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Indoor Ag-Con And The COE Hosting, "Building Sustainable Triple Bottom Line Farms" Oct 29, 2020
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Indoor Ag-Con Webinar
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The Center of Excellence for Indoor Agriculture presents:
"Building Sustainable Triple Bottom Line Farms"
October 29, 2:00 pm EDT
Description: During this insightful and inspiring 60-minute session, our moderator and panelists will discuss:
• The concept of the Triple Bottom Line: People, Planet and Profits
• The B-Certification process and reporting
• The contributions indoor farms can make according to the Triple Bottom Line
• Lessons learned from sustainable indoor farms that apply to all forms of indoor farming
• And more!
Moderator: Eric W. Stein, Ph.D., Executive Director of the Center of Excellence for Indoor Agriculture and Associate Professor of Business at Penn State
Panelists:
• Dave Nichols, Director of Strategy, AppHarvest
• Alexander Rudnicki, Senior Project Manager/Plant Manager, Aerofarms
• Grant Vandenbussche, Chief Category Officer, Fifth Season
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Time
Oct 29, 2020 02:00 PM in Eastern Time (US and Canada)
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Plenty Bags $140m In Funding For Its Indoor Farming Tech
The Series D round was led by existing investor, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, with participation from new investor Driscoll’s, a California-based agriculture business that claims to control around one-third of the $6bn berry market in the US
10/14/20
Image: Plenty
Californian Indoor Agriculture Business Plenty
Has Raised $140m In Its Latest Funding Round,
Bringing The Total Raised By The Start-Up To $500m
On Wednesday (14 October), San Francisco vertical farming business Plenty announced that it has raised $140m in Series D funding.
The Series D round was led by existing investor, SoftBank Vision Fund 1, with participation from new investor Driscoll’s, a California-based agriculture business that claims to control around one-third of the $6bn berry market in the US.
Plenty, which was previously listed as an urban agriculture start-up to watch on Siliconrepublic.com, plans to use the latest round of funding to fuel growth and execute new commercial collaborations with Driscoll’s and US grocery business Albertsons.
Plenty’s technology
Plenty was co-founded by Matt Barnard, Jack Oslan, Nate Mazonson, and Nate Storey in 2014. The company’s vertical farming technology can grow produce all year round, and Plenty claims that it uses 99pc less land and 95pc less water to grow crops than traditional methods.
Plenty’s San Francisco farm uses 100pc renewable energy and according to the company, the firm can grow 1,500 acres of produce in a building the size of a big-box grocery store.
To date, Plenty has raised more than $500m from investors including Bezos Expeditions, Innovation Endeavors, and DCM Ventures. Plenty is currently developing a new indoor farm in Compton, California, which the start-up believes could become the world’s highest-output vertical farm.
Jeff Housenbold, managing partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, said: “In just 30 years’ time, the world will need 70pc more food than we currently produce, requiring more efficient use of land and water. Without innovation in agriculture, this demand will be impossible to meet.
“We believe Plenty is transforming the way food is made and are pleased to continue supporting their mission to build sustainable, intelligent farms that deliver healthy, safe produce with a focus on premium flavour.”
Plenty’s agriculture platform uses data analytics, machine learning, and customized lighting to iterate at high speeds, using 200 years’ worth of growing data. The company said that it has seen a 700pc yield improvement in leafy greens over the last 24 months by using this data.
Barnard, who serves as chief executive of Plenty, said: “The recent disruptions in the global supply chain caused by the west coast wildfires and Covid-19 have highlighted how quickly our access to quality produce can be thwarted.
“Plenty’s controlled and resilient farms and local distribution made it easy for us to scale quickly, even during the pandemic, demonstrating that our indoor, vertical farm flourishes under environmental pressures and delivers delicious greens along with the sales that come with it.”
Kelly Earley is a journalist with Siliconrepublic.com
RELATED: ANALYTICS, FOOD, AGRITECH, FUNDING AND INVESTMENT, SAN FRANCISCO, AGRICULTURE
US - ORLANDO, FLORIDA - Tech-Driven Vertical Farming Company Announces Two New VP’s
Quickly becoming a world leading company in indoor vertical farming, Kalera has the ability to deliver fresh, locally grown greens, nationally thanks in large part to its streamlined design process and technological advancements. By the end of 2021, Kalera will have five commercial growing facilities
14-10-2020 | Global News Wire
The Appointment of These Executives Coincides With
Kalera’s Expansion Into New Markets Nationwide
Mark Gagnon, VP of Sales for Retail Accounts at Kalera, has over three decades of experience in the produce and grocery industries.
Kalera's newly appointed VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings, brings with him over 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry.
On October 13th, technology-driven vertical farming company Kalera (NOTC: KALERA, Bloomberg: KSLLF) announced that it has hired two new executives to fill the positions of Vice President of Foodservice Sales and Vice President of Sales for Retail Accounts.
The newly appointed VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings, brings with him over 20 years of experience in the foodservice industry. Mark Gagnon, VP of Sales for Retail Accounts, has over three decades of experience in the produce and grocery industries.
Prior to joining Kalera as VP of Foodservice Sales, Marc Jennings spent his career building networks of strategic partners in the food industry, both domestically and internationally. Most recently, Jennings worked as the Chief Commercial Officer at Martin Preferred Foods, where he worked to expand into new geographies through strategic alliances.
He previously spent four years as the Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Food Services of America and four years as the Vice President of Foodservice at Cargill, a company with reported revenues of almost $115 billion. Jennings has received recognition as a Leader of Sales & Marketing from the International Food Distribution Association and the International Food Manufacturing Association, where he has held advocacy positions on the industry board.
His primary goal as Kalera’s VP of Foodservice Sales is to build a coalition of strategic partners who share the vision of delivering Kalera’s fresh, locally produced greens to consumers across the planet.
“I’ve always been passionate about finding a sustainable, healthy solution to feeding the world’s growing population, and Kalera does that efficiently and effectively,” said Marc Jennings, new Kalera VP of Foodservice Sales. “I believe my wide range of experience makes me uniquely qualified to establish the diverse network necessary to deliver Kalera’s solution globally.”
Kalera has also named Mark Gagnon as VP of Sales for Retail Accounts. An accomplished executive, Gagnon brings with him over 30 years of sales and leadership experience with three major produce brands, Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte. Before his six-year tenure as the VP of Sales at Del Monte Fresh Produce N.A., Inc., he led the East Coast sales team for Chobani, where he focused on account development, retail expansion, increasing market share, creating brand awareness, and developing a new sales team.
He previously worked for nine years as the National Director of Sales for Chiquita, where his main focus was growing market share in both pineapple and banana business, as well as leading the Kroger Team for all Chiquita products. Gagnon was also the National Account Manager for Kroger at The Dole Food Company and held various other sales leadership roles over a 14-year period with Dole.
“Over the last 30 years, I’ve developed strong partnerships and relationships with the top retailers in the country through strategic planning and customer engagement at the top levels of each retail organization,” said Mark Gagnon, Kalera’s new VP of Sales for Retail Accounts. “I’m extremely eager to bring my experience and learnings in the produce industry to Kalera, and join a first class company with an incredibly bright future.”
“Having this strong and unified sales team will be crucial to Kalera’s growth and development as we expand globally,” said Daniel Malechuk, CEO of Kalera. “With Mark’s proven track record of account development with key retailers, and Marc’s international manufacturing and distribution background, I have confidence in their ability to continue Kalera’s momentum in building our network of strategic partners as we grow Kalera’s reach. We’re truly thrilled to have them join the team.”
Quickly becoming a world leading company in indoor vertical farming, Kalera has the ability to deliver fresh, locally grown greens, nationally thanks in large part to its streamlined design process and technological advancements. By the end of 2021, Kalera will have five commercial growing facilities open and operating across the US. The company’s recent major milestones include:
Its first commercial vertical farm, the HyCube growing center, currently operates on the premises of the Orlando World Center Marriott, bringing fresh, local produce to the hotel’s visitors and customers.
In March 2020, Kalera opened its second facility in Orlando, providing produce to the area’s top retailers, leading foodservice distributors, resorts, hospitality groups, and theme parks.
The Atlanta facility is the third farm in Kalera’s portfolio and when it opens early next year, will be the largest vertical farm in the Southeast.
Its fourth facility is slated to open in Houston in spring 2021 and will be the largest of its kind in Texas.
In 2021 Kalera will open its fifth and most western location in Colorado, which will serve the greater Denver area.
As Kalera accelerates its growth over the next few years, it will continue to open additional facilities, expanding production capacity throughout the US and internationally.
With indoor facilities situated right where the demand is, Kalera is able to supply an abundance of produce locally, eliminating the need to travel long distances when shipping perishable products and ensuring the highest quality and freshness. Their cutting-edge technology allows plants to reach their maximum potential, and the facilities produce yields at 300-400 times that of traditional field farming. In addition to maximizing production, Kalera’s growing methods and cleanroom technology eliminates the need for chemical pesticide use, and their plants consume 95% less water than field-farmed plants.
About Kalera
Kalera is a technology-driven vertical farming company with unique growing methods combining optimized nutrients and light recipes, precise environmental controls, and cleanroom standards to produce safe, highly nutritious, pesticide-free, non-GMO vegetables with consistently high quality and longer shelf life year-round. The company’s high-yield, automated, data-driven hydroponic production facilities have been designed for rapid rollout with industry-leading payback times to grow vegetables faster, cleaner, at a lower cost, and with less environmental impact.
Source and Photo Courtesy of Global News Wire
UNITED KINGDOM: Whole Foods Joins List of Infarm Customers
As part of its continued UK expansion, the Berlin-based company will install its modular vertical farming units in two of the retailer’s London stores – High Street Kensington and Fulham – so shoppers can buy fresh produce that has been grown in store
E KNOWLES
15th October 2020, London
The Berlin-Based Urban Farming Specialist
Continues Its Meteoric Rise
With The Addition of One of London's Leading Retailers
Whole Foods Market customers in the UK will soon be able to purchase a range of fresh produce grown by Infarm, which claims to be the world’s fastest-growing urban farming network.
As part of its continued UK expansion, the Berlin-based company will install its modular vertical farming units in two of the retailer’s London stores – High Street Kensington and Fulham – so shoppers can buy fresh produce that has been grown in-store.
Infarm produce will also appear in Whole Foods Market stores in the capital at Piccadilly Circus, Stoke Newington, Richmond, Clapham Junction, and Camden at the end of October and during November.
These stores will be supplied with produce from a local Infarm growing centre in Tottenham, the company said, providing flexible supply as and when required.
For Whole Foods Market shoppers, the Infarm range will include herbs such as coriander, parsley, basil, mint, dill, and Thai basil, as well as a number of different fresh lettuce varieties.
“The partnership between Infarm and Whole Foods Market aims to satisfy increasing consumer demand for sustainably grown products with a smaller environmental footprint, helping customers to both make healthy choices and reduce their food waste,” said a spokesperson for Infarm.
Growing and Growing
The company recently raised US$170m in series C funding, further boosting an expansion strategy that has seen it land retail partnerships in the UK, US, Canada, France, and Germany. Fruitnet understands it will soon be making its market debut in Japan.
The expansion comes as retailers look to find innovative ways to combat climate change. “Infarm units use 95 percent less water and 90 percent less transport than traditional agriculture, as well as 75 percent less fertiliser and no pesticides,” the spokesperson added.
The first harvest from Whole Foods Market Kensington is scheduled for 19 November.
Daniel Kats, vice-president of corporate sales at Infarm, commented: “Whole Foods Market felt like a perfect fit for Infarm. Its commitment to providing customers with vibrant, sustainable food aligns with our goal of growing produce locally and, in the process, substantially reducing food waste and the environmental impact of what we consume. We hope that in installing our modular farms in Kensington and Fulham, we can help to educate shoppers about the future of food.”
Jade Hoai, director of purchasing and operations at Whole Foods Market, said: “We are excited to partner with Infarm to offer a truly hyper-local selection of greens and herbs across all of our London stores. Whole Foods Market customers can expect to find fresh, unique herbs from Infarm’s vertical growing units like Boudreaux purple basil, that are grown locally, have no pesticides, and use a fraction of the traditional resources required to grow. We are excited about this relationship for its joint commitment to environmental stewardship and for the delicious, nutritious meals our customers will be crafting at home.”
Super Local
Founded in Berlin in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and the brothers Erez and Guy Galonska, Infarm is dedicated to creating a future where local super fresh produce is available for everyone. The farms are placed in various locations in the city, like supermarkets, restaurants, and distribution centres, so that vegetables grow and are harvested close to the moment of purchase or consumption.
Infarm farmers visit the store after each growth cycle to add new seedlings to the farm. According to the company, the plants retain their roots post-harvest to maintain exceptional flavour and freshness, meaning they’re still alive when harvested.
“These controlled, growing environments are connected to a central cloud-based farm-brain which gathers more than 50,000 data points through a plant’s lifetime, allowing the platform to learn, adapt and improve itself constantly so that every plant grows better than the one before,” it adds.
“This modular, data-driven, and distributed approach — a combination of big data, IoT, and cloud analytics, in addition to rapid growth at a global scale — sets Infarm apart from any other urban, farming solution.”
During last week’s FPJLive conference organised by the Fresh Produce Journal, Infarm’s UK operations director Jeremy Byfleet confirmed the company was investigating the possibility of expanding its product offer beyond leafy salad vegetables and herbs to include a number of other fresh fruit and vegetables.
RELATED ARTICLES
Ultra-Local Brooklyn-Based Aquaponics Operation Upward Farms Has National Agenda
In an interview with SeafoodSource, Upward Farms CEO Jason Green described the company’s whole ecosystems as “a paradigm shift in productivity and scalability compared to status quo production methods dependent upon synthetic chemicals.”
October 14, 2020
By Cliff White
Originally founded in 2013 as Edenworks and previously known as Seed & Roe, Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A.-based Upward Farms takes an ecosystem-based approach to its aquaponics operation, which produces microgreens and “mercury-free, antibiotic-free, and hormone-free” striped bass, rated as a “Best Choice” by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program. In an interview with SeafoodSource, Upward Farms CEO Jason Green described the company’s whole ecosystems as “a paradigm shift in productivity and scalability compared to status quo production methods dependent upon synthetic chemicals.”
The company has had success selling its greens into Brooklyn grocery outlets including Whole Foods Market but has not yet sold any fish commercially. Green said the company has a “20-year vision to create a sustainable future for the food system by advancing the importance of the microbiome in both indoor and outdoor agriculture.” Upwards Farms recently closed on more than USD 15 million (EUR 12.8 million) in new funding, led by an investment from Prime Movers Lab.
SeafoodSource:
Why was striped bass chosen as the complementary species in Upward Farms’ integrated aquaponics system?
Green:
We’re an aquaponic farm – we grow fish and plants together in a closed ecosystem. It’s important for us to use a freshwater species instead of saltwater so we can directly utilize the waste from the fish as fertilizer for our leafy greens production. The striped bass hybrid that we use is a freshwater fish that retains the quality and character that eaters of striped bass love – clean, firm flesh with just the right amount of richness and skin that crisps up beautifully. Striped bass is also a fish that has a strong local following in the New York area, so there’s a baseline level of consumer awareness.
So while chefs and consumers in New York are already familiar with striped bass as a wild local fish that is available seasonally, we sought to complement that with a sustainably farmed alternative that can be sourced year-round.
SeafoodSource:
Can you say more about the company’s new facility and your other expansion plans?
Green:
Our new headquarters facility is based in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and will be a fully automated vertical farm with aquaponic production. It will serve as our commercial facility, distributing leafy greens and fish to grocers across the New York City area. Our new headquarters is also where we’ll continue to conduct research and development to advance our technology and develop new products.
Longer-term goals include opening a farm outside every major metropolitan area, near distribution centers that serve the grocers for that area. This will enable us to cut down on how far food travels. This is a key objective of ours, given that 95 percent of U.S. leafy greens are trucked in from California or Arizona, and 90 percent of fish is imported from other countries. All those miles between farm and form compromise quality, safety, and cost. In cutting down food miles, we can create a more transparent, stable, and safe supply chain.
The importance of local production is something that COVID has really underscored. Add on top of that the risks posed by climate change, especially this year with record wildfires in the American West. In agriculture, as we’ve seen in medicine and other industries related to the public health response, the importance of short, stable supply chains is being recognized now more than ever.
SeafoodSource:
What role will the fish side of things play in the company’s future development?
Green:
The fish play an important and symbiotic role in our process. The fish are the source of fertilizer for our plants and the fuel for the microbiome that drives our competitive advantage. Our microbiome allows us to deliver higher produce yields, a disease resistance product, and superior food safety by preventing the growth of foodborne bacteria like E. Coli. In the long term, we anticipate our fish being a major source of revenue in and of itself.
Given that fish farming is the largest and fastest-growing food segment globally, and that local fish is the number-one consumer demand, yet 90 percent is imported and 40 percent is mislabeled, we see this as a blue ocean opportunity, pun intended.
SeafoodSource:
What is the fish-growing capacity at the farm?
Green
We’d like to pass on this as we’re not currently sharing this information publicly.
SeafoodSource:
When will they be commercially available?
Green:
Our fish will be commercially available in New York City by mid-2021.
SeafoodSource:
Has the company’s Monterey Bay Aquarium’s “Best Choice” rating been affected at all by the changes being made to the Seafood Watch Program?
Green:
According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program, striped bass continues to be a “Best Choice” when farmed in indoor recirculating tanks with wastewater treatment, like our aquaponic production.
SeafoodSource:
How will the recent hiring of former RBC Capital Markets Managing Director and Co-Head of Real Estate Investment Banking John Perkins as Upward Farms’ new chief financial officer affect your company’s goals and fundraising efforts?
Green:
With our purpose of enabling everyone to nourish their body, family, and the planet, we are fortunate to have John join our team and together achieve massive scale and impact. John's unparalleled talent and experience, particularly in capitalizing the real estate and infrastructure that transformed the American food supply chain, will help Upward Farms attract the right capital partners, grow rapidly, and realize the full potential of our vision and technology platform.
Photo courtesy of Upward Farms
Amazon’s Alexa Fund Invests In At-Home Vertical Farming Company Rise Gardens
Rise Gardens announced today it has received an investment from the Amazon Alexa Fund that builds upon a $2.6M seed round Rise closed in May. The amount invested by the Amazon Alexa Fund was not disclosed
Rise Gardens announced today it has received an investment from the Amazon Alexa Fund that builds upon a $2.6M seed round Rise closed in May. The amount invested by the Amazon Alexa Fund was not disclosed.
According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the deal is both a collaboration and a cash investment that will “fuel new products, accessories and further R+D” for Rise Gardens.
The Chicago-based Rise is best known for its standalone console (roughly the size of a standard bookcase) that contains a hydroponic grow system for consumers at home. The system does most of the hard work—calculating nutrition and pH levels, knowing when and how much to water the plants—for the user, whom it notifies via a corresponding app.
Rise’s system is also modular, so it can be added to or subtracted from over time depending on how many greens your household consumes each week. Users can also grow beets and tomatoes in addition to leafy greens and herbs.
Rise raised $2.6 million in seed funding earlier this year; Amazon’s new investment is an extension of this seed funding, according to today’s press release.
Amazon’s investment in Rise sounds promising, not just for the company but for the entire vertical farming sector. To start, Rise CEO and founder Hank Adams hinted today at Alexa functionality for the Rise system: “Collaborating with the Alexa Fund will better enable us to integrate our smart, connected garden with Alexa, making indoor gardening even easier. We are also excited about the opportunity to work with Amazon to evolve and expand how we reach consumers with our device and consumables business concept,” he said. The details of that Alexa integration are scant as of now, but one imagines being able to ask Alexa about your plant’s pH levels or tell the speaker to adjust the light mixture. On the flip, Rise could notify users via Alexa when it’s time to water the plants.
There’s no question that consumer-grade vertical farms are still a pretty niche product right now since many of them cost more than the average person can easily afford. (Rise’s single unit console starts at $549.) But the pandemic and accompanying disruptions to the food supply chain have undoubtedly increased folks’ desire to control more of what they eat, which has led to an influx of new devices. From Gardyn’s stylish take on at-home farming to consumer electronics companies like LG building them into the kitchen, vertical farming is definitely making its way into the home.
Amazon, of course, wants to control your entire home, including your kitchen, so it’s not surprising the Seattle tech giant would partner making at-home vertical farming products. As well, the company has made forays into the gardening space before, like this patent from 2017. Amazon knowing what types of plants you are growing can fuel its selling machine to recommend recipes and other groceries.
Like it or not, Amazon’s moves in food tech tend to influence others, which means the collaborations and products that come out of the Rise partnership will influence the future of at-home vertical farming for everyone
Filed Under: AG TECH BUSINESS OF FOOD CONNECTED KITCHEN FEATURED FOODTECH FUNDING SMART GARDEN VERTICAL FARMING
The Farm Of The Future Might Be In Compton. Inside A Warehouse. And Run Partly By Robots
Plenty wants to build at least 500 of these vertical farms around the planet, especially in densely populated cities of at least 1 million people
BY STEFAN A. SLATER IN FOOD
OCTOBER 6, 2020
Lettuce grows in a vertical farm at Urban Crop Solutions in Waregem, Belgium, on September 20, 2016. (JOHN THYS/AFP via Getty Images)
From the outside, the gray and white warehouse near the corner of Oris Street and Mona Boulevard seems like a thousand other mundane Southern California buildings. But the interior, once completed, will resemble a sketch from a futurist's daydreams. If all goes well, the 95,000-square-foot Compton facility will house rows of hydroponic towers organized into emerald walls of non-GMO, pesticide-free leafy greens. These plants won't rely on sunlight in order to grow. Gleaming LED lamps will provide all the light the crops could ever want. Robots will transport seedlings while other machines move the towers as part of an orchestrated production process. Picture a grow room in a futuristic Martian colony and you're probably on the right track.
The exterior of Plenty's vertical farming facility in Compton. (Stefan Slater for LAist)
The operation is run by Plenty, a San Francisco-based startup that uses vertical farming to create high-quality, nutritious plants "you'd actually want to eat" (their words). Stated another way, they grow crops, often without natural light or soil, in vertically stacked beds in enclosed and controlled environments.
Plenty wants to build at least 500 of these vertical farms around the planet, especially in densely populated cities of at least 1 million people.
The first Plenty farm, in South San Francisco, went into production in 2018 and was upgraded in the summer of 2019 to increase production. For its agricultural second act, the company chose Compton.
A farm operations associate in front of leafy greens growing in vertical towers at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
Plenty's long-term goals go beyond tasty salad greens. It wants to combat food apartheid by bringing healthy, locally-grown crops to communities that lack access to nutritious produce.
"We want to invest in places where we can serve a large number of people," says Shireen Santosham, the company's head of strategic initiatives. "Compton can help us better serve Los Angeles while also allowing us to invest in a community with a long history of farming."
The goal for Plenty's Compton outpost, once it's running at full capacity, will be to create enough produce to make regular deliveries to hundreds of grocery stores. In early August, the company reached an agreement with Albertsons to provide 430 of its California stores with assorted leafy greens.
Company reps say the Compton site will initially focus on producing kale, arugula, fennel, and bok choy before adding strawberries to its repertoire. They expect prices to be similar to organic leafy greens currently on grocery store shelves.
The company was hoping its Compton farm would be able to bring produce to market by the end of 2020 but the coronavirus pandemic altered that timeline. Plenty now hopes to start its first customer deliveries sometime in 2021.
A view of the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco as seen through the vestibule window. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
WHY COMPTON?
Los Angeles has for centuries been a land of citrus groves, peaches, olives, and even vineyards, and Compton was no exception. In the late 1860s, Reverend Griffith Dickenson Compton led roughly 30 people from Stockton to settle in and cultivate the area. Rough weather and tremendous floods nearly destroyed their dreams, but they persisted, and their agricultural efforts eventually began to thrive.
A drawing of the Compton farm and Star Cheese Dairy of Omri J. Bullis in 1880. It was located on Alameda Street, north of El Segundo Blvd. (Security Pacific National Bank Collection/Los Angeles Public Library Collection)
In 1888, Compton donated his land and the area was incorporated as the city of Compton under the condition that a swath of it be zoned for agriculture. That particular area — a 10-block neighborhood sandwiched between downtown Compton and what's now the 91 Freeway — became Richland Farms, known for a variety of crops including pumpkins, sugar beets, and cauliflower. By the 1940s and '50s, Compton had become a working-class suburb. African American families, many of whom had moved to the West Coast to work in military production during World War II, settled there and were drawn to the Richland Farms neighborhood. With its large lots and agricultural zoning, residents could grow crops and raise livestock to provide for their families and their community.
Richland Farms — home of the Compton Cowboys — remains a living link to Compton's agricultural past. Drawing on that history, Plenty began designing and developing its Compton vertical farm (located a few miles north of Richland) in the summer of 2019.
"There is just a rich tradition of farming in Compton, and to have Plenty come back in an innovative way is exciting for our community," Compton Mayor Aja Brown says.
City officials are working with the company to connect its facility with nearby schools so kids can learn about vertical farming and the technologies associated with it.
A farm operations associate tends to plants in the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
OK, BUT WHAT EXACTLY IS A VERTICAL FARM?
Compared to traditional field agriculture, which humanity first started tinkering with approximately 12,000 years ago, vertical farming is in its infancy.
One of the first vertical farms was a hydroponic system built-in Armenia sometime before the early 1950s, although there's not much information about it.
The modern vertical farm, at least in the way we think of it, was popularized two decades ago by Dickson Despommier, an emeritus professor of public and environmental health at Columbia University.
Baby kale is grown at AeroFarms on February 19, 2019, in Newark, New Jersey. (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
In 1999, he wanted students in his medical ecology class to explore ways they could feed New York's residents on crops grown entirely within the city. They started with rooftop gardens but those barely made a dent in the amount of food they needed. Then, Despommier remembered the city's abandoned buildings. "What if you could fill up those buildings with the grow system that you've instituted on the rooftop and just increase food production?" he says.
The result was a multi-level, urban farm featuring layers of crops stacked on top of one another.
Greens growing at Bowery Farming, a vertical farm in Kearny, New Jersey, on January 28, 2019. (DON EMMERT/AFP via Getty Images)
Until the 21st century, commercial vertical farming seemed like the stuff of utopias, a grand if impractical dream evangelized by a handful of futurists and agricultural techies. But the last few years have seen a jump in interest — and venture capital. Between 2016 and 2017, investments in vertical farming grew nearly eightfold.
In 2017, Plenty received $200 million from several high-profile investors including Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. One of its East Coast competitors, Bowery Farming, received a $90 million investment from Google Ventures.
The UAE's Badia Farms in Dubai, seen on August 4, 2020, uses hydroponic technology and vertical growing towers to produce fruits and vegetables year-round. (KARIM SAHIB/AFP via Getty Images)
AeroFarms, which uses aeroponics to grow produce, scored $40 million from IKEA and Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid of Dubai. The United Arab Emirates is also hoping vertical farming will boost the country's limited domestic food production. The Abu Dhabi Investment Office sunk $100 million into four ag-tech companies, including Aerofarms, which plans to build a new vertical farm and R&D center in Abu Dhabi.
Two farm operations associates tend to plants in the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
WHY DO WE NEED THEM?
Vertical farming is all about efficiency. The process allows growers to control and monitor light, oxygen, nutrients, temperature, humidity, and carbon dioxide levels. In a vertical farm, you don't need to wait for the right season. Growth and harvesting can occur year-round.
Plenty's approach relies on automation, intricate sensors, machine learning and hydroponic grow towers where plants are cultivated in a nutrient-rich water solution instead of soil. With this method, the company claims it can grow 350 times as much produce, per square foot, as a conventional, outdoor farm — all while consuming a fraction of the water.
"[Vertical farms] are much more water-use efficient than field production," Neil Mattson, associate professor of plant science at Cornell University, says.
Santosham claims Plenty's vertical farms will use "about 1% of the land and 5% of the water" required by a comparable traditional farm.
Producing more food with less land is a must if we want to keep humanity fed.
A worker tends to basilicum plants at an indoor vertical farm at Colruyt Group in Halle, Belgium on March 3, 2020. (THIERRY ROGE/BELGA MAG/AFP via Getty Images)
By 2050, Earth will have 9.8 billion residents and two-thirds of them will probably live in a city. In places like Los Angeles or New York, where real estate doesn't come cheap, vertical farms could be installed without taking up much space.
Produce from vertical farms would also be less likely to spoil since it would, in theory, only travel a few miles to the nearest grocery store, market or restaurant, instead of sitting on a plane or cargo ship for hundreds or thousands of miles.
Plus, vertical farms could help make our food supply chain more resilient.
Since March, the pandemic has impacted everything from beans to strawberries. When the hospitality industry shut down, some farmers had buyers for only half of their crops, so they had to let them rot or plow them back into the soil. Dairy farmers dumped millions of gallons of milk. Meat plants have had to shut down due to COVID-19 outbreaks. Plus, the workers who pick the crops, raise the cows and run the slaughterhouses have been ravaged by the virus. And all of this has been happening while hunger skyrockets. In the last six months, food banks have seen a surge in demand, in some cases by as much as 600% percent.
"I don't think all of our food is going to come from urban production," Mattson says. "It does add diversity to our food supply chain to have some of our produce — the nutrient-dense foods — come from close to where they're consumed."
With COVID-19 exposing the weaknesses in our food supply chain, Mattson believes indoor growing (which includes vertical farming and greenhouses) and more localized production might get their moment in the high-intensity LED spotlight: "We're going to see these trends happen even quicker than if we hadn't encountered COVID."
The central processing area at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
A PEEK INSIDE
The Compton farm is still under construction but the company is using its existing South San Francisco facility as a template.
That facility, which started in 2015 as a container farm, features 50,000 square feet of production space and a roughly 10,000-square foot grow room. It provides produce to approximately 40 grocery stores and runs entirely on solar and wind power.
The Compton farm will feature a similar grow system. Employees, referred to as growers, will oversee the process of cultivating seeds into seedlings. Robotics will transfer the seedlings to large vertical grow towers, arranged to form what looks like a vast, green wall.
The amount of time produce spends in the grow room depends on the crop. Nate Storey, chief science officer and co-founder of Plenty, explains that one leafy green crop might go through the entire process from seedling production to harvesting in two to three weeks. That's significantly less time than if those crops were grown via traditional agriculture.
Laborers harvest romaine lettuce using a machine with heavy plastic dividers that separate them from each other on April 27, 2020, in Greenfield, Monterey County, California. (Brent Stirton/Getty Images)
On a large, outdoor farm in the Salinas Valley, baby kale would typically require 35 to 50 days, depending on the time of year, before it was ready for harvest, according to Richard Smith, a University of California Cooperative Extension vegetable advisor for the Central Coast.
"For something like lettuce, where you might be waiting for several weeks in the field, we're carving a significant amount of time off that production schedule," Storey says.
A post-harvest associate inspects produce for packaging at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
Once the plants spend some time in Plenty's grow room, robots pick up the towers and retrieve the produce, which is moved to a processing area where it's packaged. Through it all, human hands never touch the food.
"We're able to create an environment that's so favorable to plants and not pathogens or pests that we can deliver a product without ever applying pesticides, which is a big win," says Nick Kalayjian, senior vice president of engineering at Plenty.
In fact, without bugs or human contact, he claims Plenty's produce doesn't need to be washed. Kalayjian also says the small adjustments in temperature, water, nutrients and light result in produce that's at the peak of flavor.
Plenty sent me samples of their baby kale, baby arugula and Sweet Sunrise mix, a combo of fennel, beet leaves and other greens. Did visions of tree stars seize me and shatter all perception of space and time? No. But they did taste exceptionally fresh. The flavors were strong, clean and... just good. I found myself snacking on the Sunrise mix straight from the package, something I never do with greens.
A farm operations associate tends to plants in the grow space at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
WHERE DO WE GROW FROM HERE?
Vertical farms aren't cheap to build. They also require a lot of energy to run, much more than conventional field agriculture or greenhouses. "That, to me, is one of the big sticking points," Mattson says.
In a 2020 study, Mattson and other Cornell University researchers studied the economic and environmental impacts of bringing leaf lettuce to U.S. cities via field-based agriculture vs. CEA (controlled environmental agriculture) supply chains such as greenhouses and vertical farms.
"We had almost the same carbon footprint of growing in a greenhouse in New York City as compared to field growing and shipping 3,000 miles. The vertical farm had about twice the carbon footprint of either of those," Mattson says.
In Plenty's case, making sure their farms operate on sustainable, renewable power is a priority. The South San Francisco facility has a power purchase agreement in place with a renewable provider to supply the farm with sustainable energy. Plenty wants its Compton farm to run entirely on clean energy but that won't happen until some undetermined point in the future. Company reps couldn't offer a more precise timeline on when that might happen.
Various leafy greens grow in vertical towers at Plenty's vertical farming facility in South San Francisco. (Spencer Lowell/Courtesy of Plenty)
Warehouse-sized vertical farms may someday be common sights in major cities but it'll take time to scale up to that level. No one, except maybe the most optimistic futurists, thinks vertical farming is going to overtake field agriculture anytime soon.
"We're an additive technology, not a replacement technology. We simplify the supply chain and allow domestic production in places that don't currently have it," Kalayjian says.
A worker tends to lettuce under artificial lights at the Pink Farms warehouse in Sao Paulo, Brazil, on August 28, 2020. (JONNE RORIZ/AFP via Getty Images)
Although vertical farming is still in its earliest stages, Despommier urges us to imagine how it might work in 50 years. "We're looking at a sort of Stanley Steamer [car], not even a Ford Model T," he says, "We're looking at the early trials and tribulations of an industry that wants to supply all of your food. Look how fast it took America to go from no cars to two cars per person."
Maybe by the time humanity has figured out how to colonize other planets and build Star Trek-style replicators, the urban dwellers of earth will rely on skyscraper-style vertical farms. Maybe thousand-acre fields of fruit and vegetables will someday look as obsolete as rotary phones. Until then, we'll be playing in the dirt, just as we've done for thousands of years.
How An Indoor Farm Is Redefining Local
Bowery is an indoor, vertical farming company. Walking into its Nottingham Farm feels a bit like stepping into the greenest library you could imagine
Washington D.C. sits at the intersection of some of the best farming areas in the country. According to the 2017 United States Census of Agriculture, there are over 53,000 farms in Pennsylvania plus another 40,000+ farms in Virginia. Yet, for all of the area’s agrarian prowess, you may not have seen a farm quite like this.
Standing in front of Bowery Farming’s newest farm, located just outside of Baltimore in Nottingham, you could easily mistake it for a shipping warehouse. But, like most good things, it’s what’s on the inside that counts.
Bowery is an indoor, vertical farming company. Walking into its Nottingham Farm feels a bit like stepping into the greenest library you could imagine. Rows and rows of fresh lettuces and herbs stretch towards the ceiling, where they’re nourished under LEDs and a constant, carefully controlled amount of filtered water and essential nutrients.
Bowery’s pesticide-free, Protected Produce is also restoring the Nottingham area to its farming roots. From the 1940s to the late 1970s, this land was largely agricultural. Since then, it has been cleared and developed. But today, Bowery has repurposed an industrial area back into a fully operational farm that employs local Modern Farmers who keep the Mid-Atlantic region nourished with fresh produce year-round.
So why grow indoors anyway? After all, traditional farms have been growing food across the country as long as anyone can remember. Growing produce indoors has a few distinct advantages.
First, Bowery’s indoor farms use less finite resources like water and land. Filtered water that’s not taken up by the plants is recycled, refiltered, and fed back to the plants. Bowery’s farms also take up less space. Because of their vertically stacked design, they can grow 100x more food on the same square footage as a traditional farm.
Indoors, crops are also exempt from seasons. Rain, sleet, or snow, Bowery’s greens grow every day, all year long. And, because their farm is located right outside of the cities they serve, their fresh produce reaches local retailers within days of harvest.
Lastly (but to our taste buds, most importantly), Bowery selects non-GMO seeds for flavor attributes, unlike outdoor growers that are usually looking for options that can withstand a range of weather conditions or pests. Bowery removes the uncontrollable variables found in the field, giving plants the seasonal conditions they crave indoors so they can grow up to be the best expression of themselves.
Want to try it for yourself? Support local and find Bowery Farming near you here.
Vertical Farming Startup Takes Crown In Ahold Delhaize Innovation Contest
Evergreens Farms, founded in 2017 in Massachusetts, brings fresh and local produce to the New England market regardless of the season by using technological processes to grow crops indoors with "no need for soil, sunshine, pesticides, or excess water," according to the company's website
Author: Rosie Bradbury
Oct. 8, 2020
Dive Brief:
Vertical farming startup Evergreens Farms won Ahold Delhaize’s supply chain innovation pitch competition, Retail Business Services, the services company of the food retailer’s U.S. operations, announced in a press release. The startup’s winning pitch involved a solution to provide vertical farming technology in any climate year-round. A panel of retail and venture capital experts determined Evergreens Farms had the most viable technology.
Evergreens Farms, founded in 2017 in Massachusetts, brings fresh and local produce to the New England market regardless of the season by using technological processes to grow crops indoors with "no need for soil, sunshine, pesticides, or excess water," according to the company's website.
Dive Insight:
By scouting out and building relationships with high-tech vertical farms start-ups, Retail Business Services can integrate new agricultural technologies to supplement produce sourcing for stores. Regional vertical farms startups such as Evergreens Farms cut down on food waste and transport costs by growing produce close to where it is consumed, as well as appealing to consumers’ penchants for locally grown fruits and vegetables.
Their shorter supply chain also allays consumers’ concerns of contamination risks such as E. coli, and market research suggests that consumers will be more willing to pay more for locally-grown products. Large grocery retailers have increasingly taken notice of the advantages of vertical farming. In August, supermarket chain Albertsons announced its partnership with farming tech firm Plenty to supply salad greens to 430 of its stores. Farming firms such as Plenty and Evergreens Farms also appeal to grocers’ efforts to adopt sustainable practices, as their technology-intensive approaches cut down on both land and water consumption compared to traditional commercial farms.
Greenhouse operator BrightFarms, a major player in farming technology, also supplies packaged greens to Ahold Delhaize, Walmart, and Kroger stores. Earlier this year, BrightFarms expanded its distribution to Food Lion stores in the Mid-Atlantic region.
For stores left with unnecessary floor space as much of its operations shift to online, miniature vertical farming hardware could act as a savvy supply line as well as an attractive use of space. Kroger and Whole Foods have both recently installed small produce farms inside stores.
Recent efforts by Ahold Delhaize indicate it is looking to cultivate partnerships with young companies on the technological cutting edge. Earlier this year, Ahold Delhaize scouted more than 380 smart cleaning technology companies to participate in a Cleaning Bot Challenge.
Lead photo: Courtesy of Bayer
US - NEW YORK: Yemi Amu’s Urban Farming Concept Takes Root In The Big Apple
Earth is the only home we have. If we don’t start now to turn around the environmental damage we have caused, we might not be around to save it and the plants and animals that we depend on
By Tony Binns | October 6, 2020
Earth is the only home we have. If we don’t start now to turn around the environmental damage we have caused, we might not be around to save it and the plants and animals that we depend on. As a possible solution, many metropolitan cities are turning to urban farming and aquaponics. In Brooklyn, New York, Nigerian-born Yemi Amu has been a part of this movement by opening the city’s only teaching aquaponics farm, Oko Farms.
What is aquaponics and why is it important to the sustainability of our planet?
Aquaponics is farming in water. It is the cultivation of fish and plants together in a symbiotic aquatic ecosystem whereby fish waste provides nutrients for plants while plant roots filter the water for the fish. This farming method allows you to raise both fish and plants while using up to 80% less water than traditional farming. Aquaponics is also scalable and can occur both indoors and outdoors.
As we deal with the environmental impacts of climate change including soil erosion and drought, alternative growing methods like aquaponics can help create food security for vulnerable communities.
What is Oko Farms and how did it find a home in Brooklyn?
Oko Farms is an aquaponics farming and education company in Brooklyn. In 2013, we converted an abandoned lot in East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, into the Oko Farms Aquaponics Education center — NYC’s first outdoor — and only publicly accessible — aquatic farm. We were able to acquire the lot through a partnership with the Brooklyn Economic Development Corporation and GreenThumb NYC.
In addition to growing a wide variety of vegetables and fish, we provide workshops, tours, and support individuals and organizations with setting up their own aquaponics farms.
What type of produce and fish do you grow on your farm?
We grow a variety of vegetables on our farm, including leafy greens, herbs, onions, tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, cabbage, sorghum, rice, millet, squash, etc. We also raise catfish, bluegill, tilapia, goldfish, and koi
How did you get into aquaponics?
I learned about aquaponics while I was managing a rooftop farm that I helped to create. The rooftop farm was located at a housing facility for formerly homeless adults in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in 2011. One of the neighborhood volunteers introduced me to aquaponics and I was attracted to the fact that it saves water while producing both fish and vegetables. After that, I spent a couple of years studying and visiting aquaponics farms in Florida and the Midwest.
Are there career opportunities for people of color in the field?
Aquaponics farming is a great option for people of color interested in a career in farming, especially those living in urban areas. Access to land for farming can be challenging for people of color in the U.S, but some cities like Detroit, Philadelphia, and Atlanta have urban ag[riculture] policies that support farmers of color with land access.
For more information, visit www.okofarms.org.
Lead photo: Yemi Amu, director of Oko Farms (Photo courtesy of Harrison Chen)
PMA Virtual Town Hall: Global Societal Macrotrends And How They Affect The Produce Industry
The first of the macrotrends that was discussed was that of globalization
This week’s PMA virtual town hall focused on five important macrotrends in society and how these trends affect the produce industry. “It is always a good time to think about the big picture, but especially now, when what happens in the future is so critical to guiding our everyday operations,” Lauren M. Scott of PMA says. She was joined by Marc Oshima, Co-Founder and CMO of AeroFarms, Sharon Foo, who works as a consultant, Elizabeth Nardi, CEO of Organically Grown Company, and Wyard Stomp, VP of Sales and Marketing to discuss this topic.
Globalization
The first of the macrotrends that was discussed was that of globalization. “In the context of COVID-19, the interdependency of our supply chain has become increasingly clear,” says Oshima. “This interdependency is due to globalization. We have to think more specifically now in terms of food security and resiliency in the supply chain due to the pandemic,” he adds.
While globalization has been an important factor that has been increasingly impacting the entire world for decades now, and even arguably for centuries, the outbreak of the pandemic has also brought forth an increased popularity of locally grown produce. Nardi explains: “This is definitely something we have been seeing here on the West Coast, this trend of hyper-localization. The pandemic has given consumers a real desire to know where their food came from. Consumers are looking for trusted sources and want to support local economies.”
Population diversification
The diversification of populations is the next macrotrend that was discussed. This topic can be approached in many different ways. Nardi, for example, looked at the different lifestyle trends among the population: “We’re seeing that non-gmo has become one of the most recognized labels in the world, and organic has been seeing a significant growth in popularity. There is a shift in how people think about the products they are purchasing.”
For Oshima, the population diversification translates increasingly into product diversification. “With regard to food trends, borders have become seamless. Food continues to play a powerful role in bringing people together, so we think about it as a way of preserving customs and traditions of specific cultures through food.”
For Stomp, generational diversification is also an important aspect of this trend. “Millennials and Gen Z are a whole new game, and we are working to understand them better, especially Gen Z, who are now coming into play as consumers.”
Precision technology
The advancement of technology has always been closely integrated with the produce industry. This is something that AeroFarms, for example, was built on: “For us, it’s about optimizing the key attributes that consumers are looking for. We are working with chefs and the menu development now starts at the farm. We’re able to use technologies to build smart farms, which allow us to bypass season and deliver product consistently year-round,” Oshima shares.
“It’s not science for science’s sake, but for a greater reason,” Foo adds. “Today’s technology helps to solve the problems of the consumers. It’s important that people have a clear grasp on the drivers behind certain developments so that we can understand that the technology is there to enable great access for consumers to the healthy foods the industry has to offer.”
Climate adaptation
Changes in the climate and the environment are central to the agricultural industry, and so this next macrotrend is vitally important for everyone in the supply chain. “We like to look at agriculture as a way of reversing climate change,” says Nardi. “There is so much we can do to pull the carbon out of the air and put it back into the soil.”
Foo explains that she looks at it in terms of regeneration rather than sustainability. “Realistically, there’s not much left to sustain, so we need to change our vocabulary and start looking at it as regeneration instead. We need to build a circular economy and build solutions.
Accelerated urbanization
The final macrotrend that was discussed was urbanization. The majority of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and the consumer trends in urban areas differ widely from those in rural areas. “Our produce is grown by the community, for the community. We have farms located in inner-city schools and growing inside cities. It is about diversifying the supply chain and improving last-mile efficiency, and indoor farming is a big part of that,” Oshima says.
Stomp sees urbanization as a creator of additional opportunities. “This macrotrend is one of the most important ones, from the sales and marketing point of view. Urbanization rates create a lot of opportunities, but they also require that we adjust how we approach the market. For example, people in urban areas shop more often, sometimes even going to the store multiple times a day. This creates a lot of opportunity, but in order to capitalize on these opportunities, we need to recognize the trend and translate the data into a strategy. In the produce industry, so much of the business is focused on the short term – day to day and week to week, but it’s very important to keep track of these macrotrends, analyze the data and simplify to see how it impacts your business, what opportunities you can take from it, and then drive actionable strategies from there,” Stomp concludes.
Next week’s virtual town hall will focus on global trade issues and will include insights from leaders in trade about how to navigate difficult environments and address trade disruptions.
Publication date: Thu 1 Oct 2020
Author: Annika Durinck
© FreshPlaza.com
October 16th to 18th - Awesome Features of The First ONLINE Aquaponic Conference
We want this conference to maximize your connection and engagement with other attendees. We're featuring both live and recorded speakers and by reserving a ticket you can access all these recordings until the end of the year!
Interactive Sessions, Networking &
industry Experts Sharing Exciting Developments
In The World of Aquaponics
You're not going to want to miss this.
We want this conference to maximize your connection and engagement with other attendees. We're featuring both live and recorded speakers and by reserving a ticket you can access all these recordings until the end of the year!
You'll find sessions ranging from aquaponics in prisons, experts in decoupled aquaponics, STEM educators, and international discussion panels!
Get a greater understanding of this rapidly evolving industry and connect with the experts today.
Reserve Your Ticket ›
The Aquaponics Association
© 2020 Aquaponics Association
Hydroponic Nutrient Solution: A Must-Read Essential Beginner’s Guide
This article will teach you about hydroponic nutrient solutions and how to use them so you can hydroponically grow your own plants without worry
Many gardeners use hydroponics as their preferred way to grow plants because using a hydroponic nutrient solution ensures optimal plant growth. Using a hydroponic nutrient solution ensures that your plant’s roots get the nutrients they need from the water so they can grow with ease. This article will teach you about hydroponic nutrient solutions and how to use them so you can hydroponically grow your own plants without worry.
Macronutrients
Plants need macronutrients to be able to thrive and grow. The macronutrients that plants need are nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.
Nitrogen (N) - allows the plant to grow its leaves, its leaves’ colors, and provides amino acids, proteins, nucleic acid, and chlorophyll synthesis. When a plant is lacking in nitrogen, its leaves are typically a faded color and the plant grows at a slower rate.
Phosphorous (P) - is necessary for the synthesis of the plant’s DNA and RNA. It is also responsible for developing the plant’s stems, roots, flowers, and seeds. A deficiency in this nutrient leads to weak stems and leaves, and it causes root growth to slow.
Potassium (K) - synthesizes the proteins and carbohydrates of the plant. It helps develop the flowers, roots, and stems but not as much as compared to phosphorus.
Micronutrients
Alongside the macronutrients, plants also need micronutrients to grow. The nine micronutrients that a plant needs include:
● Boron: Works with calcium to help form cell walls by synthesizing the cell membrane’s structure and functions.
● Calcium: Works with boron to form cell walls
● Copper: activates enzymes and helps with respiration and photosynthesis.
● Iron: Forms chlorophyll, used in photosynthesis, and helps provide energy provision.
● Magnesium: catalyzes the growth process and helps makes oxygen during photosynthesis
● Sulfur: A component of two of the 21 amino acids that synthesize protein.
● Zinc: Helps form chlorophyll and assists with plant respiration and nitrogen metabolism
How to Form a Hydroponic Nutrient Solution
You can find a quality hydroponic nutrient solution at your local store, or you can create your own solution. It’s recommended for beginners to use store-bought solutions first, and once they get a hang of the hydroponic growing process then learning how to create your own hydroponic nutrient solution can be the next step.
Hydroponic nutrient solutions come in powder and liquid forms, which liquid forms being more popular to use. Since these liquid solutions are more concentrated, do not spill any on yourself or your plant. These typically come with pH buffers so you can test the water. You can mix the solution in the water, and it’s ready to go!
Make sure to choose a solution that is specifically made for hydroponic growing and not the all-purpose packages. Soil-grown plants have different needs than hydroponically grown plants. Try to purchase a 2 or 3 part hydroponic nutrient solution as well. This way you can mix in the solution depending on the needs of the plant at its specific life cycle. The 2 to 3-part solutions will contain separate packaging for macronutrients, a growing solution, and micronutrient solution depending on which one you get.
Want to Know More?
Now that you understand the basics of hydroponic nutrient solutions, you may want to learn more about hydroponic growing or growing plants at home! We at the Nick Greens Grow Team work diligently to provide the necessary research and information that covers everything from microgreen growing to hydroponics to way more!
Sign up for our new weekly microgreens class, which is held every Friday at 4:30 pm CST. Can’t make the class? Subscribe to our blog and YouTube channel for weekly updates about farming methods.
#hydroponicnutrientsolution #hydroponicsnutrientsolution #hydroponic #hydroponics #nutrient #solution #hydrponicgrowing #hydroponicsgrowing #hydroponicsfarm #hydroponicfarm #hydroponicfarming #hydroponicsfarming #hydroponicsgrower #hydroponicgrower
WALES: Vertically Farmed Anglesey Watercress Is A Hit For Hooton’s Homegrown
TechTyfu is creating a skill-sharing forum and is working in collaboration with local growers and food businesses to develop supply chains
BY JOHN SWIRE
SEPTEMBER 29, 2020
Watercress grown on one of the island’s first Vertical Farms has sold out in hours at Hooton’s Homegrown, Brynsiencyn.
James Hooton and his family are well known for growing quality fruit and vegetables and rearing their own livestock. Their latest offer, watercress, was grown as part of Menter Môn’s ‘TechTyfu’ project, with James one of 3 commercial growers in Gwynedd and Anglesey to trial an innovative vertical farm growing system.
The family received support from TechTyfu, a project created by Menter Môn, to establish a vertical farm at their farm shop in Brynsiencyn over the Summer. Anglesey watercress is grown in a vertical farm unit, which uses a flood and drain hydroponic system to pump nutrient-rich solutions to the plant crop, enabling efficient and clean growth without soil.
“My family have been farming here since the early 1960s,” explained James Hooton, “and watercress is the latest produce we grow to supply our farm shop, Hooton’s Homegrown.”
“We have been using hydroponics to cultivate crops for many years, such as with the tabletop strawberries you’ll see at our ‘pick-your-own’ site. However, this is the first time we’ve used a vertical farm system.”
“I’ve been impressed with the ease of using this system,” said James. “Being able to trial the system through the TechTyfu project has shown me that the system works well and offers a number of advantages. We plan to further trial the system by growing other crops such as pea shoots and various herbs.”
“Watercress is a fabulous source of vitamins and minerals. It is a little green wonder-leaf, and our customers have been delighted with the taste and quality of the Anglesey watercress we’ve produced.”
Gram for gram, watercress contains more calcium than milk, more folate than bananas, more Vitamin C than oranges, and more Vitamin E than broccoli. It is highly nutritious and is packed with more antioxidants than the rest of the Brassica family it belongs to.
“With the winter months ahead, watercress’ nutritional content are sure to appeal to our customers and the vertical farm gives us the ability to produce this wonder food all year round,” shared James.
Luke Tyler, who is leading the project, says “Our project is helping position food production in North Wales to be more resilient, and open doors for farmers, businesses and restaurants looking for strategic ways to diversify. Anglesey watercress’ popularity proves that there is great demand for fresh, local produce”.
TechTyfu is creating a skill-sharing forum and is working in collaboration with local growers and food businesses to develop supply chains.
“Growing is often the most straightforward aspect of getting local produce to the market,” noted Luke. “The real challenge on our hands with TechTyfu is developing the supply chains so that every partner along the way makes a profit and fresh produce reaches the customer in excellent condition.”
Since participating with TechTyfu this year, and despite the challenging economic conditions, new doors have opened for growers such as James Hooton.
“We have further developed our own supply chain since collaborating with TechTyfu,” said James. “We have established a new route to market with a local fresh produce distributor, and it was thoroughly rewarding to see our rhubarb reaching various local restaurants.”
in addition to watercress, the project has already identified local opportunities for specialist crops such as pea shoots and a range of microgreens.
“Our estimate is that the market for pea shoots only is worth about £40-50k in Gwynedd and Anglesey alone,” noted Luke. “And by growing them locally, a grower would be able to offer unbeatable freshness. We have already had prominent local chefs asking where they could purchase local pea shoots.”
TechTyfu is a project run by Menter Môn. Luke Tyler can be contacted at luke@mentermon.com and the project can be followed on Facebook and Twitter.
TechTyfu has received funding through the Welsh Government Rural Communities – Rural Development Programme 2014-2020, which is funded by the European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development and the Welsh Government.
Farm Boy Deal Just The Beginning For Indoor Farming Startup
Within six months of completing construction on its Cornwall growing facility, Fieldless Farms’ produce could already be found on the shelves of more than 20 Farm Boy stores across Ontario
Cornwall’s Fieldless Farms Eyes Expansion Into New Markets
BY: Adam Langenberg
October 6, 2020
“We want to scale this very large – we want to be a national success story,” says Fieldless Farms CEO Jon Lomow.
Within six months of completing construction on its Cornwall growing facility, Fieldless Farms’ produce could already be found on the shelves of more than 20 Farm Boy stores across Ontario.
But armed with an aggressive expansion plan to bring more hydroponically grown vegetables to Canadians, CEO Jon Lomow says his company is just getting started. Fieldless currently supplies two types of lettuce mixes – Northern Crunch and Ontario Sweets – grown in its Cornwall indoor farming facility. Lomow wants to rapidly expand both the types of crops the startup grows as well as its physical footprint.
Fieldless uses just 20,000 square feet at its Cornwall facility for its current operations, but Lomow insists that will increase quickly, with the CEO also harbouring ambitions of building new growing facilities in Toronto, Montreal and even the country’s west coast by 2025.“We want to scale this very large – we want to be a national success story. We want to play a major role in shortening supply chains for Canadians using controlled environment agriculture,” Lomow says.
He says Fieldless will significantly increase its capacity to grow leafy greens in the next one to three years, increasing the yield of both its current lettuce mixes and other crops such as romaine lettuce, spinaches, and basil. From there, there are plans to expand to smaller vegetable crops, including baby tomatoes, cucumbers, and peppers, which the company is just on the cusp of being able to grow economically, Lomow says.
Agricultural evolution
That kind of aggressive growth may seem overly optimistic to some, but Lomow says rapid change is all the company has known since its inception. Fieldless, which secured its first round of private capital funding in June last year, has gone from finishing construction on its Cornwall facility to providing almost 2,000 packs of lettuce mixes to customers each week inside six months.
Initially just selling products through Burrow Shop, the Ottawa-based online retailer Lomow co-founded, as well as Ottawa’s Massine’s Your Independent Grocer, Fieldless achieved one of its early goals in August when it signed a deal with supermarket chain Farm Boy to supply its lettuce mixes to 16 stores spanning from Cornwall to Kingston. That number quickly jumped when Farm Boy asked weeks later if Fieldless could supply seven stores in the Toronto area, a number that is set to grow again in coming weeks. Farm Boy’s origin in Cornwall and its “obsessive focus” on reducing the amount of fresh produce wastage made it the perfect first retailer to partner with, Lomow says.
That early growth gives confidence to Lomow, who notes that Canada – reliant on $48 billion of food imports each year – needs to significantly increase its food production in future years.
Lomow is also buoyed by what he predicts will be a “trillion-dollar evolution in the agriculture industry,” powered by falling automation costs and efficiency improvements in lighting technologies.
Fieldless Farms’ indoor growing plant in Cornwall.
The thing that sets Fieldless apart is that it’s not trying to do it all, Lomow says. Before launching, it signed a deal with an unnamed Canadian partner that handles the hydroponic technology side of the equation, leaving Lomow and his team to focus on the supply chain as well as perfecting the taste of its products and getting the products into stores.“We’ll deploy core technologies for our growing platforms and then we’ll innovate inside the gaps, because there are tons of gaps still in indoor farming,” Lomow says. “We just won’t be developing the core technology.”
“We decided we were way better off to focus our efforts on evaluating that technology, in making sure that we had the right technology as opposed to starting from scratch. If you go down the wrong road you’re kind of stuck there.”
The current technology platform sees lettuce crops grow from seedlings inside a 20-day cycle in a way that Lomow says strikes “the right balance between automation and manual labour,” but Fieldless’ technology-agnostic approach means it will partner with other technology companies to build other facilities and grow other crops in the future.
ORGANIZATIONS: Fieldless Farms Farm Boy'
PEOPLE: Jon Lomow. PLACES: Cornwall TAGS: Agri-business
GERMANY: ‘Urban Farming’: Are Rooftop Fields The Future?
Large cities offer millions of square meters of unused roof space. Why aren’t they being converted to cultivate crops? The potential seems enormous, but “urban farming” is still in its infancy. EURACTIV Germany reports.
By Florence Schulz | EURACTIV.de
Translated by Sarah Lawton | September 30, 2020
Blueprint of a planned roof garden in Berlin. Up to two million square meters of roof space could be used for plant cultivation in Germany's capital alone. But the investment costs are still relatively high. [© Dachfarm Berlin]
This article is part of our special report New terminologies in sustainable food systems.
Large cities offer millions of square meters of unused roof space. Why aren’t they being converted to cultivate crops? The potential seems enormous, but “urban farming” is still in its infancy. EURACTIV Germany reports.
Salad from the roof of the supermarket or tomatoes from the facade of a high-rise building? What sounds like fiction is already a reality in some cities, albeit on a small scale. Urban farming is not a new concept, but one that has hardly been exploited to date.
Cultivating fruits and vegetables could experience a boom in the coming decades. After all, the human population is growing rapidly and is increasingly settling in cities. More than half of this population is already living in cities, and by the middle of the century, around 66% of people are expected to be living in cities – out of a world population of 9.7 billion.
More food also means correspondingly more demand for farmland, but this already accounts for 42% of the global land area.
Another problem is transport. According to the Fraunhofer Institute, around 12% of agricultural emissions are attributable to this alone.
As the World Summit on Biodiversity opens on Wednesday (30 September), new measures to halt its decline are being discussed, including the concept of payments for environmental services, which is currently widely debated in France and Europe. EURACTIV France reports.
Urban gardens for times of crisis
Could urban farming be part of the solution? One thing is certain: The idea is not new. Until the 19th century, cultivating crops was common practice within cities. When they disappeared, private allotment gardens spread.
Interestingly, a new trend is emerging: self-sufficiency is booming in the city, especially in times of crisis.
Often with success, as the British example shows: During World War Two, the government launched the “Dig for Victory” campaign. As a result, up to 50% of fruit and vegetables were produced by the population in allotment gardens.
In Spain, during the economic crisis, the proportion of allotment plots and community gardens increased six-fold between 2006 and 2014.
Apart from private cultivation, however, there are hardly any places where agriculture takes place on a larger scale in cities.
Roof gardens of the future use domestic heat and rainwater
In Europe, urban farming is still in its infancy.
“Every morning, I ask myself why not many more cities invest in it,” says Jörg Finkbeiner, architect, and co-founder of the Berlin network ‘Dachfarm.’ The consortium consists of gardeners, agro scientists, and architects, who together plan greenhouses for growing crops in the city.
However, Finkbeiner believes that this cannot be the case with urban farming, because most buildings are not statically suitable for it: “If you put crops in tubs on a roof and water them, you can quickly achieve 300 kilograms per square meter. Most buildings can’t support that.”
Dachfarm, therefore, relies on roof structures that are as light as possible and are built on top of existing buildings. The plants grow either in substrates such as pumice, lava or compost, as these are much lighter than soil or in hydroponic systems, where the nutrient supply is provided directly via a nutrient solution.
The glass gardens are designed to operate as efficiently as possible by using the waste heat from the building, collecting rainwater, or recycling greywater from households.
The concept of soil carbon sequestration, a cornerstone of regenerative farming, is regaining strength as a key measure in both climate mitigation and adaptation.
With Dachfarm, we want to show that the increasing amount of pavement in cities and the loss of arable land do not contradict themselves, Finkbeiner told EURACTIV.de.
Other advantages are that roof gardens can be used to produce close to the consumer and “on-demand,” so to speak, eliminating long transport routes or the need to store food. But not every type of agricultural cultivation is structurally possible, Finkbeiner points out. Besides, there are many open questions particularly in terms of building codes.
Bologna and Amsterdam with great potential
For supermarkets or restaurants, the own roof garden could be an attractive concept.
However, it is not worthwhile for everyone, because investment costs are still comparatively high and the food harvested in this way is more expensive.
A 2017 study by the European Parliament’s Scientific Service (EPRS) also came to the same conclusion: urban agriculture is “associated with considerable ecological, social and health benefits,” but can increase biodiversity and counteract the heating of cities.
However, this is also associated with high operating costs, for example for electricity, and is in competition with other types of use, for example for solar energy systems. In addition, the report says, tensions between “traditional and innovative farmers” and an increase in land values are also concerns.
There are no reliable figures on how widespread urban farming is in the EU. However, according to the ERPS evaluation, the potential could be huge, depending on the city.
In Bologna, for example, more than three-quarters of the vegetables consumed there could be grown in roof gardens. In Amsterdam, where currently only 0.0018% of food is produced locally, up to 90% of the fruit and vegetables consumed could be grown.
In a clear nod to the strategic importance of agroforestry, the term has now cropped up in both the European Green Deal, the European Commission’s roadmap for making Europe the first climate-neutral continent by 2050, and the EU’s flagship new food policy, the Farm to Fork (F2F) strategy.
Commission has no plans special funding
These figures seem optimistic, as they would probably require strong political support. In the current EU Common Agricultural Policy, urban farming projects can theoretically be financed with funds from both pillars as well as from the European Social Fund and the Regional Development Fund, but this is at the discretion of the member states.
Further support is not in sight, as the Commission “currently has no plans to coordinate strategies for urban agriculture beyond different levels of government,” according to the response EU Agriculture Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski gave in the European Parliament in May.
However, a planning study on the topic is currently being prepared. This should be completed this autumn.
[Edited by Gerardo Fortuna/Zoran Radosavljevic]
EURACTIV's editorial content is independent from the views of our sponsors.
Lettuce In A Hydroponic System: 100% Organic Nutrients
The hydroponic section in the company's innovation center has recently been redesigned and all ponds now receive a 100% organic nutrient solution
Van der Knaap is known for its substrate knowledge, but did you know they also developed a sustainable cultivation system? The liquid nutrient solution rich in organic NO3 that is produced with this system is also extremely suitable for other cultivation systems, such as growing lettuce in a hydroponic system.
The hydroponic section in the company's innovation center has recently been redesigned and all ponds now receive a 100% organic nutrient solution. The earlier phase of their research has already proven that the organic fertilizer holds its own compared to mineral fertilizer. On a number of points it even surpasses the traditional method, they report.
The follow-up research now focuses on influencing the cultivation by means of different pH values. In addition, the young lettuce plants get a good start on Obturo plugs or conventional pressed pots.
For more information:
Van der Knaap
www.vanderknaap.info
Publication date: Thu 8 Oct 2020
Shorten Supply Chains With Urban Farming
While urban indoor agriculture may have seemed a far-fetched dream in the past, developments in city planning and technological innovation are making it into a reality
There are many reasons why a government or international organization may advocate the introduction of urban indoor farming. The association for vertical farming looks at some of the main motivations for bringing agriculture closer to the consumer. While urban indoor agriculture may have seemed a far-fetched dream in the past, developments in city planning and technological innovation are making it into a reality. These developments are helping to alleviate pressure on food supply chains and cultivate food security in a period of mass population expansion.
Urban indoor agriculture is seen as a viable solution to dramatic increases in population. Already fifty-five percent of the world’s population lives in urban areas and this figure is set to increase. Moreover, eighty percent of all food produced globally is destined for consumption in urban spaces to meet this increased demand. By bringing farming closer to the city, agricultural networks have a better chance of meeting this demand sustainably and efficiently by cutting out unnecessary segments of the supply chain. Farmers are also better able to attract young people into the workforce as they can offer new and innovative routes into agriculture which appeal to the urbanized workforce.
Agriculture in urbanized areas also presents an opportunity to establish a more circular economy. Farming can be integrated more holistically into the overall working of urban life by combining its production with other essential services like waste management. Rather than establishing a food network that operates on a ‘cradle-to-grave’ methodology, urbanized farming presents new opportunities to recycle and reuse resources in an integrated bio-economy. The decrease in transportation costs which comes from closer proximity between consumers and producers also helps to reduce emissions. The benefits of urban indoor farming can be seen to not only enhance economic efficiency but also maximize sustainability by cutting down the city’s overall carbon footprint.
Finally, urban indoor agriculture offers an exciting opportunity for communities to reconnect with the process of farming. Shorter supply chains not only increase accessibility to food but can also improve overall public engagement with the food production process. Supply chains can be seen not only as a means to an end but also as an opportunity for social engagement by integrating small producers, farms, and vulnerable groups along the supply chain. Educational opportunities for schools and society as a whole can be brought closer to the urban population which allows a reconnection with the cultivation of fresh produce.
While it is possible that cities never become solely reliant on urban agriculture, it is clear that the integration of agriculture into the urban zone offers several social, economic, and environmental benefits. Food supply chains should therefore actively cultivate urbanized agriculture to help reach increased standards of efficiency and sustainability at this time of rapid population expansion.
For more information:
Association for Vertical Farming
Marschnerstrasse,
81245 Munich,
Germany
info@vertical-farming.net
vertical-farming.net
Publication date: Mon 28 Sep 2020
MALAYSIA: Aquaponic Farming Promises Higher Yields For Kundasang Farmers
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and they encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques
September 29th, 2020
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and they encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques
By MUHAMMAD BASIR ROSLAN
Aquaponic vegetables are chemical-free as no other fertiliser is used with the exception of the fish waste (pic: Bernama)
IN THE cool, hilly area of Kundasang in Ranau, about 100km from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, a small group of young farmers are trying their hand at cultivating vegetables using aquaponic and hydroponic techniques.
Under the guidance of the Kinabalu Area Farmers Organisation (PPK), the farmers based in Kampung Desa Aman in Kundasang have gone into aquaponics and hydroponics since December 2019.
Their ventures are proving to be lucrative and PPK Kinabalu intends to encourage more young farmers to grow vegetables using these modern and more sustainable techniques.
According to PPK Kinabalu GM Muhammad Irwan Maruji, in aquaponics, the whole cultivation process — starting from planting the seedlings until they are ready for harvesting — takes only about three to four weeks. And, he added, vegetables harvested from a 223 sq m block of aquaponic plants can rake in sales of around RM5,600 a month.
“The capital to start an aquaponic venture, including setting up the pond and a 223 sq m block and greenhouse, comes to about RM85,000. The investment, however, is worthwhile compared to the returns,” he told Bernama, adding that aquaponic farming is suitable for young entrepreneurs who want to get involved in agriculture.
In aquaponic farming, aquaculture (rearing of aquatic animals such as freshwater fish or prawns in tanks) is combined with hydroponics (cultivating plants without soil) in an integrated system where the aquatic waste serves as nutrients for the plants which, in turn, purifies the water in the tank.
Prihatin Aid
Pointing out that vegetable farmers in Kundasang and other parts of Sabah were badly hit during the initial stage of the Movement Control Order, Muhammad Irwan said under the federal government’s Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Plan, each PPK in Sabah was allocated RM100,000 to RM200,000 to revitalise the agricultural sector.
“We are grateful for the allocation as it will be very helpful to the farmers and agro entrepreneurs here,” he said, adding that PPK Kinabalu plans to use the funds to start an additional hydroponic venture involving the local farmers, as well as introduce maize cultivation and a hanging fertigation system next month.
He said courses on aquaponic and hydroponic farming will be conducted starting early next month, following which he hopes to rope in at least 20 young farmers a year to pursue aquaponic and hydroponic ventures. “PPK Kinabalu also plans to expand the market for their vegetable produce to outside of Sabah,” he added.
Free of Chemicals
In aquaponic farming, aquaculture (rearing of aquatic animals) is combined with hydroponics (cultivating plants without soil) in an integrated system
Elaborating on PPK Kinabalu’s aquaponic venture with local farmers on a 2.83ha site in Kampung Desa Aman, Muhammad Irwan said vegetables such as red coral lettuce, green coral lettuce, mustard plant and celery are being cultivated as they are suitable for aquaponic farming. As for the aquatic component, ikan tilapia and ikan keli are being reared.
“Aquaponic vegetables are chemical-free as no other fertiliser is used with the exception of the fish waste.
“For this farming technique, we need not use much water and the plants mature faster and yield higher quality produce,” he said, adding that they also plan to sell the ikan tilapia once they mature.
“So, eventually, this project will enable us to ‘kill two birds with one stone’.”
Cattle Project
Sabah State Farmers Organisation (PPN) acting GM Mohd Sabri Jalaludin, meanwhile, said with the allocation his agency received under Prihatin, they plan to implement a cattle fattening project which is expected to have a positive impact on the state’s economic cycle.
He said PPN Sabah has expertise in the livestock industry as it has been involved in it for over 10 years. For the new project, the agency plans to buy 40 head of cattle from cattle rearers within the state in a bid to support local businesses.
Under the first phase of the project, expected to kick off next month, the cows will be fed palm kernel cake or palm kernel expeller, wheat husk, and soy residue to fatten them. Once they attain a minimum weight of 320kg each, they will be sold at RM4,000 to RM5,000 each.
Mohd Sabri added that in view of the project’s potential to contribute to the growth of the state’s GDP, they plan to increase the cat- tle to 320 heads by 2021. — Bernama
Kalera Engages Financial Advisors
Kalera has engaged Bank of America Merrill Lynch International and Nordic banks ABG Sundal Collier and Arctic Securities as financial advisors to assist the Company with matters related to its financial strategy and in approaching equity capital markets, as Kalera’s expansion accelerates
Kalera Engages Financial Advisors
Kalera AS announced its engagement of financial advisors. Kalera has engaged Bank of America Merrill Lynch International and Nordic banks ABG Sundal Collier and Arctic Securities as financial advisors to assist the Company with matters related to its financial strategy and in approaching equity capital markets, as Kalera’s expansion accelerates.
"We are very pleased to have engaged these banks and are convinced that their combined impressive industry knowledge and investor outreach capabilities will enable us to continue attracting high-quality investors for further raising of equity capital," says chairman of the board Bjørge Gretland.
Kalera intends to accelerate its growth and has previously announced that it is planning for an IPO in Oslo and/or on Nasdaq in due course.
Kalera is rapidly executing on a US domestic and international expansion plan to grow fresh, clean, and nutritious leafy greens in close proximity to urban centers. Kalera currently operates two growing facilities in Orlando, and is constructing facilities in Atlanta and Houston which will open in 2021. As Kalera accelerates its growth over the next few years, it will continue to open additional facilities, expanding production capacity throughout the US and internationally.
For more information:
Kalera
info@kalera.com
www.kalera.com
Publication date: Fri 2 Oct 2020