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Eeden Farms Sees Phenomenal Market Response To Pioneering Concept
Lincoln Deal II, the founder of Eeden Farms, said: “The response has been phenomenal. Most days, we are combing growing and facilitating tours because the interest level is so high among restaurants and hotels
An Eeden Farms worker plants seeds for a sustainable future. (PHOTO: EEDEN FARMS)
NASSAU, BAHAMAS — A tech-enabled containerized farming company has seen a “phenomenal” response to its offering, according to its founder, who told Eyewitness News “the demand is definitely there”.
Lincoln Deal II, the founder of Eeden Farms, said: “The response has been phenomenal. Most days, we are combing growing and facilitating tours because the interest level is so high among restaurants and hotels.
Lincoln Deal II.
“A lot of the restaurants and hotels are enamored by how fresh the produce is, that they can get it farm-to-table and it’s Bahamian. The demand is definitely there.”
Eeden Farms, located in the BRON Business Centre, Airport Industrial Park, officially launched back in February.
The company currently utilizes three repurposed shipping containers equivalent to 15 acres of farmland and offers fresh organic produce year-round. Its farm system was created by Boston-based Freight Farms, the world’s leading manufacturer of container farm technology.
Deal defended the containerized farming concept, noting that Eeden Farms is the first company to have Freight Farm’s newest model of containerized farms.
“The technology that we are utilizing has never been used here before,” said Deal.
“We are the pioneers of this technology here in The Bahamas despite what misinformation may put out there. We were the first to receive this model from Freight Farms and they own the patent on this particular technology.”
Caroline Katsiroubas, director of marketing and community relations at Freight Farms, told Eyewitness News: “Eeden Farms represents the first entry of our technology into that region and that market. It began in 2020 but the journey didn’t start there. We have been working with him (Deal) for quite a few years, having first met at a conference in 2016.
“We’re in 32 countries right now. In terms of who our client base is, we have a very diverse kind of network of people who are interested in operating the system and it has infinite applications.”
Tags Always a headline ahead, Bahamas news, ewnews, ewnews.com, Eyewitness News, Eyewitness News Online, Nassau Bahamas, www.ewnews.com
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Lead photo: Eeden Farms. (BIS PHOTO/KRISTAAN INGRAHAM)
Technology Is Key To Feeding The World - Celebrating National Ag Day On March 23: We've Come A Long Way From Plows To Agbots
High-Tech Farm Trends: A Glossary
March 18, 2021
By: Steve Foster
Extension Educator Pershing County, University of Nevada, Reno Extension
High-Tech Farm Trends: A Glossary
Over the years, I have listened to many speakers predict what the future of agriculture will look like. One of the biggest challenges for agriculture is to feed 9.6 billion people by 2050. To do so, food production must increase 70% by 2050.
One way to address these issues and increase the quality and quantity of agricultural production is to use sensing technology to make farms more intelligent and connected through so-called "precision agriculture," also known as “smart farming.”
I came across an article the other day, Five High-Tech Farming Trends, by JoAnn Alumbaugh, that shares British author and Labour Party politician Anthony Crosland’s most cited sentence: “What one generation sees as a luxury, the next sees as a necessity." History has shown this to be true – just look at the use of cell phones, televisions, hand-held devices, and computers. Then look at how living conditions and diets have changed as societies have become more affluent.
Below are technologies related to agricultural and natural manufacturing under four key areas of accelerating change, many of which are already in use today: sensors, food, automation, and engineering.
Sensors
Air & soil sensors: Enable a real-time understanding of current farm, forest or body of water conditions.
Equipment telematics: Allow mechanical devices, such as tractors, to warn mechanics that a failure is likely to occur soon.
Livestock biometrics: Collars with GPS, radio frequency identification systems (RFIDs), and biometrics identify and relay vital information about livestock in real-time. Also, farmers and ranchers are using virtual fencing to control the movement of livestock, similar to invisible fences for pets.
Crop sensors: Instead of prescribing field fertilization before application, high-resolution crop sensors inform application equipment of correct amounts needed. Drones or optical sensors, such as infrared light, identify crop health across the field.
Food
Genetically designed food: The creation of entirely new strains of food animals and plants to better address biological and physiological needs. A departure from genetically modified food, genetically designed food is engineered from the ground up.
In vitro meat: Also known as cultured meat, in vitro meat is muscle tissue grown in a lab and therefore never part of a live animal. These products have already entered the market, including the plant-based hamburgers sold by Burger King.
Automation
Agricultural robots: Also known as “agbots,” these are used to automate agricultural processes, including harvesting, fruit picking, plowing, soil maintenance, weeding, planting, and irrigation, among others.
Precision agriculture: Farming management based on observing and responding to intra-field variations. With satellite imagery and advanced sensors, farmers can optimize returns on crop resources, such as irrigation and fertilizer, while preserving natural resources at ever-larger scales. Further understanding of crop variability, geo-located weather data, and precise sensors should allow improved automated decision-making and complementary planting techniques.
Robotic farm swarms: The combination of dozens or hundreds of agbots with thousands of microscopic sensors that would monitor, predict, cultivate and extract crops from the land with practically no human intervention. Small-scale implementations are already on the horizon.
Variable-rate swath control: Building on existing geo-location technologies such as GPS, future swath control could save on seeds, minerals, fertilizer, and herbicides by reducing overlapping resources. By pre-computing the shape of the field where the resources are to be used, and by understanding the relative productivity of different areas of the field, tractors or “Agbots” can procedurally apply resources at variable rates throughout the field.
Engineering
Closed ecological systems: Ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange outside the system. Such closed ecosystems would theoretically transform waste products into oxygen, food, and water to support life-forms inhabiting the system. Such systems already exist in small scales, but existing technological limitations prevent them from scaling.
Synthetic biology: Programming biology using standardized parts in the same way computers are programmed using standard libraries today. Includes the broad redefinition and expansion of biotechnology, with the ultimate goals of being able to design, build and remediate engineered biological systems that process information, manipulate chemicals, fabricate materials and structures, produce energy, provide food, and maintain and enhance human health and our environment.
Vertical farming: A natural extension of urban agriculture, vertical farms would cultivate plant or animal life within dedicated or mixed-use skyscrapers in urban settings. Using techniques similar to glass houses, vertical farms could augment natural light using energy-efficient lighting. The advantages are numerous, including year-round crop production, protection from the weather, support for urban food autonomy, and reduced transport costs.
The information revolution ties global and local producers and consumers together in ways not possible just a decade ago. As the speed and capacity of computers continue to increase, the ability to gather and use the information on all aspects of production agriculture will explode. Some of these technological advances have already been developed and are just waiting to become financially viable before they transition from a luxury to a necessity.
Sources:
“15 Emerging Agriculture Technologies That Will Change The World,” Michell Zappa, Policy Horizons Canada.
“Five High-Tech Farming Trends,” JoAnn Alumbaugh.
By: Steve Foster
Extension Educator Pershing County, University of Nevada, Reno Extension
US: SOUTH CAROLINA - Indoor Farm Provides Fresh Lettuce To Charleston County Schools
Vertical Roots’ goal is to revolutionize the way communities grow, distribute and consume food
Indoor Farm Provides Fresh Lettuce
To Charleston County Schools
03-16-21
Vertical Roots, a hydroponic farm in Charleston, looks different compared to a traditional farm. Inside the upcycled shipping containers, individual heads of bright green and red lettuce line the walls as they complete the growing process without touching the outdoors.
Vertical Roots’ goal is to revolutionize the way communities grow, distribute and consume food.
“All the founders of the company have always been very inspired and motivated by feeding the community healthy, nutritious food,” said Jessica Diaz, the sales manager at Vertical Roots.
Students at Chicora Elementary School taste-tested Vertical Roots lettuce. PROVIDED
The school system is no exception to the organization’s mission. At the end of February, Vertical Roots began providing all of Charleston County schools with fresh lettuce from the farm.
“They’ve never been in the position where they could have a local lettuce provider,” said Diaz. “You have to be able to provide that product year-round for it to be an option for the farm-to-school program.”
In order to provide food to the schools, a farm has to meet the requirements of the Fresh Fruits and Vegetables Order Receipt System Catalog from the Department of Agriculture, which includes sufficient quantity and ability to produce a consistent supply.
Since Vertical Roots’ lettuce is grown indoors in a controlled environment, the lettuce is not impacted by environmental factors, like flooding, droughts or even seasonal changes. This means the lettuce can be produced year-round with each container growing 3,400 heads of lettuce per harvest.
Vertical Roots’ two farms in Charleston and Columbia produced approximately 3 million pounds of lettuce in 2020.
Diaz said it’s taken several years to scale up to the capacity that the farm is currently at; Vertical Roots began in 2016 and currently, it’s the largest hydroponic container farm in the country. The farm provides lettuce to over 1,200 retail locations across 11 states in the Southeast.
Vertical Roots farmers checking on the lettuce in one of the storage containers. PROVIDE
Vertical Roots initially connected with the CCSD in January 2020 during its Harvest of the Month program. Each month, CCSD’s Nutrition Services, in partnership with the Green Heart Project, provides students with nutrition education with a focus on locally grown produce.
“Based on the success of that program, we started having conversations about what would it look like to service the school district in a more meaningful way,” Diaz said.
Each school district is allocated a specific amount of money from the government that goes towards fresh fruits and vegetables based on the number of students and school sizes, according to Kerrie Hollifield, a registered dietitian with the CCSD Office of Nutrition.
She said it’s up to the district on how the funds are spent and CCSD is committed to providing fresh, local produce to students and staff so partnering with Vertical Roots became a natural fit.
The current lettuce options at the schools are the Green Butter lettuce and a cut spring mix. Each day, the schools offer an entrée salad that includes Vertical Roots lettuce, grilled chicken and fresh vegetables including tomatoes, cucumbers, and carrots. There is also a side salad option. Occasionally, the schools will offer other options like a lettuce wrap sandwich.
Hollifield said all of the lettuce in Charleston County schools is from Vertical Roots, which means over 50,000 students from 84 schools have a fresh lettuce option. “It’s been awesome to see the kids get excited about salads,” she said.
Since the initiative began, Emily Trogdon, the public relations specialist for Vertical Roots, said the farm has received positive feedback from teachers and parents who are excited that fresh, local lettuce is now available at the schools.
“Children, in general, are always geared towards sweets and candies, salty snacks, but to see them genuinely enjoying the vegetable is just a testament to the product quality itself and to the amazing work that the nutrition program has been doing in the schools,” said Trogdon.
Typically, lettuce that is consumed on a food service or retail level is grown in California or Arizona, so most lettuce travels 2,000 miles before reaching a restaurant or grocery store.
Vertical Roots’ goal is to close the “farm-to-table gap” by providing lettuce with close to zero food miles.
The lettuce growing in an indoor, controlled environment. PROVIDED
Charleston County schools have not had a local lettuce option until the partnership with Vertical Roots because lettuce cannot be grown year-round in South Carolina on a traditional, outdoor farm.
In addition to being grown locally, Vertical Roots’ lettuce is not treated with chemicals or pesticides. Trogdon said she likes to tell people the produce is 100 percent lettuce.
“The produce is incredibly clean and safe to consume,” Trogdon said. “That’s a barrier that the school system doesn’t have to jump over with our produce.”
Vertical Roots controls the entire environment as the lettuce matures from propagation to harvest. The temperature, humidity, amount of light, and water are optimized in order to provide the safest and most productive growing environment.
Vertical Roots’ system speeds up the harvest time to 35 days, versus the 45 to 60 days for traditionally grown lettuce.
The organization is committed to sustainability, specifically with water and land conservation. Indoor farming uses up to 95 percent less water compared to traditional farming due to the ability to recycle and re-filter water throughout the system.
The company is also socially sustainable when it comes to providing fair wages for employees.
While part of Vertical Roots’ mission is to revolutionize the produce industry, Diaz said their goal is not to eliminate traditional farming. She said there are many heritage crops in South Carolina that could not be grown in an indoor system, so the organization fully supports the local farming industry.
When it comes to buying locally, Diaz said ultimately it benefits the county and state. “When you’re buying from a local farm, you’re employing local people who spend that money in the local economy,” Diaz said.
Lead Photo: The lettuce growing in a controlled upcycled shipping container. PROVIDED
Are Vertical Farms Still A Thing?
Treehugger has been following this subject and has been dishing up stories on vertical farms ever since Gordon Graff first showed his Skyfarm in Toronto's Entertainment district, ready to serve tomatoes to throw at actors in the theaters and olives for the martini bars
March 19, 2021
Vertical farms are back in the news, with Sean Williams writing in Wired that vertical farms nailed tiny salads. Now they need to feed the world.
Treehugger has been following this subject and has been dishing up stories on vertical farms ever since Gordon Graff first showed his Skyfarm in Toronto's Entertainment district, ready to serve tomatoes to throw at actors in the theaters and olives for the martini bars. They were the toast of the internet after Dickson Despommier wrote his book "The Vertical Farm" – I was not convinced and wrote in my now archived review in 2010:
"Ultimately the idea only makes sense if you think of farming as a no-holds battle to the death and when you think of soil as nothing more than a mechanism to hold a plant up. Sami has written that 'there are more organisms in one teaspoon of soil than there have ever been humans on this planet.' Others are trying to build biodynamic, organic, regenerative, or ecological farming communities, where food is grown naturally and is actually good for the soil instead of destroying it. It is a much more attractive and probably better tasting future of food."
Subsequently, I was honored to be an external examiner at Gordon Graff's defense of his Master’s thesis at the University of Waterloo, where he demonstrated that vertical farms could actually work, but pretty much in an industrial barn, where he cornered the lettuce market. And that is kind of where we are today, with Aerofarms in a Newark warehouse and vertical farms operating in repurposed factories around the world, mostly growing what critics call "garnishes for the rich."
Our go-to critic of all things techno-futurist is Kris De Decker of Low-tech Magazine, who notes that garnishes for the rich don't include carbohydrates or proteins, and writes that "to feed a city, it takes grains, legumes, root crops, and oil crops." He recently had a look at vertical or indoor farming after seeing an art exhibit in Brussels called The Farm, which examined the inputs required to grow a square meter of wheat. The artists write:
"This 1 square meter experiment makes manifest the vast technical infrastructure and energy flows required to grow a staple food such as wheat in an artificial environment. In today’s economy it is profitable to artificially produce agricultural products with high water content such as leafy greens and tomatoes. However, from a systemic understanding, this apparent profitability and efficiency of the current system relies on the availability of cheap fossil energy, unaccounted-for resource extraction and pollution all over the globe, incurred in subordinate processes from mining and electronics manufacture, to international freight."
De Decker reports that it took 2,577 kWh of power and 394 liters of water to grow this little bit of wheat, and that didn't include the embodied energy from making all the equipment needed. Ultimately a loaf of bread made from this wheat would cost 345 euros ($410).
Among the purported virtues of vertical farms is that they can use specifically tuned LED lights, a controlled atmosphere, and that they take up a lot less space because the plants are stacked vertically. However, if you wanted to run them on renewable energy such as solar power, "then the savings are canceled out by the land required to install the solar panels." De Decker concludes the article:
"The problem with agriculture is not that it happens in the countryside. The problem is that it relies heavily on fossil fuels. The vertical farm is not the solution since it replaces, once again, the free and renewable energy from the sun with expensive technology that is dependent on fossil fuels (LED lamps + computers + concrete buildings + solar panels)."
Except that's not really the conclusion, it is just the start of pages and pages of comments on the article from the techno-futurist crowd, attacking De Decker for a "hit piece" and pointing out that there is nuclear power. The discussion gets picked up on Y Combinator Hacker News where they say "fusion energy is going to account for a rapidly increasing share of energy production by the end of this decade," so why not? Poor Kris De Decker responds by saying "I had no idea that vertical farms were such an emotional topic" (Treehugger could have warned him) and clarifies that "this article (and this artwork) criticizes the idea that vertical farming could supply a substantial share of a city's food supply."
Much has changed in the years since we started covering vertical farms, including the improvement of LEDs, the understanding of which spectra of light they should be tuned to, and of course, the rise in global temperatures, increasing climate weirdness, and worries about increasing deforestation for agricultural land. But as we recently noted, just cutting out red meat would cut agricultural land use in half, or that we could grow all the food we need in our yards.
Ultimately, I do not believe that the prospects for hydroponic vertical farms under artificial light (versus rooftop farms under glass or vertical greenhouses) have changed much. If anything, they have gotten worse, because not a single analysis I have seen has ever included the embodied carbon or upfront carbon emissions from actually making the aluminum and steel and lighting equipment that they are built from. We live in a world where we are using sunlight to grow our building materials to get rid of steel and aluminum; surely we can use it to grow our food.
In his recent book, "Animal, Vegetable, Junk" Mark Bittman complains about modern farming practices and their reliance on fertilizers. He writes:
"Methods of treating the soil became predictably and tragically oversimplified, as it was incorrectly determined that plants didn't need healthy soil and all that it contained – literally hundreds of elements and compounds and trillions of microbes. According to reductionist analysis, soil and plants quite simply needed nitrogen, potassium, and phosphorus."
Now the reductionists even want to replace the soil and sunlight. Perhaps instead, we should listen to Bittman.
Dr. Jonathan Foley had much to say about this a few years ago in No, Vertical Farms Won't Feed the World.
Lead photo: Indoor Wheat Farming in Brussels. Disnovation.org
UNITED KINGDOM: Sheffield Underground Farm Is 'Green And Sustainable'
Luke Ellis, from Sheffield, grows his produce at Kelham Island using organic soil and food created from waste products and without natural light
03-18-21
A Former Builder Has Transformed Unused Cellar Space
Into An Underground Farm To Produce
Fresh Herbs And Vegetables
Luke Ellis, from Sheffield, grows his produce at Kelham Island using organic soil and food created from waste products and without natural light.
He said it might sound like science fiction, but the unusual farming method has the potential to address food shortages and climate change.
The business already sells produce to restaurants and direct to customers.
Mr. Ellis first became interested in hydroponics technology six years ago but felt it was not as sustainable as it could be with most companies using high-tech, state-of-the-art equipment with a high start-up cost.
To address that he decided to create a bioponic farm, an organic form of hydroponics.
"Bioponic vertical farming may sound like something straight out of the world of science fiction, but it is a sector which holds a lot of potential for growth," he said.
The produce is grown in soil created from waste food, paper, used coffee, and ash
COPYRIGHT LUKE ELLIS
The plants are fed with an organic food packed with nutrients | COPYRIGHT LUKE ELLIS
The company uses waste materials, such as paper, card and food scraps, to create its own soil and the run-off from those systems is not wasted either.
"We make our own plant food, which means we don't ever pour anything away," said Mr Ellis.
The plants are grown under electric lights which, he added, offer advantages.
"Artificial light can be better than natural light because we can control the flavour of the food and control the growth rate."
Electric lighting helps control the growth rate of the plants. COPYRIGHT LUKE ELLIS
The produce is sold to both restaurants and individual customers. COPYRIGHT LUKE ELLIS
Mr. Ellis said he hoped the business, which opened in December 2020, would inspire others to help build a "greener, more sustainable society".
"It's super fast to grow, we use recyclable materials, it's 100% organic and it's very efficient," he added.
Follow BBC Yorkshire on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to yorkslincs.news@bbc.co.uk or send video here.
Lead photo: Luke Ellis supplies residents and restaurants with herbs and greens. COPYRIGHT LUKE ELLIS
Judge Rules In Favor of U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Certification of Organic Hydroponic Producers
The decision is a major victory for producers and consumers working together to make organics more accessible and the supply more resilient
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA March 19, 2021 – The Coalition for Sustainable Organics (CSO) is ecstatic with the ruling issued today by the U.S. District Court in San Francisco that affirms the legality of U.S. Department of Agriculture certification of organic hydroponic operations. Lee Frankel, executive director of the CSO, stated, “Our membership believes that everyone deserves organic.
The decision is a major victory for producers and consumers working together to make organics more accessible and the supply more resilient. The COVID-19 pandemic has further increased demand for fresh organic vegetables and fruits as consumers look to healthy foods to bolster their immune systems and protect their family’s health.
The court preserves historically important supplies of berries, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, mushrooms, leafy greens, herbs, sprouts and microgreens that are frequently grown using containers or other hydroponic organic systems. In addition, the lawsuit threatened the nursery industry that provides many of the seedlings used by organic growers planting both in open fields as well as greenhouses.”
The court in its written opinion stated that “USDA’s ongoing certification of hydroponic systems that comply with all applicable regulations is firmly planted in OFPA.”
Frankel was pleased that the court ruling clearly affirmed the legitimacy of hydroponic and container production systems under the Organic Foods Production Act that established the USDA National Organic Program. In addition, the ruling also confirmed that USDA was fully within its rights to reject the petition to ban the certification of operations and correctly followed procedures in its handling of the petition.
“We look forward to the organic industry coming together in the wake of this court decision to help strengthen the organic community, continue to enhance the cycling and recycling of natural resources and promote ecological balance,” continued Frankel. “We are eternally grateful to the teams at USDA and the Department of Justice in effectively defending the work of the National Organic Program.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
Lee Frankel, Executive Director
info@coalitionforsustainableorganics.org
619-587-4341
VIDEO: Utah Company To Launch All-In-One Universal Climate Control Utility System To Agribusiness
Water scarcity and land degradation is a global problem with additional difficulties in utility costs and climate control for growing food and sustaining strong and sufficient agricultural commerce. However, a new company, Selu.earth, is providing a universal solution
BY JENNIFER WEAVER, KUTV SATURDAY
MARCH 20TH 2021
SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) — Water scarcity and land degradation is a global problem with additional difficulties in utility costs and climate control for growing food and sustaining strong and sufficient agricultural commerce. However, a new company, Selu.earth, is providing a universal solution.
According to a press release, Selu is an innovative company that created patent-pending technologies to reclaim atmospheric humidity, produce renewable energy, and use CO2 to fertilize agriculture environments to regulate temperature and humidity. The result is an all-in-one climate-control utility system to enhance plant growing conditions.
“Selu Oasis” provides agribusiness customers with the ability to grow and harvest food in many more areas than previously available or viable. By vastly increasing the locations and amount of land available for growers, the Selu Oasis system allows agribusiness providers to reduce overhead costs while achieving maximum potential growth yields.
To that end, the company is seeking and intends to launch five pilot programs to support greenhouses, agriculture infrastructure suppliers, and vertical farms in the United States.
Jake Hammock, Cofounder and CEO (Photo: Selu)
Jake Hammock, Selu’s founder and CEO, said in a prepared statement:
By providing universal climate control conditions from one solution, our customers will be able to better realize lower utility costs and higher crop yields. Now is the time for producers to have a lower universal utility access solution to grow closer to consumers without the hassle of multiple climate controlling devices saturating energy costs.
By adapting and using the Selu Oasis technology, our customers will not only receive substantial utility savings but will also replenish the environment through our carbon-neutral solution.
Utah company to launch all-in-one universal climate control utility system to agribusiness (Photo: Selu){p}{/p}
Selu’s technology addresses seven of the United Nations’ Sustainability Development Goals:
Zero hunger,
Clean water and sanitation,
Affordable and clean energy,
Decent work and economic growth,
Industry innovation and infrastructure,
Sustainable cities, and
Life on land.
In all, Selu’s goal is to strengthen and enhance nature to liberate all life, while empowering agribusiness with immense commercial value, a press release stated.
Lead photo: Utah company develops technology that provides water & renewable energy for agribusinesses (Photo: Selu)
Polygreens Podcast Episode: 18 Jamey Agathen - Grow Strong Industries
Grow Strong Industries’ mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling all people to grow indoors effortlessly.
Since they founded in 2002, Grow Strong Industries has grown by leaps and bounds
Grow Strong Industries’ mission is to help humanity thrive by enabling all people to grow indoors effortlessly.
Since they founded in 2002, Grow Strong Industries has grown by leaps and bounds.
From offering a single product, now offer multiple products - including grow tents, LED lighting, hydroponics systems, and nutrients - all suitable for indoor growing. Starting from three lifelong friends in their garage, they now have an army of employees and an office to call their own.
Latest Episode
LONDON: New Vertical Farm Offers Eco-Friendly Greens Picked And Delivered Within 24 Hours
London’s first delivery service for vertically-farmed, eco-friendly greens has launched from its base in the Docklands. Vertical farming is a fast-growing trend, with the global market size that was valued at $2.23 billion in 2018, projected to reach $12.77 billion by 2026
Lettuces growing vertically at Crate to Plate, a new farm in London's docklands | CRATE TO PLATE
London’s first delivery service for vertically-farmed, eco-friendly greens has launched from its base in the Docklands. Vertical farming is a fast-growing trend, with the global market size that was valued at $2.23 billion in 2018, projected to reach $12.77 billion by 2026. Crate to Plate is a clever new vertical farming venture founded by Sebastien Sainsbury who is a firm advocate of the concept of "15-minute cities" where everyone has access to fresh produce within a 15-minute walk of home. Crate to Plate offers consumers a wide range of super fresh organic lettuces, leafy greens and herbs, all picked within 24 hours, available by home delivery or at select greengrocers throughout London.
Recycled shipping containers house Crate to Plate, a vertical farm in London | ALISTAIR CARMAN
The eco-friendly farm is located in a parking lot owned by international property company Lendlease on the Isle of Dogs (Canary Wharf) inside three recycled shipping containers kitted out with LED lighting and an automated nutrient delivery system. Each 40-foot container achieves the same production as over an acre of farmland, with the site projecting to produce around six tonnes of greens each year. Not only does the urban farm use far less land but the pesticide-free produce is grown using hydroponic technology that uses 96% less water than traditional farming.
Crate to Plate, a new vertical farming initiative |. CRATE TO PLATE
Scientists and farmers at Crate to Plate carefully control the environment inside the shipping containers. Meticulously monitored vertical farming ensures that greens can be grown locally in urban environments, all year round, using minimal water, allowing produce to be delivered to consumers within 24 hours of harvest, with zero carbon footprint in transporting from farm to customer. As a result, the produce is as fresh as possible and has the highest possible nutrient value, completely free of pesticides and toxic chemicals. Lettuce, rocket, kale, pak choi, herbs, microgreens and more are harvested and delivered twice a week. The difference in taste between Crate to Plate’s greens and those you can buy from a supermarket is astonishing and delicious. And dynamite options like wasabi rocket and basil Genovese are already proving to be customer favorites.
Basil growing vertically at Crate to Plate | JOANNE SHURVELL
Produce from Crate to Plate is available in select greengrocers like Artichoke in North London and direct to consumers via their website. A £15 mixed box includes three types of lettuce, three bags of greens, and three herbs. Crate to Plate also sells to restaurants and have recently become Chef Ollie Dabbous's exclusive distributor of greens for his Michelin-starred Mayfair restaurant Hide. Crate to Plate has an ambitious UK expansion plan. A second site will open near Elephant and Castle this month, followed by other London sites and farms in other cities (Manchester, Birmingham, etc). And further ahead will be expansion to the United States.
Seedlings before they are transferred to the walls of the farm | CRATE TO PLATE
Crate to Plate’s new site in Elephant Park is part of a £2.5 billion regeneration project headed by the local council and Lendlease. One of the key aims of the development is to create a local, community-oriented ecosystem, with businesses from the area supplying residents and other retailers in the nearby community. Crate to Plate slots nicely into this concept, aiming to sell direct to local residents and to the new food businesses that are opening. Crate to Plate’s next London site is already in the works: the International Quarter London development near the 2012 Olympic Park in Stratford, east London.
With the global covid-19 pandemic fueling home deliveries and such a high-quality product on offer, it’s no surprise that Crate to Plate’s greens have sold-out every week since launching. Founder Sebastien Sainsbury says he wants “everyone to be able to get fresh leafy greens no more than a mile away from where they live.” It appears he’s off to a good start at achieving that goal and it will be fascinating to follow the progress of this sustainable new business.
Crate to Plate London home delivery boxes range from £6 to £28 depending on the selection and quantity, with no delivery charge on orders of £20 or more.
I've been writing on travel, food, fashion and culture for the past decade or so for a variety of publications. I co-founded PayneShurvell, a contemporary art gallery in London which is now an art consultancy in London and Suffolk. My photographer partner Paul Allen supplies photos for my features that often include a music or art event and our travels have taken us to under the radar music and art festivals in France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. I am the co-author of the Citysketch series of books that includes London, Paris and New York, published by Race Point and I'm the author of Fantastic Forgeries: Paint Like Van Gogh. Follow our adventures on Twitter at @jshurvell and on Instagram at @joshurvell and @andfotography
Kimbal Musk’s Quest To Start One Million Gardens
The tech veteran and restaurateur (and brother of Elon) has been preaching the ‘real food’ gospel for years — and his newest project may be his most ambitious yet
MARCH 20, 2021
The tech veteran and restaurateur (and brother of Elon) has been preaching the ‘real food’ gospel for years — and his newest project may be his most ambitious yet
By ALEX MORRIS
Million Gardens Movement
On the day he almost died, Kimbal Musk had food on the brain. The internet startup whiz, restaurateur, and younger brother of Tesla’s Elon had just arrived in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, from a 2010 TED conference where chef Jamie Oliver had spoken about the empowerment that could come from healthy eating. This was something Musk thought about a lot — food’s untapped potential, how he might be a disruptor in the culinary space — but beyond expanding his farm-to-table ethos along with his restaurant empire, Musk hadn’t yet cracked the code. Then he went sailing down a snowy slope on an inner tube going 35 miles an hour and flipped over, snapping his neck. The left side of his body was paralyzed. Doctors told the father of three that he was lucky: Surgery might bring movement back.
“I remember telling myself, ‘It’s all going to be fine,’ and then realizing that tears were streaming down the side of my face,” he says. “I was like, ‘Yeah, OK. I don’t really know what’s going on. I’m just going to, you know, let things go.’”
Musk, 48, eventually made a full recovery, but it involved spending two months on his back, which gave him plenty of time to think about the intersections of food, tech, and philanthropy. Since then, he has launched an initiative to put “learning gardens” in public schools across America (now at 632 schools and counting); courted Generation Z into the farming profession by converting shipping containers into high-tech, data-driven, year-round farms; spoken out vociferously against unethical farming practices and vociferously for the beauty and community of slow food; and this year, on the first day of spring, is kicking off a new campaign with Modern Farmer’s Frank Giustra to create one million at-home gardens in the coming year.
Aimed at reaching low-income families, the Million Gardens Movement was inspired by the pandemic, as both a desire to feel more connected to nature and food insecurity have been at the forefront of so many people’s lives. “We were getting a lot of inquiries about gardening from people that had never gardened before,” says Giustra. “People were looking to garden for a bunch of reasons: to supplement their budget, because there was a lot of financial hardship, to help grow food for other people, or just to cure the boredom that came with the lockdown. To keep people sane, literally keep people sane, they turned to gardening.”
The program offers free garden kits that can be grown indoors or outdoors and will be distributed through schools that Musk’s non-profit, Big Green, has already partnered with. It also offers free curriculum on how to get the garden growing and fresh seeds and materials for the changing growing seasons. “I grew up in the projects when I was young, in what we now call food deserts,” says EVE, one of the many celebrities who have teamed up with the organization to encourage people to pick up a free garden or to donate one. “What I love about this is that it’s not intimidating. Anyone can do this, no matter where you come from, no matter where you live. We are all able to grow something.”
Rolling Stone recently talked with Musk about the Million Gardens Movement, why shipping containers can grow the most perfect basil, and how he is channeling his family’s trademark disruptor drive to change America’s relationship with food.
How did you first get interested in food and then how did that grow into an interest in agricultural innovation?
I’ve always loved food. I started cooking for my family when I was 12, maybe even 11.
What was the first meal you made? Do you remember?
It’s actually funny. My mother is a wonderful person, great dietitian, but because she’s a dietitian, the food we ate was brown bread and yogurt or bean soup. I mean, as a kid, it drove me crazy. So I asked my mom, “If I could cook, could we get something else?” And so I went to the butcher, and I asked them, “How do you roast a chicken?” And he said, “Put it in a really hot oven for one hour.” And I was like, “Oh, how hot is hot?” He was like, “Make it as hot as your oven goes for one hour, and if it starts to burn, then just take it out.” And he gave me the chicken, and that was it. I’ve kept that recipe forever. 450, 500 degrees, one hour. That’s a great straight-up recipe.
And then my mother insisted on a vegetable, so I decided to do French fries, which was my funny way of convincing her that I’m doing a vegetable.
It is a vegetable.
I totally screwed up the French fries. I didn’t heat up the oil ahead of time, and if you don’t do that, the potatoes actually soak in the oil so you’re eating basically a sponge of oil. I made everyone throw up. But the roast chicken was delicious. Everyone loved that. And so I was encouraged to cook more. I cooked for my friends in university. I didn’t have any money, so I figured out how to cook for 40 cents a person. It was a Kraft dinner with weiner sausages. And if someone chipped in an extra dollar, I’d get actually real cheese instead of the powdered cheese.
Anyway, I studied business, and then went down to California to start a company with my brother building maps and door-to-door directions for the internet.
I read that you and your brother were sleeping in your office and showering at the YMCA and that sort of startup lifestyle made you appreciate food.
Yeah, that’s totally right. We only had enough money for rent for either an office or an apartment, so we rented an office. I had a little minibar fridge and put one of those portable cooktops above it, and that was our kitchen. But we also ate at Jack in the Box all the time because it was the only place that was open late. Ugh, 25 years later, I can still remember the items on that menu. It was just really, really not great — a huge inspiration to go focus on real food after that.
And I just did not like the lack of social connection. It’s a work-hard-go-to-sleep-and-work-hard-again culture with not much socializing in the way that I enjoy, which is eating food, eating together over a meal, talking about ideas. I kind of was suffocating a little bit.
It’s a Soylent culture.
Yeah, exactly. They actually want food to be a pill. So I kind of needed to leave. We ended up selling [our company] for a gazillion dollars when I was 27, and I had this sort of opportunity to do whatever I wanted. So I went to New York to enroll at the French Culinary Institute.
Was culinary school as brutal as people make it out to be?
Absolutely brutal. It was Full Metal Jacket, but cooking. They just totally break you down. They make sure you don’t have any faith in your own abilities — within a few months, you’re like, “I am a completely useless fool” — and then after that, they start building you up with the skills they want you to have. It was very, very hard on the ego. I managed to graduate, but I would say 70 percent of the people that start don’t finish — and you pay upfront.
I actually graduated just a few weeks before 9/11 and woke up to the sounds of the plane hitting the building. That’s how close we were. Fourteen days later, I started volunteering to feed the firefighters. We would do 16-hour days, every day — there was never a reason not to work because the alternative is you sit at home during the nightmare after 9/11, where no one was on the streets or anything. I started peeling potatoes and eventually got to the point where I would drive the food down to Ground Zero. The firefighters would come in completely gray in their face and gray in their eyes, covered in dust. And then they’d start eating, and you’d see the color come back in their face, the light in their eyes.
And you worked as a line cook after that?
Yeah, for Hugo Matheson, at his restaurant. He was the chef of a popular restaurant in Boulder, and I just wanted to learn. I was a line cook for $10 an hour for probably 18 months. And loved it. You know, it’s a submarine culture. And you get in there and everything you do in the moment is measured in the moment. It’s very much the opposite of [building] software.
You and Hugo eventually started a restaurant [The Kitchen] that practiced the farm-to-table thing before it was even really a term. Why was it so important to you to have local suppliers and organic methods? At that point, was it mainly about flavor, or was there a bigger ethic behind it?
For sure flavor was the driver. But I think that the thing that I resonated with more was the sense of this concept of community through food. You know, when I was feeding the firefighters, it was all about community. The fishermen would come and give us their fish, so we got the best fish you can imagine. The cooks were all volunteers. We were going through this really tough time. So for me, the community through food was what I loved about it.
[At The Kitchen], we literally had a basic rule to farmers saying we’ll buy whatever you grow. We said that if you can deliver by 4 p.m., then we will get it on the menu that evening.
Oh, wow.
We would get fiddlehead ferns at 4 p.m. and be trying to think, “OK, what can we do with this?” If you turn the food around that quickly, it really does show up in the flavor.
Food that had potentially been in the ground that morning.
Not potentially. Every day was working with the harvest of that day. We had 43 different farmers coming to the back door. It was awesome.
Let’s move ahead to the part of the story, after your accident, when you’re like, “All right, I’ve gotten this new lease on life and now what am I going to do with it?” Obviously, within the food space, there are a lot of choices you could have made. So how did you decide where to go from there?
So when I came out of that hospital, I resigned as CEO of my software company. I told my wife I wanted a divorce. The spiritual message I got was: Work with a way to connect kids to real food, to get kids to understand what real food is. And real food for me is food that you trust to nourish the body, trust to nourish the farmer, trust to nourish the planet. It’s very simple. Processed food would be the opposite of that. There’s no nourishment there. The farmer gets hosed and it’s terrible for the planet. So I [looked into] farm-oriented work and cooking-skills training. Turned out giving kids knives isn’t a good idea.
What? [laughter]
Yeah. Exactly. But the thing that came back to me was the value of a school garden. I actually was pretty frustrated with school gardens. I had been a philanthropic supporter of them for a few years and found them to be expensive, hard to maintain — a passionate parent would put it in, and then their kid would graduate, and it would become this mess in the corner of the schoolyard. So we [created] learning gardens. They’ve got a beautiful Fibonacci sequence layout. They’re made in a factory, but they have a natural look and feel. These are totally food-safe and can go on any school ground. They’re [wheelchair] accessible, easy to teach in, and built into the irrigation system of the school. We go in and we do 100 of them at a time. Pre-COVID we got to almost 700 schools in Denver, Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Memphis, L.A.
How did you decide which cities to go into?
I believe this is useful anywhere, but what I found was low-income communities were the areas where you really needed it. Private schools or wealthier schools, they all have gardens — there’s not a private school out there that doesn’t embrace having a school garden. It’s actually the low-income schools that don’t have it. And that is also, coincidentally or not, where the obesity is. And so what I wanted to do is take what existed in private schools and put it into low-income schools and to do it in a way where it would be the most beautiful thing in the school. So instead of that sort of eyesore that was in the backyard, we said, “These have to be right next to the classroom, right next to the playground. You’re not allowed to build a fence around it. And if you don’t want to do that, great, we’ll just find another school. But these are the rules for learning garden.” And because we were doing 100 at a time, the districts would work with us, including maintenance and installation and curriculum and teacher training. Pre-COVID we were teaching almost 350,000 kids every school day.
And are there measurable effects?
Absolutely. Studies show that fifth grade in particular is the most effective grade. If you teach science in fifth grade to a kid, the exact same lesson in the garden versus in the classroom, you will get a 15-point increase on a 100-point score on their test scores.
And then if you teach kids 90 minutes a week in school, which is not hard to do because it’s beautiful and fun to be outside, you’ll double their intake of fruits and vegetables. Now they’re not eating a lot of fruits and vegetables, so the base is low, but you’re still doubling. The way I like to look at it is you’re really not trying to make them eat vegetables all the time — that’s too hard — you just try to change the course of their life by a few degrees; if you can do it by third, fourth, fifth grade, they’re going to be a different adult when they grow up. We’re not here to claim that what we do changes everything. We believe that the cafeteria needs to improve, that we need grocery stores to exist in these food deserts. There are many legs of the stool, but the school garden movement is a critical leg.
Are there any other technological innovations in this space that are really giving you hope?
I think there’s a lot of cool things going on around carbon capture with regenerative farming, because if you do farming correctly, you’ve become a wonderful carbon sink. And there needs to be an economy around it. So what is the value of a carbon credit? They’ve got value for that in Europe, but they haven’t valued it in America. So I think there’s a lot of government policy that needs to work there. But it’s a fascinating area to look at.
It’s interesting, the concept of bringing innovation to agriculture, which is—
So old school! Yeah, it’s fun. I do get frustrated that it doesn’t move fast enough. Then I’m reminded of how big this is and I’ve got my whole life to work on it. So I’m learning to embrace going a little slower. If you are in the software world, it’s more “move fast and break things,” and I think with food, it’s something in between.
Yeah, you don’t want to break the food chain.
No, people need to eat. Exactly.
And I know you’ve been advocating, too, for policies that help farmers shift to organic methods.
Yeah, I’ve been a supporter of that, but I really have pushed my energy now to work with young farmers of any kind. I’m not against organic at all. I love organic. But I’ve kind of said, “You know, we just need young farmers.” Real food doesn’t require it to be organic. If it’s a zucchini that happens to be grown conventionally, I’m still in favor of that.
It’s still a zucchini.
Right. That being said, organic is better. Farmers make more money on it. But it’s really about young farmers getting them into the business.
If you don’t mind, let me take one minute to just talk about [another initiative called] Square Roots. So there was a sort of a turning point in indoor farming technology around 2014, where you could really do quality food. Indoor farming’s been around forever, but the quality was really terrible. It would taste like water. No real flavor. But the technology of lighting really changed in 2014, and so by 2016 we said, “You know, there is a way here.” And what got me going was I really wanted to create this generation of young farmers. I love technology and I love food. And I think that if we bring the two together, we will get young people interested in farming again. And so we started out Square Roots as really a training entity.
And with Square Roots, you’re growing food in shipping containers? There’s no soil?
Yeah, we refine the nutrients [through the water]. We’ve gotten very, very thoughtful about what the nutrients are so that we can re-create as best we can the soil that they would get normally. The shipping containers, what’s beautiful about them is the fact that we can totally control the climate. For example, we have found that Genoa in Italy is where the best basil in the world is grown. It’s four weeks in June that are the best, and actually, 1997 was the best June. And so we re-create the climate of 1997 Genoa, Italy, in each of those containers to create the tastiest basil you can possibly imagine. Using data, we can monitor the growth and how they work. And every square meter of the air in there is exactly the same. That’s why containers are so valuable. Plants factories have to grow basil or cilantro or whatever all in the same climate. We get to grow arugula, basil, parsley, cilantro or whatever each in their own climate. For example, we’ve discovered that mint grows best in the Yucatan Peninsula — superhuman, grows like a weed, delicious. And we re-create that climate.
Square Roots Basil Farm in Brooklyn.
Square Roots
And the shipping containers, the idea for that was, “Let’s use things that we can recycle”?
Well, they are recycled. But no, it wasn’t that. It was actually climate control. They’re actually like refrigerators. We can drop that temperature in there to 40 degrees Fahrenheit for a particular growth cycle. If we have any pests, we don’t use pesticides, we have something called Mojave mode where we turn it into the Mojave Desert for four days. We bring the temperature up to 120 degrees, drop the humidity down to four percent and nothing can survive. That’s how we remove pests. No one else can do that unless you use these kind of containers. So it’s really a technology solution.
You’ve referred to food as being the new Internet. Do you still feel that way?
Oh, my god. Absolutely. It’s showing itself. Food is different to social media and so forth. It takes a long time to build up supply chains, get consistent growing. It’s not as fast-moving, but it is a much bigger business. Software is a $400 billion business. Food is an $18 trillion business. So the opportunity is much, much bigger in food than it is in software.
What are the top two or three things that really bother you about the industrial food system right now?
The processing of food. For some reason back in the ’70s, America just started to idolize processed food. And so what you have is a high-calorie hamburger, for example, that is nutritionally irrelevant. In other words, people were just not thinking about nutrition. And they used laboratories to adjust the flavor, chemicals to adjust the flavor, artificial ingredients. The result was a very high-calorie, highly processed kind of a Frankenstein burger that did please the pallet, but it made you feel awful afterwards.
The other one that is absolutely ludicrous is ethanol. Forty percent of our corn fields are growing ethanol. That’s 25 million acres of land that could be used to grow real food. People keep feeding us bullshit that we need to try and feed the world. We have so much food that we are turning 40 percent of it into ethanol. It takes a gallon of oil to make a gallon of ethanol. So it’s just a total boondoggle for the corn farmers and it’s terrible for the environment. In fact, it’s hilarious: It’s the only thing that both the oil industry and the environmentalists hate. Can you imagine there’s something that those two can agree on? And it’s ethanol.
Why the hell are we doing it?
It’s a subsidy for farmers. We do it because old people vote, and they control the farms, and they would all be devastated right now if the true demand of corn is what they had to deal with. And until a politician has the courage to make those hard decisions, we’re going to be stuck growing ethanol. Now, the good thing is we are all switching to electric cars, so ethanol is going to go away anyway. But for a while, the next five to 10 years, ethanol is going to be a part of what we do.
Let’s talk about the Million Gardens Movement. How did you get the idea that you wanted to do it?
Frank [Giustra] and his team pitched us on joining forces and doing the Million Gardens Movement. And we loved it. We thought it was a great idea. Because of Covid, we had been forced to pivot our model from the learning gardens because we couldn’t really teach people in the gardens anymore. And so we had done this trial of what we call little green gardens, which are round, beautiful sort of beige sacks, and you can come in and pick these up from a local school in your community. You can grow them on a windowsill as long as there’s some light. You can grow them indoors, which enables any city to be able to use them.
Say you get to a million gardens, are there any projections on what the environmental impact of that might be?
What we would be doing with these little green gardens is inspiring people to garden and empowering them to garden. The average garden generates about $600 to $700 worth of food a year. So it provides actual food to your family. You’re having a lower carbon footprint because you’re not shipping food around. It’s great for mental health. Think about Covid and how crazy we all are. This gets you out there. It connects you to your kids. Gardening is such a beautiful thing to do for yourself, for the community, for the environment.
It’s easy to think about what has been lost during this time, but I do like this idea of using COVID as an opportunity for change.
It’s obviously one of the worst things we’ve gone through as a society, but if we do this correctly, if we take this opportunity well, it could be one of the best things that’s happened to society — in a few years, we’ll look back and say, “OK, this was a good way to restart and focus more on climate change, focus more on gardening with your family, being connected to each other.” I think it has a lot of potential, as long as we take that potential and we leverage it. So the Million Gardens Movement is a part of that.
Hydroponics Startup Babylon Micro-Farms Raises $3m Seed Capital For US Expansion
Babylon will use the capital to fund its nationwide expansion. It offers a cloud-based, plug-and-play hydroponics system for indoor farming operations
March 18, 2021
US indoor agriculture startup Babylon Micro-Farms has closed a $3 million seed round led by previous investors including the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT).
New investors to take part in the fundraising included Hull Street Capital, VentureSouth, and CAV Angels – the University of Virginia‘s alumni angel investor group.
Babylon will use the capital to fund its nationwide expansion. It offers a cloud-based, plug-and-play hydroponics system for indoor farming operations.
The Richmond, Virginia-based startup claims that its 15 square-foot miniature farm can grow as much produce as 2,000 square-feet of outdoor cropland.
In January 2020, Babylon raised its initial seed investment of $2.3 million led by CIT’s early-stage investment group CIT GAP Funds and startup incubator Plug and Play Ventures.
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“2021 is on track to be a year of accelerating growth and major market penetration through national distribution as we continue to focus on deploying our indoor farming service,” Babylon CEO Alexander Olesen said in a statement.
“We’re enabling businesses and communities to grow their own fresh produce and demonstrating the benefits of our fleet of remotely managed vertical farms.”
Indoor farming startups have been bagging fundings left, right, and center of late. Babylon Micro-Farms is just one of the latest outfits to capture investors’ attention, along with the likes of New York’s Oishii, Germany’s Infarm, and recently SPACced Kentuckian player AppHarvest.
What makes Babylon unique — in its own estimation — is its “remotely managed,” easy-to-use growing platform. The technology could give aspiring or existing indoor growers a quick way to get into the game instead of building a new growing system from scratch, or having to learn the ropes through old-school, analog means, the startup suggests.
Babylon Micro-Farms’ machinery can squeeze into relatively smaller spaces compared to many other indoor ag solutions on the market. This may give users a foothold over larger operations by allowing them to enter the fray more quickly while bigger players are still shopping for real estate.
Through a two-year lease contract, Babylon users can dabble in the indoor farming craze without having to commit to a more long-term operation. This can also give flexibility when it comes to testing new markets.
“The Covid-19 pandemic highlighted a national food-supply system issue, putting the spotlight on a critical need for more locally-grown produce options. Babylon Micro-Farms has found their focus, and it is a reflection of their leadership team’s commitment to building a category-defining customer experience while making a positive impact,” Alex Euler, investment director at CIT GAP Funds, said in a statement.
“During a time when many people are experiencing isolation, being able to watch your own garden grow can improve one’s quality of life. The company’s innovative approach to developing a technology system that enables its own staff to remotely control the light, water, and nutrients for its farming systems is absolutely making them a leader in this space.
VIDEO: Farming In A Shipping Container
Transforming Unused Spaces Into Vertical Farms
Transforming Unused Spaces Into Vertical Farms
This New Greenhouse Is Expected To Break New Ground
The 1.5-acre facility will rely on 99% sunlight and recycled water of up to 7,500 gallons a month and produce about 500 tons of leafy greens per year
The 1.5-acre facility will rely on 99% sunlight and recycled water of up to 7,500 gallons a
month and produce about 500 tons of leafy greens per year.
Outlook Web Bureau
March 20, 2021
Vertical farming is fast gaining popularity since growers obtain increased yield in a smaller area of land. In India, many farms in and near urban areas have since taken to this practice of growing crops in vertically stacked layers.
Another benefit is that under a controlled environment plant growth is set to optimize. Soilless farming techniques also add to the advantages.
Vertical farming can be done inside buildings, shipping containers, and even tunnels. That involves artificial lighting.
Now, a new 1.5-acre vertical farming greenhouse, situated in an opportunity zone in Cleburne, Texas, will reportedly produce approximately 500 tons of leafy greens per year for its local offtake partners.
Eden Green Technology, a next-generation vertical farming company, announced this week that it has broken ground on the new facility, next to its R&D greenhouse in the Dallas-Ft Worth Metroplex. Existing investment partners are investing $12 million into Eden Green Technology as part of the development deal.
The company's plans include partnering with firms and organisations not only in Texas, but also in other domestic and international locations.
The facility will rely on 99% sunlight, rather than 100% LED lighting, and recycled water of up to 7,500 gallons a month. Combined with annual water consumption equal to only two households, the facility will produce 11 to 13 harvests per year, compared to 1-2 harvests yielded by traditional farming methods.
Eden Green Technology claimed that this facility will use 99% less land, and 98% less water, than an equivalent yield on a soil-based farm.
In This Article: AgricultureAgri OutlookOutlook KrishiTechnology
Leo Marcelis At Al Jazeera On Vertical Farming
Vertical farming has the potential to meet this demand: by cultivating in multilayer systems that literally go up into the air, sustainable, efficient, and fully controlled cultivation can be carried out in cities without taking up too much space
18-03-2021 | Wageningen University & Research
Source and Photo Courtesy of Wageningen University & Research
QATAR- The world population and the number of people living in cities are growing. At the same time, the demand for healthy, fresh and locally produced food is increasing. Vertical farming has the potential to meet this demand: by cultivating in multilayer systems that literally go up into the air, sustainable, efficient, and fully controlled cultivation can be carried out in cities without taking up too much space. Professor Leo Marcelis explains to Al Jazeera the potential of vertical farming and the hurdles that still need to be taken.
Watch the interview: Leo Marcelis at Al Jazeera on vertical farming
CANADA: Vertical Urban Farm 'Ortaliza' Opens Kingsville Storefront
A Kingsville farm is celebrating its grand opening Friday, but it’s not your typical, sprawling set-up. Ortaliza is what’s called an urban vertical farm, growing microgreens right in the store — so you can watch your crop before it lands on your plate
An urban farm has popped up in a Kingsville storefront where fresh microgreens are grown. CTV Windsor's Rich Garton with details.
WINDSOR, ONT. -- A Kingsville farm is celebrating its grand opening Friday, but it’s not your typical, sprawling set-up.
Ortaliza is what’s called an urban vertical farm, growing microgreens right in the store — so you can watch your crop before it lands on your plate.
The new venture is the brainchild of Carina Biacchi and Alvaro Fernandes, who moved from Brazil to Canada five years ago, bringing with them a passion for entrepreneurship and farming.
“We’ve been dreaming and researching not only dreaming but panning about this idea for years, doing research, traveling,” says Biacchi, who is the founder and CEO of the company.
On Friday, Mar. 19, that dream becomes reality — with the launch of Ortaliza, which is Spanish for vegetable garden.
“We fell in love with microgreens because they are such an easy way to eat healthy food,” Biacchi says. “They’re convenient, packed with nutrients, and you can use them, not only in a salad but sometimes you want to enjoy yourself a little bit.”
The vertical urban farm has a main street location in Kingsville — where the fresh microgreens are grown right behind the sore counter.
“People are hearing about vertical farming, but they can’t see it. They are not being there. So we wanted to allow them to come and see what it is,” says Biacchi. “It is still a farm, yes, we’re more tech, more modern, but we wanted to give that feeling to people.”
Vertical Urban Farming — takes traditional farming techniques — but creates density in space.
Ortaliza’s store is only 850 square feet, but rows of stacked shelves utilize six times the space.
“For vertical farming, the sky’s the limit, literally, you can grow as tall as you want,” says Alvaro Fernandes, the company’s chief operating officer.
Much like a greenhouse, Fernandes says growing conditions are optimal — regardless of what’s happening outside.
“I fell in love with indoor agriculture because we have full control of what we do. We can control the lights, the wind, humidity, temperature, everything,” he says.
According to WE-Tech Alliance, which is assisting the business in the start-up process — urban vertical farming provides food security and sustainability, adding significant value to the food system.
Each shelf of microgreens at Ortaliza can feed 20 families, according to Fernandes.
The new business owners also believe the most important aspect of their operation is freshness — so they will only deliver and cater to people in Windsor-Essex.
“We want to be close to our consumers, we want to sell directly to our consumers, we are as urban as we can be,” says Biacchi.
Hand-watered and lit up 14 hours a day, the 25 varieties of micro-greens take 10 days to grow in Canadian Pete-moss and are harvested daily for in-store purchases and deliveries.
The couple hopes this Kingsville store is their first of many across the country but Fernandes promises they will stay true to the business model of by local, for local.
“We don’t want to lose our identity, our proximity to customers.”
You can learn more about the new store here.
Indoor Agtech: An Evolving Landscape of 1,300+ Startups
Our Indoor AgTech Landscape 2021 provides a snapshot of the technology and innovation ecosystem of the indoor food production value chain
March 17, 2021
Editor’s note: Chris Taylor is a senior consultant on The Mixing Bowl team and has spent more than 20 years on global IT strategy and development innovation in manufacturing, design, and healthcare, focussing most recently on indoor agtech.
Michael Rose is a partner at The Mixing Bowl and Better Food Ventures where he brings more than 25 years immersed in new venture creation and innovation as an operating executive and investor across the internet, mobile, restaurant, food tech and agtech sectors.
The Mixing Bowl released its first Indoor AgTech Landscape in September 2019. This is their first update, which you can download here, and their accompanying commentary.
Since the initial release of our Indoor AgTech Landscape in 2019, the compelling benefits of growing food in a controlled indoor environment have continued to garner tremendous attention and investment.
One of the intriguing aspects of indoor agriculture is that it is a microcosm of our food system. Whether within a greenhouse or a sunless (vertical farm) environment, this method of farming spans production to consumption, with many indoor operators marketing their produce to consumers as branded products. As we explore below, the indoor ag value chain reflects a number of the challenges and opportunities confronting our entire food system today: supply chain, safety, sustainability, and labor. Of course, the Covid-19 pandemic rippled through and impacted each aspect of that system, at times magnifying the challenges, and at others, accelerating change and growth.
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Our Indoor AgTech Landscape 2021 provides a snapshot of the technology and innovation ecosystem of the indoor food production value chain. The landscape spans component technology companies and providers of complete growing systems to actual tech-forward indoor farm operators. As before, the landscape is not meant to be exhaustive. While we track more than 1,300 companies in the sector, this landscape represents a subset and serves to highlight innovative players utilizing digital and information technology to enhance and optimize indoor food production at scale.
Supply chain & safety: Where does my food come from?
The pandemic highlighted the shortcomings of the existing supply chain and heightened consumer desires to know where their food comes from, how safely it was processed and packaged, and how far it has travelled to reach them. A key aspect of indoor farming is its built-in potential to respond to these and other challenges of the current food system.
Indoor farmers can locate their operations near distribution centers and consumers, reduce food miles and touch points, potentially deliver consistently fresher produce and reduce food waste, and claim the coveted “local” distinction. The decentralized system can also add resiliency to supply chains overly dependent on exclusive sources and imports.
Growing local has many forms. Greenhouse growers tend to locate their farms outside the metropolitan area while sunless growers may operate in urban centers, such as Sustenir Agriculture in Singapore and Growing Underground in London. Growers like Square Roots co-locate their indoor farms with their partner’s regional distribution centers, and Babylon deploys its micro-farms solution on site at healthcare and senior living facilities and universities. Recently, Infarm announced it was expanding beyond its growing-in-a-grocery store model, to include decentralized deployments of high-capacity “Growing Centers” across a number of cities. Additionally, the value of “growing local” might take on a much larger meaning if your country imports most of its produce from other countries; a number of the Gulf region countries have announced major indoor growing initiatives and projects with AeroFarms, Pure Harvest, and &ever to address the region’s food dependence on other countries.
Organic produce sales jumped to double digit growth in 2020 as consumers are increasingly mindful of the healthiness of their food. The additional safety concerns due to the pandemic only accelerated this trend. While not typically organic, crops produced in the protection of indoor farms are isolated from external sources of contamination and are often grown with few or no pesticides. Human touch points are reduced as supply chains shorten and production facilities become highly automated. Through the CEA Food Safety Coalition, the industry has recently taken steps to establish production standards with a goal to keep consumers safe from foodborne illness.
Indoor farmers market their products as local, fresh, consistent and clean. This story is resonating with consumers as the growers seem to be selling everything they can produce, with many reporting significant sales growth in 2020. The direct connection to consumer concerns is also a key part of their ability to sell their branded products at a premium, which has been critical to financial viability for some growers. This connection can also enable them to collapse the supply chain further, at least at smaller scales, through direct sales and creative business models, e.g., sunless grower Willo allows subscribers to have their own “personal vertical farm plot” and watch their plants grow online.
Sustainability: Is my food part of the problem or part of the solution?
Farming, as with most industries, has been under increasing pressure to operate more sustainably, and indoor growers, with their efficient use of resources, have rightfully incorporated sustainability prominently into their narratives.
We are well aware of the impacts of climate change, including greater variability in weather patterns and growing seasons. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that over the coming decades climate change will cause a decrease in global crop production through traditional farming practices, causing greater food insecurity. Indoor growing, which provides protection from the elements, consistent high yields per land area, and the ability to produce food year-round in diverse locations, including those unsuitable for traditional agriculture, can help mitigate this trend.
Water scarcity is projected to increase globally, presenting a national security issue and serious quality of life concerns. According to the World Bank, 70% of the global freshwater is used for agriculture. Indoor agriculture’s efficient use of water decreases use by more than 90% for the current crops under production. It is also common practice for greenhouses to capture rainwater and reuse drainage as does Agro Care, the Netherlands’ largest greenhouse tomato grower.
On the flip side, energy use, particularly in sunless facilities, is indoor growing’s sustainability challenge. Efficiency will continue to improve, but as recent analysis on indoor soilless farming from The Markets Institute at WWF indicated, there is an industry-wide opportunity to integrate alternative energy sources. Growers recognize this opportunity to decrease impact and improve bottom-line and are already utilizing alternative approaches such as cogeneration, geothermal sources, and waste heat networks. H2Orto tomatoes are grown in greenhouses heated with biogas generated hot water. Gotham Greens’ produce is grown in 100% renewable electricity-powered greenhouses, and Denmark’s Nordic Harvest will be running Europe’s largest indoor farm solely on wind power.
Labor: We’re still hiring!
There are labor challenges and opportunities throughout the food system value chain, and this couldn’t be more acute than on the farm. Farm operators—both in-field and indoor—find it difficult to attract labor for the physically demanding work. Even before the pandemic, the hardening of borders in Europe and the US created a shortage of farmworkers for both field and greenhouse production. In addition, grower and farm manager-level expertise is in short supply, exacerbated by an aging workforce and the rapid addition of new indoor facilities. While operators would like to see more trained candidates coming from university programs, they are also looking to technology and automation to relieve their labor challenges.
Automation of seedling production and post-harvest activities is already well established for most crops in indoor farming. In addition, the short growth cycle and contained habit of leafy greens lends them to mechanization. For example, the fully automated seed-through-harvest leafy green systems from Green Automation and Viscon have been deployed in major greenhouse operations like Pure Green Farms and Mucci. On the sunless side, Urban Crop Solutions has uniquely implemented automation in shipping containers, and Finland’s NetLed has developed a fully automated complete growing system. Note that many of the larger-scale sunless growers have developed their own technology stacks and have designed labor-saving automation into their systems. For example, Fifth Season has robotics deployed throughout the entire production process.
Despite numerous initiatives, the challenging daily crop care tasks and harvesting for certain crops (tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and berries) have not yet been automated at scale. However, planned, near-term commercial deployments of de-leafing and harvesting robots offer the promise of significantly altering labor challenges. Software technologies, like those from Nitea and Hortikey address labor management, crop registration, yield prediction, and workflow/process management for the indoor sector and strive to improve operational efficiencies for a smaller workforce.
Technologies that provide, monitor, and control climate, light, water, and nutrients are already deployed in today’s sophisticated indoor growing facilities and are fundamental to maintaining optimal conditions in these complex environments. They also form the base for the next innovation layer, i.e., crop optimization and even autonomous control of the growing environment based on imaging and sensor platforms (like from Ecoation, iUNU, and 30MHz), data analysis, machine learning, digital twins and artificial intelligence. Recent events like the Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge have successfully explored the potential of AI to “drive horticultural productivity while reducing resource use and management complexity”. Emerging commercialized autonomous growing innovations, such as the Blue Radix Crop Controller and Priva’s Plantonomy, promise to extend and enhance the reach of available grower expertise, particularly in large and multi-site operations.
Where do we go from here?
Since we created our initial Indoor AgTech Landscape, there has been positive change and reason to be optimistic about the future. But, as with any evolving market and sector of innovation, it can be a bumpy ride. Some believe CEA is not the answer to our food problems because not everything can be economically grown indoors today. We see indoor ag as just one of the approaches that can help fix our food system and it should be applied when it makes sense. For example, tomatoes sold through retail are already more than likely grown in a greenhouse. Expect more crops to be grown indoors more economically with further advancements.
One aspect of our previous landscape was to increase awareness that, despite the fervor surrounding novel sunless farming, greenhouse growing was already well-established. Dutch greenhouse growers have demonstrated the viability of indoor growing with 50-plus years of experience and more acres “under glass than the size of Manhattan.” The recent public offering and $3 billion market cap of Kentucky-based greenhouse grower AppHarvest also clearly raised awareness! Other high-profile and expanding greenhouse growers, including BrightFarms and Gotham Greens, have also attracted large investments.
The question is often asked, “which is the better growing approach, sunless or greenhouse?”. There is no proverbial “silver bullet” for indoor farming. The answer is dictated by location and the problem you are trying to solve. A solution for the urban centers of Singapore, Hong Kong and Mumbai might not be the same as one deployed on the outskirts of Chicago.
Regardless of approach, starting any type of sizable tech-enabled indoor farm is capital intensive. A recent analysis from Agritecture indicates that it can range from $5 to $11 million dollars to build out a three-acre automated farm. Some of the huge, advanced greenhouse projects being built today can exceed $100 million. Given the capital requirements for these indoor farms, some question the opportunity for venture-level returns in the sector and suggest that it is better suited to investors in real assets. Still, more than $600 million was raised by the top 10 financings in 2020 as existing players vie for leadership and expand to underserved locales while a seemingly endless stream of new companies continue to enter the market.
Looking forward, indoor farming needs to address its energy and labor challenges. In particular, the sunless approach has work to do to bring its operating costs in line and achieve widespread profitability. Additionally, to further accelerate growth and the adoption of new technologies in both greenhouse and sunless environments, the sector needs to implement the sharing of data between systems. Waybeyond is one of the companies promoting open systems and APIs to achieve this goal.
As we stated in the beginning of this piece, the indoor ag value chain reflects some of the challenges and opportunities confronting our entire food system today: supply chain, safety, sustainability, and labor. Indoor agriculture has tremendous opportunity. While it is still early for this market sector overall, it can bring more precision and agility to where and how food is grown and distributed.
"Providing A Multi-Faceted Solution With The Potential To CEA Farmers And The Industry"
Simon Deacon, CEO of Light Science Technologies said: “The opening of the laboratory demonstrates our full commitment to the ‘art’ of plant science
Light Science Technologies Opens Its New In-House Laboratory
Light Science Technologies (LST), has opened its new, state-of-the-art in-house laboratory as it aims to help growers create the most optimal plant recipe.
Simon Deacon, CEO of Light Science Technologies said: “The opening of the laboratory demonstrates our full commitment to the ‘art’ of plant science. It will help accelerate the development of horticulture lighting and environmental technologies over the next few years. And, beyond as we seek out more sustainable, energy-efficient ways of farming."
The purpose-built testing facility at LST’s Derby site will mimic, via a test and replicate process, a grower’s closed indoor environment and test new crops in its controlled environment chambers managing temperature, humidity, and CO2. By running up to 12 concurrent trials in 6 chambers, a team including in-house scientists and top-level industry experts will harness historical and real-time data to help farmers and growers create the right recipe.
Simon continued: “Our testing facility provides a multi-faceted solution with the potential to controlled environment agriculture (CEA) farmers and the industry at large. Not just recipe development for higher density and profit margin crops, but a pathway to industry-leading scientists in different plant species. And, equally importantly, an opportunity to prototype new crops before investment.”
Utilizing its Conviron A2000 reach-in grow chambers along with its integrated, fully updateable and bespoke lighting solutions, LST’s lab offers multiple benefits to growers while helping them achieve the optimal yield, including lowering CAPEX and OPEX costs.
One of LST's scientists outside Conviron growth chambers in lab
By harnessing advanced lighting technology, LST’s lighting systems can identify the right spectral waveforms and PPFD levels required for any species of plant or microbiology and can validate the performance of a grower’s existing set-up or compare new solutions independently, using its own Quantum PAR Photo-Goniometer testing facility. Built inside a 22-meter bespoke light tunnel using its 2021 SSL Spectral Photo Goniometer, it can accurately measure PAR (400nm-700nm) Quantum PAR (250nm-1040nm) and CIE.*
The lab’s capabilities also mean it can measure plant health thanks to the LIcor LI-6800, the only photosynthesis system capable of measuring combined gas exchange and fluorescence from leaves and aquatic samples in just a few seconds with the highest level of accuracy and detail. It also instantly details temperature and humidity.
Other key elements include advanced water and environmental testing, used to help growers identify the macronutrients in their plants and check for all types of food safety, quality and chemical contamination. And, to ensure only plant performance data is collected, GrowFoam, a natural biodegradable growing medium that has no effect on the plant, will be used in the chambers.
One of the most interesting aspects of the lab is the focus on developing an AI capable of monitoring and proactively controlling environmental parameters and plant performance. This is done by leveraging LST’s partnership with a number of universities and its work using an in-house Big Data resource. Using the latest stacked GPGPU technology, data can be brought to life to increase plant performance, taste control and quality.
For more information:
Light Science Tech
Claire Brown, PR Consultant
claire.brown@lightsciencetech.com
www.lightsciencetech.com
Publication date: Wed 17 Mar 2021
Responding To Local - And Sustainable Food Sourcing
“Running a farm is quite a complex learning process, therefore we’ve removed the entry barrier from a learning curve point of view to form the actual system,” Alexander Olesen, CEO and co-founder of Babylon Micro-Farms
Babylon Micro-Farms Is Dialing In Recipes,
Support Software For Specific Crop Types,
And Even For Specific Markets
“Running a farm is quite a complex learning process, therefore we’ve removed the entry barrier from a learning curve point of view to form the actual system,” Alexander Olesen, CEO and co-founder of Babylon Micro-Farms.
Babylon has set up a remote management platform connected to sensors and cameras to run the majority of vertical farms through the cloud. The company set out to develop technology that would automate the complex aspects of indoor farming and in doing so make this method of crop production accessible to anyone.
Alexander Oleson
Lifting barriers
“For us, the challenge is to aggregate the data from all our farms so we can continuously learn to do things better. We’ve automated all things around shipping, supply, and all of the other factors that come along. Our advantage is that we really start to dial in recipes, support software for specific crop types, and even for specific markets. That becomes quite powerful and it drives product development. It’s a really interesting software, transferrable to all sorts of hardware, and represents a big step forward for small-scale vertical farms. It reimagines the user experience and opens up the market for anyone who wants to start sustainable plant growing,” says Alexander.
Local and sustainable sourcing
Babylon Micro-Farms has seen an expansion of the local food movement. Meaning accelerating trends towards more sustainable and local produce sourcing. “The time is now, as there has never been such a great focus on sustainable- and local food sourcing. Also, on the fact that all micro-farms can labor superior products on-site, giving all the benefits of food production. Therefore, it has been really exciting for us, and certainly for the industry as a whole,” Alexander notes.
The last year has been really exciting for the company as a lot of their technology has been out in the field. As Babylon’s main takeaway is to remotely manage farms, they literally had to do so. Once the lockdown was in place, in the US, they were tested in a good way. Alexander adds, “It has proven we can support a network of farms without ever setting foot on-site. That was a huge prove point for us.”
There are growing pains within any business, says Alexander, in terms of scaling, distribution, and support. “Support for a network of small micro-farms is something no one has even done successfully before. We provide automation and high-service without the need for boots on the ground. It’s a phenomenal leap forward for the industry I’d say, but it’s not without its quirks and we’re still learning a lot and overcoming these hurdles.”
'Removing the green thumb'
The company provides a high level of support that is designed to remove the green thumb from growing, according to Alexander. “We’re opening the market of vertical farming to institutional service operators, businesses, communities, etc. In this way, customers are supplying their own products that are harder to source and to be rather independent. Next to that there’s a huge appeal to have stuff on-site as it’s great to explain what kind of business you are and the experience it gives is certainly exciting. I think we’re taking a rather different approach to the industry than others. It looks like it’s working and that’s exciting for us,” Alexander notes. Babylon Micro-Farms is also currently targeting the expansion of its micro-farms distribution throughout North-America.
For more information:
Alexander Olesen, CEO and Co-founder
Babylon Micro-Farms
3409 Carlton St, Richmond
VA 23230, United States
alexander@babylonmicrofarms.com
www.babylonmicrofarms.com
Publication date: Thu 18 Mar 2021
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
US: MAINE - Vertical Harvest Wants To Grow
The developers of the greenhouse/parking/residential project, who plan to break ground in about six months, want to expand on their original plans for downtown Westbrook
The developers of the greenhouse/parking/residential project, who plan to break ground in about six months, want to expand on their original plans for downtown Westbrook.
BY CHANCE VILES
AMERICAN JOURNAL
A new rendering showing what the expanded Vertical Harvest would look like if approved. Contributed / Westbrook Planning Department
Developers of the Vertical Harvest project want to add another 6,000-7,000 square feet of retail space and 10 more apartments, for a total of 60, to the building they plan for downtown Westbrook.
The City Council received an update on the Vertical Harvest expansion plans Monday along with other updates on ongoing projects throughout the city, including repairs to the Cornelia Warren outdoor pool, which have hit a roadblock.
Work is expect to begin in late summer or early fall on the $60 million Vertical Harvest building at Mechanic and Main streets, but the city Planning Board must review the plan again and approve the requested expansion.
Saunders said at the same time developers TDB LLC and Vertical Harvest are looking to expand the project: They are looking to “reduce their footprint,” so the building takes up less space and allows for additional sidewalks by the parking area.
The four-story project will include a city-owned free parking garage, a “vertical harvest” indoor farm that will employ upwards of 55 people, first-floor retail space, and if approved, 60 apartments on the top of the structure.
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Read more about the Vertical Harvest
“The agreements are being finalized between the parties, but first the farm will open, then the retail and parking, with the residential last,” Saunders said.
Saunders has previously said the project may take upwards of two years to finish.
The city will pay $15 million for the parking garage through an agreement using tax revenue from the project, City Economic Development Director Dan Stevenson said, meaning there will be no direct impact on taxpayers. Developers will take on $40 million of the cost and pay for maintenance of the garage, which will continue to be a municipal lot.
