food product category.
From an investment perspective, strong macro drivers are pulling investment toward this industry, which is currently vertically integrated. Investors might want to funnel their investments into more focused and specialized technology players mastering critical parts of the value chain. These players might offer the most promising investment returns by successfully applying the adage “In a Gold Rush, Sell Shovels.”
[1] Weight of product grown with a kWh of energy input.
VIDEO: Can Vertical Farming Solve Asia’s Food Crisis?
The government is looking to curb this dependence on outside food sources under a programme titled ‘30 by 30,’ which aims to allow Singapore to grow 30% of its produce by the year 2030
Singapore Has Only 1% of Its Land Available For Agriculture, So It
imports 90% of Its Food Requirements.
The government is looking to curb this dependence on outside food sources under a programme titled ‘30 by 30,’ which aims to allow Singapore to grow 30% of its produce by the year 2030.
Local vertical farms like Sustenir are at the forefront of bringing about this change.
VICE visits the sustainable start-up to understand the future of food.
Climate Change And Land An IPCC Special Report
The IPCC approved and accepted Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems at its 50th Session held on 2 – 7 August 2019
Climate Change And Land Report
An IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems
Download report
The IPCC approved and accepted Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems at its 50th Session held on 2 – 7 August 2019. The approved Summary for Policymakers (SPM) was presented at a press conference on 8 August 2019.
Press Release: Land is a Critical Resource, IPCC report says ( Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish)
Presentation (6.5 MB)
Background
At its 43rd Session (Nairobi, Kenya, 11 – 13 April 2016), the IPCC Panel decided to prepare a special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
Experts met on 13 – 17 February 2017 in Dublin, Ireland to prepare a draft outline for the report.
At its 45th Session (Guadalajara, Mexico, 28 – 31 March 2017), the Panel approved the outline for Climate Change and Land: an IPCC special report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems.
The Special Report was developed under the joint scientific leadership of Working Groups I, II, III in cooperation with the Task Force on National Greenhouse Gas Inventories, and supported by the Working Group III Technical Support Unit.
Authors and Review Editors
107 experts from 52 countries were selected as Coordinating Lead Authors and Lead Authors – who are working on each individual chapter – and Review Editors, who ensured that comments by experts and governments were given appropriate consideration as the report developed.
40% of the Coordinating Lead Authors are women. 53% of the authors are from developing countries, making this the first IPCC report to have more authors from developing countries than from developed countries. The full list of Coordinating Lead Authors, Lead Authors and Review Editors is here.
A call for nomination of authors was sent to governments, observer organizations and IPCC Bureau Members on 5 April 2017. Graphics that provide background information about the nominees are available here
Lead Author Meetings
First Lead Author Meeting: Oslo, Norway, 16 – 20 October 2017
Second Lead Author Meeting: Christchurch, New Zealand, 26 – 30 March 2018
Third Lead Author Meeting: Dublin, Ireland, 3 – 7 September 2018
Fourth Lead Author Meeting: Cali, Colombia, 11 – 15 February 2019
Pre-Scoping
The Steering Committee for the Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems circulated a questionnaire to IPCC Focal Points and Observer Organizations ahead of the Scoping Meeting in February 2017 to get input on the structure and contents of the report. You can download the questionnaire and stakeholder consultation report here.
Scoping
A scoping meeting for the Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems was held on 13 – 17 February 2017 in Dublin, Ireland. The meeting resulted in a draft scoping paper describing the objectives and an annotated outline of the Special Report as well as the process and timeline for its preparation.
All the details of the scoping meeting are available in the scoping meeting report.
Adopted outline – (The dates of the 1st Lead Author Meeting have been corrected to read 16-20 October 2017)
Steering Committee
List of expertise
Scoping meeting programme
Background report for the scoping meeting
List of participants
Questionnaire and stakeholder consultation report
Timeline
Second Lead Author Meeting 26-30 March 2018
Expert review of First Order Draft Deadline 5 August 11 June-5 August 2018
Third Lead Author Meeting 3-7 September 2018
Literature deadline : Literature for consideration by report authors must be submitted to publishers
by this date 28 October 2018
Expert and Government review of Second Order Draft 19 November-14 January 2018-19
Fourth Lead Author Meeting 11-16 February 2019
SPM drafting workshop 20-21 March 2019
Literature deadline :Literature for consideration by report authors must be accepted for publication
by this date 7 April 2019
Final Government distribution 29 April-19 June 2019 Approval Plenary Joint WGI-II-III session 2-6 August 2019
Download PDF here.
Graphics
Graphics and statistical reports concerning the initial nominations and shortlisting of each stage are available in the public portal. Statistical reports include nominations by:
Nominations by Date
Citizenship
Gender and Region
Graduated Year
Observer Organizations
Nominating Countries
Previous IPCC Experience
Distribution by Region and Country
Regional Expertise
Sectors
Statistics
and more
Relevant Links
Adopted outline – (The dates of the 1st Lead Author Meeting have been corrected to read 16-20 October 2017)
IPCC-XLV/Doc. 7 – Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) Products – Outline of the Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems
IPCC-XLV/INF. 7 – Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) products – Outline of the Special Report on climate change, desertification, land degradation, sustainable land management, food security, and greenhouse gas fluxes in terrestrial ecosystems
IPCC-XLIII/INF. 7: Special Reports – Proposed themes for Special Reports during the Sixth Assessment Report (AR6) cycle
IPCC-XLIII/INF. 8: Special Reports Commentary from the Co-chairs of Working Groups I, II and III on each of the proposals for Special Reports contained in document IPCC-XLIII/INF. 7
IPCC-XLIII/INF. 9: Special Reports – Commentary from the Co-Chairs of Working Groups I, II and III on clusters of proposals for Special Reports contained in document IPCC-XLIII/INF. 7
IPCC-XLIII/INF. 19: Sixth Assessment Report Products – Information document
We Need To Change Our Farming & Eating Habits Or Face 'Catastrophic' Global Warming Says UN
When it comes to global warming, it's not just logging and pollution that's making things worse. It's also that our everyday lifestyles are wasteful. Now the UN says if we don't get it together and change our diets, we could be in for catastrophic levels of global warming
Gwyn D'Mello Aug 08, 2019
When it comes to global warming, it's not just logging and pollution that's making things worse. It's also that our everyday lifestyles are wasteful.
Now the UN says if we don't get it together and change our diets, we could be in for catastrophic levels of global warming.
IMAGES COURTESY: REUTERS
This is the organisation's first comprehensive on the link between climate change and human land usage. It suggests that we need to change our diets to avoid food waste, and also adopt more sustainable means of farming, in order to tackle climate change.
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says that human activity has caused significant land degradation, deforestation and destruction of natural habitats. All of these effects together have resulted in a significant amount of carbon dioxide being released from the soil and into the atmosphere.
The report says that we need to adopt diets with more plant-based foods such as grains, nuts, fruit, and beans, as well as animal-based food produced with low greenhouse gas emissions.
Until now, the land has been responsible for absorbing a lot of carbon dioxide, thanks to photosynthesis in plants and the like. Cutting down all those trees, plus other climate-change effects like wildfires and desertification has resulted in all that land now releasing at least a third of all greenhouse gases into the air.
"This is a perfect storm. Limited land, an expanding human population, and all wrapped in a suffocating blanket of climate emergency," said Professor David Reay from the University of Edinburgh. "Crop yields are already being hit hard by climate change, staples like wheat, maize and rice are all at risk. The global web that is our food system means that impacts on farms thousands of miles away ripple right back to our own dinner plates."
"Earth has never felt smaller, its natural ecosystems never under such direct threat."
The report indicates that the Earth's soil now holds only about one percent of the planet's total carbon, as opposed to the seven percent they earlier held. The solution to this problem, the UN says, is to immediately stop deforestation, and stop degrading the soil with exploitative farming methods.
We also need to diversify our farming to avoid leaching the soil of its nutrients. Farmers need to instead start relying on a mix of farming a mix of crop, as well as raising livestock, in order to allow the land to be more resilient to the effects of climate change.
For instance, that could mean mixing banana plantations with coffee. The former provides shade to the latter, and the mix of crops allows the farmer to be less reliant on a single crop. And the key to promoting this experts say is to first and foremost end subsidies on big single crops like corn and sugarcane.
VIDEO: How To Feed 10 Billion People?
The American news platform Bloomberg launched a new video ‘How to feed 10 billion people’ in the series called ‘Problem Solved’
The American news platform Bloomberg launched a new video ‘How to feed 10 billion people’ in the series called ‘Problem Solved’. These videos focus on how scientists are trying to solve some of the biggest challenges the world faces.
How to feed 10 billion people by 2050? That is one of the questions to which NPEC research can contribute. Photosynthesis is at the heart of plant production, and while we thought this cannot be improved, we now know it can. If only one can measure photosynthesis accurately and at high-throughput, which is exactly what NPEC will provide for several crops.
For more information:
NPEC
www.npec.nl
Publication date: 8/20/2019
VIDEO: Can Vertical Farming Solve Asia’s Food Crisis?
The video takes an in-depth look at Sustenir agriculture, a vertical farm located in Singapore
Vice Asia released a new video on the vertical farming industry in Singapore. The video takes an in-depth look at Sustenir agriculture, a vertical farm located in Singapore. Only 1% of the land in Singapore is available for farming and as such growers need to look towards different solutions, like vertical farming, for food production.
You can watch the full video below.
Publication date: 8/12/2019
The Only Way Is Up: Will Vertical Farms Tackle The World's Growing Food Crisis?
In an unassuming white shed on the outskirts of Dundee lies what could be the most futuristic farm in the world. It’s not reached by trundling down miles of country roads, but by going through a pressurised air lock designed to keep the uncontrolled outside out
David Farquhar inside his vertical farm CREDIT: STUART NICOL/STUART NICOL PHOTOGRAPHY
15 AUGUST 2019
In an unassuming white shed on the outskirts of Dundee lies what could be the most futuristic farm in the world.
It’s not reached by trundling down miles of country roads, but by going through a pressurised air lock designed to keep the uncontrolled outside out.
And the crops - towering stacks of vegetables and fruit grown in metal trays under coloured LED lights - are not tended to by rugged farmers in overalls.
Instead they are overseen by robots, who carefully manage every environmental parameter: from light to temperature to CO2 to humidity, in a totally closed system without a handful of soil or ray of sunlight.
It might sound like a dystopian scene from science fiction, but this demonstration farm, run by Scottish technology firm Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS), is not a vision of the future. It’s a look inside one of a growing number of indoor vertical farms sprouting up around the world in old factories, skyscrapers, warehouses and disused highway tunnels.
Plants grown under LED lighting CREDIT: STUART NICOL/STUART NICOL PHOTOGRAPHY
But why are we growing upwards rather than outwards? The answer lies mostly in our dwindling natural resources and growing population, particularly in Africa which is undergoing a youth boom.
According to the United Nations, by 2050 the amount of arable land per person could be one third of the amount that was available in 1970. The earth’s population meanwhile will have more than doubled to 10 billion in the same period.
While there’s still more land that could be brought under cultivation doing so would also mean destroying more forests and wild areas.
The farmland that is available is not evenly distributed. That’s why densely-packed places like New York, Hong Kong and Singapore are looking at farming upwards. It’s why China too, which has to feed one-fifth of the world’s population with one-tenth of its farmland, is turning to vertical farms.
The challenge is complicated by an increasingly unpredictable climate that can take out a crop in a matter of days.
“If you can have a system that’s independent of the climate, the weather and availability of land you’ve got a very disruptive new food supply system and that’s what indoor vertical farming can potentially do,” says Professor Colin Campbell of the James Hutton Institute, a Scottish research centre that works alongside IGS to build technology for vertical farms. “It takes the weather and puts it inside a box.”
But it is not cheap and it is why most vertical farms are currently in wealthy countries despite the fact that most of the additional people the planet will need to feed by 2050 will live in the developing world.
According to proponents of vertical farming such as David Farquhar, the serial entrepreneur who runs IGS, while the technology is still at the starting gate, the potential global environmental and societal benefits of vertical farming are huge.
“It can do a huge amount of good. You can help to feed people, improve the quality of produce people get, reduce food miles and reduce the use of chemicals,” he says.
Those in favour of vertical farms argue that if you keep pests and diseases locked out, there’s no need for pesticides and other toxic chemicals.
Vertical farms also use a fraction of the water of conventional farms. It takes just two to four litres of water to grow a kilogram of vegetables in a vertical farm compared to 16 litres in a Dutch greenhouse and 60 litres in a Mediterranean field.
By bringing food production to cities, close to where most of it is consumed, you avoid gas-guzzling transport. And by growing upwards, land is saved.
And the benefits are not just environmental. Taking out the variability of light, soil, rainfall and everything else that can’t be controlled outdoors, also takes out the variability out of the crop.
“All the plants are exactly the same height - there’s no wonky veg in there,” says Prof Campbell.
By experimenting with light scientists can change how a plant tastes and feels without any genetic modification.
“By changing the wavelength of light you can change the chemistry of the plant,” says Prof Campbell. “You can increase things like flavour and taste, and you can increase the concentration of health promoting chemicals.”
Others maintain however, that recreating nature indoors comes at a cost.
Andrew Jenkins, a researcher at Queen's University Belfast believes vertical farming has potential for countries like the UK that import a lot of food, but cautions that the current high energy costs of artificial lighting could outweigh the benefits.
“Growing crops that require four to five times the energy means we [in the UK] are in a worse position than with imports,” says Dr Jenkins.
A technician tends to plants in a vertical growing facility CREDIT: STUART NICOL
Vertical farming’s champions are nevertheless, confident that scientists are already cracking the energy question. Among them is Mr Farquhar, who says IGS’s technology has reduced the typical energy use in a vertical farm by 50 per cent.
Dickson Despommier, emeritus professor of microbiology and public health at Columbia University, is something of a vertical farm visionary. When he published his seminal book on the subject in 2010 there were no such farms in existence.
“Now everyone is into vertical farming,” says Prof Despommier.
Mr Farquhar agrees. He says there’s been more media interest in his vertical farm in the year since it launched than in all the other enterprises in his more than 25-year career in technology.
Leo Marcelis, an expert on indoor farms at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, agrees that interest in vertical farming is global but believes that the high cost is stopping the spread of the technology to poorer countries, where it is needed most.
“In developing countries, there’s a lot of interest in this but it’s too early for them as it’s a relatively expensive system,” says Prof Marcelis. “At the moment high investment and running costs will stop it expanding faster.”
Plants growing under LED lighting at the vertical farm in Dundee CREDIT: STUART NICOL
Although most interest in his technology is from richer countries Mr Farquhar says that in the last few weeks alone he has received inquiries from places including the Ghana, Botswana, Ethiopia and India.
Among the countries pursuing vertical farming with a vengeance is China where a 250-acre district of urban and vertical farms is being planned in Shanghai.
Africa is also growing and rapidly urbanising. Vertical farming advocate, Dr Esther Ngumbi, a Kenyan researcher at the University of Illinois, is pushing the idea of growing upwards in Africa - albeit with smaller, cheaper, lower tech versions that borrow some of the land and water saving principles from vertical farms in the wealthy world.
Although from the point of view of the science almost any crop could be grown in a vertical farm, it’s currently only cost-effective to grow leafy greens and herbs - light, high value crops that don’t need long periods of time under costly artificial lights to mature. They are also short enough to stack in many layers.
Given the energy costs, Prof Marcelis is doubtful that vertical farming will be used to grow the cheap, non-perishable crops such as corn, rice and wheat that form the bulk of our diets.
“I don’t think that staple crops will be grown. That’s just not economically feasible,” he says. “What we see most is fresh vegetables where there is an advantage of having it near consumers”.
Since the leafy greens and herbs on which most commercial vertical farms are focusing only make up a tiny proportion of our daily calorie needs, skeptics argue that such farms will play a limited role in meeting food security needs, particularly in poorer countries.
Others also question the claims that growing fresh produce near urban populations will make us healthier, even for those who can afford it. A recent study of indoor vertical farms in New York found that the typically grown crops of lettuce and basil did little to improve diets and nutritional intake.
Prof Marcelis is however, optimistic that more nutritious crops, even though lacking in calories, will eventually be grown in vertical farms. “More and more initiatives are coming up with growing tall crops like tomatoes and peppers that are grown over a long duration so we’ll see it gradually expanding,” he says.
One way vertical farms might be able to help produce energy dense staples is by allowing quicker production of better seedlings for things like potatoes.
According to Prof Campbell this is one way field agriculture and indoor vertical farms can work together. The Dundee facility is working on “speed breeding” better varieties of basic crops in half the time it would take outdoors.
“Conventional field agriculture will continue to be the main way to provide staple crops for the future but indoor vertical farming can help with that as you can use indoor vertical farms to mass propagate the plants you plant out in the field,” he says.
Growing efficiently indoors what’s grown inefficiently outdoors also frees up valuable land for things like rice and wheat, says Mr Farquhar.
“There’s a lot of land being used inefficiently at the moment. If we can bring that inside and make that land available for growing staple crops then surely that’s a good thing,” he says.
But growing fruit and vegetables indoors is not just a way of helping us grow more energy rich foods outdoors. For Prof Despommier indoor vertical farming is one of the keys to addressing climate change.
“Farming is the worst thing we’ve ever turned loose on nature,” he says. “If you grow your food indoors and grow your trees outdoors it slows down climate change.
“Farming outdoors is failing, so indoor farming has to succeed.”
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The Future of Arctic Farming – Infographic
Despite difficult growing conditions, the number of vegetable farms in Alaska, Norway, Canada and other Arctic regions appears to have increased
Green Iglus, solar retention greenhouses in Nunavut, aim at producing greenery and produce for the community. Photo: Mike Beauregard
Greenhouses and Hydroponic Systems are Becoming Ripe with Possibility
Despite difficult growing conditions, the number of vegetable farms in Alaska, Norway, Canada and other Arctic regions appears to have increased. The hope is that a better, more affordable supply of vegetables in Arctic communities will help battle public health issues, improve food security and decrease the economy’s dependence on oil and imports.
This infographic designed by Jennifer Cook illustrates the challenges of vegetable production in the Arctic as well as possible solutions offered by Arctic farming. Lower temperatures and permafrost result in short growing seasons and slow down the growing process.
A frequent solution, the import of vegetables, is often unreliable and expensive. Combined with other factors, this can affect the food security, health, well-being, and financial situation of communities. In recent years, the number of Arctic farming projects based on greenhouses, hydroponics, or other technologies has developed rapidly, offering the potential for a better, more affordable, and more sustainable supply of fresh vegetables.
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U.S. Truck Driver Shortage Is On Course To Double In A Decade
The driver deficit swelled by more than 10,000 to 60,800 in 2018 from a year earlier, according to a study by the American Trucking Associations
By Thomas Black
July 23, 2019
The U.S. trucker shortage is expected to more than double over the next decade as the industry struggles to replace aging drivers and recruit more women.
The driver deficit swelled by more than 10,000 to 60,800 in 2018 from a year earlier, according to a study by the American Trucking Associations. The shortage is expected to ease slightly this year as U.S.-China trade friction slows freight demand and after trucking companies boosted pay to attract recruits.
The relief won’t last as replacing an aging pool of drivers gets harder in a tight labor market, said Bob Costello, chief economist for the trade group. The shortage is most acute for long-haul drivers, where the average age is 46, and workers are on the road for weeks at a time.
The ATA estimates that 160,000 driver positions will go unfilled in a decade.
“If things do not change, that’s where we will end up,” he said. “At some point, you go from being an operational pain-in-the-neck for the supply chain to real issues for all of us as consumers.”
In addition to increasing pay, trucking companies are trying to recruit more women, young people and former military personnel. Women make up less than 7% of drivers, and the industry is pushing to entice more with technology that makes trucks easier to drive and more comfortable.
The Arlington, Virginia-based ATA also wants regulators to lower the age for commercial drivers who can cross state lines by three years to 18. Its proposal would increase training and supervision. Cutting the age increases the recruiting pool and enables people to drive straight out of high school instead of choosing another industry, such as construction, Costello said.
Lead photo: An instructor, right, speaks with a student after practicing parallel parking with a truck at Iowa Central Community College in Fort Dodge.
Photographer: Sergio Flores/Bloomberg
Conversations About Food: Food Tank Live in NYC Speakers Series
A year-round event series by Food Tank featuring incredible speakers followed by a delicious reception/networking held in partnership with NYU Steinhardt, the NYC Food Policy Center at Hunter, and Salon.com
Tue, Jul 16 (7:00 PM) Tue, Aug 13 (7:00 PM)
A year-round event series by Food Tank featuring incredible speakers followed by a delicious reception/networking held in partnership with NYU Steinhardt, the NYC Food Policy Center at Hunter, and Salon.com.
May 14: "Equity in the Food System." Speakers: Joel Berg, CEO, Hunger Free America; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Qiana Mickie, Executive Director, Just Food; Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; Krishnendu Ray,NYU Steinhardt; Raymond Figueroa, Jr, President, New York City Community Garden Coalition; Chloe Sorvino, Forbes; Noreen Springstead, Executive Director, WhyHunger; and Ellen J. Wulfhorst,Reuters.
June 11: "Good Tech in Good Food." Speakers: Roee Adler, SVP, Global Head of We Work Labs, WeWork; Emma Cosgrove, Supply Chain Dive; Alexander Gillett, CEO, HowGood; Jennifer Goggin, Co-Founder, Startle Innovation; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Bertha Jimenez, CEO, RISE Products; Jenna Liut, Heritage Radio Network; and Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank.
July 16: "Eating for a Healthier and Sustainable Planet." Speakers: Lisa Held, The Farm Report; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Martin Lemos,Interim Executive Director, National Young Farmers Coalition; Chris McGrath, Chief Sustainability and Well-Being Officer, Mondelez;Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; Alex Sammon, The New Republic; Shino Tanikawa, Executive Director, NYC Soil & Water Conservation District; Beth Weitzman, Professor of Health and Public Policy, New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; Walter Willett, EAT Lancet primary author, Harvard University; and more to be announced.
August 13: "Healthy Food at Every Age." Speakers: Meserete Davis, Culinary Education Training Developer, NYC DOE School Foods; Dan Giusti, Founder, Brigaid; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; and more to be announced
In partnership with Great Performances Catering, a leading caterer committed to balancing inequalities in our communities, the events will be followed by networking opportunities as well as some delicious food.
Each of the talks will also be aired as part of a Facebook Live series in partnership with Facebook Community Leadership Program and released on our charting iTunes podcast, “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg.”
Hurry each event has limited availability!
To join the waitlist for a full event,
please apply at www.foodtank.com/waitlist.
Tags United States Events New York EventsThings To Do In New York, NY New York Appearances New York Charity & Causes Appearances
Don’t Let Monsanto Decide If Its GMOs Are “Safe” or Not
t's so important that we submit comments urging USDA not to let chemical companies approve their own genetically engineered plant experiments!
t's so important that we submit comments urging USDA not to let chemical companies approve their own genetically engineered plant experiments!
The Trump administration just released new rules to change how genetically engineered crops (GE crops or GMOs) are regulated. Unfortunately the rules being proposed would make almost every GMO exempt from regulation and instead allow the companies that make GMOs decide the safety of their own products before selling them. If we don’t stop these new rules, the vast majority of GMOs will not be reviewed by the government. Instead chemical and food companies would decide whether or not their own GMOs are harmful. Talk about a conflict of interest!
Stop the Trump Administration from letting chemical companies decide if the GMOs they sell are safe!
With these new rules, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is proposing a radical voluntary review system for GE crops. These new regulations leave it up to chemical companies—like Monsanto/Bayer and Dow—to “self-determine” review; in other words, these chemical companies would make their own determinations as to whether or not their GE plant experiments should even be reported to USDA at all.
If a chemical company has “self-determined” that its GE plant experiment does not need USDA oversight, it would skip being evaluated under the standards of our federal health and environmental laws. It would go straight to farm fields to be planted or to market to be sold. We at Center for Food Safety (CFS) believe that it should not be up to a chemical company—interested in improving its bottom line—to decide what is safe for our health, endangered species, and the environment.
And even in the rare instances when a company will volunteer to have their GE plant experiment regulated by USDA, the agency is proposing such a narrow scope of its review that it will only have a meaningful review processfor a tiny percentage of GMOs. This allows for the illusion of regulation, while actually letting the companies go scot-free.
One of the big problems with GMOs is their ability to cross-contaminate with conventional and organic crops as well as with plants in wildlife refuges. USDA perversely touts that there will be fewer “unauthorized releases” of GMOs with this new system, but that’s only because the vast majority of GE plant experiments will be totally exempt from any regulation in the first place! It’s like saying the crime rate will go down because the government legalized most forms of robbery. In reality, deregulating nearly all GMOs with no oversight will dramatically increase the frequency of contamination—which has already cost U.S. farmers billions of dollars over the past decade. When you go from bad oversight to no oversight, many more incidents of contamination are sure to follow.
Don’t let USDA fool you; self-regulation is no regulation at all!
Under the new proposal, the vast majority of GE plant experiments would not even have to be reported to USDA, much less grown with measures to prevent escape. So rather than increasing its monitoring of open air GE plant experiments, USDA’s new proposal abdicates the agency’s responsibility entirely, and leaves it solely up to chemical companies to self-police their new experiments. This change would exacerbate harm to farmers and the environment from increased contamination, while leaving the public completely in the dark as to where these new experiments are taking place.
USDA’s proposed GE regulations work very hard to make sure as little as possible is regulated. These proposed regulations rely on chemical companies deciding whether or not their GE plant experiments should be reviewed by a government agency at all. They do not address the massive increase in overall pesticide use that GMOs have caused or the continuing epidemic of increasingly pesticide-resistant “superweeds.” They fail to protect endangered species or farm workers. They even leave dangerous new “biopharm” GMOs completely unregulated, making our food system vulnerable to contamination from experimental pharmaceuticals. These rules leave our public health and environment completely at the mercy of chemical companies. USDA could do so much better, but instead it’s just doing the bidding of Monsanto and other chemical companies.
Onwards,
George Kimbrell
Legal Director
Center for Food Safety
Manufacturer Recalls Salads, Sandwiches Sold At Target, Fresh Market Due To Health Risk
The manufacturer of some salads and sandwiches sold at Target and The Fresh Market has issued a recall due to potential listeria contamination, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
The manufacturer of some salads and sandwiches sold at Target and The Fresh Market has issued a recall due to potential listeria contamination, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Elevation Foods is voluntarily recalling some containers of Archer Farms-brand egg salad; Freskëtbrand egg salad, tuna salad, and Thai lobster salad; and Archer Farms-brand deviled egg sandwiches produced on June 18, 2019.
On its website, The Fresh Market says its Thai lobster salad that's sold both prepackaged and by the pound at its self-serve seafood is included in the recall.
According to Elevation Foods, fewer than 1,087 cases of product were shipped to retailer warehouses throughout the United States.
Archer Farms Egg Salad is one of several salads included in a voluntary recall by Elevation Foods. (Photo: Provided)
To see if you have a product that's included in the recall, check the “use by” date printed on the side of the container and the lot number. The FDA website lists the following items as impacted by the recall:
Archer Farms-brand Egg Salad packaged in a 12-ounce clear, square plastic container, Lot Number W1906042A, Use By 12AUG2019 (printed on the side of each container) UPC 085239018682, distributed nationwide;
Freskët-brand Egg Salad packaged in a 32-ounce clear, square plastic container, Lot Number W1906042, Use By 12AUG2019A (printed on the side of each container;
Freskët-brand Tuna Salad packaged in a 5-pound white, round plastic container, Lot Number W1906054, Use By 02AUG2019A (printed on the side of each container;
Freskët-brand Thai Lobster Salad packaged in a 5-pound white, round plastic container, Lot Number W1906041, Use By 02AUG2019A (printed on the side of each container);
Archer Farms Deviled Egg Sandwich Half Sandwich with Bacon, UPC 220505000002, distributed nationwide;
Archer Farms Deviled Egg Sandwich on Multigrain, UPC 498780203566, distributed nationwide.
No illnesses have been reported, but listeria monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems, according to the FDA.
Fresket Thai Lobster Salad is one of several salads included in a voluntary recall by Elevation Foods. (Photo: Provided)
In otherwise healthy people, listeria monocytogenes can cause short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, according to the FDA. Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
Elevation Foods identified the problem with the products after receiving positive test results for three containers of affected egg salad which were sampled and tested by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, according to the FDA website. Elevation Foods is continuing to investigate potential sources of the problem.
Consumers who have purchased any of the recalled products are urged to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions can call 866-761-9566 at any time.
Archer Farms Products Recalled Due To Possible Listeria Contamination
Some Archer Farms products are being recalled due to a possible Listeria contamination. Elevation Foods announced Friday that they are recalling containers of Archer Farms egg salad and deviled egg sandwiches
July 20, 2019
Several Freskët-Brand Products Also Affected By Recall
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) — Some Archer Farms products are being recalled due to a possible Listeria contamination.
Elevation Foods announced Friday that they are recalling containers of Archer Farms egg salad and deviled egg sandwiches.
Elevation Foods recalled containers of Archer Farms egg salad and deviled egg sandwiches. in July 2019. (Credit: FDA)
The following products are affected by the recall:
Archer Farms-brand Egg Salad packaged in a 12-ounce clear, square plastic container, Lot Number W1906042A, Use By 12AUG2019 (printed on the side of each container) UPC 085239018682
Archer Farms Deviled Egg Sandwich Half Sandwich with Bacon, UPC 220505000002
Archer Farms Deviled Egg Sandwich on Multigrain, UPC 498780203566
All of the affected Archer Farms products were distributed nationwide.
The following Freskët-brand products are also being recalled:
Freskët-brand Egg Salad packaged in a 32-ounce clear, square plastic container, Lot Number W1906042, Use By 12AUG2019A (printed on the side of each container
Freskët-brand Tuna Salad packaged in a 5-pound white, round plastic container, Lot Number W1906054, Use By 02AUG2019A (printed on the side of each container
Freskët-brand Thai Lobster Salad packaged in a 5-pound white, round plastic container, Lot Number W1906041, Use By 02AUG2019A (printed on the side of each container)
The recall does not say where the Freskët-brand products were distributed.
No illnesses have been reported at this time.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, fewer than 1,087 cases of the products have been shipped to retailer warehouses throughout the United States.
Elevation Foods recalled containers of Archer Farms egg salad and deviled egg sandwiches. in July 2019. (Credit: FDA)
Listeria monocytogenes can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, elderly people and those with weakened immune systems. Symptoms include high fever, severe headaches, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea.
Anyone who bought a recalled product should return it for a full refund.
Anyone with questions can call 866-761-9566.
Visit fda.gov for more information on this recall.
Filed Under:Archer Farms, listeria, Recall
California: Inconsistent Lettuce Production Elevating Market
The California lettuce deal has been a challenge lately as growers battle with varying weather conditions and the consequences related to this
The California lettuce deal has been a challenge lately as growers battle with varying weather conditions and the consequences related to this. Right now prices are high with volume not consistent enough to maintain any decent momentum. Growers say the situation is not likely to be resolved for a few more weeks at least.
"The market has been elevated for the past couple of weeks and looks set to continue for at least the next two to three weeks," observed Mark McBride of Coastline Family Farms. "It's all related to the extremely hot days we had in early to mid June, when we reached 105 degrees here in the Salinas Valley. In addition to it being hot during the day, overnight temperatures were also very warm. So all the lettuce that was harvested and is still being harvested has shown signs of stress."
Small and large sized lettuce
One of the side effects of the heat has been the reaction of the plants. Some have grown "large and wild", as McBride described, while others are producing smaller heads. This is having a direct impact on yields and one of the primary drivers of the market right now. It's also causing a few problems for processors that are sourcing lettuce for salad and other products.
"The heat dramatically affected the plants," McBride said. "Some responded by making smaller heads, while some became large and 'wild'. Neither of these lend themselves well to packing and it has disrupted the pounds per acre measure for some of the processors. Volume has been up and down, with some weeks producing a lot of volume while other weeks are very light."
Prices are high
As mentioned, lettuce prices are quite high at the moment and the expectation is for it to stay that way for a few more weeks. As with most regions in the United States, California has been subject to some unusual weather patterns this year, which has created a challenge for growers.
"Out of all the lettuces, iceberg has probably been the most affected by the variable weather, followed closely by Romaine and also Green Leaf lettuce," McBride shared. "Right now, prices for Green Leaf are between $22 - $26. Romaine is similar, between $24 - $26, and for Icebergs, market prices are between $34 - $37."
For more information:
Mark McBride
Coastline Family Farms
Ph: +1 (831) 755-1430
mark@coastlinefamilyfarms.com
www.coastlinefamilyfarms.com
Publication date: 7/15/2019
Author: Dennis Rettke
© FreshPlaza.com
We’ve Gone Vegetarian And Vegan But Soon We Could Be Going Vertical In Crop-Shelf Revolution
The global population is set to grow by two billion within the next 20 years, and demand for food is predicted to be 60% higher. At the same time climate change, the spread of cities and soil degradation will have shrunk the amount of land to grow what we eat
by Stevie Gallacher July 15, 2019
Invergowrie Intelligent Growth Solutions LTD have created a vertical farming indoors in Perthshire.
The world Is heading For A Food Crisis
The global population is set to grow by two billion within the next 20 years, and demand for food is predicted to be 60% higher.
At the same time climate change, the spread of cities and soil degradation will have shrunk the amount of land to grow what we eat.
The solution to global starvation, however, might be found in a shed in Invergowrie.
At the James Hutton Institute in Perth, a company is developing a system of vertical farming.
This is where food is grown in stacks in environmentally-friendly towers.
The revolutionary idea has been hailed as the future of food and is predicted to be one of the early steps on a journey which could end with our crops being grown in city-centre skyscrapers.
That’s the view of David Farquhar, the CEO of Intelligent Growth Solutions, the company developing the new farming technique.
“At the moment we’re growing broccoli seedlings, potato seedlings and strawberry seedlings for local farmers,” he explained.
“We’ve got all the way to growing actual strawberries. We’re growing things like pea shoots, baby kale, baby celery, fennel, coriander, parsley, basil, and every herb you can possibly imagine.
“These are things which would normally be grown in a Mediterranean climate.
“Imagine you’ve taken a field and cut it up into snooker table-size rectangles. You put the rectangles in a box, stack them 10 metres high and put the weather in.
“Then you control that weather via your mobile phone.”
It sounds simple but at Intelligent Growth Solutions the vertical farms, which are around 10 metres high, see cutting-edge techniques being used to grow a variety of crops.
The system attracted £5.4 million worth of investment last month, with one American agri-tech investment company enthusing “nothing else can touch” the Perth initiative.
David hopes to develop pre-packaged farming “towers” which can be installed almost anywhere – from existing farms to modern city centres.
Now everyone from governments to businesses to local farmers is keen to employ his services.
“In Singapore there’s very little arable land,” added David. “In Saudi Arabia, all you’ve got is desert. In the Cayman Islands, it costs £70 for a kilo of basil because it has to be flown in,” added David.
“The amount of miles food has to travel is expensive and bad for the environment.
“Vertical farms could solve these problems.
“Farmers want to grow seedlings for things like potatoes, broccoli and cauliflower more efficiently and cleanly. A lot of seedlings we import are diseased or have pests – we have to throw it away. With our system, we can provide seeds without diseases or pests.”
Food producers are keen to reap the benefits of vertical farming, too. And retailers love the system because it produces fruit and vegetables which have a longer life.
“Because we don’t use chemicals, retailers have suddenly realised that we could salad for them that doesn’t require to be washed,” David explained.
“And what that will do is it will cook between five and seven days extra on to the shelf life.
“We are using no chemicals anywhere in the vertical farm. Everything is grown on an organic basis — although we can’t actually we can’t actually claim it’s organic, because we’re not growing the crops in soil.
“There are no pesticides, no chemicals, nothing. It just grows in peat or it grows in coconut matting.
“That’s the same stuff used if you have a hanging basket in your garden.”
Farming in towers rather than fields may not seem natural but neither is the current state of how we grow the food we eat, according to David.
And he branded those who would rather stick to traditional farming as being stuck in the past. “You will always get Luddites, in any sector,” David added.
“In offices you use computers but there’s always someone who wants to go back to an older system.
“There will always be people yearning for the past but people are going to taste the quality of these crops, and realise it is extremely clean as well as being very, very tasty.
“And then there is the carbon footprint. You can go to the supermarket at any time of the year and pick up a packet of blueberries which have come from Peru, Uruguay or somewhere ridiculous. These have been flown here by jet.
“That is nuts. You can get on your high horse about this type of food, but please stop eating this stuff, or only eat fruit and vegetables when they’re in season – which is what we used to do.
“We’re lacking enough Vitamin C in our diets as it is!
“We keep hearing about how much food is thrown away. Well, if we can solve those kind of problems, then that’s pretty exciting.
“This is never going to replace the farmer growing barley but it might help the ones growing potatoes and broccoli and cauliflowers and soft fruits. It might well help protect these jobs.”
The food produced in vertical farms has also been given the thumbs up by food experts in terms of safety.
“As for the quality? Well, Dundee City Council sent one of their microbiologists to come and run tests on the crops,” said David.
“They said, it’s just about the cleanest if ever seen. And so it’s approved for human consumption. And I’ve actually got a tray of basil in the boot of my car.
“I’m taking it home, my wife is going to make pesto with it tonight. It tastes fantastic.”
Conversations About Food: Food Tank Live in NYC Speakers Series
A year-round event series by Food Tank featuring incredible speakers followed by a delicious reception/networking held in partnership with NYU Steinhardt, the NYC Food Policy Center at Hunter, and Salon.com
Tue, Jul 16 (7:00 PM) Tue, Aug 13 (7:00 PM)
A year-round event series by Food Tank featuring incredible speakers followed by a delicious reception/networking held in partnership with NYU Steinhardt, the NYC Food Policy Center at Hunter, and Salon.com.
May 14: "Equity in the Food System." Speakers: Joel Berg, CEO, Hunger Free America; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Qiana Mickie, Executive Director, Just Food; Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; Krishnendu Ray,NYU Steinhardt; Raymond Figueroa, Jr, President, New York City Community Garden Coalition; Chloe Sorvino, Forbes; Noreen Springstead, Executive Director, WhyHunger; and Ellen J. Wulfhorst,Reuters.
June 11: "Good Tech in Good Food." Speakers: Roee Adler, SVP, Global Head of We Work Labs, WeWork; Emma Cosgrove, Supply Chain Dive; Alexander Gillett, CEO, HowGood; Jennifer Goggin, Co-Founder, Startle Innovation; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Bertha Jimenez, CEO, RISE Products; Jenna Liut, Heritage Radio Network; and Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank.
July 16: "Eating for a Healthier and Sustainable Planet." Speakers: Lisa Held, The Farm Report; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Martin Lemos,Interim Executive Director, National Young Farmers Coalition; Chris McGrath, Chief Sustainability and Well-Being Officer, Mondelez;Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; Alex Sammon, The New Republic; Shino Tanikawa, Executive Director, NYC Soil & Water Conservation District; Beth Weitzman, Professor of Health and Public Policy, New York University’s Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development; Walter Willett, EAT Lancet primary author, Harvard University; and more to be announced.
August 13: "Healthy Food at Every Age." Speakers: Meserete Davis, Culinary Education Training Developer, NYC DOE School Foods; Dan Giusti, Founder, Brigaid; Manny Howard, Salon.com; Danielle Nierenberg, Food Tank; and more to be announced
In partnership with Great Performances Catering, a leading caterer committed to balancing inequalities in our communities, the events will be followed by networking opportunities as well as some delicious food.
Each of the talks will also be aired as part of a Facebook Live series in partnership with Facebook Community Leadership Program and released on our charting iTunes podcast, “Food Talk with Dani Nierenberg.”
Hurry each event has limited availability!
To join the waitlist for a full event,
please apply at www.foodtank.com/waitlist.
Tags United States Events New York EventsThings To Do In New York, NY New York Appearances New York Charity & Causes Appearances
BREAKING NEWS - USA: Check Your Pantry: Several Brands of Buns And Are Recalled Because of A Choking Hazard
Flowers Foods is recalling hamburger and hot dog rolls and buns because of a potential choking hazard from small pieces of hard plastic, the Georgia-based company said in a statement
By Alisha Ebrahimji, CNN
Updated 2:08 PM ET, Wed July 10, 2019
Wonder Is One of The Brands Whose Buns Are Subject To Recall
(CNN) Flowers Foods is recalling hamburger and hot dog rolls and buns because of a potential choking hazard from small pieces of hard plastic, the Georgia-based company said in a statement.
The company found small pieces of the hard plastic inside production equipment, though there haven't been any illness or injuries reported.
Some of the products were sold under the brand names of 7-Eleven, Great Value, Food Depot, Market Pantry, Natural Grain, Nature's Own, Publix and Wonder.
The recalled items were distributed in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia.
Flowers Foods says that consumers with any of these products should immediately throw them out or return them to the point of purchase for a full refund.
These Mind-Blowing Inventions Will Allow The Earth To Support 10 Billion People
Take a look at these 20 products that are potentially life-changing — and life-saving — and decide which ones you can use in your daily life to help preserve those precious resources
Barri Segal
GOBankingRates July 5, 2019
There are more than 7 billion people on the planet Earth today, according to the website Worldometers. The population in the world has grown from 1.65 billion to 6 billion during the 20th century alone, and right now, the population increase is estimated at 82 million people per year. More frightening is that world population projections indicate that by the year 2055 there will be 10 billion people on the planet and by the year 2088 there will be 11 billion.
Given that our natural resources are limited, that’s a lot of people the planet will somehow need to sustain. Particularly as global warming looms large, humans will be stretching those natural resources to the breaking point, so something needs to be done.
Fortunately, companies are stepping up and inventing things that can help ease the strain on Mother Earth. Take a look at these 20 products that are potentially life-changing — and life-saving — and decide which ones you can use in your daily life to help preserve those precious resources.
A Cloth That Grows Crops Indoors
AeroFarms is a vertical farming startup that uses a proprietary cloth to grow kale and arugula — and mists their roots with nutrients — instead of using soil and lots of water. By growing crops inside, AeroFarms can control the temperature, light and humidity.
According to the company, which was founded in New Jersey in 2011, its farming facilities are “400 times more productive per square foot, by output, than a traditional farm.” It grows its greens in spaces that used to be nightclubs, steel mills, warehouses and paintball centers, and sells them to Whole Foods and FreshDirect, among other grocers.
A Device That Produces Up to 10 Gallons of Drinking Water Per Hour
Access to clean drinking water is a pressing issue now for the human race, and it likely won’t be a problem that solves itself. Enter a group of University of Akron scientists who are diligently working to solve this problem.
The team is using techniques to capture water from the atmosphere in high-altitude locations where it doesn’t frequently rain. They are working on a prototype water harvester that will be able to produce up to 10 gallons of drinkable water per hour — from thin air. The water harvester prototype is designed to work where water resources are limited, and it does it inexpensively and effectively.
A Cooking Method That Will Change Energy Needs
Solar cooking is good for the environment in many ways, including keeping the air cleaner by eliminating black soot and fossil fuel emissions, and saving soil and trees. And Solar Cookers International is making it available. According to the company, one solar cooker preserves more than a ton of wood per year. In addition, it says that three out of seven people lack sustainable fuel to cook meals, and it is helping make that possible with “no-emission, decentralized, free solar energy.” SCI claims that by reducing household air pollution via solar cookers, there is potential to save up to $1.3 billion globally.
A Self-Sustainable Microhome
The Ecocapsule, a compact mobile home, uses solar wind and energy to sustain itself, enabling you to live anywhere off the grid. You don’t need to use traditional power and water supplies because it makes its own from the environment. According to the company, depending on geographic and local conditions, one to two people can use the Ecocapsule for medium-term off-grid living. It can generate power and collect rainwater, and one will cost you 79,900 euros ($90,125), excluding VAT, right now, although the company says the price will go down as production increases.
Agriculture That Combines Fish Farming and Hydroponics
AquaGrow Farms uses aquaponics to grow enough protein and produce to feed thousands every year. At its 800-square-foot farm, it combines fish farming and soil-less agriculture to create a food source — to the tune of 2,500 servings of fish and 28,000 servings of greens annually. The company does it all from six grow beds, three fish tanks and a seedling nursery. It takes 60 days from “seed to table,” and the Canadian company distributes the food it produces to members of the community who have limited access to nutritious food.
A New Waste Recycling System
The HomeBiogas processes food waste that compost traditionally doesn’t, such as fish, meat and fats. From that waste, it produces a “healthy and natural liquid fertilizer which is not made from synthetic chemicals,” which you can use at home instead of store-bought fertilizer that uses harmful chemicals that eventually enter the water supply. In addition, it uses methane gas from the waste as a cooking source, enabling people to not only reduce waste but create sustainable energy for their homes. When you purchase a HomeBiogas system you’ll get a portable biogas stove, and once you get cooking, you’ll be helping to reduce carbon emissions of up to 6 tons a year.
A Plant-Based Material Packaging Solution
Made from brown seaweed and plants, Notpla is a material that naturally biodegrades in just four to six weeks, making it a great replacement for plastic packaging. According to the company, it “doesn’t compete with food crops, doesn’t need fresh water or fertilizer and actively contributes to de-acidifying our oceans.” Ooho is one of Notpla’s products — a flexible packaging material ideal for drinks and sauces — and the packaging is actually edible, making it a perfect replacement for plastic cups and bottles. Just use the sauce or drink that’s in your Ooho, then either eat the “package” itself or throw it in your compost.
A Vegan Burger That Tastes Like the Real McCoy
If you love meat but want to help save the planet, try the Impossible Burger, a plant-based patty that really tastes like meat from cows. The company uses soy and potato proteins to make its products, in addition to coconut and sunflower oils to make it juicy and give it that sizzle everyone loves. In addition, a binder often used in ice cream and jam — methylcellulose — brings it all together. With no cholesterol or trans fats and three grams of fiber, the Impossible Burger might be an entirely possible substitution for the real thing.
Ink Made From Air Pollution
Air pollution is another pressing problem today, and AIR-INK aims to help fix it through repurposing carbon rich pollutants to make ink. It recycles soot from industrial air-polluting sources and turns it into high-quality ink, saving it from being dumped into water sources and polluting the planet. By using KAALINK, a “post tailpipe retrofit that works on diesel generators,” the company captures the pollution through filtration technologies that eventually grinds the soot into ink pigment. Although the product is not yet available to consumers, the company is underway putting certification processes in place.
Edible Beer Packaging Rings
Plastic is terrible for the planet — that much everyone agrees on — and each year it kills a significant amount of ocean life, according to Ocean Crusaders. Saltwater Brewery in Delray Beach, Florida, is doing something to help reduce the use of plastic by using edible six-pack rings for its beer. The rings are completely biodegradable, made from the beer brewing process’ barley and wheat ribbons. If animals encounter the six-pack rings, they can actually eat them. “It’s a big investment for a small brewery created by fisherman, surfers and people that love the sea,” said Saltwater Brewery co-founder Peter Agardy in an interview.
A Targeted Pesticide Spraying System
MagGrow is a spraying system that helps farmers target where they need coverage better than traditional crop-spraying technology. According to the company, MagGrow reduces drift up to 70% and increases crop coverage more than 40%. In addition, the system reduces water usage by 25% to 50%, extends spray windows, complies with all legislative and environmental rules and aides in controlling diseases that can occur from smaller spraying droplets.
Drones That Pollinate Flowers
The bee population decline crisis is at an all-time high, spurring a team of Japanese researchers to invent pocket-sized drones to pollinate flowers. The remote-controlled drone is approximately the size of a power adapter, and it is covered with horsehair bristles coated with a gel that enables the drone to act like a honeybee to gather and distribute pollen. By employing the drones to do honeybee work — pollinating fruits, nuts and vegetables — the team hopes to help farmers who are facing production crises.
A Sieve That Can Filter Salt Out of Seawater
United Kingdom researchers created a graphene-based, rigid sieve that filters salt out of seawater, an invention that has the potential to deliver clean drinking water to millions globally. Although there has been some success using water filtration systems before this sieve, graphene is the first material that researchers have identified that does not swell up in water (thanks to a coating of epoxy resin composite) and allows some particles to pass through. This is one timely discovery as climate change could possibly wreak havoc on urban water supplies.
A Trash Skimmer That Cleans Water
The V5 Seabin is designed to skim trash from calm water bodies, such as marinas, ports, etc. This floating garbage bin skims water surfaces by pumping water into itself and cleaning up plastics, floating trash and contaminated organic materials. The Seabin sucks in water from the surface of the marina and it passes through a bag inside the unit; it pumps the water back into the marina and traps the trash. Oil-absorbent pads further clean the water by absorbing detergent- and petroleum-based oil materials. Power for the Seabin comes via a 110V or 220V outlet, and the unit can pick up about 1.4 tons of trash per year.
A Spa Shower That Saves Water
The Nebia Spa Shower has the potential to save millions of gallons of water globally. According to the company, the first unit it debuted (Nebia Shower 1.0) sold to 55 countries and saved 100 million gallons of water. The Nebia Spa Shower 2.0 has new nozzles and is “perfectly positioned to maximize the water that comes into contact with your skin leaving it more hydrated and refreshed,” while saving 65% of the water that regular showers use. The shower features 45 degrees of movement, which makes it easy to shower without wetting your hair, and it has a 25-inch range of height to customize its spray pattern for short and tall family members.
An Ocean Cleanup Project
The ocean trash tracker is an ocean cleanup project designed to rid the oceans of plastic. So far, the nonprofit environmental group Ocean Voyages Institute has removed 40 tons of plastic from the Pacific Ocean, using GPS to track the trash. In 2020, the company plans on a bigger cleanup using 150 reusable trackers, bowling-ball-size units that map the trash’s location in real time. The trackers cost nearly $1,600 apiece, but they are teaching people how trash gathers and travels.
A Straw That Makes Water Safe To Drink
LifeStraw works with governments, donors and consumers to provide the world with safe drinking water. The product utilizes a hollow fiber membrane with microscopic pores that allow water to pass through but keep bacteria and parasites trapped. LifeStraw products come in many forms other than straws, including a 7-cup glass water filter pitcher, a water bottle filter and a water filtration system with a 1-gallon gravity bag. According to the company, it has provided safe water to more than 1 million children globally.
Fabric Made From Recycled Plastic Bottles
Repreve is a high-performance fiber made from plastic bottles and other recycled materials. Some of the leading brands use the fiber to produce fashion and athletic clothing that is durable and water repellent, and it contains features such as adaptive warming and cooling and wicking. The company that makes the fiber, Unifi, claims it has recycled more than 14 million plastic bottles so far — and it aims to recycle 20 billion by 2020. In addition to helping with finding life for recycled materials, making Repreve fiber conserves water and energy and emits fewer greenhouse gases.
Renewable Energy Air Conditioning
Air conditioning is a massive energy suck, and Blue Frontier wants to do something about it. Mistbox is a product made for air-conditioning systems — it’s a small box that clips onto your unit and works to potentially cut your energy bills by 30%. Mistbox lowers the air temperatures around your air-conditioning unit with its four “Mistbars” that spray water, making the air the unit pulls in cool. This, in turn, enables the unit to use less energy and maximize its efficiency. Mistbox uses a thermal battery to store power for times when there isn’t much wind or sun, and it runs on completely renewable energy.
Products That Reduce Plastic Waste
Using fully compostable, biodegradable, renewable and natural ingredients, Avani makes a full line of sustainable packaging and hospitality products for people around the world. Its products include the Bio-Cassava Bag, Bio-Poncho, polylactic acid (PLA) products, bio-paper products, bio-wooden cutlery and bio-boxes. All of the company’s products aim to replace petroleum-based plastic goods. According to Avani, it has replaced over 3 tons of unsustainable products to date, and it plans on doing much more.
Photo Disclaimer: Please note photos are for illustrative purposes only. As a result, some of the photos might not reflect the actual inventions listed in this article.
This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: These Mind-Blowing Inventions Will Allow the Earth To Support 10 Billion People
India: No Drips, No Drops: A City Of 10 Million Is Running Out Of Water
In India's sixth-largest city, lines for water snake around city blocks, restaurants are turning away customers and a man was killed in a brawl over water. Chennai, with a population of almost 10 million, is nearly out of water
June 25, 2019
SUSHMITA PATHAK
These satellite images from June 15, 2018, (left) and June 15, 2019, show the diminishing size of the Puzhal Lake reservoir in Chennai, India.
Copernicus Sentinel-2 Satellite Image/Maxar Technologies via AP
In India's sixth-largest city, lines for water snake around city blocks, restaurants are turning away customers and a man was killed in a brawl over water. Chennai, with a population of almost 10 million, is nearly out of water.
In much of India, municipal water, drawn from reservoirs or groundwater, typically runs for only a couple of hours each day. That's the norm year-round. The affluent fill tanks on their roofs; the poor fill jerrycans and buckets.
But in Chennai this summer, the water is barely flowing at all. The government has dispatched water tankers to residential areas to fill the void. Still, some people in especially hard-hit areas have vacated their homes and moved in with relatives or friends.
Satellite images of the city's largest reservoir, Puzhal Lake, taken one year apart, reveal a chilling picture. Since June 2018, the lake has shrunk significantly. Puzhal is one of the four rain-fed reservoirs that supply water to most parts of Chennai.
#ChennaiWaterScarcity Scenes of the dried up Thiruneermalai, Chembarambakkam, Perumbakkam and Korattur lake in Chennai.
All major reservoirs supplying water to Chennai dry up, read: http://bit.ly/2WLKzwZ #தவிக்கும்தமிழ்நாடு
Another picture shows the parched bed of Chembarambakkam Lake, another major reservoir. Its cracked surface is covered with dead fish.
"It's shocking but not surprising," says Tarun Gopalakrishnan, a climate change expert at the New Delhi-based Centre for Science and Environment. He says the crisis in Chennai is the result of "a toxic mix of bad governance and climate change."
Rains have become more erratic because of climate change. That, coupled with a delayed arrival of the seasonal monsoon, which usually comes in June, has all but dried up the city's water supply. Government data show that the storage level in the four lakes combined is less than one-hundredth of what it was at this time last year. A severe heat wave gripping most of India, including Chennai, has aggravated conditions.
What's happening in Chennai could easily happen anywhere across India, Gopalakrishnan says.
A 2018 government think tank report projected that 21 major Indian cities, including the capital, New Delhi, and India's IT hub, Bengaluru, will "run out of groundwater as soon as 2020." Approximately 100 million people would be affected, the report predicts.
In Chennai, residents are scrambling to conserve water.
"We stopped using showers for bathing. We use buckets so that we can ration the amount of water," says 33-year-old university professor Nivash Shanmugkam. His family also avoids using a washing machine for its laundry and washes clothes by hand as much as possible.
Public institutions are suffering. Hospitals and nursing homes are charging more for services to cover the increased cost of water, according to the local press. There are also reports that toilets at schools are dirty due to a lack of water.
Indian workers carry the last bit of water from a small pond in the dried-out Puzhal reservoir on the outskirts of Chennai. | . Arun Sankar/AFP/Getty Images
A scuffle over water turned deadly for a 33-year-old man when he tried to stop another man and his sons from siphoning large amounts of water from a public tank this month.
Businesses and offices have been affected too. Amit Agarwal, a 28-year-old IT professional in Chennai, has been working from home for the past few days because there is no water in the bathrooms in his office. Many tech companies have been advising employees to do the same.
In Chennai's shopping malls, restrooms are operational only on some floors.
The rich can buy additional deliveries of water from private tankers, sometimes at exorbitant rates. Poor people living in slums simply can't afford to pay.
The response of the government of Tamil Nadu, the state whose capital is Chennai, has ranged from downplaying the extent of the crisis to praying to the rain gods.
"There has been a water shortage in several areas due to monsoon deficit. The government is taking several steps," Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi Palaniswami told reporters on Friday.
Those steps include a special train that will soon begin transporting 10 million liters of water per day – that's about 2.6 million gallons — to Chennai from another part of the state. After initially turning down donations, Tamil Nadu has accepted an offer of aid of 2 million liters of drinking water from a neighboring state, Kerala.
Opposition politicians in Tamil Nadu are staging protests. Dozens of women carrying colorful plastic water pots with slogans written on them gathered in Chennai this week to criticize the government for its handling of the water crisis.
One thing that could have possibly averted this acute water shortage? Rainwater harvesting.
In 2002, the government of Tamil Nadu passed legislation that mandated rainwater-harvesting structures on all buildings, including private homes, in the city. The goal: to capture rainwater and store it for later use. It was a revolutionary idea. When the city got hit with heavy monsoon rains a few years later, rainwater harvesting raised the water table enough to last the city until 2016, says Sekhar Raghavan, director of the Chennai-based nonprofit The Rain Centre.
But the government failed to monitor the rainwater-harvesting structures, which meant a lot of them didn't work properly.
"This is a wake-up call for the government and citizens," he says.
Raghavan says he's now getting calls from people asking about how they can properly harvest every drop of rainwater.
Anticipating inadequate rainfall and planning for acute water shortages are further complicated by climate change.
"The fear associated with climate change is not the fear of knowing that everything is going to be worse," says Gopalakrishnan. "It's the fear of not knowing."
While they may not necessarily light ceremonial fires for rain like their elected leaders, Chennai residents will nevertheless be praying for a downpour soon.
NPR correspondent Lauren Frayer contributed to this report from New Delhi.
Tags: water shortage water india chennai