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North Carolina Indoor City Farm Nears Completion of Phase 1
Your Local Greens, an industrial size hydroponic indoor city farm located in Burlington, North Carolina, is nearing the completion of Phase I, and preparing its first crops consisting of a variety of lettuces and microgreens.
Owned and operated by YLG Partners, Inc., the company was founded on the belief that it is possible to hire individuals with disabilities, pay them a living wage with benefits, and seamlessly integrate them into the workforce while, at the same time, creating ideal conditions for growing produce.
Looking at new and disruptive ways of doing things does not stop with the workforce. Your Local Greens said it offers its customers access to fresh locally grown produce 12 months of the year. The company has utilizing LED grow light technology and plant recipes from Philips Horticulture in the Netherlands to construct 60,000 sq. ft. of growing space which is planned to be built in four phases.
"It is a study in the future of self-sustainable agriculture," the company says. "Plants grow in a safe, clean, controlled atmosphere, in water, and without soil using just the right mix of nutrients and light. This increases crop yield and nutritional value with less waste, while using fewer natural resources. The result is outstanding, all-natural disease-free produce without the use of pesticides."
The motto for Your Local Greens is "Live Better Than Organic", which the company says goes beyond the grow-room to include the use of non-petroleum, plant-based packaging for all of its microgreens, and recycled packages for its lettuces. Beginning in 2019, as larger packages become available, Plant Based Packaging will be used for all products. This will also be the case with new biodegradable labeling materials that are now under development and soon to come on-line. Your Local Greens said it supports companies who are working to create compostable products that do no harm to the environment.
Indoor city farming, reportedly uses 90 percent less water than in the field, non-GMO seeds, produces only 2 percent waste. According to Your Local Greens, it also meets 13 of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.
For more information:
Dennis Harrell
Your Local Greens
Tel: +1 (336) 290-7373
info@yourlocalgreens.com
www.yourlocalgreens.com
Publication date : 10/16/2018
New Hydroponics Approach Draws £500k Seed Funding for Welsh Startup Phytoponics
A new deep-water approach to hydroponics has earned Welsh agtech startup, Phytoponics, £500,000 ($650k) of seed funding support over the last two years, lining the company up for major Series A investment push in mid-2019.
The first round in 2017, which closed on £200k, was backed by five new angel investors led by Smart Anchor Capital based in London and Cardiff. This year’s second round, which raised £300k and was also led by Smart Anchor Capital, consisted of follow-on funding by four of the first round investors, alongside eight new people.
The Aberystwyth-based company was co-founded by Adam Dixon and Luke Parkin in October 2016 with the aim of delivering hydroponic systems designed to produce better crop yields than are possible through conventional greenhouse-based methods. The company’s patented Hydrosac technology is now deemed to be ready for high volume commercial output, having proven itself by producing high-quality tomatoes through a pilot project run in conjunction with Aberystwyth University in Wales.
“The primary difference of Hydrosac is its use of more water than existing hydroponic systems, giving plants a wider buffer range of nutrients, temperature and dissolved oxygen,” said Dixon. “This results in less fluctuation in root zone conditions, which makes production more predictable and programmable than has been possible in the past.”
“Our system is particularly designed for large vine crops such as tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers, as opposed to many others who concentrate more on salad crops.”
For tomato production, the Phytoponics system provides about 10 liters of water per plant, which the company says depletes the available nutrients at a much-reduced rate compared to when less water is used.
“I’ve been with working with hydroponics for more than 10 years, including leading up to starting preparations for the launch of Phytoponics about three years ago,” said Dixon. “Our first two years in business, since our official launch, has been focused on development and initial trials with a little bit of funding being sourced in year one, followed by the £500,000 we’ve raised this year.
“This new money allowed us to progress to the pilot trial at Aberystwyth University and the bringing in of high-level horticulture sector expertise to help us make our system fully commercial and ready to go.
“It was hard finding investors during the period we were developing the technology, especially in a sector like horticulture where trials, which are greenhouse-based, can only be run on an annual basis.
“Our big technology breakthrough came through running the pilot at Aberystwyth University and then winning the United Nation’s Young Champion of the Earth award in 2017. That gave us a major boost of recognition, enabling us to take our plans to a London investor in December last year, which led to our first round of seed funding.”
Despite gaining a $15,000 prize as part of the UN award and a number of other relatively small competition prizes over the last two years, Dixon doesn’t believe start-ups should concentrate too much on competitions and awards.
“It’s important to focus primarily on building the proof points of your business, relating to potential customers and developing the necessary specialist expertise to allow you to progress,” he said. “Awards are good if you can’t get sales, which we couldn’t in the early stage of our development, but not so much after that point.”
The next big change for the business was Smart Anchor Capital’s founder partner, Mark Hindmarsh, recently joining Phytoponics as chairman.
“Mark has really helped us refine and develop our business model, work on our proof points for fundraising and generally commercialize our operation,” said Dixon, whose initial contact with Mark came via a shared LinkedIn friend.
Hindmarsh is also upbeat about the relationship he has with Phytoponics and the company’s potential.
“The team at Phytoponics have achieved an amazing amount in the last 12 months, often with little resource,” said Hindmarsh. “Despite that, they have attracted the attention of potential partners and customers in the US, India, UAE, Africa, Canada, and many other countries.
“As new shareholders ourselves, we are excited to see what the future holds for the company considering the opportunities that lie ahead. As their recently appointed Chairman, I am personally looking forward to playing my part in helping the company achieve its next milestones in advance of a larger fund-raise within the next 12 months.”
Hindmarsh added that with this year’s round ending up 3x over-subscribed, the team is now considering opening up another £400,000 or so for funding early in 2019. This would be done via a convertible loan note instrument to give investors an opportunity to participate prior to the Series A round in late summer 2019.
Funding aside, the next physical step for Phytoponics involves the launch of a farm-scale trial with a major commercial grower (still secret at present) who will use the company’s technology to grow tomatoes for two major UK supermarkets early in 2019.
Beyond that, the company is planning to hire new employees to help with both technical and commercial developments.
“I believe our technology is globally significant,” said Dixon. “Initially, therefore, we’re looking to make a big impact on horticultural production in the UK, with the potential to scale our operation internationally through our own technology platform and business partnerships.”
Green Things Are Sprouting High In The Sky In The Joburg Inner City
Green Things Are Sprouting High In The Sky In The Joburg Inner City
Those things are spinach, basil and lettuce, planted in hydroponic farms on skyscraper rooftops in a project called the Urban Agriculture Initiative (UAI).
The UAI has been developed by the Johannesburg Inner City Partnership (JICP) with support from the City of Johannesburg, the Department of Small Business Development, the Small Enterprise Development Agency, and SAB Kickstart.
“The JICP has played a role in incubating, facilitating, and enabling this project. It is this work that has been initiated in the inner city with a view to perfecting it there and then replicating it elsewhere in the city and indeed in the country,” says Anne Steffny, a director at JICP.
Story and picture by Lucille Davie
“I would like to thank you and the members of the JICP, on behalf of the Executive Mayor, for your constructive engagement with the City and their shared commitment to reclaiming the Inner City,” says André Coetzee, the Director: Policy & Research in the Executive Mayor’s office.
The JICP has signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the City’s Department of Social Development. They both have a common purpose, namely, creating jobs, developing youth, ensuring food security and resilience as well as providing access to entrepreneurial opportunities.
One of the initiators of the UAI, Dr Michael Magondo from business incubator Wouldn’t It Be Cool (WIBC) and a director of JICP, believes that the “UAI is not about putting the farm on the roof, it’s about the lives that can be changed.”
Thirty-three year-old Puseletso Mamogale grew 3 600 fledgling spinach seedlings in August - arranged in A-fame racks of 10 shelves – on the rooftop of a building at 1 Fox Street. She harvested them after four weeks, and sold them to a local restaurant. She is now planting basil seedlings, a more lucrative crop.
The plants are grown in a medium that holds them upright while their roots reach through the pot into a tray below, filled with nutrient-rich water. Plastic sheet-roof tunnels keep them warm in winter, and protect them from storms and hail in summer. The sheeting can be rolled back to release heat.
Hydroponic farms of 300m² can produce the equivalent of one hectare of open farm production. Water costs are between R70 to R200 monthly, up to 95% less than conventional farming. This means that the hydroponic farm has 26 annual crop cycles, compared to four to five crop cycles with open-field farms.
Mamogale is a graduate of the WIBC, a programme that seeks to take young people aged 18 to 35 and to turn them into entrepreneurs. So far 13 farm entrepreneurs have been trained, and 25 are about to receive training. It has as its mission to “foster job creation through the creation of an urban agricultural entrepreneurial ecosystem supporting young black, urban farmers”.
It was launched in October 2017 with Nhlanhla Mpati’s farm, bursting with lush basil, on the roof of the Minerals Council South Africa building in Main Street. He started with 300 plants and in just over six months he had 1 000 plants eagerly waiting delivery to nearby restaurants. He calls his enterprise Gegezi Organics, and in just 66m² of rooftop space and 21 days he has produced 110kgs of basil. Another rooftop farmer is Mapaseka Dlamini, whose garden overflows with gourmet lettuce and basil plants. She now employs four people and supplies restaurants in Maboneng.
Other farms are in Hillbrow and Newtown, with rooftops supplied by the Outreach Foundation, the Jozi Housing Company, and the Joburg Land Company. There are two farms on the rooftops of FNB Bank City in the CBD. The training that entrepreneurs undergo is intense. Before they are given their starter packs of seedlings, pots, irrigation systems and pumps, they have to present a business model, including potential customers for their produce. They are given financial support from the WIBC, with an interest-free loan.
Self-Assembly Greenhouse To Be Launched In USA
“North America is looking for better solutions for local produce, so-called farm to table produce”, says TAP’s CEO, Avner Shohet. “People are looking for fresh products that leave less of a carbon footprint.” He says there is a lot of effort going into urban farming in that country. “The TAPKIT is another solution. It can be used for suburban farming where the land is less expensive, making it a cheaper solution, with the added benefit of less energy consumption.”
The TAPKIT, a self-assembly hydroponic greenhouse, is to be launched in the USA for the first time later this month. This farming solution was developed by the Israeli company, Teshuva Agricultural Projects (TAP). This company builds commercial greenhouse installations throughout the world. The TAPKIT is to be introduced at the PMA fresh summit being held in Orlando on 19 and 20 October.
The TAPKIT is a 500 m2 hydroponic unit, which can produce 6-12 tons of leafy vegetables and fresh herbs per year. “We started with the idea of TAPKIT for small farmers to have their own hydroponic system, but since then the kit has been ordered by resorts for their kitchen supply and retailers for their own shops too”, says Shohet.
Wide range of interested parties
“Other clients have now also shown interest. These include organizational kitchens, retirees, schools and young people who are looking for ecologically-friendly, sustainable business opportunities”, he says. “We are continually surprised to learn from the market about another sector that finds the TAPKIT to be an affordable and efficient solution.”
The TAPKIT greenhouse was first presented at ’Agri-Tech Israel 2018’ in May. “This first unit has reported to us that their produce has been sold out”, reports the CEO. TAP has developed three different types of TAPKIT greenhouses. “For tropical, subtropical and cold weather”, explains Shohet. “The potential is, therefore, almost unlimited.
Growth technique has many advantages
These units can be operated by just two people and uses Nutrition Film Technique (NFT). This is a method of hydroponic growing in which the plant roots are placed in a shallow stream of re-calculating solution that contains all that is needed for maximum productivity. “NFT techniques are on the increase globally due to growing consumption of high-value and exotic crops and the increasing need for global food security by increasing yield in smaller spaces”, Shohet said in an earlier interview.
“Two units have already been shipped to South Korea and one to the Philippines. In two weeks, two units will also be shipped to a resort in Mauritius”, Shohet concludes.
For more information;
Avner Shohet
T.A.P / 2BFresh
Office: +972-9-8940507
Mobile: +972-50-7922579
Email: avner@taprojects.com
www.taprojects.com
Publication date : 10/12/2018
Author: nick@freshplaza.com
© HortiDaily.com
How Urban Farms In New York Schools Are Raising Food To Fight Inequality
Teens for Food Justice’s farm-to-table concept brings fresh, student-grown produce to the cafeteria
September 27, 2018
Teens for Food Justice
It’s the type of experience expected at a top-rated restaurant: Diners gaze at produce growing in a hydroponic garden next to the kitchen. Behind plexiglass, herbs are carefully plucked in anticipation of being added to every plate.
This high-tech take on farm-to-table, however, is being built for the cafeteria of a New York City public school in Manhattan.
As part of a nonprofit program called Teens for Food Justice, a handful of schools in Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Manhattan have turned spare classrooms, unused science labs, and, in one case, an empty closet into urban hydroponic farms, an experiment in self-sufficiency, science education, and food equity.
It’s not unheard of to find produce grown within the five boroughs: supermarket chains like Whole Foods and companies such as Gotham Greens have helped pioneer and popularize large-scale commercial farming in New York City.
But Teens for Food Justice isn’t just about urban farming, it’s about using agriculture in the classroom as a tool to educate and empower communities without easy access to fresh produce.
“These communities lack access to healthy food,” says Katherine Soll, the founder and CEO of Teens for Food Justice. “How could we utilize a school program to make it possible for food desert communities to provide food for their community?”
Teens for Food Justice
Teens for Food Justice now has more than 300 students in New York City public schools actively participating in hands-on learning, either during the school day or in after-school and weekend programming. The student farmers at the program’s three locations manage to raise an impressive annual harvest of leafy greens, herbs, tomatoes, and cucumbers: DeWitt Clinton High School in the Bronx grows 25,000 pound of produce a year, Brownsville Collaborative Middle School in Brooklyn brings in 15,000 pounds, and Brooklyn’s Urban Assembly Unison School nets 3,000 pounds.
After the food is harvested, cleaned, and cut, most of it gets used in school cafeterias to supplement existing dining options. Think salad bars with most of the items raised on site, including tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, kale, swiss chard, basil, and bok choy. Any remaining fresh produce gets sold at an affordable price to the community via farmer’s markets.
Connecting salads and service learning
Soll initially became involved in student service and philanthropy in 2009. A mother of two on the Upper West Side, Soll was disappointed student volunteer options weren’t addressing issues of inequality in New York City, and decided to take it upon herself to create more community-oriented programming.
“There wasn’t any rich service learning opportunities,” says Soll. “We felt that was really the key to creating a generation of young people who were civically engaged and involved in local justice.”
Soll helped launch Students for Service, which offered a variety of service learning opportunities. Within three years, the program was working with more than 1,000 students across a variety of city agencies and nonprofits. As the program grew, volunteers often worked on issues of sustainability, emergency food assistance, and urban gardening. According to the New York Food Bank, 16 percent of New Yorkers are food insecure, meaning they lack reliable access to fresh food, and more than 1 million reside in “food desert” communities, which lack access to fresh food.
An idea started taking shape: what if you could create a Gotham Greens-esque program, but for schools, and they could sell produce into their local communities?
The first Teens for Food Justice garden launched in 2013 in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, at Urban Assembly Unison School. Initially, the program worked on a volunteer basis, with students from across New York participating in after-school gardening. In 2016, TFFJ decided to change how it operates, focusing on drawing volunteers from within the school. By integrating the program in the school day, the thinking went, the program offered new classroom and learning opportunities.
“For a youth led-project to really move the needle, the community needs to drive it,” says Soll. “If you really empower the children and families and leadership, you can embed it deeply in the ongoing learning of the school.”
Teens for Food Justice
Supporting social change from the ground up
With funding and support from companies such as Whole Foods and Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, as well as support from city government, the program is expanding its aim. Soll says the program is looking to increase the size of the farm at Urban Assembly Unison School, build a new farm at Manhattan’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Collaborative School in Columbus Circle, where the garden-in-cafeteria-concept is taking shape, and potentially launch new in-school farms in Miami.
The focus on sustainability isn’t just about produce. Soll says the program is working with Boston Consulting to develop a more self-sustaining platform, to make it easier to expand into new schools while helping existing sites grow and make a great impact on their communities.
The benefits of onsite gardens go beyond fresh food (which is a big deal in food-insecure communities). Students gain lessons about biology and nutrition, and DeWitt Clinton High has incorporated farm work into AP courses. Evaluations discovered students learn a lot of soft skills around collaboration, and gain confidence in the garden. But more importantly, Teens for Food Justice shows teens how they can make an impact.
“When children speak passionately about an issue, adults listen to them,” Soll says. “If you believe your voice can be heard, and you believe you have the power to make a difference, that builds confidence on so many levels, and triggers engagement and involvement.”
Strange-Looking Hydroponic Farm In Forbes Is Fully Functioning Experiment
By Nick Shashkini | Oct 8, 2018
Paul Gauthier, associate researcher, stands in front of the Forbes hydroponic farm.
By Nick Shashkini
Just inside the main lobby of Forbes College, an eerie white glow emanates from an alcove containing a strange contraption covered in signs warning passersby not to get too close.
The Forbes hydroponic farm may look like a portal to another universe, but its purpose is to show students that crops can grow anywhere by demonstrating hydroponics, or the cultivation of crops using nutrient solutions instead of soil. The hydroponic farm is also a fully functioning laboratory where students and staff regularly conduct experiments.
The hydroponics lab is an offshoot of the Princeton Vertical Farming Project, which began in April 2017 in the Forbes downstairs lounge. It seeks to introduce vertical farming concepts to the Princeton community while also conducting vertical farming experiments.
Paul Gauthier, associate research scholar of plant physiology, horticulture, and stable isotopes, runs the research aspect of the hydroponics display. Hydroponics is one of Gauthier’s many research interests.
“When I meet a group of students, I ask them if they want to be farmers, and usually nobody says yes,” Gauthier said, noting that he wants to change perceptions about crop-growing.
Gauthier said a highly visible location such as the Forbes lobby seemed perfect for raising awareness.
That said, much of the team’s experimental and research work is done in the Moffett Laboratory, while the Forbes location is intended to be more visible and presentable to the public.
Gauthier hopes the farm will make students ask more questions about modern agriculture and connect the plants they see with what they eat every day at the University. The project plans to eventually serve some of the produce in the Forbes dining hall.
Korlekuor Akiti ’19 works on the project for her senior thesis for the ecology and evolutionary biology department, and she is also organizing a public tasting of the crops in November.
“There was a lot to be explored with the hydroponic farm,” Akiti said. “People had been looking at the inputs, but no one had been looking at the outputs: the quality of the crops.”
She said that it has been extremely rewarding to see her work running experiments and tending to plants pay off, especially considering the short life cycle of some of the plants, enabling her to see them grow and develop instead of having to wait years.
She is also excited by the prospect of more students learning about agriculture, with the lab so close to their living spaces. As the project develops, she hopes that students will walk into the lobby and see what they will eat that day.
Student reaction to the lab has been positive, with many curious about the purpose of the setup.
“It’s an interesting idea,” Colin Moffet ’21 said. “It will be cool to know that some of the food I am eating in the dining hall was grown in-house.”
Education Matters: Students Grow Food Hydroponically
By: SUSANNE BRUNNER
September 24, 2018
CABOT, Ark. - Growing food without soil? It's happening at Cabot High School.
"It most definitely grabs their attention," says Griffin Prior, Cabot High Senior.
When you're walking down the halls, it's hard to miss these plant towers.
"It teaches us so much responsibility because if we don't take care of it, then it's just going to die," says Cora Hicks, Cabot High Senior.
Using a pH System, students in Plant Science Class are testing out their new hydroponic grow tower. The lettuce sprouts without soil. Instead, these teens use mineral nutrients in water and light.
"It's easier than to dig in dirt to show kids how the root system grows, how the plant itself grows, on what it uses to grow," says Prior.
Prior and his classmates are nurturing the leafy greens with a pH System. Periodically, students will test the pH in the water to see if the plant is getting the right amount of nutrients it needs. The process was a lot of trial and error.
Since July, students have harvested about 9 pounds of organic lettuce. With 6 of these plant towers on hand, there's enough lettuce for everyone.
"We kind of share it throughout the district. It is good! It tastes just like a salad," says Hicks.
From tower to table, Plant Science is growing with interest and this method is planting the seed to something bigger in agriculture education. Cabot High School received the towers during the summer and they hope to get more in the future.
To keep up with Susanne Brunner's Education Matters Reports, you can like her page here
TotalGrow Turns Greenhouse Into Year-Round Operation
During the cold, dark months of January and February, the greenhouses of Mud Lake Farm were formerly dormant. Most of the staff was on temporary layoff awaiting a return to work when the longer daylight of spring made the farm bounce back to life.
TotalGrow Lighting
Thanks to an unexpected opportunity to test the TotalGrow light emitting diode (LED), the green houses now grow produce all year long and the staff is never without work. It’s an interesting story that is founded upon energy efficient lighting.
The Kent Garden Club recently heard the fascinating story of Mud Lake Farm in a presentation highlighting hydroponic gardening. The speaker was Kris Van Haitsma and I followed up with her to hear the rest of the story.
Kris is co-owner of Mud Lake Farm along with her husband Steve. The title of Kris’s presentation to the garden club was “Playing with Mud” and detailed the evolution of the farm from a muddy cow pasture to a highly productive hydroponic greenhouse operation.
The property on which the farm was built has been in Steve’s family for generations. It is primarily low lands and difficult to grow crops on. Kris wanted to do something different with the land which led her to purchase a used greenhouse. After many false starts Kris and Steve settled upon a hydroponic farming operation as the focal point of the farm.
At the point where Kris and Steve had four greenhouses operating during the usual short growing season they were asked to test TotalGrow LED lighting in one of their greenhouses. The goal was to extend the growing season and increase their productivity.
Hydroponics
With hydroponics no soil is needed and the plants float on nutrient rich water 4 to 12 inches deep. During the winter many types of lettuce thrive in a hydroponic garden if they can be kept from freezing and if supplemental light is provided.
In the past the Van Haitsmas had considered high pressure sodium lighting but could not justify the inefficiency of what is considered a typical greenhouse light. The bulb is expensive, uses lots of electricity, needs to be replaced fairly frequently and does not produce the optimum spectrum of light for good plant growth. Not a good combination when your goal is profitability.
An attempt at supplemental lighting with fluorescent bulbs led to less than desirable plant growth so when the test offer was presented, the Van Haitsma’s agreed to install the LED based TotalGrow system in one of their greenhouses.
Kris and Steve were amazed when they realized that the one greenhouse, using TotalGrow lights, was producing more than the other three greenhouses combined. That made adding TotalGrow lights to a second green house an easy decision. Ultimately they have plans to light the remaining houses with total grow as demand for their products rises.
Using a geothermal heating system to keep the air temperature above freezing, the Van Haitsmas expanded the variety of plants they could grow at the same time they developed new outlets for selling their fresh produce. Mud Lake Farms is now a vibrant year round operation!
According to Kris:
“We grow around 40 different varieties of lettuce, including red and green romaine, butterhead, batavia, and leaf lettuces. Since we grow lettuce year-round, we can provide produce to our customers even in winter.”
Kris’s customers include 80 – 100 families living in West Michigan that are enrolled in a type of buyers club. During the Farmer’s Market season they have a booth offering fresh picked products including custom made cordials (flavored syrups) that are made from ingredients grown on the farm.
Mud Lake Farm Cordials
Many local chef owned restaurants prefer the premium quality of Mud Lake Farm’s freshly picked produce. Relationships with those chefs are most often made by word of mouth and one came from a web search of LocalHarvest.org. Sadly, most chain restaurants do not seek out local growers, a situation that the restaurant chain Chipotle is making great strides at correcting.
Kris noted that a lot more infrastructure is in place for connecting locally grown products with local outlets. The sustainability and farm to table movements are helping drive those connections.
When a product like the energy efficient LED TotalGrow can improve the cost efficiency and productivity of a local grow operation, everyone wins as more products are brought to market and enjoyed by customers in many venues. The Van Haitsma’s Mud Lake Farm is a “shining” example of using energy efficiency to drive productivity as well as profitability!
The Energy Alliance Group of Michigan is a leader in clean energy PACE project development and financing.
How Do You Grow Vegetables In The Desert?
A Syrian farmer in the UAE is producing a variety of salad vegetables and herbs in the inhospitable climate and terrain of the region.
Amjad Alkhal, who works as an agricultural engineer at Emirates Hydroponics Farms , uses a hydroponic farming system - an innovative method of growing plants without soil - but instead using a liquid nutrient solution. Amjad Alkhal grows produce in the desert using a hydroponic farming system Chilled water passes through insulating tubes to nourish plants like lettuce, which are planted in a fibrous material called rockwool. Rockwool is made of crushed rocks and holds water like a sponge.
Once the water has completed a cycle, it is drained back out to be filtered and reused. In this process crops are planted in rockwool, a fibrous material made of crushed rock Using alternative farming systems has saved Alkhal around 90 percent of the water that he would have used by deploying traditional farming methods. The farmer also uses a vertical farming rotatory field - a stackable, revolving farm bed with 18 rows.
This set-up has also saved Alkhal space, allowing him to be located closer to the city centre and deliver produce to stores faster, which in turn has reduced the farm’s environmental footprint. “That rotatory greenhouse, which we applied in 2005, is the first rotatory greenhouse in the Middle East,” says Alkhal, “Due to the system, if you were going to plant in the same area for traditional agriculture it would need around six times [the space of] this one.”
Alkhal’s rotatory greenhouses use six times less space than traditional agriculture Emirates Hydroponics Farms is approximately two hectares large, equivalent to the size of two rugby fields. Alkhal is able to produce around 500,000 lettuce plants - including nine varieties - and two million herbs each year. Like Alkhal, many UAE-based farmers grow their crops on 'marginal land' - meaning that it has low agricultural worth due to factors like poor soil, little freshwater and harsh temperatures.
The International Center for Biosaline Agriculture is also working to find homegrown solutions in the UAE, exploring ways to get the most out of scarce resources like freshwater. The centre uses salty seawater to farm certain crops that are both salt and heat tolerant, such as quinoa and mustard plants. Other than using salt water for agriculture, the ICBA has an ‘integrated aquaculture’ that desalinates naturally salty groundwater to produce freshwater for farming.
It also produces brine – a highly concentrated salt water - to farm fish. The ICBA enriches the water with fish waste products to fertilise crops In a separate operation, this brine water is enriched with fish waste products, and used to fertilise a sea-bean-like vegetable called salicornia. Yet another growing trend in regional agriculture is so-called precision farming, which gives plants the exact amount of what they need to flourish.
“Date palms require about 50 litres [of water] a day in the winter and about 150 litres in the summertime. Whereas if you talk to any farmer, they provide more than 300 liters a day per tree,” explains ICBA’s Director Ismane Elouafi, “With precision agriculture, you give the information to the farmers that they don’t need to use more than 50 litres, and sensors can also make the irrigation stop at a certain time.”
Drones are used to measure plants hydration, allowing for a precise irrigation system that saves water This type of ‘smart farming’ uses drones with sensors to measure a plant's hydration. It is currently being applied in a variety of ways in the UAE, which is investing in new food technologies .
The country is planning to build in Dubai the world’s largest vertical farm later this year. Construction is set to being in November.
In addition, Masdar - a sustainable city in the desert of Abu Dhabi set up with an original investment of $15 billion - plans to test smart home farms, whilst looking at ways to better conserve energy and water nationwide. / Euronews
A New Hotel Design Featuring Breeding Tanks Full of Fish And Vegetable-Filled Vertical Farms — Take A Look
October 1, 2018 | Peter Kotecki
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
The annual Radical Innovation Award competition always features elaborate and imaginative hotel designs, including water-powered resorts on mountaintops and rooms in flying glass pods.
This year, one of the finalists created a hotel design centered on aquaponics - a system that combines raising fish and cultivating plants in water. Excretions from the fish can increase the toxicity of the water, but this water is fed to the plant system, where bacteria turn the by-products intro nutrients for the plants. The water is purified by the time it returns to the aquatic system at the end of the closed cycle.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes, a firm based in France, wants to apply this closed loop model to hotels by recycling rainwater throughout the building. The circulation would provide water to aquariums, flowers, and vertical produce farms within the hotel.
Radical Innovation Award winners will be announced on October 3. In the meantime, take a look at some of the renderings for the Aquaponic Experience Hotel.
The architects' proposal calls for a modular design that could adapt to different skylines around the world. It could be a smaller building in Paris or a tall tower in New York, for example.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
A rooftop restaurant would serve local food, and breeding tanks on different floors would feature sturgeons, crawfish, tilapia, trout, and more.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
Each room would include an aquarium that would provide water for various flowers and herbs.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
In line with the aquaponics model, the vertical culture system on each floor — where produce is grown in vertically-stacked layers —would filter the water before it is injected back into the fish tank.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
The hotel's vertical cultures would include mushrooms, tomatoes, eggplant, melons, lettuce, strawberries, and grapes.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
From homemade caviar to vegetable salads and crawfish dishes, the architects say the hotel's production of fish and produce could each feed 60 people per day.
Varinot & Varinot Architectes
It is unclear if the Aquaponic Experience Hotel will ever be created, but the competition finalists will all meet with industry experts to discuss developing their ideas further.
UK: Start-Up Secures Funding To Launch Commercial Scale Trials For Hydroponic Growing System
Phytoponics, a multi-award winning start-up specialising in the development of hydroponic deep-water culture technology for sustainable agriculture has secured £300,000 in new funding following on from the £200,000 it raised earlier this year. The funding comes from existing investors and a number of new angel investors led by Smart Anchor Capital.
The company based in Aberystwyth was co-founded by Adam Dixon and Luke Parkin during Adam’s studies at Cardiff University with the aim of delivering highly optimised hydroponic systems designed to produce better crop yields than traditional systems and with the potential to meet global food demand with sustainability in mind. Phytoponic’s patented Hydrosac technology is ready for high volume commercial growing having proven itself by producing two tonnes of high quality tomatoes through a pilot project housed at the company’s glasshouse facility at Aberystwyth University.
Co-Founder Adam Dixon sits amongst Phytoponics first hydroponically grown tomato harvest
Phytoponics CEO & Co-Founder Adam Dixon says. "We’re so pleased to have secured this funding from such prominent supportive investors. These new funds will provide us the necessary operating cash to scale up trials of our technology whilst experimenting with other high value crop types. We recently signed a contract with a major commercial grower that will use our technology to grow tomatoes for two major supermarkets early next year. We’re also planning to hire new employees to help with technical and commercial development”.
Existing investor David Kremer commented, “When approached I was more than happy to follow-on fund the team having experienced the progress they’ve made over the last 6 months, not only successfully bringing their concept to market but surrounding themselves with credible industry experts and picking up awards and accolades along the way”.
Incoming Angel investor entrepreneur Melisa Lawton says, “The decision to invest in Phytoponics was quite simple once I’d met Adam and Luke. Their vision is compelling, as is the potential for their Hydrosac technology, especially the ability to deploy it in countries where water is scarce or in humanitarian aid situations”.
“The team have achieved an amazing amount in the last 12 months and with little resource. Despite that they have attracted the attention of potential partners and customers from the US, India, UAE, Africa, Canada and many other countries”, said Mark Hindmarsh Founder Partner of Smart Anchor Capital. “As new shareholders we are all excited to see what the future holds for the company considering the opportunity that lies ahead and as recently appointed Chairman I personally look forward to playing my part in helping Phytoponics achieve its next milestones in advance of a larger fund-raise within the next 12 months”.
The Phytoponics investment process was facilitated and managed by Smart Anchor Ventures with legal support provided by Acuity Legal.
For more information:
Phytoponics
Cardiff Business Technology Centre
Senghenydd Road
Cardiff
CF24 4AY
United Kingdom
+44 2921 888 941
KSU Farm To Install Growing System, Expand Crop Production
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil and exposing the roots to a mineral nutrient solution. Amhydro, the company installing the new system at KSU, referred to hydroponics as “the future of food” on their website.
SEPTEMBER 24TH, 2018 CAMAYAK
In an effort to increase crop sustainability, KSU will be implementing a hydroponic system on its Hickory Grove Farm. Photo credit: Andres Lopez
Kennesaw State is currently installing a new hydroponic growing system on its Hickory Grove Farm to increase crop production sustainably.
Hydroponics is a method of growing plants without soil and exposing the roots to a mineral nutrient solution. Amhydro, the company installing the new system at KSU, referred to hydroponics as “the future of food” on their website.
Hickory Grove farm, managed by the School of Culinary Sustainability and Hospitality, produces over 20,000 pounds of produce that are used at KSU’s two dining halls, Stinger’s and The Commons, according to KSU’s website.
“The farm wanted to branch out to provide a wider variety of leaf crops,” said Amhydro Vice President Joe Swartz. “The culinary school and dining commons were more in the need for lettuce and greens, so the director chose to install a Nutrient Film Technique leaf crop system to provide a practical educational curriculum as well as food for the school system.”
The construction of the new Amhydro NFT leaf crop growing system began on Thursday, Sept. 13.
“It is a closed loop, recirculating system so that all water and nutrients that are supplied to the plants is captured and recirculated so that nothing is wasted,” Swartz said.
Nutrient-rich water continuously flows down the channels, past exposed plant roots. Any unused solution is captured at the end of each channel, funneled back to a reservoir and automatically remixed for nutrient balance and recirculated with the help of a pump, Swartz said.
This system will allow the farm to grow a wider variety of pesticide-free crops such as lettuce, basil, mint, cilantro, kale, chard, chives, arugula and more, Swartz said. The NFT system will also allow crops to grow at a steady and consistent quantity all year round.
“In traditional field agriculture, the entire crop matures and is harvested in a very short period of time known as harvest season,” Swartz said. “Hydroponic production allows the grower to schedule out a weekly amount of production so that the crops available are consistent from week to week.”
Compared to soil-based farming, hydroponics produces predictable quantities and quality for higher crop yields and profits, produces ten times the crops per area, reduces pathogen risks by growing crops without pesticides or manure and reduces transportation costs by growing in or near urban centers, according to Amhydro.
Heavy use of pesticides has been reported to cause several adverse health effects ranging from mild allergies to cancer depending on the extent and duration of exposure,according to a research study done in 2017 by the International Journal of Agriculture, Environment and Biotechnology.
When farming with soil globally, portions of the nitrogen-filled fertilizers, along with eroded sediments, inevitably wash into waterways such as rivers, lakes and the ocean where it causes “dead zones” from eutrophication, according to Livestrong.
This is a process whereby nitrogen feeds an algal bloom, but when the short-lived algae die, decomposing bacteria then consume most of the available oxygen, suffocating aquatic life, according to Livestrong.
Additionally, Livestrong states that use of artificial fertilizers in place of animal or “green” manure can eventually deplete soils of organic matter, making them lose their ability to hold water and more subject to erosion.
“Hydroponic systems use approximately 90 percent less water than conventional agriculture so that it places much less stress on the environment,” Swartz said. “This type of system also supplies all water, nutritional and environmental conditions conducive to year-round crop growth. This means that you can locate farm production in areas such as cities that were not traditionally suitable for farming.”
Swartz said they plan to have the NFT system ready for planting in the next few weeks.
Garden of Eatin’: Local Entrepreneurs Develop A New Way of Growing Greens
Babylon Micro-Farms’ cabinet-sized indoor farms can grow a variety of greens, herbs, edible flowers, fruits, and vegetables. The contraptions may be high tech, but they’re purposefully easy to use: Plug a pre-seeded tray into one of the beds, and technology does the rest.
Living | Jenny Gardiner | 9/19/18
Soon, you might not need a green thumb to farm continually fresh greens at home. For that matter, you might not need a garden, at least not in the traditional sense.
For that, you can thank Alexander Olesen and Graham Smith, two recent UVA graduates who have developed a series of hydroponic micro-farms that are already in use commercially here in Charlottesville.
Babylon Micro-Farms sprung from a challenge UVA professor Bevin Etienne posed in his social entrepreneurship class, in which students were asked to develop a product to help refugees, something with high impact and a low price tag. Something that people would be able to download an open-source design for and make on their own.
In the research process, Olesen says he got “very hooked” on the idea of hydroponics—a method of growing plants without soil—and how it has the potential to use significantly less water than conventional agriculture and grow crops twice as fast.
Olesen quickly realized that there was nothing available to the average consumer interested in trying this game-changing way of growing food. Hydroponics systems are largely limited to massive consumer operations, and worse still, inaccessible to people in developing countries and communities who could benefit greatly from such a product.
The initial micro-farm prototype—for which Olesen and Smith teamed up with Hack Cville—turned out to be low-tech and the size of a small car, and the entrepreneurs realized that if a community doesn’t have access to food, it’s not likely to have access to pH monitors, nutrients, and everything necessary to make the hydroponics system work, either.
“Everything we’ve done since is figure out a way that we can make a platform that allows anyone to engage in hydroponic farming regardless of their background or expertise,” says Will Graham, Babylon Micro-Farms’ director of marketing and sales.
Olesen, who graduated this past spring, spent the summer with Darden School of Business’ iLab, refining the product and securing grants from the iLab and UVA Student Council’s Green Initiatives Funding Tomorrow program, as well as $600,000 from angel investors in order to grow the company from its two founding members to an eight-person operation with a Downtown Mall office. To better serve the customers the company has in mind, it has developed the technology to make the mini farms run themselves. “It’s plug-and-play,” says Graham—at least for the consumer.
“The farm grows crops from seed-to-harvest with no need for maintenance, bringing produce closer to…the consumer. Most of what you buy from grocery stores has been picked days ago and is leaching [nutrients], so you’re getting a more nutritious end-product this way.” – Will Graham
Babylon Micro-Farms provides pre-seeded trays to be placed into the farms, which are big, clear cabinets with four levels of shelving. Each shelf holds beds for seed trays, and each bed is lit from above with special bulbs that give crops a continually perfect sunny day. Once the pre-seeded trays are in the cabinet-farm, technology does the rest of the work.
“In this controlled environment, you’re giving [the crops] the concentrated nutrient profile they’d be taking from the ground, but in a solution form, and with optimized lighting” and more, says Graham. The conditions inside the cabinet are all monitored and regulated by the system, which assesses, among other things, the pH (acidity) of the water/nutrient solution, carbon dioxide levels, air temperature, and humidity, and adjusts accordingly, depending on what’s growing—micro-greens, leafy greens, herbs, edible flowers, fruits, or vegetables.
The system will even stagger harvests so the crops ripen in waves, ensuring dozens of heads of lettuce won’t ripen at once, but a few at a time, just as they’d be eaten.
“The farm grows crops from seed-to-harvest with no need for maintenance,” says Graham, “bringing produce closer to the end goal, the consumer. Most of what you buy from grocery stores has been picked days ago and is leaching [nutrients], so you’re getting a more nutritious end-product this way.”
Currently, there are a few Babylon Micro-Farms apparatuses installed in kitchens around town. There’s one at UVA’s O-Hill dining hall, and another at Three Notch’d brewery, where Executive Chef Patrick Carroll has been impressed with its output. “We love our micro farm from Babylon,” says Carroll of the unit, which is visible from most spots in the restaurant and brewery. “It always excites us to harvest creativity by truly growing local greens. It adds an extra wow factor as guests walk into the restaurant.”
Babylon Micro-Farms is also working on a self-sufficient hydroponic farm at Boar’s Head’s Trout House, one that will provide salad greens, herbs, peppers, and tomatoes, all “exclusive heirloom varieties from the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants” at Monticello, to help provide food for the resort, says Graham. They’ll be installing a micro farm in the new Cava location on Emmet Street in October as well.
All of this condensed growth in three short years is as impressive as the accelerated growth seen in Babylon Micro-Farms’ machines, says Olesen. But the company hasn’t forgotten its roots. Babylon Micro-Farms has teamed with Etienne’s climate resilience lab at UVA, working to develop concepts for low-cost and portable systems, such as a fold-out farm that collapses to the size of a rain barrel and can be sent to areas of food scarcity for disaster relief; places ravaged by increasingly disastrous hurricanes, for instance.
They’ll test the system with UVA’s Morven Kitchen Garden as they work on pilot projects on Caribbean islands devastated by last year’s Hurricane Irma. And for the eager at-home farmer here in Charlottesville? Those systems could be available for order as soon as the end of this year, with a spring delivery, for an estimated cost of $3,500.
Posted In: LIVING
Tags: ALEXANDER OLESON, ALL YOU CAN EAT, BABYLON MICRO-FARMS, BEVIN ETIENNE, CROPS, DOWNTOWN MALL, ENTREPRENEURS, FARMING, GRADUATES, HACK CVILLE, LIVING, LOCAL, O'HILL DINING HALL, STUDENTS, SUSTAINABLE, TECHNOLOGY, UVA, WILL GRAHAM
Hydroponic Farms Become Produce Alternative For Local Businesses
By Desiree Montilla | September 20, 2018
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBS19 NEWS) -- A couple of places around the city will soon be farming indoors when their hydroponic gardens from Babylon Micro-Farms are installed.
Babylon Micro-Farms is a company that focuses on bringing fresh produce to the table using hydroponic control technology.
The company said it will be installing hydroponic gardens at a couple of University of Virginia dining halls and the Trout House at Boar's Head Resort.
Three Notch'd Brewery already installed a hydroponic farm and has been using it for a month to help produce spices and herbs for dishes.
Patrick Carroll, executive chef at Three Notch'd Brewery, said the company reached out to them and offered this alternative indoor method to grow their produce.
"We use a lot of different microgreens for garnishing and also for soups," said Carroll.
Carroll said a representative from Babylon Micro-Farms approached him with the idea to bring their farming indoors.
"The great thing about hydroponic is that you can grow pretty much the same thing with no soil and 50 times faster than with soil," he said.
He also said the hydroponic farm is an important feature to show their guests the way they handle their food.
"It's a huge wild factor for guests because you don't see this anywhere. I think that it really draws people to the restaurant," Carroll said. "They see that we're really doing craft things here growing our own food and harvesting our own food."
The hydroponic farm also challenged Carroll to use new herbs in recipes.
"It kind of challenged me a little bit more to learn about what it tastes like and what would go well with it and then we would put that in our menu," he said. "Since we change our menu every week here at Three Notch'd, it's actually easier for us to do because we have new micro-greens and greens coming out for us."
Babylon Micro-Farms said it'll be installing hydroponic gardens at Newcomb and O-Hill Dining Halls at UVA on Friday.
The Trout House renovation is expected to be completed in late October.
10 Great Plants To Grow With Hydroponics
Hydroponic growing is perfect to quickly grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs quickly. Having delicious crops all year around is simple through this soilless growing method.
Hydroponic growing is perfect to quickly grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs quickly. Having delicious crops all year around is simple through this soilless growing method. There are a few plants you can easily grow by providing a few basic necessities such as hydroponic nutrients, temperature, and pH levels
1. Strawberries
Growing strawberries all year around is simple and easy through hydroponics. This growing technique removes the worry of planting a seasonal fruit, allowing for an added ease of harvesting and growing. Whether with a deep water culture or an ebb and flood system, you’re sure to provide delicious strawberries. For quicker growth, it’s advised to plant strawberry runners instead of strawberry seeds.
pH Levels: 5.5 to 6.2.
Growing Time: Approximately 60 days.
Temperature: ℃ to ℃.
2. Lettuce
Lettuce is extremely easy, as these vegetables grow without needing any support due to their shallow root system and low vegetable height. It’s advisable to stagger lettuce planting to ensure a continuous supply, with regular nutrient solution changes for optimal growth.
pH Levels: 6.0 to 7.0.
Growing Time: Approximately 30 days.
Temperature: 7℃ to 21℃.
3. Peppers
A bit more advanced but a great vegetable to grow, peppers should be pruned at approximately eight inches tall to promote pepper growth. Either an ebb and flood or a deep water culture system are ideal for hydroponic growth. Peppers require around 18 hours of light per day, with lighting suspended at approximately six inches above the plants.
pH Levels: 5.5 to 6.0.
Growing Time: Approximately 90 days.
Temperature: Approximately 23℃ to 27℃.
4. Spinach
Ready to harvest from seedlings approximately 14 to 20 days, spinach does very well in hydroponics. Harvesting leaves weekly provides a good and steady supply, especially when planting plants close together. It’s advised to harvest leaves from the outside of the plant and not from the inner leaves.
pH Levels: 6.0 to 7.0.
Growing Time: Approximately 14 to 20 days.
Temperature: Approximately 18℃ to 20℃.
5. Tomatoes
Many different types of tomatoes can be easily grown hydroponically, however, some require approximately 18 hours of light to grow properly. They’re typically not advised for beginners but, if you have experience growing vegetables, you are very likely to succeed. Make sure to provide a two-part nutrient mix to achieve the level of nutrients that tomatoes need.
pH Levels: 5.5 to 6.5.
Growing Time: Approximately 10 to 14 days.
Temperature: 18℃ to 25℃.
6. Radishes
Radishes grow very easily in both soil and in hydroponic systems, being typically ready for harvesting in around a month. It’s advised to start growing radishes from seeds in cool temperatures. You don’t need to provide radishes with special lighting.
pH Levels: 6.0 to 7.0.
Growing Time: 3 to 7 days.
Temperature: 10℃ to 18℃.
7. Cucumbers
pH Levels: 5.5 to 6.0.
Growing Time:
Temperature: 22℃ to 24℃.
8. Beans
Both low maintenance and extremely productive, beans are great hydroponic crops. Whether you choose to grow pole beans, green beans, or lima beans, this vegetable germinates very quickly. Pole beans require vertical support when growing. Beans can be harvested approximately six to eight weeks after growth, with crops continuing for three to four months.
pH Levels: 6.0.
Growing Time: 5 to 7 days.
Temperature: Approximately 21℃ to 27℃.
9. Basil
As one of the most grown herbs in hydroponics, basil thrives with either a drip system or with a nutrient film technique (NFT) system. Make sure to weekly trim and harvest basil when it fully matures. Basil can be propagated from seed or from cuttings, the latter which form roots within approximately seven to ten days.
pH Levels: 5.8 to 6.5.
Growing Time: 7 to 10 days.
Temperature: Approximately 24℃.
10. Chives
Chives are easily grown from plants through hydroponics, requiring approximately 12 to 14 hours of light per day. It can take between six to eight weeks for chives to fully mature, and around three to four weeks of waiting between harvests.
pH Levels: 6.0 to 6.5.
Growing Time: 45 to 60 days.
Temperature: 18℃ to 21℃.
Choosing the ideal crops is the first step into your hydroponic growth journey. If you’re a beginner, fast growing crops are ideal for quick and delicious results, ensuring you get experience and results quickly.
University of Arizona - Hydroponic Intensive Workshops
For more information:
Registration at CEAC.ARIZONA.EDU/INTENSIVE
Email: danaem@email.arizona.edu
Call Danae, Program Coordinator, (520) 626-9566
A Farm Is Coming To Downtown Shreveport. For Real
Tiana Kennell, Shreveport Times Published August 21, 2018
Hydroponic gardening is good business. BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff
Hydroponics uses water, LED lights and nutrients, but no soil, to grow plants.
Catching a bus to a market miles away from home and then hauling armfuls of groceries back may not be the ideal shopping scenario. But it’s a reality many residents in downtown Shreveport and other “food desert” communities live every day.
Michael Billings, a resident of downtown Shreveport, realized he lives in a food desert — an urban neighborhood lacking affordable, fresh and quality food. Many of his neighbors are older, physically unable to travel or have limited modes of transportation, he said.
He plans to lighten the load for his neighbors by bringing fresh produce to their doorstep within minutes through his business, Cotton St. Farms.
Billings is flipping a vacant building in downtown Shreveport — once used as a mechanic’s shop and computer server office — to open an indoor hydroponic farm.
Cotton St. Farms will take urban farming to the next level by using a soil-less gardening technique to grow the leafy greens and herbs in an environmentally friendly, controlled environment.
Billings talked to The Shreveport Times to explain hydroponics and how it will help downtown residents and other local communities acquire fresh, quality produce.
Why found Cotton St. Farms?
Billings is a member of the family that owns and operates DixieMaze Farms in rural north Caddo Parish. He and his father discussed alternative farming methods, prompted in part by the lack of fresh produce in his downtown Shreveport neighborhood.
That led to hydroponic farming. Through hydroponics, he would bring the farm to the “food desert.”
Cotton St. Farms will partner with local farms, beekeepers and others to sell and deliver fresh vegetables, fruit, meat and more.
“We’ll be growing leafy greens and herbs, some vegetables, and we work with local farmers to provide produce for delivery or pickup downtown,” Billings said.
Cotton St. Farms' first day of operation has not yet been announced. Consumers may stay up to date on the farm's progress at cottonstfarms.com.
Cotton St. Farms will grow herbs and vegetables, as well as partner with local farms, beekeepers and other businesses to supply fresh produce and more. (Photo: Tiana Kennell/The Times)
What is hydroponic farming?
The U.S. Agriculture Department defines hydroponics as “growing plants in a nutrient solution root medium.” No soil is used.
“You’ve seen them in five-gallon buckets with rocks," Billings said. "Our (way) is vertical and has a foam material in it."
In his method, Billings will suspend plant roots in a medium that allows both air and nutrient-rich water to circulate.
"They’re never drowned, but they constantly have just the right amount of oxygen, water, nutrients and that allows us to grow it soil-less.”
Is hydroponic farming new?
Billings researched how other urban communities are using hydroponics to improve access to food sources. In Detroit, he found some urban farmers use vacant manufacturing warehouses for hydroponic farming.
“We are not inventing, in any means, hydroponic farming,” Billings said. “They’re popping up all over the nation."
Seedlings will be used to begin the soil-less farming process at Cotton St. Farms. (Photo: Tiana Kennell/The Times)
How does growth begin?
Planting and growing begins with seedlings placed into starter cubes that are then put into trays like muffin tins — without soil. Water is pulled into the cubes. When the plants are tall enough, they are placed in hydroponic channels between two long, metal trays that then are locked onto a vertical tower. Under grow-lights, the seedlings grow horizontally. Then the plants are harvested.
Cotton St. Farms will grow vegetables and herbs from vertical towers in its indoor hydroponics farm in downtown Shreveport. (Photo: Tiana Kennell/The Times)
"If you imagine library stacks, (the towers) will be eight feet tall and six to eight feet long," Billings said. "We’re going to build our own equipment. They’ll be double-sided and the lights will be suspended on a rail system with two of them traveling back and forth."
Specialized lighting equipment will help create the ideal growing environment for vegetables and herb. (Photo: Tiana Kennell/The Times)
Is it environmentally friendly?
The grow lamps use LED lights and the farm will be highly water efficient, Billings said. The only water loss is in evaporation and plant consumption.
"Our carbon footprint is super low," he said. "It’s artificial sun, but the same spectrum. We’re allowing the vegetables to get everything they need to grow super-fast but develop on their own."
Successful growth will come by controlling and monitoring all elements of the growth process.
"It’s a closed system. Every seven to 10 days we flush the system so we don’t have fungus built into it, but it’s clean, pure water," Billings said. "We have sensors that will detect the nutrient level and electrical levels of the water — if water becomes too murky or too filled with nutrients. We create the perfect growing environment."
What will be grown?
“Off the bat, we’ll be growing kale, spinach, lettuce, lots of cooking herbs, micro greens, alfalfa, beans, edible flowers and possibly some mushrooms,” Billings said. “Once we’re up and going, we’ll extend that to heritage tomatoes, some really cool cucumbers.”
What won’t be grown?
“A lot of the traditional produce isn’t really cost-efficient to grow indoors because you have such a big plant and then you have one ear of corn. One square foot is one ear of corn, and I can’t sell two ears of corn for very much," Billings said.
"Depending on how it’s set up and the efficiency of the vegetable, it kind of limits you. You can grow almost anything hydroponically, but you don’t really want to on a commercial level.”
Does hydroponic produce taste the same as traditionally grown produce?
“It’s absolutely delicious — big, full-bodied plants. They’ve grown with the exact amount of nutrients, the exact amount of water, the perfect light spectrum," Billings said. "It's a reason why plants grow in certain times of the year — because they require certain spectrums of light. We put all that and make a perfect growing environment."
Hydroponics is a natural way of farming without the fungicides, herbicides and pesticides, Billings said, which creates "a very clean environment."
"Grocery stores pick the tomato green because it has to live for a week before it gets to the grocery store," he said. "And before it goes to the grocery store it’s bombarded with chemicals to ripen it. Then they put it on the shelf."
Billings said garden vegetables taste better they're naturally ripened.
"It takes time to build the minerals and vitamins inside vegetables and leafy greens. If you shorten that process, you don’t get all of it and that’s where the taste is."
How fresh are your ingredients compared to a big grocery store's?
Products are picked within 24 hours so they’re fresh for customers, Billings said.
"You go to the grocery store and that little container of herbs is $4. Those herbs have been sitting there a couple of weeks," Billing said. "Imagine getting herbs that were cut an hour before you got it. If you want to cook with rosemary, oregano, basil — it was living minutes before you put it in your spaghetti sauce. You’ll taste the difference.”
How will cost compare to grocery stores?
Products will be available for purchase at the downtown store or available for delivery through On The Go Delivery and Waitr.
The prices will be comparable to those at Whole Foods Market, Billings said, but slightly higher than those at Walmart.
How sustainable is hydroponic farming?
"If I’m able to sell everything we grow, it comes out to about $1 million in sales a year out of this location — not $1 million in profit," Billings said.
The idea behind urban farming is not needing 100 acres or more to produce fresh fruits and vegetables, he said. The hydroponics farm will have a smaller production rate, so Billings plans to work in tandem with other local farms.
"We will never replace traditional farmers," he said.
Michael Billings is the CEO of Cotton St. Farms, a hydroponics grow house to begin operation in downtown Shreveport. (Photo: Tiana Kennell/The Times)
Hydroponic ‘Farm’ In A Trailer Getting An Upgrade At Concord Hotel
By DAVID BROOKS
Monitor staff
August 21, 2018
Time has taken its toll on Concord’s most unusual “farm,” the hydroponic trailer that has provided lettuce to a Marriott hotel for almost five years, but fans of high-tech leafy greens needn’t fret – a replacement is on its way.
“It needed to be rehabbed quite a bit. It required a lot of babysitting,” said owner Steve Duprey. “Rather than rehab it, which would cost $20,000 or $25,000, we decided it was better to sell it and buy a new one.”
The system was built by Freight Farms, a Boston-based agricultural technology firm. When it arrived in Concord in November 2013 bearing the snazzy name Leafy Green Machine, it was the first of its kind in New Hampshire.
Since then, said Christopher Snow, product marketer for Freight Farms, more than 200 Leafy Green Machines have been installed in all 50 states and 13 countries. The cost is $85,000 plus installation.
The Leafy Green Machine consists of a refurbished 40-foot shipping container, weighing about 7 ½ tons. Inside are vertical racks holding plants that grow under LED lighting, often of a magenta color to maximize photosynthesis, fed by nutrients in a liquid bath. The company says it can grow a wide variety of crops, from greens to edible flowers to root vegetables.
Indoor farming often uses much less water than growing outdoors, as well as much fewer pesticides because of the controlled environment. It, however, comes with other issues – for example, the lack of insects makes pollination difficult. A major benefit is the ability to grow fresh vegetables in urban environments where it can be hard or expensive to get them from traditional farms.
Duprey said the trailer produced about 100 to 150 heads of lettuce a week for the Courtyard Marriott hotel and adjacent Grappone Conference Center.
“We go through that much, if we have an event, in a day sometimes. So it’s a nice addition but it doesn’t fulfill our full needs,” he said.
Duprey said he was looking for other sources and pointed to Lef Farms in Loudon, which grows greens hydroponically inside greenhouses.
(David Brooks can be reached at 369-3313 or dbrooks@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @GraniteGeek.)
A ‘Fresh’ Look At Indoor AgTech
ndoor production of fresh fruits and vegetables leveraging aeroponic and hydroponic growing techniques has gained meaningful investor momentum in recent years.
Kenneth Scott Zuckerberg, AIF® AFA®, Wells Fargo Sector Manager, Agrifood Technology and Packaged Foods
Indoor production of fresh fruits and vegetables leveraging aeroponic and hydroponic growing techniques has gained meaningful investor momentum in recent years. The simplistic bull case for sector investment is that indoor farming operations provide direct exposure to a growing consumer demand for healthy, local, farm-fresh produce. Unfortunately, the defendable bear case is that indoor farms are expensive to build and operate, lack full automation, and do not command a pricing premium over outdoor-grown, organically produced crops.
In my opinion, the path to greater value creation lies in the partnership between indoor farms and food retailers. I think this can be accomplished by: 1) creating a branded ultra-premium offering; 2) creating private-labeled products leveraging the retailer’s brand name; and/or 3) installing living breathing vertical farms inside the produce section of the grocery store. Can anyone say craft produce?
I commenced a deep-dive into indoor farming prior to moderating a panel at the Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit sponsored by Rethink Events, Ltd., this past June. The event afforded me the opportunity to gain perspectives from the leading players in the space, including AeroFarms, Bowery, Bright Farms, 80 Acres Farms, Gotham Greens, Plenty, and Uriah’s Urban Farms, as well as greenhouse data service providers such as iUnu, and academic experts from Cornell University. The knowledge gained augments existing Wells Fargo Food and Ag Industry Advisor subject matter expertise.1
Defining indoor farming and Controlled Environment Agriculture
Indoor farming is actually a sub-segment of a much broader segment of farming called Controlled Environment Agriculture. The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority’s definition reads as follows:
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) is the combination of engineering, plant science, and computer managed greenhouse control technologies used to optimize plant growing systems, plant quality, and production efficiency. CEA systems allow stable control of the plant environment, including temperature, light, and CO2, and provide separate control of the root-zone environment.
In simple terms, indoor farming can be seen as an innovative, conservation-oriented method of growing high-quality produce such as lettuces, microgreens, tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables on a year-round basis in local communities. Currently, a large amount of the fresh produce consumed in the U.S. is grown on the West Coast and shipped cross country, or imported from other farming regions such as Mexico.
To be clear, CEA is not a new concept as evidenced by the fact that mushrooms have been grown indoors in the U.S. for approximately 100 years, and edible plants and decorative flowers have been grown in greenhouses and nurseries in Holland for approximately 50 years. Tomatoes are another important crop grown in greenhouses. Additionally, NASA has claimed to pioneer the process of growing plants utilizing LED lights as far back as the 1980s. What is new, however, is the combination of more powerful and energy efficient LED lights coupled with improved controls on temperature, humidity, and sensors, tied into a plant growing system on warehouse vertical racks, in shipping containers, or on rooftop farms.
Investor interest in indoor agriculture
In recent years, more than $500 million of capital has been deployed by investors in indoor AgTech startup companies based on the simple thesis of high-return potential resulting from the intersection of declining prices for LED lighting technologies and the growing consumer demand for fresh produce grown with limited use of traditional crop inputs. The capital has come from socially responsible funds and others seeking returns from companies that use clean technology and emphasize sustainable business practices.
The following table presents a snapshot of the competitive landscape for the indoor AgTech Industry. It should be noted that this snapshot excludes traditional nurseries and greenhouses along with certain technology robotics companies. (The latter happens to be a very interesting category, including startups such as AgriLyst, Arable, FoodLogic, Harvest Automation, and iUnu, that I’ll cover in a future blog.)
A theory on how indoor Ag retailers and consumers can all win
To recap several of the points above, produce grown in indoor farms provides an interesting alternative to outdoor-grown fruits and vegetables. That being said, I struggle with the notion that indoor farming will fully disrupt the existing outdoor growing regions and seasonal migration of growing operations between central, coastal, and desert valleys in the Western U.S. and Mexico. My reasoning is as follows:
- Many, not all, business models are capital intensive, and could be challenged to scale profitably in local regions.
- Local indoor farms typically offer high-quality produce delivered to grocers more quickly than many Californian or Mexican producers can, however the industry is not achieving additional compensation for this perceived competitive advantage.
- Existing industry players are generally low-cost, high-efficiency operators with long-established relationships with food distributors and retailers. Without a large scale national player, the incumbent players will remain in control of the terms of trade.
- Indoor farming operations have not yet proven they can fully insulate themselves from a disease outbreak such as the recent outbreak of the E.coli virus in Romaine lettuce, even though growing in a controlled environment.
- Indoor-grown lettuces, microgreens, arugula, and tomatoes lose flavor and remain highly perishable once harvested, packaged, and shipped to product sellers.
Notwithstanding this backdrop of challenges, I remain intrigued by the idea that closer alignments and joint ventures between indoor farmers and food retailers can create and deliver significant value. How can this be accomplished? Here are a few tactical ideas:
- Creation of an ultra-premium line of produce – Working directly with retailers, indoor farming operations can better message key product attributes: high-quality consistent products, year-round availability, and local/sustainable production. Wendy’s recent announcement to eventually source 100% of its tomatoes from indoor greenhouses would seemingly provide a positive tailwind for marketing indoor-grown produce.
- Installation of vertical farms in or on top of the grocery store – The difference in quality is noticeable between produce harvested immediately prior to consumption as compared to packaged, post-harvest produce. Again, the taste and quality attributes need to be properly marketed to achieve better pricing, however, the idea of produce harvested on-demand should theoretically de-risk the stand alone indoor ag business model from the perspectives of efficiency and waste reduction.
Parting thoughts
Personally speaking, nothing makes me happier than starting a meal with a healthy salad filled with fresh, peppery arugula, leafy spinach, and flavorful, red tomatoes, and cucumbers. Based on ongoing sector research and visits to several indoor farming facilities, I believe that indoor AgTech offers a compelling method to extend the seasonality of domestically-grown produce to 12 months of the year. I look forward to further exploring the issues raised in this blog in a future webinar on indoor farming and Controlled Environment Agriculture.
1. Article input provided by David Branch, Wells Fargo Sector Manager, Specialty Crops, Matt Dusi, Wells Fargo Sector Manager, Fresh Produce, and Karol Aure-Flynn, Wells Fargo Senior Sector Analyst, AgriFood Technology and Packaged Foods
The Growcer Installs Hydroponics System On University of Ottawa Campus
The Growcer cofounder Corey Ellis.
BY: Craig Lord
Aug 21, 2018
ORGANIZATIONS: The Growcer University of Ottawa
The Growcer has returned to its University of Ottawa roots, this time installing its hydroponics system on campus to contribute to the cafeteria’s produce supply.
The Ottawa-based hydroponics startup installed one of its converted shipping containers on campus in front of Fauteux Hall Tuesday. Produce grown inside will be sold directly to Chartwell, the post-secondary institution’s food supplier.
Students eating at the on-campus cafeteria, then, will be eating food grown by one of the University of Ottawa’s own startups. The Growcer got its start at the school’s Enactus program, a social entrepreneurship initiativeNow graduated, co-founder Corey Ellis and his partner Alida Burke were first inspired to start the Growcer during a trip to Nunavut. There, they saw first-hand the demand for food security in Canada’s North.
Ellis recently told Techopia Live that the Growcer’s goal is to enable any community in Canada to be more more self-reliant when it comes to food.
“We can do a lot with the technology we have now to allow any community, not only in northern Canada, but in Canada in general, to be more self-reliant. So I’d love to see a Growcer system in every major city in Canada,” he said.
A retrofitted shipping container with a carbon dioxide-and-water-based hydroponics system inside is enough to sustainably grow plants and vegetables in northern communities, or for that matter, during an Ottawa winter. The local firm worked with MadeMill at Bayview Yards to develop the latest generation of its prototype.