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Institute For Advanced Learning And Research And Virginia Tech Launch The Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center in Danville
The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) is partnering with the Virginia Tech School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center to launch a Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center on IALR’s campus in Danville, Virginia
By urbanagnews
February 17, 2020
The partnership will create a hub of innovation and economic development in an industry expected to grow to $4 billion
The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research (IALR) is partnering with the Virginia Tech School of Plant and Environmental Sciences and the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center to launch a Controlled Environment Agriculture Innovation Center on IALR’s campus in Danville, Virginia.
The Innovation Center will leverage technology and research to accelerate advancements, economic development, and regional participation in the developing industry of indoor farming. The value of U.S. greenhouse-grown food crops is expected to exceed $4 billion this year.
“We are delighted that the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research and Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences have combined their expertise to create a top program in controlled environment agriculture. This collaborative effort is creating tremendous energy and excitement because of its potential to provide innovative solutions to the agricultural community,” said Alan Grant, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. “Partnerships like this will help us realize the vision of the SmartFarm Innovation Network Initiative to support the agriculture industry.”
Convening industry, academia and producers, the Innovation Center will be housed primarily within a modern greenhouse complex on IALR’s campus. Features will include various hydroponic systems, which grow plants in a soilless root medium with optimal amounts of water and nutrients. Vertical growing racks will maximize space, and high-tech engineering and technology will be integrated and on display throughout the center.
High-value demonstration crops will include lettuce, herbs, strawberry, blackberry, hemp, and more. In addition, faculty and staff involved in the center will research and educate on raising fish in controlled environments using aquaponics, or recirculating aquaculture systems that integrate plant and fish production. While traditionally viewed as separate fields, plant and fish production share many similar technologies, issues, and needs.
“We are excited to partner with Virginia Tech, a fellow champion of cutting-edge innovation, to expand the impact of agriculture in promising new ways,” said Mark Gignac, executive director of IALR. “While agriculture is a longtime industry of Southern Virginia, economic factors have demanded a new identity. We believe controlled environment agriculture is one of the defining solutions, and we are proud to work with Virginia Tech to introduce the concept to our region’s growers and attract industry.”
According to Michael Schwarz, director of the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center, this new collaboration will further bolster domestic seafood production.
“The U.S. currently has a national seafood trade deficit in excess of $15 billion, with more than 50 percent of the seafood we consume originating from aquaculture,” he said. “Through this new programming and leveraging of expertise and infrastructure, we have the opportunity to drastically increase domestic seafood and produce production within the state, region, and country, enhancing food safety, security, sustainability, and, most importantly, socioeconomically within our agriculture economies.”
Controlled environmental agriculture helps protect plants from disease and stress while providing ideal growing conditions for high-quality, quick-to-harvest food products — sometimes in as fast as two weeks depending on the crop. In addition to hydroponic systems, the Innovation Center will use data management, sensors, and vertical structures to ensure ideal distribution of water, energy, capital, and labor. Plus, strict entry protocols will prevent pests. Together these factors result in a high-quality, consistent product with significantly more harvests than outdoor conventional production methods. Other advantages of controlled environmental agriculture include uniform, year-round production, potentially pesticide-free agriculture, and greatly reduced land and water requirements.
AeroFarms, a leading controlled environmental commercial producer based in New Jersey, recently announced the world’s largest indoor farm to be located in Cane Creek Centre in Pittsylvania County, just minutes from IALR. While this industrial-sized operation demonstrates scalability, Michael Evans, director of Virginia Tech’s School of Plant and Environmental Science, believes the technology is accessible to even small farmers in the region.
To encourage market growth, and in line with IALR’s role as a regional catalyst for economic transformation, the Innovation Center will introduce controlled environmental technologies to regional parties interested in entering the market. Conferences, workshops, site visits, and a web presence will comprise part of the outreach and educational activities. According to Evans, controlled environment agriculture is a rapidly growing sector that offers many potential opportunities in Southern Virginia.
“We are excited to house this facility on the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research’s campus and to benefit from both the technology developed and the associated economic development opportunities it provides for the region,” said Scott Lowman, director of applied research at IALR. “Consumer demand for healthy, local, and pesticide-free produce is high and will continue to increase in the coming decades. We look forward to serving this need through controlled environment agriculture.”
The Institute for Advanced Learning and Research serves Virginia as a regional catalyst for economic transformation with applied research, advanced learning, advanced manufacturing, conference center services, and economic development efforts. IALR’s major footprint focuses within Southern Virginia, including the counties of Patrick, Henry, Franklin, Pittsylvania, Halifax, and Mecklenburg, along with the cities of Martinsville and Danville. For more information, visit www.ialr.org.
For more information on IALR, contact Allison Moore at allison.moore@ialr.org or 434.766.6766
Survey Shows Influence of Outbreaks, Recalls On Consumers
Fifty-six percent of U.S. shoppers are more concerned about food safety than they were a year ago, according to a survey from British consulting firm Lloyd’s Register
February 27, 2020
Fifty-six percent of U.S. shoppers are more concerned about food safety than they were a year ago, according to a survey from British consulting firm Lloyd’s Register.
According to a report on the survey, 46% of respondents said they have changed their food shopping or consumption habits in the last 12 months due to a food safety scare.
Lloyd’s Register conducted a survey of more than 1,000 U.S. consumers in November. Survey questions did not mention fresh produce or outbreaks tied to romaine lettuce but referenced food safety overall.
Media coverage of various incidents as a key factor.
The extent to which this kind of coverage damages consumer confidence seems clear,” Lloyd’s Register wrote. “ ... Interestingly, just under half of the men polled said they were more concerned, while over 60% of women said the same. Those polled in younger age groups also tended to express greater concern than older generations, who were more evenly split.”
The report suggested that the food industry figure out how to minimize the fallout from outbreaks and other food safety incidents.“
It is therefore within suppliers’ interests to alleviate concerns and question how to better manage food scares that are reported in the media,” Lloyd’s Register wrote.
The report delved into U.S. consumer attitudes toward food waste, plastic, meat alternatives, and other topics.
Related stories:Year in Produce No. 2 — Food Safety
Dr. Oz features industry input on romaine outbreak
Related Topics: Food safety Recall Produce Retail
Containerized Vertical Farming Company Freight Farms Secures $15 Million
Freight Farms — a global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming — announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding
By Noah Long ● February 15, 2020
Freight Farms — a global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming — announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding
Freight Farms — a global innovation leader of containerized vertical farming — announced that it has raised $15 million in Series B funding led by Ospraie Ag Science. Spark Capital also participated in the round. Including this funding round, the company has raised over $28 million.
“It’s a big step forward for the industry when financial markets recognize and champion the value of creating a distributed food system,” said Freight Farms CEO Brad McNamara. “Aligned on mission-driven growth as a team, there is a massive opportunity before us to scale across global markets, propelling meaningful technology that’s already doing good.”
Freight Farms’ Greenery is able to produce over 500 varieties of crops like calendula at commercial scale year-round using 99.8% less water than traditional agriculture. Four rows of the company’s panels on a flexible moving rack system are able to house more than 8,000 living plants at once thus creating a dense canopy of fresh crops.
This round of funding will be used for advancing the Freight Farms’ platform through continued innovation with new services designed to benefit its growing global network of farmers and corporate partners. And this investment follows the announcement of Freight Farms’ strategic national partnership with Sodexo to grow food onsite at educational and corporate campuses nationwide and will support ongoing contributions to collaborative research projects and partnerships.
“Freight Farms has redefined vertical farming and made decentralizing the food system something that’s possible and meaningful right now, not in the ‘future of food,'” added Jason Mraz, President of Ospraie Ag Science. “Full traceability, high nutrition without herbicides and pesticides, year-round availability – these are elements that should be inherent to food sourcing. Freight Farms’ Greenery makes it possible to meet this burgeoning global demand from campuses, hospitals, municipal institutions and corporate businesses, while also enabling small business farmers to meet these needs for their customers.”
Launched in 2010 by McNamara and COO Jon Friedman, Freight Farms debuted the first vertical hydroponic farm built inside an intermodal shipping container called the Leafy Green Machine with the mission of democratizing and decentralizing the local production of fresh, healthy food. And this innovation, with integral IoT data platform farmhand, launched a new category of indoor farming and propelled Freight Farms into the largest network of IoT-connected farms in the world.
Freight Farm’s 2019 launch of the Greenery raised the industry bar, advancing the limits of containerized vertical farming to put the most progressive, accessible, and scalable vertical farming technology into the hands of people of diverse industry, age, and mission.
“With the Greenery and farmhand, we’ve created an infrastructure that lowers the barrier of entry into food production, an industry that’s historically been difficult to get into,” explained Friedman. “With this platform, we’re also able to harness and build upon a wider set of technologies including cloud IoT, automation, and machine learning, while enabling new developments in plant science for future generations.”
Freight Farms has been an integral part of scientific and academic research studies in collaboration with industry-leading organizations, including NASA (exploring self-sustaining crop production) and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (exploring the integration of CRISPR seed genetics and vertical farming to create commercial opportunity).
The company’s customers hail from education, hospitality, retail, corporate, and nonprofit sectors across 44 states and 25 countries, and include independent small business farmers — who distribute to restaurants, farmers’ markets, and businesses such as Central Market, Meijer, and Wendy’s
Safety Aspects of Indoor Farming Signal A Change In Agriculture
An indoor agricultural evolution is in the making. That’s how some people see the surge of interest in growing leafy greens in greenhouses. No doubt about it, this approach
February 24, 2020
An indoor agricultural evolution is in the making. That’s how some people see the surge of interest in growing leafy greens in greenhouses. No doubt about it, this approach to farming has increased dramatically in every corner of the country, even the South.
Not surprisingly, food safety has been one of the driving forces pushing indoor farming forward. Repeated recalls over the past several years of romaine lettuce contaminated by the potentially deadly E. coli O157:H7 pathogen grown in the Yuma, AZ, and Salinas, Calif., regions have been enough to have consumers shying away from the popular lettuce and often other leafy greens.
The most recent romaine outbreak just before Thanksgiving 2019, originating in Salinas, CA, growing area triggered yet more apprehensions about the lettuce.
Advice to consumers from the CDC just after Thanksgiving solidified those fears. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised consumers not to eat any romaine at all from the Salinas growing area until the outbreak was over — unless it was grown indoors. That outbreak has since been declared over.
In effect, the CDC was giving greenhouse-grown romaine a food safety thumbs up.
“Hydroponically and greenhouse-grown romaine from any region does not appear to be related to the current outbreak,” said the agency on its December 2019 update about the outbreak in the Salinas growing area. It also noted that the lettuce might be labeled as “indoor grown.”
That came as welcome news to greenhouse growers — and also to buyers such as restaurants and other foodservice establishments that wanted to keep offering romaine to their customers. In many cases, demand outstripped supply.
“The more outbreaks we have, the more this trend will probably grow,” said Kirk Smith, director of the Minnesota Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence, one of six centers around the U.S. designated by the CDC to strengthen the safety of the nation’s food system.
“There’s an upswing in interest in a big, big way,” said John Bonner, co-owner of Great Lake Growers. “I’ve seen consumers’ knowledge base about this increase. They like that it’s safer, fresher and lasts longer. It’s almost like ‘why wouldn’t you buy greenhouse salad greens.’ It’s a catalyst for change.”
Looking ahead, he believes indoor growing will happen on a bigger scale yet, although, as he quickly concedes: “It might take 20 years. “But it’s coming,” he said.
Ryan Oates, founder and owner of Tyger River Smart Farm in South Carolina, sees hydroponics as “the future of farming” because there are so many advantages to it, among them conserving water and nutrients. Also, you can do it year-round.
“We’ll see more and more of it,” he says in a video on Tyger River’s website. “You’ll see a lot of crops moving in that direction.”
As for food safety, Oates said the biggest advantage is that you’re growing inside greenhouses, which allows me to keep things really clean. “It’s a lot easier to do that than growing outdoors.”
Because indoor growing is a controlled environment, the farmers don’t have to deal with wildlife, domestic animals, and birds flying overhead — all of which can contaminate the crops.
Bendon Kreieg, a partner and sales manager at Revol Greens said that the government’s advice on this is definitely helping.
“We are seeing an uptick in demand from retailers and restaurants because it has such a major impact on their business when they suddenly can’t serve salads,” Kreieg said.
A spokesperson for Gotham Greens, a New York-based operation with three locations in New York City, two in Chicago, one under construction in Baltimore, and more underway in other states, told a reporter that the farm has been selling out of its greenhouse-grown leafy greens every day.
Janeen Wright, the editor for Greenhouse Grower magazine, said that although the publication has always covered greenhouse cultivation of vegetables — as well as ornamental and nursery plants — it has been covering the vegetable side of the industry a lot more recently.
Referring to the romaine recalls in 2018 and 2019, Wright said growers have told her that the recalls have really helped them “get a name for themselves.”
“Unfortunately, all of these recalls will be a concern for consumers,” said Scott Horsfall, CEO of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement. “The plantings (for romaine lettuce) are down but there’s still demand for it.”
As for whether greenhouse lettuces and greens will overtake field-grown lettuces and greens, Horsfall doesn’t think that will ever happen especially considering the vast quantity of the crops that are field-grown.
“I certainly haven’t seen concerns about this on the production side of the industry,” he said.
Even so, greenhouse farming is making important strides. During the 52 weeks ending Sept. 29, 2019, sales of produce marked as greenhouse-grown increased 7.6 percent and sales of produce described as locally grown increased 23.2 percent, according to the latest Fresh Facts on Retail report from United Fresh Produce Association, a trade organization.
The “local” aspect is important because greenhouses are located in many regions of the country and therefore lettuces grown in them don’t have to be shipped across the country from Yuma and Salinas during the winter months. Because the lettuces and greens can be grown year-round they have an extra “local” advantage.
In the winter, more than 90 percent of the lettuces and greens in the United States are grown in the Yuma, AZ, and Salinas, CA, growing regions. Salinas is often referred to as America’s “Salad Bowl,” and Yuma, the “Lettuce Capital of the World.”
Yuma is home to nine factories that produce bagged lettuce and salad mixes. Each of these plants processes more than 2 million pounds of lettuce per day during Yuma’s peak production months, November through March.
“It’s a long way from Yuma to Cleveland,” said John Bonner, co-owner of Great Lake Growers based in Ohio. He pointed out that the difference in distance between the two is part of why the lettuces and greens don’t arrive in stores and restaurants as fresh as they do when they arrive in establishments that are near his greenhouses.
In addition, consumers’ interest in locally grown food has risen dramatically. Some are even referring to the lettuces from the Yuma and Salinas growing regions as “corporate lettuce.”
Controlled-environment agriculture, another way to describe greenhouse cultivation when done according to certain standards, is helping grow the local food market. The USDA estimated they would reach $20 billion in sales by 2019, up from $12 billion in 2014.
Peace of mind about food safety is another important part of the puzzle when it comes to increased demand for greenhouse produce. A spokesperson for Gotham Greens agrees that the food safety scares originating from large-scale farms have buyers looking for lettuces and greens grown on a smaller scale and closer to home.
For the most part, greenhouse growers don’t use pesticides or other harmful-to-humans chemicals on their crops, and many follow strict organic standards.
Greenhouses: The indoor option
When you think of farming, you think of soil.
In contrast, most indoor farming — or greenhouse growing — does away with soil. Instead, crops are grown hydroponically in controlled sterile environments.
In most hydroponic systems, plants are grown in nutrient-rich water, instead of in soil. The water is rich in phosphorus, nitrogen, and calcium.
At the top of the list when it comes to the advantages of hydroponics is that it requires only 10 percent to 16 percent of the same amount of water to produce vegetables as conventional irrigation systems in outdoor farming. That’s because the water in a hydroponic system is captured and reused, rather than allowed to run off and drain into the environment, according to indoor growers.
That’s especially important in areas where water is scarce. In California, for example, conventional outdoor agriculture accounts for 80 percent of total water use.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has been implementing hydroponic farming in areas of the world beset with food shortages. There are currently ongoing projects to establish large hydroponic farms in Latin American and African countries.
NASA has even gotten into the act. In the late 20th century, physicists and biologists put their heads together to come up with a way to grow food in space. They began by growing plants on the International Space Station, opting for hydroponics because it needs less space and fewer resources — and produces vastly higher yields — than growing in soil.
In 2015, astronauts actually dined on the first space-grown vegetables.
Although there hasn’t been much government funding for research on greenhouse agriculture, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently gave Michigan State University $2.7 million for research into indoor growing techniques. In addition to that, the researchers have won industry grants bringing the project total to $5.4 million.
A focus of the research will be gathering information on the economically viability of greenhouse growing.
Food safety and hydroponics
Food-safety scientist Kirk Smith, who has been leading investigations into food safety outbreaks for many years, said one thing that has emerged in outbreak investigations is that E. coli contamination in produce almost always comes from irrigation water used on fields.
Making things more complicated, the Food Safety Modernization Act, signed into law by President Obama in 2011, has yet to establish definitive standards for agriculture water quality.
Leafy greens, including romaine lettuce, are chopped and washed in huge volumes as part of the bagged salad production process. This allows bacteria on one head of lettuce to be spread to hundreds or thousands of bags. Photo illustration
Another challenge beyond irrigation is washing the field-grown produce after it’s been harvested. That step is when using clean water is especially critical, otherwise, contamination from one head of lettuce can spread to the rest of the produce in the factory.
Food safety scientists warn that even though a package of bagged salad greens that have been field grown says the greens have been triple washed, that doesn’t mean there’s no chance of some of the greens being contaminated. In the case of E. coli, for example, the pathogen can hold on tight and resist being washed away.
In contrast, most greenhouses use municipal water and many wash their greens with running water instead of dunking them into a tank. Some don’t even need to wash them since they never come into contact with any water simply because it’s the roots that are being watered, not the leaves.
Bonner said that his farm makes sure the water it uses is clean and tested.
“We have extensive testing for E. coli,” he said. “We’re monitoring it every second.”
As for farmworkers, Bonner said one part of the audit his company goes through is dedicated strictly to food safety and farmworkers.
“We’re in a building, and the bathrooms are right there,” he said. “And we have handwashing sinks all over the place.”
Because most greenhouse farms grow food year-round, there’s no need to rely on a seasonal workforce. In Bonner’s case, the company works with a local Amish community whose young people are eager to work for his company.
In other cases where greenhouses are located in cities, farmworkers live in city apartments. This stability in housing and location gives greenhouse farms a stable workforce.
Nothing’s perfect
Of course, there’s no guarantee that a foodborne pathogens will never occur in greenhouse settings.
And because most lettuces and greens are eaten raw, they don’t go through a “kill step” to kill pathogens that might be on them.
Many of the foods popular with indoor growers — lettuces, sprouts, fresh herbs, microgreens, and wheatgrass — carry the highest risk of outdoor produce, some of that because it grows so close to the ground.
That’s why prevention is so important, the greenhouse growers say. This would include paying attention to how water, tools, animal intrusions, pests, and human handling plays a role in preventing food from being contaminated.
What is it about romaine?
Romaine lettuce is “particularly susceptible” to E. coli, said Keith Warriner a University of Guelph (Canada) professor, in an interview with City News.
During the research, Warriner said, scientists discovered that out of all the lettuces, E. coli likes romaine the best.
A study the food safety scientist conducted showed that extracts of romaine lettuce actually brought E. coli out of a dormant state when it’s in the soil. Once out of its dormant state, which can last up to a year, it can flourish.
The FDA included this Google Earth view in its memorandum on the environmental assessment related to the E. coli outbreak. It shows a section of the Wellton canal that is adjacent to a 100,000-head feedlot. Portions of this image (in gray) were redacted by the government. However, the FDA report says the image shows the locations of the feedlot, sites where E. coli-positive water samples were collected, unlined sections of the irrigation canal, and a retention pond at the feedlot. The water in the canal flows from west to east.
Warriner describes several reasons why romaine is particularly susceptible. To begin with, the crop is mostly grown in Arizona and California. That’s cattle country, and irrigation water used on the romaine fields can become contaminated with bacteria from animal feces via water runoff and dust in the air.
Added to that, because both states have hot weather, the lettuce needs an abundance of water.
Warriner pointed out that even though other leafy greens like spinach and kale are also grown in the same areas, and under similar conditions, their leaves are, as he described them, “as tough as nails.”
Romaine is considered the most nutritious lettuce when compared to red leaf, green leaf, butterhead, and iceberg.
Although it’s low in fiber, it’s high in minerals, such as calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, and potassium. It’s also naturally low in sodium. Another plus is that romaine lettuce is packed with Vitamin C, Vitamin K, and folate. And it’s a good source of beta carotene, which converts into Vitamin A in the body.
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Tags: California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, CDC, FDA, Food Safety Modernization Act, FSMA, Gotham Greens, Great Lake Growers, greenhouse vegetables, greenhouses, Revol Greens, Tyger River Smart Farm, USDA
MEXICO: Grow Food Anywhere! The Mexican Startup That Innovates In Agriculture
A Mexican startup is offering the possibility of growing vegetables within the city in a healthy enclosed space and harvesting up to 100 times more than normal.
A Mexican startup is offering the possibility of growing vegetables within the city in a healthy enclosed space and harvesting up to 100 times more than normal.
Juan Succar and Jorge Lizardi, graduates of the Tec de Monterrey Leon campus, created the Verde Compacto company, which follows the new global trend of urban and vertical agriculture. This type of agriculture is ideal for supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and real estate developments.
Verde Compact obtained third place in the Heineken Green Challenge at the entrepreneurship festival, INCmty, as one of the ventures to follow in 2020, according to Entrepreneur in Spanish.
Mexican technology for a worldwide trend
Urban agriculture is growing in the world and already accounts for 15% of all agriculture, according to UN data. The UN Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) itself is promoting this alternative, although there were not so many options in Mexico.
Verde Compacto ensures that, unlike other similar foreign companies, they are the first to use only Mexican technology, which makes them pioneers in Latin America.
Growing food in enclosed spaces
Urban agriculture goes hand in hand with vertical agriculture, which allows sowing in enclosed spaces and at various height levels, thus maximizing space.
Verde Compacto launched Huvster, an intelligent vegetable growing system in a recycled trailer container. The system allows growing up to 200 times more vegetables per square meter with less water.
Fully Automated
The container has a system that circulates the water and an LED-lights system in the germination zone that simulates the conditions needed by the seeds to grow.
The plants are located in vertical towers and are watered via drip irrigation. Here, they grow until they are harvested. "The system has sensors that measure CO2 levels, ambient humidity, and temperature," Juan stated.
Characteristics
According to the company founders, this option also has these advantages:
It has an intelligent system for measuring and controlling temperature, humidity, irrigation, and other aspects of vegetable cultivation via hydroponics.
It allows having savings of 90% in water, and 80% in fertilizers when compared to a traditional method.
The system measures the plants' nutrition levels and regulates them so that they all grow at the same speed.
It decreases the risks of having pests.
It can produce, for example, an average of 730 lettuces per month, or 20 kilos of oregano, coriander, or other herbs per month, as well as 30 to 35 kilos of vegetables.
It can also impact agribusiness in several ways, avoiding distribution costs if installed near consumers.
In addition, the vegetables can be grown at any time of the year.
The company stood out in INCmty
Verde Compacto became one of the leading startups at INCmty, Tec de Monterrey's entrepreneurship festival.
This venture was also part of the Heineken Green Challenge, an initiative that recognizes companies that innovatively solve problems in Mexico, where it achieved third place in the 2019 edition.
Source: tec.mx
Publication date: Tue 7 Jan 2020
UK’s Urban Agritech Sector Welcomes Announcement of Official Representative Collective
UKUAT brings together the UK’s key players in modern agricultural technologies
UKUAT Formalized As A Membership
Organization For Urban Agriculture
06 February 2020
The UK’s evolving agritech sector today welcomes the formation of a new membership group – the UK Urban AgriTech Collective (UKUAT).
UKUAT brings together the UK’s key players in modern agricultural technologies. It is a cross-industry group devoted to promoting the application of high-tech food production in urban areas to improve both local and wider food security by relieving dependence on resource-intensive supply chains. It will also be exploring the social, operational and metabolic synergies urban agritech can exploit through its integrations with the built environment which are conducive to more dynamic local economies and richer placemaking.
UKUAT’s 25-strong membership includes commercial urban farmers, multinational technology companies, renewable energy companies, architects, built environment professionals, academics, research-based organizations and more. It hopes to grow this number to 75 over the next two years and operates with a common representative voice to share information, educate and advocate for further adoption of urban agriculture in the UK. It will influence policy and help shape the debate around how high-tech food production in urban and peri-urban areas addresses increasing demands for a more transparent, sustainable and resilient UK food system.
Founder and Director Mark Horler commented: "We founded UKUAT to amplify the collective voice and activities of the agritech industry in the UK. As it continues to grow rapidly, and with that rate of expansion accelerating, the UK is positioned to be an international leader, both in the development of agricultural technology and its implications for more sustainable and resilient food systems"
Oscar Rodriguez, Director of design consultancy Architecture & food and UKUAT member said: “The UKUAT community is coming together at a very interesting time. Concerns over UK food security have emerged following Brexit and UKUAT believes leveraging agricultural technology and expanding our indigenous food production capacity while engaging urbanites to be more conscientious about their eating patterns are crucial ends of a worthy proposition.”
UKUAT was founded in 2017 by Mark Horler and formalized in January 2020. It continues to grow its presence in the UK and is collaborating with numerous international organizations to advance agritech solutions in urban and peri-urban environments across the world.
- ENDS -
Sent on behalf of UKUAT. For more information please contact: Mark Horler, UKUAT - email: info@ukuat.org
Urban Farming: Technology And Tradition
As we enter a new decade, the human race finds itself faced with worldwide political turmoil, economic injustice, dizzying technological achievements, and an existential threat in the form of a spiraling climate crisis
By HARRY MENEAR
February 13, 2020
As we enter a new decade, the human race finds itself faced with worldwide political turmoil, economic injustice, dizzying technological achievements, and an existential threat in the form of a spiraling climate crisis. In order to rise to and overcome these challenges, humanity is going to need to drastically reevaluate the way it caters to some of its basic needs.
The global urban population has grown rapidly, from 751mn people in 1950 to 4.2bn today. Almost 70% of the world’s population is predicted to live in urban areas by 2050, according to a report by the United Nations (UN) released last year. At the start of the 1800s, more than 90% of the population (in the US) lived on farms and, on average, a farmer grew enough each year to feed between three and five people. Throughout the subsequent centuries, advances in agricultural technology and technique meant that farms produced more food using less labor. In 1900, an acre of land used to grow corn only produced 18% of the yield achieved on the same piece of land in 2014.
Today, farmers represent a mere 1.4% of the US population, and the average size of farms has grown dramatically. The ratio of people in cities to the farmers that feed them is already at a huge disparity and, as that relationship becomes more and more imbalanced, the strain put upon the agricultural industry has the potential to spell disaster for a global food supply - to say nothing of biodiversity, quality of diet and cultural connections to cuisine itself.
Massive demand for year-round, mass-produced, cheap produce today is already causing problems, from the incipient extinction of the honey bee to the wildfires and droughts exacerbated by overfarming water-wasteful crops like almonds and avocados. One of the most prominent issues, however, is the fact that as more people move into cities, the supply chains required to feed these swelling urban populations get longer and less sustainable. Food grown and produced to last for long periods of time contains more indigestible fats and sugars.
“Diets are changing with rising incomes and urbanization— people are consuming more animal-source foods, sugar, fats and oils, refined grains, and processed foods. This ‘nutrition transition’ is causing increases in overweight and obesity and diet-related diseases such as diabetes and heart disease,” noted a report on Changing diets: Urbanization and the nutrition transition by researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute.
In the UK, despite all the advances of modern medicine, life expectancy for lower-middle-class and working-class males is - when adjusted for infant mortality - three years lower than it was in the mid-Victorian era. “The implications of a better understanding of mid-Victorian health are profound. It becomes clear that, with the exception of family planning, the vast edifice of post-1948 healthcare has not so much enabled us to live longer but has merely supplied methods of controlling the symptoms of non-communicable degenerative diseases, which have become prevalent due to our failure to maintain mid-Victorian nutritional standards,” write Dr. Paul Clayton, a Fellow at the Institute of Food, Brain, and Behaviour, Oxford; and Judith Rowbotham, a Visiting Research Fellow at Plymouth University.
The mid-Victorian diet that Clayton and Rowbotham espouse the values of was fairly one-note, but had spectacular benefits. “The Victorian urban poor consumed diets which were limited, but contained extremely high nutrient density,” write Clayton and Rowbotham. “Bread could be expensive but onions, watercress, cabbage, and fruit like apples and cherries were all cheap and did not need to be carefully budgeted for. Beetroot was eaten all year round; Jerusalem artichokes were often home-grown. Fish such as herrings and meat in some form (scraps, chops and even joints) were common too. All in all, a reversion to mid-Victorian nutritional values would significantly improve health expectancy today… the current pandemics of obesity and diabetes represent in many ways an acceleration of the aging process. We need to go back to the future.”
The population of the UK in the mid-Victorian era was about 30mn and, despite being at the height of the Industrial Revolution - was a lot less urbanized than it is today. In 2019, more than 83% of the UK’s population live in cities and towns, the country employs fewer than half a million farmers and produces less than 60% of the food it consumes.
How do we fix it?
The key to improving nutrition and shortening the supply chains between rural farms and urban consumers may be deceptively simple. While, “just grow the food in the cities,” might seem like a somewhat glib response to a nuanced issue, there are compelling cases around the world for doing just that.
In an unassuming warehouse in New Jersey, serried rows of kale, lettuce and other leafy greens are stacked in shelving units and trays that reach up into the air. The climate - light intensity, humidity, nutrient balance in the soil - is meticulously tracked by a network of sensors and cameras that feed oceans of data into a proprietary operating system that allows the facility’s operators to grow food 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in conditions that are as close to perfect as can be found anywhere. This is Bowery Farming, an urban agriculture startup founded in 2015 by Irving Fain, David Golden and Brian Falther, backed by Google Ventures. In an interview in 2018, Fain - who is also Bowery’s CEO - claimed that his company’s urban farming techniques use no pesticides and "95% less water than traditional agriculture, all while remaining 100-plus times more productive on the same footprint of land.”
Urban and vertical farming techniques are growing (sorry) in popularity across the world as a potential way to solve a number of the challenges posed by increasing populations, climate instability and food deserts (areas of rural, suburban or urban land without farms or grocery stores, making it next to impossible to obtain quality, fresh food in an affordable way and offering only convenience food chains in their place - food deserts are playing a major role in the deterioration of urban population health).
The practice has its roots (again, sorry) in times of economic scarcity and turmoil - the Great Depression and the Second World War both saw a huge increase in the number of urban farms - and can be as low-tech as growing a head of lettuce on your bathroom windowsill, or as futuristic as a fully-automated, end-to-end hydroponic facility operated by artificial intelligence (but more about Stacked in a minute). At the moment, urban farming operations are turning to vertical farming, the practice of using (typically) climate-controlled environments to grow plants across multiple levels - a practice that can turn a 3,000 sq ft allotment in a city center into effectively a 9,000 sq ft agricultural facility.
Regardless of the level of technology employed across their operations, there are a few key vertical farming techniques that are being adopted in an effort to solve one of the key problems facing modern agriculture: water wastage.
Hydroponics
The practice of growing plants without soil. Hydroponics uses a nutrient-rich liquid solution to submerge the roots of plants, which are placed in an inert medium (gravel, sand, clay pellets) for support. The method can drastically reduce water usage and increase yield.
Aquaponics
Adding an additional layer of sustainability to the hydroponic technique, aquaponics uses fish as the generators for the nitrate-rich plant food. Fish create ammonia-rich waste in their tank, the water from which is then pumped into an inert medium that contains plants. Bacteria in the bed turns ammonia into nitrates which the plants use for food, cleaning the water in the process. Then, the clean water is cycled back into the fish tank for the symbiotic process to begin again. Fish like perch or catfish can also ensure that the method provides two sources of food.
Aeroponics
Invented by NASA in the 1990s as a way of potentially raising crops in space (where tiny soil particles can be a nightmare for delicate instruments and electronics), aeroponics doesn’t use a liquid or solid medium to cultivate crops, instead using a nutrient-rich mist. It uses 90% less water than conventional hydroponic techniques.
Feeding plants using closed systems like these gives farmers an enviable amount of control over the condition of their crops. In Bowery’s system, a simple tweak of the lighting and nitrate levels in the soil can deliver a crop of kale that’s less chalky. As with any industry undergoing a digital transformation - and the data-driven, high-tech operations at Bowery’s three farms are certainly indicative of that - old roles and new roles are being constantly combined. Katie Morich, a Bowery farmer explained in an interview with Food & Wine that her job has become half farmer and half data scientist.
The combination of traditional and tech has been yielding promising results at Bowery, which is scheduled to open its third farm (an operation some 90 times larger than the company’s first operation in New Jersey, situated in Baltimore) in 2020.
However, despite the success of startups like Bowery, and the promise of urban and vertical farming techniques, the industry isn’t immune to teething troubles. While environmentally sustainable (although a number of urban farms still use pesticides), vertical farms have been struggling to compete financially as a combination of electricity costs, small scale operations and higher rent in urban areas conspire to make profitability a challenge. According to a report by Emerald Insight, less than a third of urban farmers in the US are making a living from their operations. There are, it would seem, two solutions to this problem:
It’s not about the money
One of the major benefits of vertical farming systems is that thanks to a technique like aquaponics, and increasingly cheap IoT technology, urban farming doesn’t need to be a full-time job. A majority of urban farms in the US are registered non-profits or community projects. Dividing the work among a neighborhood or even a block of flats could make for self-contained farming communities in the city that are free from depending on imported, expensive produce.
Founded in 2009, Colorado-based company The Aquaponics Source specializes in providing small scale aquaponics systems for schools, institutes, and household use. Startup AquaSprouts sells self-contained home units with a focus on education and home use that cost under US$200, although the internet assures me you can build an industrial-scale system to grow edible fish and leafy greens for significantly less (assuming you know a guy who’s looking to get rid of a giant rainwater barrel). Going small and cooperative may provide a look into the way urban farming can help support the global food supply. After all, it’s how the practice began.
Go big or go home
Operations like Bowery and Brooklyn Grange (a 44,000 sq ft rooftop farm in Long Island) are significant scale operations and some of the few for-profit urban farms to have shown serious longevity in the fledgling industry.
Capitalizing on the idea that bigger is better and makes more money is French urban farming startup Agripolis. In collaboration with Cultures en Ville, the company is set to open the world’s largest urban farm in Paris early this year.
“The goal is to make this urban farm a globally-recognized model for responsible production, with nutrients used in organic farming and quality products grown in rhythm with nature's cycles, all in the heart of Paris,” the company said in a statement. The farm will grow more than 1,000 fruits and vegetables a day when in season.
Whatever shape the future of urban agriculture takes, it may be one of humanity’s best shots at overcoming the challenges of the coming decades.
Food Safety At Plenty
Our crops are grown in a hermetically sealed environment that sits within a highly controlled space designed with the highest possible food safety in mind
READING TIME | 10 MINUTES
February 26th, 2020
By Plenty Farms
At Plenty, health is our number one priority. We grow healthy food to nourish healthy people, and foster a healthier planet. As a vertical farming company that functions as both a grower and a manufacturer of food, Plenty cannot seek to restore human health without also seeking to improve and advance food safety in the agricultural industry. That means growing the tastiest and safest produce by monitoring exactly what and who goes into Plenty plants — and just as importantly, by controlling what we keep out of them.
Plenty produce doesn’t have to be washed before eating because our crops are already clean when they’re harvested. So they are ready to eat as soon as you purchase them from your local grocery store. Plenty crops are grown clean: no pests, no pesticides, no chemical sprays, no exposure to potential sources of contaminants like contaminated water or debris, and therefore, no need to wash them at home. We don’t have to spray any pesticides or other chemicals on our crops because Plenty’s high level of control over everything coming in and out of our vertical farms means there’s minimal risk of pests getting to our produce in the first place. Not to mention, the fact that we grow indoors means our plants aren’t impacted by Mother Nature.
Our crops are grown in a hermetically sealed environment that sits within a highly controlled space designed with the highest possible food safety in mind. Though Plenty produce is already at a very low risk for encountering pests, we operate an extensive integrated pest monitoring program that includes ultraviolet lights outside of our farms, air curtains on every door to control the air that enters and leaves our growing rooms, filters on all of our HVAC systems, as well as extensive pest monitoring performed on a regular basis.
And because Plenty plants aren’t exposed to pests, there’s no reason for us to ever spray them with pesticides. Which means those non-existent pesticides never need to be washed off — not by you nor by us.
Leafy greens have long been considered a high-risk crop because they’re usually eaten raw. Typically, after a bunch of kale, or a head of lettuce is bought from the grocery store, it’s taken home, given a quick rinse, and put on a plate to be eaten. And while rinsing produce is a habit that’s likely been ingrained in most consumers since they were old enough to reach the sink, it is not, in fact, a particularly effective habit. At best, washing produce with water simply knocks down the population of any existing pathogen, but to truly clean something harmful like E. coli off of a plant, you would need a chemical to interfere.
As that’s not likely a science experiment you’d like to perform every time you make a salad; leafy greens should be arriving to your kitchen ready-to-eat, free of all pests, pathogens and pesticides. Traditionally, the way to mitigate the risk of contamination in leafy greens has been by performing a triple-wash on them between harvest and sale. Triple-washing involves a pre-wash, a saline wash, and bathing the greens in a sanitizing solution like chlorine. Not only do leafy greens lose flavor and texture, but in the effort to reduce pathogens, bathing greens also runs the simultaneous risk of spreading any existing pathogens even further if performed incorrectly.
The more a crop is handled after harvesting it, especially by humans, the more likely cross-contamination is to occur. The triple-wash process means that after harvest, an outdoor-grown leafy green is: transported to a processing facility, sorted, rinsed, put in a spinner, given a second rinse, spinner again, third rinse, sorted again, packed, and finally transported to your grocery shelves. Further, during all of this, it must be considered that water is a vector if the process isn’t performed perfectly; it spreads pre-existing pathogens far faster than human hands or surfaces can.
When you shop at the grocery store, you see a lot of packages claim that their greens are “triple-washed” or “pre-washed”. Sanitizing solutions can kill pathogens in theory, but the introduction of water could potentially introduce pathogens. If one leaf of lettuce is contaminated with E. coli and then put into a package to be delivered to the grocery store, only that one package of lettuce is contaminated. But if that lettuce is first put into a water bath where it transfers its contamination to other lettuce, and then put into another bath, and then another…like wildfire, that pathogen could spread rapidly. As the numerous recent instances of leafy greens recalls demonstration, triple-washing is clearly not a foolproof process.
It’s time to change the way we grow leafy greens.
Plenty eliminates the need for triple washing by dramatically reducing the risk of contamination. Outdoor water sources can pose a high risk of contamination due to everything from livestock proximity to seasonal shifts. Contaminated agricultural water can pool inside every nook and cranny of a plant, creating a tiny ecosystem that is difficult to clean and where microorganisms thrive; threats rise further in the rainy season when higher temperatures and humidity encourage bacteria’s survival.
On a Plenty farm, there are no seasons — no rises in humidity or fluctuations in temperature – nor long gaps between harvesting and packaging . For every potential contamination variable that outdoor farms must attempt to mitigate after harvest, Plenty has a system in place to dramatically reduce from the ground up, before our crops are even planted.
Plenty’s irrigation water is drawn from filtered, potable water, and each crop’s container is designed so that no irrigation water ever touches the part of the plant we feed to customers. In addition, our growing and processing rooms are hermetically sealed, meaning our produce can’t be exposed to outside elements.
We also perform extensive sterilization and supplier control to make sure that the inputs to our farm, such as seeds and nutrients, are clean and safe. Because we can control the safety and cleanliness of the materials that enter our farms, we can even further control the safety and cleanliness of the fresh produce that exits them.
Every decision we make at Plenty, every plan we put in place, every control, variable, and measure is designed to improve the health of people, plants and planet, and that means prioritizing food safety in any and every way possible. We feel lucky to be at the forefront of a new industry that is not only restoring consumer confidence in leafy greens, but setting a new standard for how safely fresh foods can be produced.
It is not easy to make leafy greens 100% safe — but it is possible to dramatically lower the risk. Eliminating the need for pesticides and controlling variables like water and weather mean that produce can enter your home clean and ready to eat. Consumers shouldn’t have to clean their produce with chemicals or risk their health in order to eat well, and it is our mission to make sure they never have to. Plenty is growing clean, safe produce to fuel healthier lives for people, plants, and the planet.
Zimbabwe: A Backyard Hydroponic Farm Beats Drought To Grow Vegetables
Hydroponically grown plants require no pesticides because there are no soil-borne diseases
Hydroponically grown plants require no pesticides because there are no soil-borne diseases.
BY: BY MACDONALD DZIRUTWE
21 JAN 2020
Innovation ... Venensia Mukarati, whose day job is an accountant, always had a passion for farming, but no land on which to plant (REUTERS / Philimon Bulawayo)
In a backyard in Zimbabwe’s capital, a 50-year-old mother of two is using hydroponics to grow vegetables for some of Harare’s top restaurants, defying drought and an economic crisis that have left millions needing food aid.
Venensia Mukarati, whose day job is an accountant, always had a passion for farming, but no land on which to plant.
Just over two years ago she did a web search on how to grow vegetables on the deck of her Harare house, importing a small hydroponics system from Cape Town for US$900 that enables plants to draw soluble nutrients from water.“
The good thing about hydroponics is that it saves water by 90 percent,” Mukarati said in a 46 square-meter greenhouse where water flowed in a maze of pipes decked with plants.“
I buy water because I don’t have a borehole so I cannot do conventional farming,” she told Reuters.
Her immediate desire was for fresh vegetables for the family as the country’s economic fortunes deteriorated and grocery store prices spiraled. But she quickly realized her pastime could be a profitable venture. It now makes US$1,100 a month – in a country where some government workers get just US$76.In hydroponic farming, water is conserved because it is reused multiple times. Hydroponically grown plants also require no pesticides because there are no soil-borne diseases.
Much of southern Africa is in its worst drought in more than a century, with crops failing and some 45 million people in need of food aid. The region’s temperatures are rising at twice the global average, says the International Panel on Climate Change, spurring the need for innovative ideas to get food on tables.
Harare also faces chronic water shortages due to aging pipes and a shortage of dollars to import treatment chemicals.
It takes six weeks for Mukarati to harvest vegetables such as lettuce compared to 10 weeks if the crop is grown in the soil.
She initially grew 140 plants per cycle – now she produces 2,600, including lettuce, cucumbers, spinach, and herbs in two greenhouses fed by a makeshift system using gutter pipes from the roof.
Lesley Lang, a restaurant owner who buys Mukarati’s produce twice a week, said she had “the best lettuce I have ever had the pleasure of buying in Zimbabwe”.
Mukarati hopes to quadruple production from June by constructing bigger greenhouses on 2,600 square meters of land on the outskirts of Harare.
Last year, she began training others to do the same, designing a hydroponic “starter pack” which she sells for US$200. – Reuters
Lead Photo: New ways … A worker tends to plants at Venensia Mukarati’s hydroponic garden in Harare (REUTERS/Philimon Bulawayo)
FOR SALE - 2018 Freight Farm Computer Controlled Hydroponic Grow System - Atlanta, Georgia
The Leafy Green Machine is a complete hydroponic growing system built entirely inside a shipping container with all the components needed for commercial food production. The system is designed and engineered for easy operation, allowing users of all backgrounds to immediately start growing.
Make & Model - 2018 Freight Farm Computer Controlled Hydroponic Grow System
Manufacturer - Freight Farms
Location - Atlanta, Georgia
Price - $75,000
Description
Well maintained 2018 LGM purchased from Freight Farms.
This LGM has been a reliable producer of healthy produce.
The Leafy Green Machine is a complete hydroponic growing system built entirely inside a shipping container with all the components needed for commercial food production. The system is designed and engineered for easy operation, allowing users of all backgrounds to immediately start growing.
Current Uses
• Perfect for starting a small produce business, growing for restaurants or supplementing existing produce production.
• Restauranter who wants to grow custom greens for rotating menus 365 days a year. Farm to Table? How about Parking Lot to Table!
• Universities and schools have created programs for students to learn to grow while supplementing dining facilities with fresh greens.
The Highest Standard in Controlled Environment Agriculture
• Pre-built system designed to maximize operational efficiency and streamline workflow
• Perfect environment is achievable 365 days a year, regardless of geographic location
• Automated scheduling reduces the amount of labor required to operate
• Remote monitoring & control capabilities through the Farmhand AppTM
Operation Requirements
Space- The LGM dimensions are 40’ x 8’ x 9.5’. We suggest putting the farm on either trap rock or a concrete pad.
Electrical- 60 amp, 120/240-volt single phase or 120/208V three phase connection.
Water- A designated water source is suggested such as a garden hose or hardline water plumbing.
Labor- 15 to 20 hours a week for farming and upkeep.
It is recommended growing smaller compact crops with a high turnover rate, like head and loose leaf lettuces, herbs and heartier greens like kale and swiss chard.
LGM Accessories
Replaced sink with a 4 row, direct lighting microgreen station.
Website of previous owner being sold at additional cost. The website is currently set up for the business of this local farmer, and upon purchase can be changed to the meet the purchaser’s new brand.
Crop Examples
Butterhead lettuce, Oakleaf lettuce, Swiss Chard, Mustard Greens, Cabbage Leaves, Arugula, Cilantro, Mint, Dill, Oregano, Kale, Endive, Basil, Chives and Thyme
Yields
800+ heads of lettuce weekly
12 heads per tower (256 vertical towers)
1 LGM= 1.8 acres
Numerous additional extras included.
Numerous warranties still in effect
Training, website and ongoing support available through Freight Farms.
Visit Freight Farms (Website) for more information.
2018 - Freight Farms LGM Information Booklet
For Additional Information And To Arrange A Viewing:
(909) 942-9594
Spencer.Hoff@iGrow.News
1. ALL-WEATHER CONSTRUCTION
Steel frame with stainless interior, 40' x 8' x 9.6' overall footprint.
2. AUTOMATIC DOSING
Programmable nutrient & pH dosing for perfect growing conditions.
3. CUSTOM WORKBENCH
TIG-welded stainless workbench with integrated seedling growth stage.
4. COMMERCIAL VOLUME
Thousands of growing sites across 256 irrigated vertical towers.
5. HIGH-EFFICIENCY LED ARRAY
5:1 red / blue LED lighting optimized for green leafy growth.
6. INSULATED ENTRY
Padlock-proof safety door with controlled-environment insulation.
All information is from sources deemed reliable but is subject to errors, omissions, changes in price, prior sale or withdrawal without notice.
No representation is made as to the accuracy of any description.
All measurements, yields and square footages are approximate and all information should be confirmed by the customer.
Farms Inside Shipping Containers Could Grow More Local Produce
Instead of trucking vegetables across the country, one company wants to help food service providers grow food right where they are, no matter how little experience or land they have
The Crops Grow Vertically Under LED Lights
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Four rows of panels on a flexible moving rack system house more than 8,000 living plants at once, creating a dense canopy of fresh crops. (Photo: Courtesy of Freight Farms)
Instead of trucking vegetables across the country, one company wants to help food service providers grow food right where they are, no matter how little experience or land they have.
“That’s at corporate campuses, university campuses, health care facilities,” says Brad McNamara, CEO of Freight Farms. The company sells what it calls the Greenery.
“It’s a 320-square-foot shipping container like you would see on a boat, a train, a truck, outfitted with an automated growing system,” he says, “to grow about 3.5 acres worth of produce with no pesticides, no herbicides, and about 98.5% less water.”
Inside the Greenery, plants grow vertically, with their roots in a nutrient solution instead of soil. Sensors, pumps, and LED lights automatically maintain ideal growing conditions, so you don’t have to be an expert to start farming.
“You plug it in and you’re growing the same day,” McNamara says.
As the climate changes and the world’s population grows, McNamara says it makes sense to farm in a way that produces more food with fewer resources and less transportation.
“Instead of making more bigger farms,” he says, “We make hundreds, then thousands, then millions of people into independent successful farmers where they live and work.”
Reporting credit: Stephanie Manuzak/ChavoBart Digital Media.
Irma To Introduce Vertical Farming In 35 Stores In Denmark
Coop Denmark has announced plans to introduce vertical farming in some 35 Irma outlets, in collaboration with Germany's infarm
February 18, 2020
Coop Denmark has announced plans to introduce vertical farming in some 35 Irma outlets, in collaboration with Germany's infarm.
The retailer plans to roll out the technology in its stores over the next two months, after a successful pilot project in its Østerport store last year.
'An Innovative Concept'
Infarm has devised an innovative concept that allows retailers to grow herbs and certain leafy vegetables in stores, using vertical farming units.
The cultivation of the herbs and vegetables require very little water and no synthetic pesticides.
The process also minimizes the requirement of transportation from farms to store shelves.
Commenting on the initiative, Irma director Søren Steffensen described vertical farming as the "way of the future to grow vegetables. With this collaboration, we unite Irma's goal of promoting the most sustainable forms of production and the best possible quality of taste."
Read More: Financial Cost Of 'Vertical Farming' An Impediment To Sector's Expansion
Founded in Berlin in 2013, infarm is now present in France, Luxembourg, Switzerland.
In September 2019, it partnered with Marks & Spencer to introduce the technology in its Clapham Junction store in South West London.
Two months later, US retailer Kroger announced plans to launch the concept in its outlets across North America.
Fresh Produce tagged: Trending Posts / Sustainability / Denmark / Copenhagen / Irma / Vertical Farming / infarm
© 2020 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
How To Start A Container Farm Business
Using stacked farming to produce food in vertical spaces, vertical farming is an attractive option to traditional methods of farming, opening more opportunities for year-round freshly grown and locally accessed food
Have You Ever Wondered How To Start A Container Farm Business?
You’re not alone.
Global population growth concerns about food production, increasing interest in green infrastructure, and technological advancements in aeroponics, hydroponics, and aquaponics have amplified the interest and practice of vertical farming.
Using stacked farming to produce food in vertical spaces, vertical farming is an attractive option to traditional methods of farming, opening more opportunities for year-round freshly grown and locally accessed food.
While the idea of vertical farming may be a striking consideration, the business side is often complex and confusing.
Pure Greens have written a guide, as an informative piece to help navigate new and even current container farm owners on how to start a container farm business.
In this guide, they’ll look at a few things to help you get started, including:
Types of customers
Investment planning
Container location and design
Helpful training
Growing and harvesting
Selling and branding
Check out the guide here.
Publication date: Mon 24 Feb 2020
How Much Does Vertical Farming Cost?
Indoor food production has long been cited as the ideal way to help feed an ever-growing population
Indoor food production has long-been cited as the ideal way to help feed an ever-growing population.
Currently, vertical farming is increasingly being seen as the way forward to produce higher volumes of better-quality crops all year round, bring food production closer to customers, and into urban areas.
For leafy produce growers, a move to vertical farming can massively reduce the reliance on conventional farming methods – which are affected by the weather – and ensure consistent, quality crops to keep customers happy.
The key, of course, is to ensure the vertical farming costs and business case stacks up. In recent years, this is why people have increasingly sought out the expertise of the team at CambridgeHOK.
In an in-depth article, they try to explain how and why they help – including detailed insights into:
Vertical farming start-up costs
Why indoor farming is taking off
The realistic profits achievable
Why the industry’s future is bright
Read more at the CambridgeHOK website.
Publication date: Mon 17 Feb 2020
US: South Carolina - Vertical Roots Hits The Road In Their Lettuce Localmotive, Spreading The Good Word of Hydroponics
The hydroponic growing system is simple - nutrient-filled water replaces traditional soil in order to grow the plant, and for the first time since we started tilling land farmers can grow crops without the soil beneath their feet
The technology of planting crops has revolutionized over the years.
The hydroponic growing system is simple — nutrient-filled water replaces traditional soil in order to grow the plant, and for the first time since we started tilling land, farmers can grow crops without the soil beneath their feet.
Hydroponic container grower Vertical Roots is taking one of their shipping container farms on the road — they're hitting the streets with the Lettuce Localmotive, teaching people about the process of growing lettuce. They'll be making stops at Publix and Greenwise Markets across the country.
RELATED Tiger Corner Farms produces full-scale, aeroponic crops in recycled shipping containers: The Future of Farming
Unlike traditional farms, the Vertical Roots' containers grow plants vertically indoors without soil, with the plants obtaining all their nutrition from water and their light energy from powerful LED lights.
During tour stops, guests will get a hands-on experience with seeding lettuce, learn how technology manages the growing process, and get schooled about all the benefits of this alternative way of farming.
The first stop of the tour is at Vertical Root's home base — Charleston. Check them out at the Daniel Island Publix this Sat. Feb. 15 from 10 a.m.-4p.m.
A Collaboration Between CropKing (USA) and Urban Crop Solutions (BE) Has Been Cultivated - CropKing Will Operate A Vertical Container Farm Showcase
“By combining their strengths, the companies want to consider newmarkets. Their collaboration could be a perfect match.”
Cropking and Urban Crop Solutions are excited to announce the start of a flourishing collaboration. The goal will be to combine the extensive hydroponic experience of Cropking with the high-quality controlled environment technology in vertical farming of Urban Crop Solutions. By combining these different experiences and expertise, both companies get the chance to develop together in the Controlled Environment Agriculture industry in the United States. CropKing will operate the FarmPro vertical container farm as a showcase, continued research, and testing facility.
Hydroponic farm by CropKing
“By combining their strengths, the companies want to consider new
markets. Their collaboration could be a perfect match.”
Cropking is the only full-service hydroponic company in the U.S. that specializes in the business of controlled environment agriculture and hydroponic growing since 1982. Their 37 years of experience makes them the leader in hydroponic systems and greenhouse manufacturing. Their headquarters are in Lodi, Ohio whereas their facility structures and systems can be found across 20 different countries including the United States, Canada, Mexico, countries in Europe and the Caribbean.
According to Paul Brentlinger the President of Cropking Inc.: “We are excited to be working with Urban Crop Solutions and the opportunity to validate the effectiveness of automated container farming. Their personal and custom-made approach could fulfill the needs of many clients. The shipping container system offers advantages like climate control, irrigation system, automated growing process, … which has captured our interest for the past few years.” CropKing will receive its first Urban Crop Solutions FarmPro Container in March and will start testing it in their facilities with the help of in-house plant scientists.
Inside FarmPro container
Urban Crop Solutions has recently celebrated its 5th anniversary and already has 28 active projects across the world. They are the only turnkey solutions provider, that also offers biological know-how, in the indoor vertical farming industry. Besides that, they have already developed over 200 plant growing recipes, for a variety of industries, through their inhouse research method. Paulina Murrath, the business development manager of Urban Crop Solutions, will serve as a point of contact for the North American market through the office of Urban Crop Solutions in Miami, Florida.
In the opinion of Paulina Murrath: “It’s a great honor to start a collaboration with CropKing and Paul Brentlinger who is a controlled environmental agriculture expert with extensive knowledge of growing high-quality food products. CropKing shares the same values that we consider important, like bringing higher yields, nutritional value, food security, local production, and consumption, … to different industries. That’s why we believe that our collaboration will be rewarding.”
For more information:CropKing: www.cropking.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CropKing/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cropking-inc./
YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/cropkinginc
Urban Crop Solutions: www.urbancropsolutions.com
For more information on this press release on Urban Crop Solutions or on the products and services of Urban Crop Solutions, you may contact Maarten Vandecruys (CTO) or Tom Debusschere (CEO):
Maarten Vandecruys, CTO maarten.vandecruys@urbancropsolutions.com
Tom Debusschere, CEO tom.debusschere@urbancropsolutions.com
European headquarters: Regional headquarters:
Grote Heerweg 67 800 Brickell Avenue, 1100 Suite
8791 Beveren-Leie (Waregem) Miami (FL 33131)
Belgium Florida
(+32)56 96 03 06 +1 (786) 408-6027
A Belly Ache Can lead To A Trip To The Urgent Care. E. coli Poisoning Lands You In The Emergency Room
The FDA has called little attention to the surge in E. coli outbreaks from leafy green vegetables. It has been slow to investigate or publicize risks and did not disclose one outbreak to the public until the Globe contacted agency officials about reports of E. coli poisonings
Dietitian Determined To Save Salads!
February 12, 2020
Written by Dr. Jenna Bell, RD VP of Nutritional Science at Crop One
Crop One is the world’s largest scalable, completely controlled, vertical farming company. Our Greater Boston brand is FreshBox Farms.
Spend a few days bent over, writhing in abdominal pain and you’ll understand how serious foodborne illnesses can be. It may even require a trip to urgent care. Experience an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 from salad greens and you may be among hundreds heading to the ER.
E. coli poisoning can be life-threatening.
What is E. coli, anyway?
Straight out of the Center for Disease Control (CDC):
“Escherichia coli (abbreviated as E. coli) are bacteria found in the environment, foods, and intestines of people and animals. E. coliare a large and diverse group of bacteria. Although most strains of E. coli are harmless, others can make you sick. Some kinds of E. coli can cause diarrhea, while others cause urinary tract infections, respiratory illness and pneumonia, and other illnesses.”
To be crystal clear — we’re talking about fecal contamination. Poo in food. Bird, cow, human, someone’s poop.
As a registered dietitian, I swear by colorful salads of leafy greens with favorite fruits, veggies, seeds, nuts and proteins atop. Making that recommendation sans lettuce feels blasphemous and unfulfilling. But given the pace at which the outdoor-grown romaine industry reports bacterial outbreaks, food safety threatens our salad fixings.
Break out bacteria
Over the past few years, romaine has been hit hard by outbreaks of bacterial contamination — especially from the strain, E. coli O157:H7. The most recent string of outbreaks is considered “under control” by the CDC and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), but the final count as of January 13, 2020, is 167 individuals reported in the US.
“Reported” is a key word here because how many times have you called the CDC or the FDA when you were sick?
Lettuce + E. coli is not a new thing
Several years ago (2013), a scientific investigation of a decade-worth of data on hospitalizations and deaths attributed to food commodities (including seafood, farm animals and plants) revealed that among the 17 commodities, more illnesses were associated with leafy vegetables (2.2 million [22%]). Illnesses associated with leafy vegetables were the second most frequent cause of hospitalizations (14%) and the fifth most frequent cause of death (6%).¹
A 2020 piece in the Boston Globe written by venerated reporter, Christine Haughney Dare-Bryan, traced the tracks of the recent outbreaks and illuminated the grimness with a family’s horrific experience with E. coli poisoning in their two-year-old son. In the article, Haughney Dare-Bryan reflects on the quick response from then commissioner of the FDA, Scott Gottlieb:
…[Gottlieb] tweeted to a startled nation that they should stop eating romaine lettuce just two days before Thanksgiving 2018.
E. coli fatigue
However the seriousness, history shows that someone hit the snooze button. Despite the number of updates and investigations, CDC and the FDA can’t seem to get ahead of it. Haughney explains:
Despite the growing number of outbreaks, the agency remains protective of the growers, taking little enforcement action and sometimes shielding growers suspected of causing outbreaks from bad publicity. Consider:
The FDA has called little attention to the surge in E. coli outbreaks from leafy green vegetables. It has been slow to investigate or publicize risks and did not disclose one outbreak to the public until the Globe contacted agency officials about reports of E. coli poisonings. FDA officials insist they planned to disclose the early fall 2019 outbreak all along.
The FDA has not punished any farm or distributor in connection with the seven outbreaks traced to lettuce since 2017 even though federal law prohibits the sale of contaminated foods. The agency concluded that three of the outbreaks were linked to a single California lettuce grower but declined to release the name.
The FDA staff monitoring lettuce production is just a small fraction of that detailed to the federal oversight of beef: There are 614 FDA field investigators responsible for leafy greens compared to 7,068 workers overseeing beef for the Department of Agriculture. Congress recently gave the FDA $8 million to better handle outbreaks, but the agency doesn’t want to talk about the state of its staffing. When the Globe tried to examine just how understaffed the agency is, officials redacted hundreds of pages of records discussing their internal problems.
The agency relies almost entirely on voluntary cooperation from the lettuce industry, an approach that has brought about some safety improvements. But FDA has asked relatively little of the industry and recently delayed implementing rules aimed at preventing E. coli contamination of irrigation water until 2022.
What do we do now?
From one salad enthusiast to another, or one mom to another, or one PhD/dietitian to consumer (take your pick): there is a safer way to grow your lettuce and eat it too.
We can grow indoors. Out of the soil and away from questionable water, weather disruption messes and “run-off” contaminants (think poop).
I found my safe salad environment when I met and started working for CROP ONE.
How do I know it’s safe?
Concealed, confined, enclosed, controlled, secured, safe, protected — all synonyms for Crop One’s modular growing rooms (“mods”). Mods are protected by double door entryways with fancy sliding doors like at the supermarket and a vestibule. Anyone who enters is fully gloved and covered in stylish lab wear (no, not stylish).
Pictured: The most stylish lab wear in Massachusetts
I should add here that because our plants are protected from the world, we don’t need or use any type of -cide (pesticides, herbicides or fungicides), nor do we deal with pests, insects, rain, contaminated water or other farm’s fertilizer or chemicals. We’re free from all that stuff you’re trying to stay free from.
Pure, clean, filtered — water and air. Each mod is carefully controlled for contaminants, chemicals, heavy metals, and other unwanted impurities through a multi-step, quality-controlled purification system.
FreshBox KVH Kosher Certified romaine lettuce.
Two words: Kosher. Certified.
If you’re not familiar with the process by which produce is certified Kosher, visualize microscopes, tweezers, fastidious inspectors, etc. KVH Kosher certification officers perform comprehensive inspections to ensure that Crop One/FreshBox Farms’ produce is free of all pests and insects.
The salad solution.
Crop One can keep your salad safe. Miraculously, along with safety, our modular enclosures are scalable and sustainable in any climate, on very little land, with barely any water compared to traditional farms (about 95–99% less water required), but we’ll save that for another conversation.
Jenna A. Bell, PhD, RD, joined the Crop One team in September 2019 as the VP of Nutritional Science to be part of the global food supply solution.
References:
Painter JA, Hoekstra RM, Ayers T, et al. Attribution of Foodborne Illnesses, Hospitalizations, and Deaths to Food Commodities by using Outbreak Data, United States, 1998–2008. Emerging Infectious Diseases. 2013;19(3):407–415. doi:10.3201/eid1903.111866.
Haughney Dare-Bryan C. Green Alert. Boston Globe. Last accessed January 30, 2020: https://edition.pagesuite.com/popovers/dynamic_article_popover.aspx?artguid=a497f64d-df30-4f48-b026-10aadc66901b&appid=1165
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Crop One Holdings
We grow the cleanest, healthiest greens for anyone, anywhere in the world. Our sustainable vertical farms are free from chemicals and climate-proof.
Researchers Tackling Viability of Leafy Greens In Vertical Farming Production
To better serve this burgeoning industry, researchers hope to integrate the indoor vertical growers within the specialty crop segment of agriculture, with the ultimate goal of increasing sustainability and profitability
Posted by Brian Sparks
February 19, 2020
Murat Kacira, University of Arizona. Photo: Rosemarie Brandt/College of Agriculture and LIfe SciencesA research team from the University of Arizona, Michigan State University, Purdue University, and The Ohio State University is using a $2.7 million grant from USDA’s Specialty Crops Research Initiative to study indoor leafy green production, with the goal of improving the quality, quantity, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of indoor vertical farming production.
The initiative — called Optimizing Indoor Agriculture, or OptimIA — has caught the eye of more than 25 industry leaders, whose matching financial support brings the project total to $5.4 million.
“We’re privileged to work with a team of powerhouse scientists, engineers, economists, and industry partners to collectively address the significant challenges faced by the indoor vertical farming industry,” says Murat Kacira, a Professor of Biosystems Engineering and Director of the University of Arizona Controlled Environment Agriculture Center. “Controlled environmental agriculture is one piece of the puzzle, combining plant science, engineering, and computer-controlled production systems to enhance the yield and quality of our crops and optimize resource use.”
To better serve this burgeoning industry, researchers hope to integrate the indoor vertical growers within the specialty crop segment of agriculture, with the ultimate goal of increasing sustainability and profitability.
To do that, the multi-university team plans to assess variable environmental conditions, such as humidity, air movement, temperature, light, and carbon dioxide concentration, and then provide a more complete picture of best practices for indoor farming stakeholders.
Kacira and his team will be using computer simulations, modeling, and experimental studies to design and test more effective localized air-distribution methods, environmental monitoring, and control strategies for indoor vertical farms
.Michigan State University will lead final economic modeling, with Erik Runkle collaborating with co-principal investigators Roberto Lopez and Simone Valle de Souza. Chieri Kubota will take the reins testing environmental condition variables at The Ohio State University, and Cary Mitchell will lead closed canopy and phasic lighting tests at Purdue University.
Learn more about the research here.
Brian Sparks is senior editor of Greenhouse Grower and editor of Greenhouse Grower Technology.
See all author stories here.
Making Vertical Farming Big In The UK
Food technology and vertical farming are both growing markets. In 2018, vertical farming was worth $3bn globally and it is predicted to grow to $22bn between 2019 and 2026
Growing greens in a Vertical Future farm - VERTICAL FUTURE
Food technology and vertical farming are both growing markets. In 2018, vertical farming was worth $3bn globally and it is predicted to grow to $22bn between 2019 and 2026.
British-based husband and wife team Jamie and Marie Burrows founded Vertical Future with aims of being “the largest urban vertical farming company in the UK”.
“We produce high-quality, sustainable produce, primarily baby leaf vegetables and herbs, as well as developing efficient and sustainable methods of food production and supply,” explains Jamie.
The company has one active production site which has been operational for three years and services more than 100 food establishments in London.
“We’re focused on improving population health by building better, smarter, more sustainable food production and supply systems,” says Jamie. “Advancements in basic technologies associated with vertical farms have improved the business case for vertical farming businesses.”
Jamie says this, combined with increases in population and urban population density, has led to a “steep rise” in the number of vertical farming businesses, primarily in urban areas.
There were no vertical farms as recently as 2010; as of 2016, there were 2.3 million square feet of indoor farms worldwide.
Inside a Vertical Future farm - VERTICAL FUTURE
Nature Fresh Farms Matt Quiring Transitions Role to Director of Sales
As Director of Sales, Matt will now be overseeing the development of all their retail accounts. “Matt’s transition into Director of Sales was a very easy and natural choice,” shared Vice President, John Ketler
Leamington, ON (February 21, 2020) – Nature Fresh Farms announced Matt Quiring’s recent role transition from Executive Retail Sales Accounts, Manager, to Director of Sales.
Matt Quiring, son of Nature Fresh Farms president and founder Peter Quiring, showed interest in Nature Fresh Farms at an early age, after gaining experience outside of the industry he joined Nature Fresh Farms Sales established in 2010. Developing his retail accounts from the ground-up, he advanced into the role of Executive Retail Sales Accounts Manager. In this position, Matt played an important role in developing partnerships with many of their major retailers and various customers.
As Director of Sales, Matt will now be overseeing the development of all their retail accounts. “Matt’s transition into Director of Sales was a very easy and natural choice,” shared Vice President, John Ketler. “With Matt handling the vast majority of our sales to date, it is clear that he has the drive, passion, and industry knowledge necessary to develop these relationships with our partners.”
General Manager, Frank Neufeld also expanded on Matt’s transition mentioning Nature Fresh Farms continuous expansion and what it means for the company. “With the growth of Nature Fresh Farms and Nature Fresh Farms Sales, we are welcoming many new members to our team, including additional sales staff. It was evident to us, seeing Matt’s experience, that he would be the one to lead the entire sales team moving forward,” said Frank. “We look forward to Matt bringing his leadership and mentoring skills to the rest of the sales team, helping them to strengthen the relationships he has established over the last several years with our partners.”
As Nature Fresh Farms focuses on company growth and developing relations, Matt’s role will assist in the continued progression of their team and retail partnerships. Nature Fresh Farms is excited for their future with the continuous expansion of their team, their advancements in technology and product innovation allowing them to provide fresh produce all year-round.
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About Nature Fresh Farms -
Continuously expanding, Nature Fresh Farms has become one of the largest independent, vertically integrated greenhouse vegetable farms in North America. As a year-round grower with farms in Leamington, ON, Delta, OH, and Mexico, Nature Fresh Farms prides itself on consistently delivering exceptional flavor and quality to key retailers throughout North America, while continuing to innovate and introduce more viable and sustainable growing and packaging solutions.
SOURCE: Nature Fresh Farms | info@naturefresh.ca T: 519 326 1111 | www.naturefresh.ca