Sheikh Mohammed Launches Food Tech Valley In Dubai

It seeks to triple the UAE’s food production and will include a smart food logistics hub, R&D facilities as well as agricultural technology and engineering labs

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BY VARUN GODINHO

MAY 2, 2021

The first phase of a new initiative that seeks to triple the UAE’s food production has been launched in Dubai.

The Food Tech Valley was launched on Saturday, May 1, by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and is a partnership between the Ministry of Food and Water Security and Wasl Properties to explore urban planning of future smart and food independent cities.

The initiative that aims at helping the UAE meet its National Food Security Strategy 2051 targets, will – in the initial phase of its launch – focus on strategic projects to achieve food self-sufficiency while ensuring sustainability and conservation of resources, said Mariam Almheiri, Minister of State for Food and Water Security.

The Food Tech Valley will be home to four main clusters: agricultural technology and engineering, a food innovation centre, R&D facilities, and an advanced smart food logistics hub.

The agricultural technology and engineering cluster will have a vertical farm that will employ the latest food technologies to grow year-round vital crops, noted a statement issued by Sheikh Mohammed regarding the initiative. The cluster will also focus on developing innovative projects in bioengineering, automation, robotics and artificial intelligence and supporting capacity building across the food ecosystem.

The food innovation centre meanwhile will provide an integrated agri-business ecosystem to incubate promising ideas and support startups and entrepreneurs. The cluster, which will have a specialised food factory to produce new foods and second-generation restaurants (restaurants 2.0), will explore models that are based on sustainability and production sufficiency to reduce consumption and wastage of resources.

The third cluster will have world-class R&D facilities to train food specialists and support food establishments. The facilities will explore the use of agri-robotics to maximise yields and drought-resistant crops. Specialised researchers will also explore the application of 3D printing in algae cultivation and alternative protein production. The R&D facilities will also study the use of AI to monitor, analyse and manage agricultural crops, and detect environmental impact and climate change.

It will complement global food security research efforts by exploring successful saline agriculture, nutritional genomics, agricultural mechanisation and the use of drones in food production.

The fourth cluster will feature a fourth-generation food storage system that provides smart and automated logistical storage services. The smart storage system will apply blockchain technologies and big data in sorting, transporting and distributing various food products. It will track food quality, origin, components, processing methods, storage and delivery to ensure the efficiency of food supply chains.

The initiative aims to create an integrated modern city where over 300 varieties of crops will be produced using modern farming techniques and which will serve as a hub for future clean tech-based food and agricultural products and an incubator for researchers, entrepreneurs, startups and industry experts to develop solutions to address issued regarding food production.

It will support the use of technologies and applied research in food processing and agriculture and apply modern farming techniques – such as vertical farming, aquaculture and hydroponics – to accelerate self-sufficiency in fresh food produce and reduce wastage of resources.

“[The Food Tech Valley project] will be an economic zone, which is particularly significant considering that the size of the AgTech market is projected to grow from $13.5bn to $22bn over the next four years. The project is part of our efforts to achieve our strategic national goals with respect to food security, as it constitutes an incubator for advanced farms – including indoor and vertical farms – with more than 60 per cent of the project’s space allocated to these activities,” said Mariam Almheiri.

Read: Sheikh Mohammed reiterates UAE’s drive to enhance food and water security

“The project features a food innovation centre that has been designed to resemble a head of wheat and will incorporate laboratories, research centres and prototype agricultural systems. Strategically located close to universities and academic institutions, it will support the R&D ecosystem and explore and deliver sustainable solutions around food,” added Almheiri.

Hesham Abdullah Al Qassim, CEO of Wasl Asset Management Group, noted: “The project provides an integrated legislative framework that facilitates new food product development and access to the market. Its competitive incentives and services enable investors to utilise local and global demand for the UAE brand and leverage Dubai’s global commercial and trade networks to achieve the desired growth.”

According to the Ministry of Climate Change and Environment’s 2019 figures, the UAE has more than 177 advanced farms that use modern agricultural technologies and hydroponics, and over 100 entities that implement organic farming across the UAE. These facilitate the growth of locally sourced produce all year-round and reduce reliance on seasonal farming. The country currently hosts over 500 specialised food processing companies that supply to local markets and export globally.

As an economic zone, the Food Tech Valley is a valuable addition to the UAE’s 1,250 legislations that support agriculture and food production sectors in ensuring food safety, storage and transport. With food and beverage investments in the UAE currently totalling Dhs62bn, the initiative is expected to contribute to attracting further local and foreign direct investments within the field.

DUBAI FOOD FOOD TECH VALLEY MINISTRY OF FOOD AND WATER SECURITY SHEIKH MOHAMMED BIN RASHID AL MAKTOUM UAE WASL PROPERTIES

New Platform For Pre-Owned Indoor Farming Equipment

Contain Inc announced the launch of their latest project, the used equipment trading platform, Equipped. Equipped is the first marketplace of its kind for buying and selling used indoor farming equipment. "No more late-night parking lot meetings or promises of funds that never transfer. Equipped is how trading used indoor farm equipment should be, low drama." 

“At Contain, we focus on helping the indoor agriculture industry thrive, and providing a platform where anyone can trade brand name indoor farm equipment is the next step in that journey,” comments Nicola Kerslake, founder of Contain, Inc. 

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The platform launches with more than $3 million of equipment, making it the most comprehensive place to find pre-owned indoor farm equipment. Equipped also lowers the barrier of entry for new growers to access top-of-the-line products and systems from industry professionals at a fraction of the cost. The platform encourages upcycling, effectively reducing waste and excess in the indoor farming industry.

Equipped invites new and existing farmers of every level and scale to anonymously buy and sell real equipment from real people. Easily navigate through thousands of listings to find the perfect equipment for your farm. Container farms, growing systems, lighting, propagation equipment and plenty more at the tip of your fingers. Equipped allows you to spend less time negotiating and more time farming.

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For more information:
Equipped
www.equipped.farm 

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Nicola Kerslake, Founder
Contain Inc.
+1.775.623.7116
hello@contain.ag 
www.contain.ag 

How Image Data Is Changing Agriculture

Anyone who wants to realize applications in which objects with a wide variety of characteristics – such as vegetables or fruit – are to be reliably recognized, cannot afford to ignore image processing with artificial intelligence.

Article from | IDS Imaging Development Systems

04/27/21

Being able to control processes more easily and design them more efficiently – these requirements also play an important role for agriculture and the food industry. Factors such as increasing demand from consumers, high standards regarding sustainability and security of supply, as well as the need to produce efficiently, come into direct conflict. Connected devices and automation are therefore becoming more and more prevalent in these sectors. Cameras play an important role here. They support from the optimal application of fertilizers to the visual monitoring of products and growth phases to the processing of food. 

A key technology is an artificial intelligence. Organic products with different shapes and colors are difficult to describe in the corset of standardized algorithms with which industrial cameras usually work. Anyone who wants to realize applications in which objects with a wide variety of characteristics – such as vegetables or fruit – are to be reliably recognized, cannot afford to ignore image processing with artificial intelligence. Intelligent vision systems for collecting and analyzing information are also valuable tools when it comes to detecting conditions, making decisions, and triggering follow-up processes. To make the best use of this technology, AI vision systems that are equally flexible, easy to handle, and powerful are required. This is where IDS NXT ocean comes into play. 

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IDS NXT ocean (www.ids-nxt.com) is a particularly user-friendly end-to-end solution that allows users to create AI-based image processing applications – even with little previous knowledge. Vision apps help to flexibly control which task the embedded vision system should solve; from simple barcode reading to complex AI-based object detection. Thanks to their compact industrial-grade housing and interfaces such as OPC UA, the intelligent IDS NXT cameras can be easily integrated into factory automation. Image processing takes place directly on the camera and can then be transmitted as a result, for example to a machine control system.

Customers are provided with coordinated workflows and all the necessary tools so that they can easily develop applications on their own. With the IDS-hosted, cloud-based AI training system IDS NXT lighthouse, they can train a neural network with their own images without any prior deep learning knowledge and without having to install any hardware or software. This is remarkable because although automation is a defining topic in the agriculture and food sector, only a few all-in-one packages for embedded vision with deep learning are available. In many cases, this is still project work, with customers building the systems themselves step by step. IDS Imaging Development Systems removes these hurdles so that even companies without dedicated AI specialists can benefit from the current technical state of the art and keep their competitive edge.

For more information and application examples, please visit    

https://en.ids-imaging.com/smart-farming.html.

The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of AgriTechTomorrow

IDS Imaging Development Systems Inc.

IDS is a leading manufacturer of industrial cameras "Made in Germany" with USB or GigE interfaces. Equipped with state-of-the-art CMOS sensors, the extensive camera portfolio ranges from low-cost project cameras to small, powerful models with PoE functionality or robust cameras with housings that fulfill the prerequisites for protection code IP65/67. For quick, easy, and precise 3D machine vision tasks IDS offers the Ensenso series. With the novel vision app-based sensors and cameras of IDS NXT the company opens up a new dimension in image processing. Whether in an industrial or non-industrial setting: IDS cameras and sensors assist companies worldwide in optimizing processes, ensuring quality, driving research, conserving raw materials, and serving people. They provide reliability, efficiency, and flexibility for your application.

Monitoring & Growing, Precision Farming | IDS Imaging Development Systems Inc. | Imaging, machine vision

VIDEO: Ottawa Startup Plantaform Hopes To Harvest Profits From Indoor Gardening Technology

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Ottawa biotech startup Plantaform's system, dubbed Rejuvenate, uses a concept called fogponics to grow herbs and leafy vegetables indoors.

A Carleton University business grad says his new startup is planting the seeds of a flourishing global horticulture enterprise with a soil-free system that grows herbs and leafy vegetables in a container small enough to sit on a kitchen countertop. 

Alberto Aguilar launched fledgeling biotech startup Plantaform last spring with longtime friend Kiwa Lang, an industrial designer who attended high school with Aguilar in Dubai and now lives in Australia. 

Lang was looking for sustainable alternatives to traditional horticulture and discovered a concept called fogponics, a technique pioneered by NASA that nourishes plants with nutrient-enriched water vapour rather than soil. He immediately reached out to his old pal, and a truly international startup was born.

“It’s extremely efficient,” Aguilar says of the technology, explaining that it uses 95 per cent less water than traditional soil-based horticulture operations.

Unlike more well-established hydroponics systems, Plantaform’s product – dubbed Rejuvenate – doesn’t submerge plant roots in water. Rather, it circulates a fine mist loaded with nutrients throughout an egg-shaped device roughly 60 centimetres high by 60 centimetres wide.

The high-tech indoor garden can grow up to 15 plants at a time, ranging from herbs such as basil and oregano to leafy greens including lettuce and kale. 

35-day growing cycle

Customers set the proper lighting and nutrient mix on a smartphone app. Aguilar says the system can effectively run itself for up to three weeks before the water supply needs to be replenished, and it takes roughly 35 days to harvest a crop from the time seeds are “planted” in the device.

Plantaform’s own growth path has been a little rockier. 

Backed by about $100,000 in funding from the founders’ family and friends as well as investors in Aguilar’s previous startups, the company stumbled out of the gate early last year.

The initial design for Rejuvenate failed, and it’s taken about half a dozen iterations to get the concept just right. In addition, Aguilar notes ruefully, the firm’s original team “collapsed” after several employees quit last summer because the founders couldn’t afford to pay them full-time salaries. 

Supply-chain disruptions

Meanwhile, the pandemic wreaked havoc with the startup’s supply chain, forcing Aguilar and Co. to abandon foreign suppliers in China and elsewhere and manufacture the bulk of the components for the prototypes in their own homes on 3D printers.

But the plucky grow-op persevered, overhauling its development staff and bringing on veteran Ottawa-based engineer Georges Hamoush as chief operating officer. Plantaform eventually signed a Chinese contractor to manufacture most of the components, which will be assembled locally at Stittsville’s L-D Tool & Die. 

If all goes according to plan, the first units will be shipped to customers this fall – and Aguilar plans to personally deliver as many as he can.

“We’ve made a lot of mistakes, but you know what? We’re not giving up,” says the budding biotech magnate, who grew up in Barcelona, spent some of his teenage years in Dubai and moved to Ottawa in 2014 to finish high school at Lisgar Collegiate before studying international business at Carleton. 

"I’m really trying to put Ottawa on the map."

Alberto Aguilar - CEO and co-founder of biotech startup Plantaform

“We’re confident that if we keep trying, it’ll eventually work out.”

The 24-year-old Aguilar boasts an accomplished entrepreneurial resume. Plantaform is already his third startup, and he earned spots in Invest Ottawa’s pre-accelerator and Ottaw’’s Startup Garage with his previous ventures.

He’s hoping to secure additional seed funding for Plantaform later this year, with an eye to landing a series-A round early in 2022. The company also has its sights set on even bigger markets ​– it’s currently working with the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre, a non-profit organization based near Niagara Falls, on a system to grow cannabis using fogponics technology.

The worldly Aguilar says he’s hoping his venture can elevate his adopted hometown on the international biotech stage.

“I’m really trying to put Ottawa on the map,” he says. “We want to go global.”

How COVID-19 Fed The Dream of Growing Food At Home

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04-28-21

BY ELIZABETH SEGRAN

Sales of hydroponic gardens boomed during the pandemic, but do high-tech solutions like those only further fuel inequality?

This story is part of Home Bound, a series that examines Americans’ fraught relationship to their homes—and the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hit the reset button. Read more here.

When COVID-19 struck the United States, people rushed to grocery stores to stock up on food, only to find that many shelf-stable items like beans, rice, and flour were sold out. It was the first time many of us were forced to consider where our food comes from—and how vulnerable the global food system really is.

These food shortages spurred many Americans to consider growing their own food for the first time. Some planted vegetables in their backyards and windowsills, while others went for high-tech hydroponic gardens.

In the years before the pandemic, startups developed these compact self-watering, self-fertilizing, gardening machines that were aesthetically pleasing, to boot. During the lockdowns, sales of these products—which start around $800—spiked, prompting venture capitalists to pour millions into the industry.

But as the COVID era comes to an end, it remains to be seen whether these high-tech gardens have staying power or whether they were just a short-lived novelty. And more broadly, it’s worth asking whether these devices can be a tool for making agriculture more sustainable and equitable, or whether they’re just another toy for the Whole Foods class.

[Photo: courtesy of Freight Farms]

THE HYDROPONICS REVOLUTION

Hydroponics, which simply means growing plants in a solution of water and nutrients instead of soil, have been around since at least 600 BCE. But in the late 1920s, William Gericke of the University of California modernized these techniques, creating farms that require less space and up to 95% less water than soil-based farms but yield much bigger harvests by optimizing light, water, and nutrients. During World War II, the U.S. military built hydroponic gardens to grow vegetables for troops in locations that weren’t suited to traditional agriculture, such as Ascension Island, a refueling station in the Atlantic Ocean, where soldiers grew thousands of pounds of cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce, and radishes each month, staving off malnutrition.

COVID-19 prompted some countries to use hydroponics to deal with disruptions in the global supply chain. The Netherlands and Singapore, which have limited agricultural land and rely largely on imports, invested billions during the pandemic to build industrial hydroponics farms on rooftops and parking lots. In the United States, hydroponics are still a small business, with about 3,000 businesses generating around $800 million in revenue, a small sliver of the $451 billion from traditional farming. But analysts are banking that the industry is poised to grow.

Over the last five years, a bevy of startups—including Rise Gardens, Gardyn, Lettuce Grow, Aerogarden, and Click-and-Grow—have launched to create hydroponic systems that can fit inside a home. That’s a departure from the focus over the past century on large-scale hydroponics farms.

The devices are expensive, and before the pandemic, it was a tough sell convincing consumers to spend nearly $1,000 on a machine that might take years to pay off. But COVID-19 changed the game, as people around the world worried about food shortages. “The pandemic made people pay attention to where their food comes from and accelerated their interest in producing their own food,” says Nina Ichikawa, executive director of the Berkeley Food Institute, which promotes food equity. “This new awareness is a good thing.”

Many of these startups doubled or tripled their sales over the past year, and some investors are capitalizing on this interest. True Ventures, which funds Peloton and Blue Bottle, invested $2.6 million in Rise Gardens; Gardyn raised $10 million from JAB Holding Company, the largest shareholder in Keurig. And right before the pandemic, Estonia-based Click & Grow received $11 million in funding from Y Combinator and Ingka Group, which operates 367 Ikea stores in Europe.

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[Photo: courtesy of Lettuce Grow]

A PERSONAL HYDROPONIC GARDEN

Despite my lifelong black thumb, I decided to test Lettuce Grow, a six-foot tall hydroponic garden that looks like a white sculpture with plants artfully growing on it. I’m shocked by how much food I’ve grown: My family of three now eats freshly plucked lettuces with each meal and yet our harvest is so plentiful, we’ve had to share our veggies with neighbors.

The beauty of hydroponic systems is that they’re designed to run on their own, with minimal intervention from the owner. My machine automatically waters and fertilizes the plants by pumping a nutrient-rich solution through the system for 15 minutes every hour. The high-efficiency LED light rings control how much light the plants receive, adding only a few dollars to our monthly electricity bill. All I have to do is top up the water in the base and add a few spoonfuls of plant food every week.

When it comes to seeds, all of these hydroponic startups are also, effectively, subscription programs. You need to buy seeds or seedlings from the company for about $2 apiece to replace the plants you’ve fully harvested. This takes anywhere from three weeks to several months depending on their growth cycle. “You get to enjoy the beauty of watching living things grow, without needing any expertise in farming,” says Jacob Pechenik, who co-founded Lettuce Grow in 2019 with the actress Zooey Deschanel.

And these startups aren’t just focused on making the machines smaller, they’ve also made them beautiful. Lettuce Grow, for instance, worked with the designer Pip Tomkins—who previously designed the Nokia M Series—to create a stand with vegetables and herbs cascading from the sides, much like you’d see on a plant wall. Rise Gardens partnered with TBD Innovations, a firm made up of former IDEO designers, to create a system that looks like a white cabinet with rows of plants above it. “We knew that our garden needed to look attractive for people to consider bringing them into their homes,” says Hank Adams, founder and CEO of Rise Gardens. “We wanted it to be beautiful and minimalist, so you’d be happy to have it whether you live in your studio apartment or large home.”

Rise Gardens, Gardyn, and Lettuce Grow all created modular systems, so customers can start with just a few levels of plants and expand over time. Pechenik says his goal was for Lettuce Grow to replace up to a fifth of a household’s produce. (I can attest that our 24-plant unit easily achieves this for a family of three.) For those who can afford it, these machines generate fruits and vegetables that are far tastier and more nutritious than what you’d normally buy at a store. Studies show that most produce loses 30% of its nutrients three days after harvest, and much of what we find in the grocery is much older than that.

Hydroponics provides an alternative to industrial agriculture, which has dominated our food system since the 1960s. Factory-like farms are bad for the planet because they deplete the soil, consume a lot of water, spew toxic pesticides into the environment, and contribute to deforestation. Transporting food around the country also generates carbon emissions and creates a lot of waste, since produce goes bad along the way. Half of all U.S. produce is thrown out. For me, one of the best parts about having a hydroponic garden at home is that we’ve virtually eliminated waste and have to make fewer trips to the grocery store.

FOOD INEQUITY

For now, most of these devices have gone to people interested in small-scale gardening. But the founders believe their products have the ability to disrupt our broken food system, if they’re able to scale. “We are not in the gardening business,” says FX Rouxel, Gardyn’s founder and CEO. “We’re trying to reinvent how people can grow their own food at scale. If we have solutions that are compelling enough, we believe we can change people’s food habits and reduce their dependence on the grocery store.” Gardyn launched in early 2020, and in its first year, Rouxel says its hundreds of customers grew 70,000 pounds of produce.

But Berkeley Food Institute’s Ichikawa argues that we should be skeptical about whether these high-end hydroponic systems can actually change the food system. Most people don’t have the money to invest hundreds of dollars in this hardware, and those are exactly the people who could most benefit. A tenth of households experience food insecurity and more than 23.5 million Americans live in neighborhoods without easy access to a supermarket. “Rich people are willing to spend their money on many new-fangled technologies that don’t necessarily impact the rest of the industry for better or for worse,” she says. “It’s just a new business opportunity for these startups.”

She points out that hydroponics don’t have to be so expensive or complicated. In fact, a lot of innovation around cost-effective small-scale hydroponics came from cannabis growers, many of whom were people of color operating underground. Entrepreneurs and scientists have been developing affordable DIY hydroponics in Africa, particularly Kenya. Startups like Hydroponics Africa have built systems that don’t require electricity and use inexpensive, locally available materials, including fungi-resistant aluminum trays. “These [U.S.] startups are creating a flashier, fancier version of systems that have actually been around for a long time,” Ichikawa says. “There are a lot of low-cost solutions that have emerged from the ground up, from the communities that depend on these technologies to survive.”

For now, Pechenik tries to make his technology available to more people by donating one Lettuce Grow machine for every 10 sold to schools, nonprofits, and community organizations. He says they’ve distributed several hundred already, along with $1 million in donations. Rise Garden, meanwhile, has launched a smaller machine that starts at $279. “I compare this to the early days of personal computing when a laptop was very expensive, and yet now, laptops are widely available,” Adams says. “As hydroponic gardens scale, the cost of manufacturing will go down.”

One answer might come from systems that are large enough to feed a community, rather than a single family, and thus are more cost-effective. Take, for instance, Freight Farms, which debuted the first hydroponic farm inside a shipping container in 2012. The company sells $130,000 containers that can generate the same amount of food as three and a half acres of farmland, enough to feed hundreds of people. Long-term, these systems are more economical given their scale and could help solve food insecurity problems. The city of Boston, for instance, bought five Freight Farm systems in Mattapan, where 20% of the population lives below the poverty line, to create a high-tech farming co-op. “Our farms are being used as part of community redevelopment,” says Rick Vanzura, Freight Farms’ CEO.

[Photos: courtesy of Freight Farms]

During the pandemic, Freight Farms’ sales tripled, and the company expects business to triple again in 2021. Last year, it landed $15 million in Series B funding, bringing its total to $28 million. Vanzura believes that for hydroponics to have an impact on agriculture, there will need to be farms of different sizes, ranging from individual gardens to industrial farms. In fact, Freight Farms advised Lettuce Grow about growing techniques, drawing from its decade-worth of data. “We need to cooperate as an industry to take the best of what we each do and help each other get better,” he says.

As hydroponics grow in popularity, Ichikawa says that it’s important to remember that it is not the only, or best, solution to cultivating food for a community. The poor tend to be most impacted by problems in the food system and suffer from health issues due to lack of access to nutritious food. This is why organizations like hers advocate for food sovereignty, which means empowering communities to take charge of their own food supply through things like local ownership of grocery stores and backyard or community gardening.

While midsize hydroponic systems could be a tool for tackling food insecurity, she worries that it could create a new barrier to entry, making access to fresh food seem even more out of reach. “Food sovereignty can absolutely protect us from the instabilities from pandemics or climate change, so any way that folks can feel autonomy over their food supply is a good thing,” Ichikawa says. “But you don’t need a fancy hydroponic system to do this. You could do it just as easily with a bucket of soil by a window.”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Segran, Ph.D., is a senior staff writer at Fast Company. She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts

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[Source Images: courtesy of Lettuce Grow]

Vertical Farming On The Rise: Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station And 80 Acres Farms Enter Research Agreement

80 Acres Farms enters into a master research agreement with the Experiment Station at The University of Arkansas with scientists to propose collaborative vertical farming research projects aimed to advance the science of vertical farming

NEWS PROVIDED BY 80 Acres Farms

HAMILTON, Ohio, April 26, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Vertical farming business 80 Acres Farms has entered into a collaborative research agreement with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station to advance the science of vertical farming.

Scientists with the experiment station, the research arm of the University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture, will coordinate with 80 Acres Farms researchers to pursue a variety of vertical farming research topics, said Bryan Renk, director of commercialization for the division's Technology Commercialization Office.

Utilizing world-class technology and analytics to offer customers a wide variety of pesticide-free food with a longer shelf-life that exceeds the highest food safety standards.

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"Vertical farming is growing and trending," Renk said. "There are multiple companies forming across the U.S. that are trying to take advantage of that trend."

Jean-François Meullenet, senior associate vice president for agriculture research and director of the experiment station, said the agreement provides a unique opportunity for research.

"We are very excited about this new research partnership with 80 Acres Farms," Meullenet said. "Protected farming is a strategic research direction for the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, and 80 Acres Farm is a leader in this area."

Renk said that the initial round of proposed and current research includes a project analyzing the chemical components of 80 Acres produce, an exploration into new protocols for vertical farming, and evaluation of novel blackberry variety selections that are suited for the vertical farming environment.

"We have a great multidisciplinary team of faculty that can make great contributions to the development of vertical farming technology," Meullenet said. "I look forward to seeing the impact we can have through this research."

"80 Acres is expanding its vertical farming R&D facility in Springdale, Arkansas to develop the growing recipes for multiple leafy and fruiting produce crops," said Victor Verlage, senior vice president for operations, agronomy, and research and development at 80 Acres Farms. "We are calibrating and aligning all the growing conditions, incorporating several proprietary AgTech capabilities that were not available until recently, to bring hyper-fresh fruits and vegetables loaded with taste and nutrition so our consumers can indulge in healthy diets," he said.

Margaret Worthington, assistant professor of fruit breeding and genetics in the horticulture department for the experiment station and Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences at the University of Arkansas, is evaluating blackberry varieties that may perform well in these novel growing conditions.

"We hope to identify blackberry breeding selections that perform well in fully-controlled indoor environments and vertical farms," Worthington said.

"Fruit breeding is a long-term effort," she said. "We need to be forward-thinking and consider how the potential varieties moving through our breeding pipeline are going to fit into new markets and productions systems that are just beginning to develop.

"The Arkansas Fruit Breeding Program has a history of mutually beneficial public-private research collaborations and I am looking forward to working with this new partner," she said.

In addition to collaborating on research, 80 Acres Farms also plans to create internship opportunities for Bumpers college students.

"80 Acres Farms is eager to provide opportunities for the next generation of farmers where they will have access to best-in-class vertical farming technology," said Verlage. "The students will have immersive training right here in Northwest Arkansas, minutes from the university campus."

To learn more about the Division of Agriculture research, visit the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station website: https://aaes.uark.edu. Follow us on Twitter at @ArkAgResearch and Instagram at ArkAgResearch.

About the Division of Agriculture

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture's mission is to strengthen agriculture, communities, and families by connecting trusted research to the adoption of best practices. Through the Agricultural Experiment Station and the Cooperative Extension Service, the Division of Agriculture conducts research and extension work within the nation's historic land grant education system.

The Division of Agriculture is one of 20 entities within the University of Arkansas System. It has offices in all 75 counties in Arkansas and faculty on five system campuses.

The University of Arkansas System Division of Agriculture offers all its Extension and Research programs and services without regard to race, color, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, national origin, religion, age, disability, marital or veteran status, genetic information, or any other legally protected status, and is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer.

About 80 Acres Farms

80 Acres Farms is a vertical farming leader providing customers with the freshest and most nutritious fruits and vegetables at affordable prices. Utilizing world-class technology and analytics, the Company offers customers a wide variety of pesticide-free food with a longer shelf-life that exceeds the highest food safety standards.

For further information, please contact us at:

Rebecca Haders / rebecca.haders@eafarms.com  / +1 513-910-9089

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80 Acres Farms' Vertical Farming Technology
Utilizing world-class technology and analytics to offer customers a wide variety of pesticide-free food with a longer shelf-life that exceeds the highest food safety standards.

SOURCE 80 Acres Farms

High Tech And Ancient Methods Meet At The Vertical Fields of Nabo Farm

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21 April 2021

In a former auto repair shop in the outskirts of Copenhagen, a farm has found its unlikely grounds. Fresh coriander, pea sprouts, and edible flowers are grown at the vertical farm – and sold to some of the finest restaurants in Denmark.

There is no soil at Nabo Farm. And the Sun never shines on the crops. Layer upon layer of sprouts are growing in the purple fluorescent light. Rocket sprouts, pea sprouts, coriander, red mustard, nasturtium, and dill all thrive at the vertical farm specialized in microgreens – in the outskirts of Copenhagen.

For almost three years Nabo Farm has been a so-called vertical farm. Technology is at the core of the production. LED lights make sure that the plants get the perfect sunny day every day without ever seeing the sun. A hydroponic watering system makes soil superfluous and saves 90 percent of water consumption at the same time. This technology combined makes it possible to grow multiple layers of crops. To create a farm in the middle of the city. And to save valuable farmland for other crops.

The name “Nabo Farm” can loosely be translated to “the farm next door”. And during the relatively short time, Nabo Farm has existed the company has managed to get customers such as Aamands and Denmark’s first and only two Michelin starred restaurant Alchemist. All products are grown specifically to order – and delivered by bicycle.  

Cucumbers on the fourth floor

It all started with a home-built watering system for a few vegetables grown on Jens Juul Krogshede’s fourth-floor balcony. He was going away on holiday for a few weeks and didn’t want to see all his hard work amount to nothing.

“I had worked in the tech industry for many years and had burned out a bit. That’s when I started growing tomatoes and cucumbers on my balcony. When we had to go away for a few weeks – I build my own watering system in the living room. And that started all of this,” says Jens Juul Krogshede.

“One thing quickly led to another, and I learned about hydroponics – how to grow plants without soil. A core element of vertical farming. That took me to the next level – and I no longer had to carry big bags of soil up five flights of stairs,” he tells.

Hydroponics is a technique that dates back to the Hanging Gardens in Babylon, he adds.

At about this time Jens Juul Krogshede meets the soon-to-be co-founder of Nabo Farm, Sebastian Dragelykke, who was already working with developing the future of foods at a think tank in Copenhagen.   

“Together we saw the technology – the opportunity – and went with it,” says Jens Juul Krogshede.

Sustainability is the driving force

From the very beginning, sustainability has been at the core of Nabo Farm. On several levels. The two founders want to be a part of the solution when it comes to feeding the growing population on planet Earth. They want to be a part of the solution to the climate challenges we all face.

“There are more and more people on the planet who eat more and more food. With vertical farming we can create a fundamental change in the way we produce food. A great addition to traditional farming. With vertical farming we can produce food in old basements, inside old factories and on rooftops in the cities without causing further damage to the climate. This is something we have to do. In the long run we might even be able to take out traditional farmland to develop biodiversity,” says Jens Juul Krogshede.

“Nabo Farm helps to solve a different sustainability issue as well. In the food supply chain. The first year we existed we found out that many restaurants in Copenhagen have a demand for fresh coriander during the winter. At this time of the year, coriander must be imported from Spain or The Netherlands. By growing crops our way, we can supply local coriander all year round – and we deliver by bicycle – not by truck.”

Rapidly developing technology

Every day is a perfect summer day inside Nabo Farm thanks to the fluorescent LED lights. The conditions are optimal for the microgreens.

It’s all possible because the LED technology has been going through a rapid development in the last couple of years. Where the lights used to be extremely expensive, the technology is now affordable.

“Not that many years ago, the only products you could grow this way with a profit were of a shadier kind. However, the rentability is still the main challenge for vertical farming, and a lot of vertical farms still struggle to make a profit. There are still many unknowns, and the technology is still developing rapidly,” says Jens Juul Krogshede.

Next step in Copenhagen

Vertical farming is a part of the future of food production. Therefore Food & Bio Cluster Denmark is now establishing a new network for vertical farming. Here the high-tech farmers can meet, share knowledge, hear from industry experts and scholars. Nabo Farm is already a part of that network.

“Denmark is a farming country by tradition. We are great farmers. We also have a great tradition for knowledge and academia. If we can bring the two together, I believe Denmark can be an industry-leading country in vertical farming. That’s why we’ve joined the new network,” says Jens Juul Krogshede.

As for Nabo Farm, the company has just received a new investment that will take the company to the next level and scale the business to turn it into a franchise that can thrive sustainably in other Northern European cities.

Square Roots Opens New Indoor Farm, Produces First Harvest

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By Danielle Nelson

April 15, 2021

New York-based Square Roots, an urban indoor farming company, opened a two-story indoor farm located at Gordon Food Service headquarters in Wyoming.

The farm’s first locally grown harvest of herbs and greens that includes basils, arugula and radish microgreens will be available for consumers to purchase on e-commerce platforms, restaurants and grocery stores across the Great Lakes region in the coming weeks.

Construction on the indoor farm began in December and the first seeds were planted in March. The farm is cloud-connected and is managed by Square Roots’ farmers and in-house software.

“COVID-19 exposed major weaknesses in the industrial food supply chain and accelerated the already fast-growing local farming movement,” said Kimbal Musk, co-founder and executive chair of Square Roots. “Square Roots can now deploy commercial-scale, controlled-climate farms, fast, in locations across America to meet the demand for local food, all year-round. My wider mission is to bring responsibly grown, local food to everyone in America.”

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A farmer harvest basil. Courtesy Square Roots

The farm’s proprietary OS, otherwise known as The Square Roots Farmer Toolbelt, provides day-to-day guidance to farmers while capturing millions of data points throughout growing cycles. The data can then be analyzed to determine how changes in certain environmental parameters impact factors like yield, taste, and texture.

In addition to the technology that drives its operation, there also are cold storage, biosecurity, climate-controlled packaging space, and distributor loading docks, among other things in the farm that ensures food safety.

The new indoor farm is Square Roots’ third commercial facility.

Lead photo: Construction on Square Roots' indoor farm began in December and the first seeds were planted in March. Courtesy Square Roots

When We Started Freight Farms In 2010, There Was No Such Thing As An “Ag Tech” industry

We weren’t even sure how to explain what we were trying to do to our own friends and family! But we knew that there was a need for urban agriculture to emerge as a competitive industry in the food landscape. That’s why Freight Farms was born—to build the infrastructure and technology that would allow local food to thrive around the globe.

Less than a decade later, we are proud to be on the forefront of the fast-growing Agriculture Technology industry. Freight Farms has grown into a platform that anyone can use to supply their communities with fresh produce year-round, regardless of background or geographic location. We’ve had the pleasure of launching our container farming system in over 44 states in the US and 24 countries around the globe, creating the largest network of connected farmers.

Freight Farms has a passionate customer base of small businesses, entrepreneurs, traditional farmers, hotels, restaurants, corporate campuses, universities, and non-profits. We’d love to welcome you into our community of Freight Farmers, and our team is ready to help you get started. 

Jon Friedman and Brad McNamara

Freight Farms Co-Founders

VIDEO: One Sure Way To Save Our Soil – Don’t Use Any

In the push for regenerative agriculture and soil rehabilitation, container farming has an important role to play.

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The idea behind regenerative agriculture isn’t new, but this year it is front and center as one of the key initiatives of the official Earth Day 2021 campaign: Restore Our Earth™.

According to the Earth Day organization, overfarming has caused soil capacity in the U.S. to decline dramatically, losing soil 10 times faster than it can be replenished. The result is that in many places, the land has as few as 60 harvests left before it is completely depleted. Unfortunately, with ownership of farms increasingly concentrated in the hands of industrial or foreign producers, the promise of short-term profits wins out over long-term solutions that would prioritize soil health.

What is regenerative agriculture?

Regenerative farming takes an opposite position. As a school of thought, it is a method of farming that actively fights soil degradation by restoring carbon to the soil, which has a double benefit of renewing the viability of the land while simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. There are many different types of regenerative agriculture, here’s a helpful video to explain the main three:

But between destroying the soil and saving the soil, there’s a third option: not using any soil at all. This is the premise behind container farming.

Container farming to save soil.

Container farming is a subset of the indoor farming industry, which includes everything from greenhouses and warehouses to at-home tabletop setups. The advantage of container farming is the ability to create commercial-scale production within a small space the size of your standard 40-foot shipping container through vertical farming techniques. Inside the container, plants are protected from the external elements and nurtured using nutrient-enriched water, powerful red and blue light, and optimal temperatures.

Notice anything missing? Oh yeah–soil!

Container farming with hydroponics completely eliminates the need for soil to grow food, which is great news for the whole regenerative agriculture movement. Since regenerative farming is based on the idea of protecting soil, container farming is able to take the whole idea to the logical extreme by not using any soil–period.

Not only does container farming prevent the further degradation of soil, but it actually frees up land to be actively regenerated. At Freight Farms, our containers (each capable of growing an average of 2 acres of food) have already saved 700 acres of land… which’s equal to about 530 football fields!

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Additional sustainability benefits

Beyond regenerative agriculture, which is primarily focused on soil, container farming brings many additional sustainable benefits. The Greenery S is able to save:

• Water: 99% less water than is used in conventional agriculture.

• Food miles: we move the farms, not the food. Instead of trucking/shipping food from a centralized location, we put the farm as close to the final consumer as possible.

• Carbon emissions: in addition to reducing food miles, we’ve partnered with Arcadia to make it easy and effective for our farmers to get onto the renewable energy grid and make their carbon footprint just one-quarter of what it would be if they were farming using industrial farming methods.

Regenerating communities

While regenerative agriculture may start with soil, the implications on climate change, food access, and food security are clear. In the same way, container farming is also more than just improving the sustainability of our agriculture system. In addition to saving soil, land, water and reducing food miles and carbon emissions, container farming unlocks many important social gains:

• Independence: when we are not reliant on soil, land, and climate, we can make any place a farm. This makes it possible for us to create the distributed system we need to combat the harmful effects of industrial farming and centralized food systems.

• Equality: independence from soil and land also creates more food equality, since individuals and communities need fewer resources (money & land) to create commercial-scale farms.

• More farmers: Soil is complicated and nuanced, it takes huge amounts of experience and education to know how to do regenerative agriculture properly. With container farming, everyone can be a low-impact farmer.

• More varieties: Conventional agriculture is beholden to monocropping, which improves the unit economics of growing food but also increases the risk of crop failure, blight, and soil degradation. Container farming makes it possible to grow hundreds of plant varieties, introducing people to new types of plants and growing public perception of the diversity you can have with fresh greens. This can have an overall positive effect on market demands and help move the whole system away from relying on mono-cropping.

Learn more about the Earth Day Restore Our Earth™ campaign and check out how Freight Farms is helping support the regenerative farming movement with container farming!

Freight Farms

Empowering anyone to grow food anywhere. Freight Farms makes local food accessible in any climate with the Greenery™ container farm.

Freight Farms

April 23, 2014

Follow Earth Day Earth Day 2021 Sustainability Regenerative Agriculture Agriculture

VIDEO: Tortuga Raises $ 20m To Build Hundreds of Harvesting Robots

23-04-2021

Future Farming

Harvest automation start-up Tortuga completed a $ 20 million Series A funding. The money will be used to build hundreds of robots to deploy in 2022.

Last year Tortuga launched a strawberry harvesting robot. This platform is flexible, according to Tortuga it can be adapted to work on other crops like indoor-grown tomatoes or outdoor table grapes.

Picking robots

“For many years, the story behind harvesting robotics has been a lot of promise but really companies have struggled to deliver on that promise for the customer. That’s because this is one of the hardest problems there is to solve,” Eric Adamson, co-founder of Tortuga AgTech told AgFunder News. “Not only are we doing autonomous robotics but we are also doing picking robotics and we are doing them together in really unstructured environments.”

Robots-as-a-service

The $ 20 million in new capital will be used to build hundreds of robots to deploy in 2022. Some of the funding will also go towards building out the operating model and making sure there are enough employees to operate the robot fleets.

Tortuga currently offers its technology through a robots-as-a-service model, getting paid by the kilo for the produce that its robots pick.

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Additional services

“On top of that, as we provide other services that are close to harvest, like data-driven forecasting and other types of cultivation services, those will also be service-based although they may not be quite so specific to a kilogram. We are charging for some of these additional services on a monthly or per-hectare basis,” Adamson told AFN.

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Hugo Claver

Web editor for Future Farming

How Can 'Aquaponics' Farming Help Create Sustainable Food Systems?

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By Jaxx Artz

APRIL 23, 2021

Aquaponics has the potential to help people who are food insecure take control of the food system

Why Global Citizens Should Care

Millions of people around the world go hungry every year, due to lack of access to healthy food and the effects of climate change on agricultural development. Aquaponics is a sustainable growing method that has the potential to put food production into the hands of the people who experience food insecurity, giving them autonomy in controlling their access to safe and nutritious produce. Join us by taking action to strengthen our food systems and protect the planet here.

Global Citizens everywhere are increasingly recognizing the need for more sustainable career options to increase global food security.

According to a 2020 report from UNICEF on the state of food security and nutrition in the world, almost 690 million people went hungry in 2019, or 8.9% of the world population. This is due, in part, to the high costs associated with eating nutritiously, the lack of access to healthy food, and the effects of climate change devastating agricultural production systems.

As more government leaders commit to becoming carbon neutral by 2050, and more people choose to change their habits (like eating less meat) to reduce their carbon footprint, methods of food production that promote a harmonious relationship between humans and the environment are becoming more common.

One of these methods involves fish.

Aquaponics farming is a method of sustainable agriculture that forms a symbiotic relationship between fish and plants. It involves the use of a fish tank placed below a grow bed for plants, where the main input to the system is fish food.

When the fish produce waste, it is cycled out of the fish tank into the grow bed, where bacteria transform ammonia into nitrates that plants need to grow. The water is then filtered and returned to the fish tank, aiding in the highly optimized, zero-waste process of farming fish and plants together.

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Yemi Amu, founder and director of Oko Farms in Brooklyn, New York, working on the outdoor aquaponics farm. Photo courtesy of Oko Farms.

The practice of aquaponic gardening can be traced back centuries. In central Mexico around 1000 AD, the Aztec people developed a technique known as chinampa to expand their growing efforts to the surface of lakes and ponds, according to the Permaculture Research Institute. By weaving together logs and sticks to create a “floating farm,” the Aztecs used water from the lakes and waste produced by fish to nourish crops.

Aquaponics also has roots in Southeast Asia, where farmers cultivated rice and fish concurrently, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. The practice of raising fish in rice fields became one of the best examples of polyculture farming as a method of sustainability.

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Photo courtesy of Oko Farms.

In recent years, aquaponics has increasingly been chosen as a growing option for urban farmers, or those who practice agriculture in cities and must rely on vertical farming techniques when faced with less land area. Many of these aquaponics farmers choose to produce food for their communities, particularly in areas where economic inequalities threaten household food security.

Around the world, the environmental impacts of climate change are preventing low-income people from accessing sufficient, safe, and nutritious foods. To improve global food systems and decrease food insecurity, it is more important than ever for people to practice sustainable agricultural development.

To learn more about how aquaponics can aid in the production of sustainable food systems, Global Citizen spoke to Yemi Amu, founder, and director of Oko Farms, an aquaponics farm and learning center in Brooklyn, New York.

Global Citizen: Tell me a little about your background and how you became interested in agriculture.

Yemi Amu: My background is in nutrition and behavior modification. I spent a lot of my time at the beginning of my career really using a hands-on approach to guiding people to adopting healthy dietary habits and trying to understand what the barriers are. Things like knowing how to cook ... can be a barrier for people, and knowing what food to buy from the grocery store.

I also happened, at one point, to be working with a formerly homeless population, and for that particular group going out into the world — like leaving the neighborhood, going to the grocery store to shop — it was not practical for them. They are dealing with anxiety, and [going from] being chronically homeless to living in an apartment [is] a huge adjustment that most people don’t understand.

After working with them, I found that they were only eating well when I was preparing the food for them. When I wasn’t involved, they weren’t going on their own to get healthy food. And so after going back and forth with my colleagues, who were social workers, we decided, hey, you know what, the roof of the building where the residents lived would be a great place to grow food because it was intended to be a green roof. We decided, “Why not turn that into a farm?” and really that’s how my farming career started.

So how did your interest in aquaponics specifically come about?

I discovered aquaponics while I was on the roof. I learned how to farm along with the residents and had to learn about seasonal growing, what it’s like to grow in a soil-less environment, and how to grow in raised beds. I’m from Nigeria. I grew up in a city, in Lagos, and so the idea of people farming in a city wasn’t weird. But farming in New York City? It seemed so different, and so learning about aquaponics and how you don’t have to worry about watering plants, I just found it fascinating.

I started visiting farms around the country just to see how aquaponics works in practice and make sense of it. I saw how it could play a really big role in not just feeding people but also raising awareness about alternative agricultural methods. Around 2011, hydroponics [using nutrient-rich water for agriculture instead of soil] was becoming popular, and I thought it was so great to throw aquaponics in the mix. The system can work indoors or outdoors, it saves water, and Oko Farms was built a couple of years later.

Aquaponics is also a throwback to other cultures that have used it in the past. In Peru, in China — so many cultures around the world had these models that were rooted in the idea of raising animals and plants together. It was industrial agriculture that saw people no longer raising animals and plants in tandem, so it’s great that we can bring this centuries-old model back to the urban environment.

For people who experience drought, or live in an urban environment — can aquaponics improve food access, or be used in conjunction with other methods of sustainable agriculture?

I mean, this isn't a one-size-fits-all model. Aquaponics can absolutely be used in conjunction [with other methods of sustainable agriculture]. 

It’s not that there is anything wrong with soil, but we are living in a very complex environment. There are barriers for many communities to access food, like not having space to grow food, and aquaponics systems can be set up to address these barriers and ecological issues.

Aquaponics, in my experience, lends itself better to small-scale production. And I think that we can ultimately guarantee food security for those of us that live in urban areas. It doesn’t require a lot of land, it saves water. Water access is limited for a lot of people around the world, and we use a lot of water in agriculture specifically. Aquaponics can address this problem because it requires very little input of water.

Your work at Oko Farms emphasizes education, specifically around helping people learn to grow their own food, in food sovereignty. Can you speak to why that is important in the production of sustainable food systems?

I haven’t seen our current system support people, empower people, or ensure food security. Giving people the tools to [control their access to food] is important. Our workshop model supports people in building their own aquaponics system, and in an urban environment, it is important for us to have a space to teach the public about food systems.

At Oko, we donate some of the produce we grow, and then we sell some of it at farmers’ markets in the area. Sometimes people come to the farm and buy produce off the farm — they know it’s grown here. Aquaponics has helped us develop that system as we look to feed ourselves sustainably, or just feed ourselves, period.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

US: NEBRASKA - The Bay, Beyond School Bells Launch Youth-Focused 'Freight Farm'

Apr 25, 2021

Luna Stephens

A 40-foot-long shipping container in the parking lot of The Bay will soon be filled with a whole lot of green.

In partnership with Beyond School Bells, The Bay is launching The Greenery, a self-contained hydroponic farm housed in a repurposed shipping container. Members of Beyond School Bells and The Bay gathered with local leaders Saturday to officially launch the program.

Much like The Bay’s other youth-focused programs, The Greenery is designed to allow students access to engaging, hands-on activities — in this case growing food.

“We are thrilled about the opportunity to be able to turn kids on to sustainable agriculture,” said Andrew Norman, executive director and co-founder of The Bay’s parent organization Rabble Mill. “A lot of the kids in our neighborhood have never seen anything like this; none of us have.”

The Greenery setup is designed by the Boston-based company Freight Farms. Beyond School Bells was able to purchase the unit through a partnership with the Ben Hormel Harris Foundation, said state Sen. Anna Wishart, the director of partnerships for Beyond School Bells. Several local companies and individuals donated their time to help get it up and running.

Through vertical planting that doesn’t require soil, the shipping container is able to house 13,000 plants at a time, or about as much food as a 2.5-acre farm. Throughout the container are thousands of red and blue LED lights that can be precisely controlled through the trailer’s high-tech programming to provide the perfect amount and color of light for each plant, said Doak Field, director of operations at Freight Farms.

The setup is also water-efficient, as the water that flows throughout the trailer is repumped through the cycle.

“Everything is just way more efficient than growing outside,” Field said. “You can get the exact science down to whatever you need to grow.”

 Field said the team hopes to start planting the container within the next two weeks and is planning to start with greens such as lettuces and kale, as well as herbs.

The program leaders plan to sell the food grown at the Greenery at local farmers’ markets or through weekly community-supported agriculture projects. They'll also source produce to local restaurants.

While many of the similar freight farm projects that have popped up across the country have been for-profit and run by adults, Lincoln’s will be one of only a few that are not-for-profit and youth-focused, Wishart said.

Beyond School Bells works statewide to provide after-school opportunities for students like The Greenery, she said.

“Our goal is to ensure that every kid, no matter where they grow up in Nebraska, has access to quality out-of-school programming and this freight farm is absolutely an example of that,” she said.

The project will offer an opportunity for students to learn a variety of skills, Wishart said, and University of Nebraska-Lincoln honor students will also play a role in mentoring younger students working on the project.

“This also creates an incredible platform for youth to learn entrepreneurship and about sustainable, high-tech agriculture and future careers in that space,” Wishart said.

The Greenery project is part of a series of environmental-focused projects across the state that Beyond School Bells is working on, the organization's network lead Jeff Cole said.

“This will be the crown jewel,” he said. “But we're already starting to do investments in rural Nebraska around outdoor classrooms, environmental education, and a series of other things across the state.”

Lincoln Mayor Leirion Gaylor Baird said she sees the project as an example of innovative, environmentally friendly solutions that can help move the city forward.

“This is such a wonderful demonstration of how we can take better care of the Earth, create greater value for everyone in our community and hand something on to the next generation, something that they can have a leadership role in,” Gaylor Baird said.

Lead Photo: Jeff Cole of Beyond School Bells talks to visitors about the Greenery, a 40-foot-long shipping container that will operate as a high-tech hydroponic farm at The Bay. The container has space to vertically grow over 13,000 plants — the equivalent of a 2.5-acre farm. FRANCIS GARDLER, Journal Star

USA: BALTIMORE - Hydroponic Operation Supplies High-End Restaurants

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Art Petrosemolo, Southeastern Pennsylvania Correspondent

Apr 23, 2021

Growing vegetables in a shipping container have opened new marketing opportunities for a Baltimore County farm.

The hydroponic growing system has allowed Karma Farm to sell fresh produce regardless of the season to high-end restaurants in Baltimore and Washington.

“Today we are delivering leafy greens and herbs year-round to a growing customer base,” said Jon Shaw, founder of the family operation.

The farm, which makes multiple weekly deliveries to 27 customers, has picked up clients through word of mouth and sampling visits arranged with chefs who find the farm on social media.

“Well-known chefs talk and move from restaurant to restaurant ... and they have brought us with them,” Shaw said.

The farm got its start just over a decade ago when Shaw was growing produce on 5 acres, both outside and in hoop houses, for retail sale as well as a nearly 100-member CSA.

Karma Farm purchased a freight container vertical hydroponics Leafy Green Machine from Freight Farms in Boston in 2017. Photo by Art Petrosemolo

Jon’s 28-year old son, Nat, learned the business from his dad as a teenager, and in the past few years he has helped Karma Farm pivot to the new customer base, embracing the new ag technologies.

Nat, now the farm’s hydroponic production manager, researched vertical growing in insulated shipping containers while he was studying entrepreneurship at the University of Baltimore and thought the year-round production method would be a good fit.

“Hydroponic container farming is still relatively new and is being introduced to farmers in parts of the country where short growing seasons, weather, and soil conditions make profitable, small family farming difficult,” he said.

With a feasibility study completed and a new focus for the business, the Shaws purchased a Leafy Green Machine container in 2017 from Freight Farms in Boston. The container is 40 feet long by 8 feet wide.

“These are the insulated type of refrigerated containers used to ship fresh produce across the country,” Nat said.

With delivery and setup, the container cost about $100,000.

Lead photo: Nat Shaw, left, and his dad, Karma Farm owner Jon Shaw, stand in their freight container.

2020 Sustainability Report Highlights AppHarvest’s Impact

On A Mission To Redefine Agriculture

Titled “Feed the Future,” our 2020 Sustainability Report is now available for view and outlines our efforts to create positive environmental change in agriculture, empower employees and improve the communities in which we operate. 

“Resiliency is at the core of our beliefs at AppHarvest because farming as we’ve known it is broken and not sustainable for the planet,” said Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb. “We’re solving for the variables that make our food system unreliable, such as extreme weather, droughts, fire or contamination. Our team built one of the world’s largest facilities in the midst of a global pandemic.” 

This Earth Day, we’re detailing our progress toward three distinct impact goals as we work to establish a reliable, climate-resilient domestic food supply: 

Drive positive environmental change in agriculture: Our first high-tech indoor farm grows more with fewer resources and contributes to a climate-resilient, domestic food supply. With our strategic location in Central Appalachia, we can reach 70% of the U.S. population within a day’s drive. The location reduces diesel used for transportation as much as 80% compared to produce trucked from Mexico or the Southwest of the U.S. Our operations are also designed to use 90% less water than open-field agriculture with 100% recycled rainwater, zero chemical pesticides, and zero agricultural runoff. 

Empower individuals in Appalachia: To us, ‘empowering individuals’ means creating a life-changing experience for employees and their families. As of March 31, 2021, we have created 500 jobs with 100% of employees verified to be paid a living wage plus a comprehensive benefits package that is considered best-in-class in the agriculture sector. We also make each employee a stakeholder in the company’s success by providing equity-based incentives. 

Improve the communities in which we operate: Our plans call for more than tripling our investment in Appalachia to reach almost $1 billion in capital invested by 2025. We're also working with Eastern Kentucky high schools to incorporate AgTech curriculum and provide high-tech container farms that offer students a hands-on opportunity to grow their own food and learn about nutrition. In fact, we opened another container farm today. Read more below. 

“Consumers are more educated than ever, and they use that knowledge to support organizations, like AppHarvest, that have the best interests of all stakeholders in mind by putting people and planet first,” said AppHarvest President David Lee. 

The complete Sustainability Report can be downloaded here. 

10 New Trends In CEA In 2021 And Beyond

22-04-2021 | Agritecture

The world of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) is continuing to develop at an accelerated rate. In line with Agritecture’s mission “to accelerate climate-smart agriculture strategies,” we’ve decided to share our top predictions for the future of CEA for 2021 and beyond.

This post is a follow-up to Agritecture’s post on the “10 New Trends In Hydroponics: What To Expect In 2017 And Beyond”.

Here are our top 10 predictions:

#1: Strawberries

In a sea of vertical farmers producing leafy greens, we’ve noticed sights shifting to strawberry production. While strawberries were initially difficult to produce given on-the-ground concerns like pests, fungal diseases, and weeding, growing vertically has allowed for easier harvesting and limited damage to the fruit. According to Agritecture’s Founder & CEO, Henry Gordon-Smith, “Strawberries are the hot new product for indoor growers because they can charge a lot for the best ones, they’re desired year-round, and the freshness and flavor are very noticeable,” being made more achievable by vertical farming.

https://www.oishii.com/

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Image sourced from Oishii

As of late last year, Driscoll’s and Plenty announced a partnership to grow strawberries indoors. We’re seeing increasing interest in high-quality strawberries with Oishii Berry’s $50m Series A fundraising for bee-assisted, carbon-neutral strawberry cultivation. In response to this growing interest, Agritecture’s Director of Operations, Yara Nagi, comments that “there is an interesting opportunity for growing strawberries hydroponically, especially for countries that import a majority of their strawberries. In order for strawberries to be exported to another country, they typically have to be harvested early. So, being able to grow them locally and in a controlled environment translates to better quality strawberries with a longer shelf-life. Other than the fact that growing strawberries hydroponically has become more and more efficient, the price point for strawberries can be relatively high when compared to other products grown in an indoor environment.”

Contact Agritecture today to request a feasibility study for your strawberry vertical farming business idea.

#2: Breeding Seeds For Vertical Farms

As of recently, we’ve noticed a growing interest in breeding seeds for vertical farms. In February 2021, Kalera acquired Vindara Inc., a company developing non-GMO seeds for vertical indoor farms. Kasveista’s story of producing high-quality seeds and seedlings of open-source varieties for vertical farming similarly showcases this change in the industry.

Agritecture’s Lead Agronomist, David Ceaser, comments that “to date, crops grown in vertical farms have been grown using plant genetics developed for outdoor or greenhouse production.  Environmental conditions in vertical farms are quite different from those environments, and so, plants respond differently. As genetics for vertical farms are developed, yields of current crops will improve greatly, and new crops will be successfully introduced into the vertical farm platform.” 

#3: Fully Automated Vertical Farms

If you know anything about vertical farming, you know that labor is expensive and that this form of intensive agriculture requires highly skilled labor. According to Gordon-Smith, “new fully automated vertical farms are emerging” to respond to this labor challenge. He questions whether they will actually work, given that costs are high and the technology is new. Does this development in vertical farming mean fewer jobs or a more skilled workforce? Fully automated vertical farms are inevitable but will they pay off? 

In September 2020, Agritecture’s new equipment partner, Urban Crop Solutions, launched their Module-X Automated Vertical Farm.

#4: Floating Farms

It’s always a struggle to find open space for agriculture in built-up urban areas. In recent years, we’ve seen abandoned and unused spaces converted into urban farms. So, why not take farming to the waters too? While it may not seem like the most sensible place to run a farm, it severely reduces food miles and pollution caused by the transportation of food. 

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Image sourced from Oceanix

Aqua Ark is a company that has taken to the waters to create Amphibious Homes that integrate floating wetlands for food production. Oceanix is a similar company that creates modular and self-sustaining communities on the water for people who want to live sustainably across the nexus of energy, water, food, and waste. The Floating Farm in Rotterdam is a project designed “for a future where rising sea levels mean that farmland is increasingly out of action due to flooding”.

To learn more, check out Agritecture Studios, where ‘floating cities’ is a challenging area within our inaugural cohort of architects.

#5: New Financing Options For CEA Startups

Financing for CEA operations is incredibly challenging. These capital-intensive projects require a robust business plan, strong management team, and access to capital to ensure on-time delivery of construction. Within the last year, we’ve seen SPACs be the latest means for private companies to raise capital. For startups, SPACs aren’t exactly the best route. “A new wave of investment and crowdfunding platforms are providing startups with alternative access to capital,” says Agritecture’s Director of Business Development, Jeffrey Landau.

Through Agritecture Designer, we have a partnership with several of these financing vehicles whereby our software users can access unique discounts and other benefits with these platforms.

#6: Labor Bottlenecks

According to Agritecture’s Director of Business Development, Jeffrey Landau, “the number of greenhouses and vertical farms is growing rapidly. Yet, the number of trained professionals with CEA operating experience is not keeping up with this increasing demand. Agritecture has been working with Cornell University through a National Science Foundation and Agriculture and Food Research Initiative grant to study solutions to this challenge.”

In production systems, workloads often arrive too quickly for the production process and labor to manage. Although seemingly a small problem, the inefficiencies brought about can create delays and result in higher production costs. As a result, we need a highly trained workforce and more workforce development programs for CEA growers. 

#7: Singapore, The New Hub For Urban Agriculture

As a country that imports over 90% of its fresh produce and has severe land scarcity limiting its agricultural options, Singapore was in serious need of CEA. This changed when the Government launched the Sustainable Singapore Blueprint. The objective is to develop 200ha of high-rise greenery by 2050, incentivize developers to include urban farms in their developments, integrate farming in mixed-use districts, and encourage the adoption of technologically advanced infrastructure and smart systems. Today, they have the best funding and planning in the sector.

https://citiponics.com/

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Image sourced from Citiponics

Citiponics is one of Singapore’s first hydroponic rooftop farms, located on top of a carpark, a structure that services almost every neighborhood in Singapore. Sustenir Agriculture is another company farming in Singapore, creating indoor vertical farms that can retrofit into existing buildings. Natsuki’s Garden is another example of successful CEA operations in Singapore. It’s a greenhouse in the center of the city, occupying reused space in a former schoolyard. 

Learn more about Singapore’s efforts here. Additionally, Agritecture recently wrote about several other cities that are paving the way for urban agriculture to thrive here. 

#8: Architecture

The global pandemic continues to reshape our relationship with food. Challenged by a lack of food access and the declining retail real estate market, individuals have taken a new interest in growing their own food, in the comfort of their own homes. This interest in bringing food production closer to people’s homes is empowering architects to transcend the boundaries of traditional food production to integrate urban agriculture and AgTech into cities. This innovative step will help solve food supply and food access quandaries globally. 

Agritecture Studios is working to empower architects to continue on this mission and be key stakeholders in shaping our food-secure futures.

#9: “Alternative Products” x CEA

https://www.smallhold.com/

Image sourced from Smallhold

CEA has a rap for only growing leafy greens. However, several commercial growers have scaled up recently to produce a variety of other specialty crops, including Smallhold (mushrooms), We Are The New Farmers (spirulina), Ynsect (insects), and Pure Salmon (aquaculture).

AgFunderNews groups all of these producers under the category of “novel farming” in their annual funding reports. Per their most recent report, novel farming startups raised more than $1.3B in private investment in 2020, a 16x increase from 2015.

#10: Rise Of Energy Producing Commercial Greenhouses

The high energy use in controlled environment agricultural operations has been a cause for concern from the beginning. Commercial greenhouses, in particular, are reshaping how we think of energy by producing it themselves. ClearVue Technologies installed their energy-generating photovoltaic glazing panels on the world-first clear solar glass greenhouse. TSO Greenhouses is another AgriTech company with the primary objective of maximizing greenhouse light management. There is a lot more research happening here at the university level to investigate some of the tradeoffs between upfront cost, maintenance, energy production, and crop yields. Wide-spread commercial adoption will be multiple years away - but is it 3 years or 10+ years?

There’s no doubt that there’s more to come for the CEA industry. Here at Agritecture, we are constantly combing through the latest research papers, new technology releases, and industry trends to ensure that our clients and software users are able to get creative, build a competitive advantage, but still have realistic goals. Build your first urban farm model today, or get in touch with us to see how we help organizations around the world plan smarter through custom services.

Source and Photo Courtesy of Agritecture

Brief: UAE’s Madar Farms Partners With UK Vertical Farming Startup IGS

April 22, 2021

Lauren Manning

• UK vertical farming tech provider Intelligent Growth Solutions (IGS) has partnered with Madar Farms, which cultivates a variety of indoor crops with the objective of enhancing food security in the Middle East. [Disclosure: IGS has received investment from AgFunder, which is AFN‘s parent company.]

• The Abu Dhabi-based startup aims to address local water scarcity by using IGS’ plug-and-play vertical farming platform, allowing it to grow leafy greens and herbs before expanding to other crop types.

• Madar Farms is installing five of IGS’ Growth Towers, providing a growing space of 1,500 square meters. with the capacity to produce up to 30 tons of crop each year.

Why it matters:

Much of the Middle East experiences high daytime temperatures and little rain, making it a challenging environment for crop cultivation. Indoor farming has emerged as a possible solution for increasing plant production in the region without overburdening an already severely limited water supply.

Covid-19 and shifting regional relations have put agrifoodtech top of mind for the UAE – read more here

INTELLIGENT GROWTH SOLUTIONS - BEST LOGO .png year, the UAE announced a $100 million investment in indoor farming to tackle the fact that it imports 80% of the food that residents consume. Madar Farms was among four startups included in the project alongside US vertical farm operator AeroFarms – which just announced a SPAC deal that’ll see it go public – Dubai-based fertilizer firm RNZ, and US irrigation provider Responsive Drip.

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[Webinar] How I Did It - Fireside Chat - Farmbox Greens

JOIN OUR NEXT CONVERSATION

APRIL 28, 2021 | 2-3 PM EDT

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 In 2010, Dan Albert began laying the groundwork for what would become Farmbox Greens, a Seattle-based vertical farm growing specialty produce for retail and foodservice customers.

 In 2016, Farmbox was acquired by a regional produce company and Dan went on to scale Farmbox to serve customers in the Northwest and beyond.

Join us for a fun “Fireside Chat” as Indoor Ag-Con’s Content Chair Jim Pantaleo sits down with Dan to discuss this great success story—from the farm’s early days to those first meetings with potential restaurant customers to making the connection with Charlie’s Produce.

Jim and Dan will also talk about Dan’s

newest role as Vice President of

Plant Performance with Unfold.

LEARN MORE & SAVE YOUR FREE SPOT!

Urban Crop Solutions Appoints New Global Sales Director

Urban Crop Solutions is pleased to announce the appointment of Filip Meeuws as their new Global Sales Director. Having spent over 25 years in horticulture equipment, Filip brings invaluable experience in the international sale of turnkey projects.

Establishing the feasibility of a vertical farming project that may be the first of its kind in a location is no easy feat. That is why Urban Crop Solutions has built a free feasibility calculator into its sales strategy. Filip remarks that “I truly like Urban Crop Solutions’ transparent approach, focused on hard facts and figures. There is alignment across the entire team in that we do not want to make a sale and wash our hands. We want to set our customers up for success and be with them, long after their first harvest. That is very different from traditional sales, but also fulfilling to achieve”. 

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Filip Meeuws

With a background in the export and installation of tree nurseries, automated greenhouses, and horticulture projects across Europe, the Middle East, Asia, Australia, New Zealand, and North America – Filip is well accustomed to dealing with multiple markets and their specific needs. He moreover possesses technical knowledge of a diverse range of solutions.

Onto the question of why vertical farming, Filip responds “because it’s forward-thinking and innovative – and a challenge. There is a huge difference between selling a system that is already established, and that of something so brand new. In that respect, vertical farming is a whole different ball game, and the role comes with a lot of responsibility”. Referring in particular to Urban Crop Solutions’ new ModuleX Plant Factory – their scalable modular system with a labor efficient BenchCarousel – Filip adds “this technology has the potential to totally change the game for the indoor vertical farming industry, and I’m excited to be a part of its global roll-out”. 

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For more information:
Urban Crop Solutions
Grote Heerweg 67, 8791 Beveren-Leie (Waregem), Belgium
800 Brickell Avenue 1100 Suite, Miami (FL 33131), USA
+32 56 96 03 06
info@urbancropsolutions.com
sales@urbancropsolutions.com
urbancropsolutions.com 

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23 Apr 2021

This Is What The Future of Farming Looks Like

Why Grow Plants Horizontally When You Can Grow Them Vertically?

What do most people think of when imagining a farm? Typically: Acres upon acres of crops, fed by an extensive irrigation system, with tons of pesticides and heavy machinery— in other words, an image of modern farming that’s simply dated. Today’s most technically advanced farms don’t require nearly as much water or chemicals and take up just a fraction of the footprint. How? The answer is simple: Vertical farming. Specifically, the brand new Greenery S hydroponic system by Freight Farms.

Vertical farming is nothing less than exactly what it sounds like. As opposed to spreading crops out along the ground, beds are effectively turned on their side, and grown on vertical panels. This isn’t exactly new; some of the earliest indigenous farmers would plant crops on layered terraces to achieve similar results. But the modern form of vertical farming is barely two decades old. While it’s proven hyper-efficient, the technological cost of entry has also traditionally proven to be high, requiring expensive lights, temperature and irrigation control systems, and enormous amounts of electricity — to say nothing of capital. Until now.

Enter Freight Farms, a fully-functional farm in a 40-foot container. Launched in 2011, Freight Farms’ mission is to build accessible, modular vertical farming technology that empowers anyone to grow fresh, healthy food in their local communities — wherever that may be. While industrial farms tend to rely on GMO seeds, extensive pesticides, and centralized distribution systems, Freight Farms has worked tirelessly to cram 2.5 acres worth of farmable land into a 320-square-foot shipping container that can be placed almost anywhere and scaled up (or down) to meet your individual needs. Whether you’re a small restaurant looking to grow your own vegetables, an entrepreneur looking to bring fresh food to a food desert, or even just a homestead hobbyist, the Greenery S by Freight Farms is here to make your vertical farm aspirations a reality.

Freight Farms brings a decade of experience to the Greenery S. The Greenery S uses 99% less water than traditional industrial farm systems, mainly because you don’t need to worry about losing so much water to evaporation over acres and acres of land. Furthermore, the Greenery S has built-in temperature controls that make farming viable year-round, with a minimum temperature of -40 degrees Fahrenheit and a maximum of 120 degrees Fahrenheit. And with over five hundred supported crop varieties, you can throw out your hardiness zone map and grow pretty much whatever you want, wherever you want.

Besides being far more cost-effective than purchasing, tilling, planting, irrigating, and harvesting multiple acres of land, Freight Farms also uses data to help you get the most out of your yield. The proprietary farmhand® software integration gives operators complete automation and control over their grow operations. The software connects hundreds of farmers and is constantly compiling data from them to help you better manage your own crops based on learnings from the entire Freight Farms network.

The Greenery S is available now, to everyone. Whether you’re a seasoned farmer looking to scale out your operation or you’re simply looking for an exciting new business opportunity, Freight Farms’ intelligent automation and exceptional design can transform any small space into a commercial-scale farm. Head here to learn more and reserve yours now.

Lead Image: Image by Freight Farms

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Futurism fans: This post was paid for by Freight Farms and was written by non-editorial staff. This content does not necessarily reflect the views or the endorsement of the Futurism.com editorial staff.

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