How To Build A Successful Vertical Farm

View fullsize

How To Build A Successful Vertical Farm

The interest in growing plants indoors in vertical farms keeps increasing. But many investors who thought they could simply buy an empty warehouse, plug in some grow lights and turn out perfect heads of lettuce to make money have been disappointed. Here are a few key lessons learned from city farming expert Roel Janssen on successful vertical farm projects.

Part 1: Getting the climate, lighting and spacing right

The most crucial part when starting an indoor farm is to have a grower that understands how to grow plants indoors. New (sensor) technologies and the internet of things offer great opportunities for indoor farming, but if you don’t have a grower you will not get out the most of your operation. You can have great packaging and attractive marketing tools, but the product itself will determine your success. That being said; these are some of the most important factors that can determine the success or failure of your vertical farm investment:

View fullsize

• Crop selection
• Lighting selection and design-in
• Airflow design and climate control
• Spacing strategies for plants
• Crop logistics and automation
• Irrigation and nutrition
• Data, sensors, control and software
• Substrate choice
• Target audience and sales channel

When we look at how to get the highest return on an investment for a vertical farm, we focus a lot of attention on creating a facility that allows you to produce the highest yield of crops (measured in grams) using the most ideal amount of light (measured in moles or mol). That’s because your LED grow lights are amongst the highest expenses in terms of the city farming infrastructure and operation. Keeping that in mind, here are a few of our most valuable tips for increasing your grams per mol. The information is gathered from research done at the Philips GrowWise Center as well as commercial projects ranging from US, Japan to Europe.

Step 1: Get the climate right

One aspect that many new vertical farm growers overlook when they are creating an indoor farming environment is maintaining the best climate conditions. If we assume 50% of the electrical input power is converted into light, the remaining 50% is converted directly into heat. A proper airflow can remove this direct heat, but also the light that will be absorbed by the crop will indirectly be converted into heat. Typically the crop evaporates water into the air to get rid of this heat, therefore this process will result in a higher humidity of the air. To keep increasing humidity and temperature under control, you must start with a good ventilation and air handling system in your vertical farm. Not installing a proper climate control and air handling system will decrease your yields, resulting in additional costs and hassle after installation to fix inefficiencies. 

Step 2: Get the lighting right

Once you have a good climate, how can you get the highest yields from it? We have done hundreds of research projects on growing plants indoor focusing on yield and the most optimal light intensity for a certain crop or variety. Yield however is not always the most crucial and single most important part. Let’s take red oak lettuce as an example. When this lettuce is grown outside in a field, it turns red because it is stressed by the sun or large temperature changes and it typically yields less compared to its’ green version. When the same variety is grown indoors, it remains mostly green because there is no UV light, but it does develop fast and shows comparable or sometimes even better growth than a green version. At Philips Lighting’s GrowWise Center, we have four full-time plant specialists who develop so-called light and growth recipes for specific crops. Based on their research, we developed a coloration light recipe for red oak lettuce that turns a mostly green head of red oak lettuce into a dark red lettuce in just three days. Growers can grow a large head of lettuce in their regular growth cycle, apply this light recipe as a pre-harvest treatment, and get a great quality crop with much higher yields and the proper appearance. Together with breeding companies we screen and help them develop varieties that could support growers to help them differentiate even more based on taste, quality or color. 

View fullsize

Step 3: Get the spacing right

The spacing strategy you use when growing plants indoors is another way to improve your grams/ mol. You want to space plants so that each one gets an optimal amount of light and you are lighting the plants instead of the shelves they are on. Knowing the ideal spacing strategy can avoid you having to invest in spacing robots because you can check the extra yield spacing plants delivers compared to the investment needed for automation of this strategy. For our vertical farm projects, we can contribute to your business calculations with advice on the best spacing and light recipe to use for each crop. Based on that information you can decide if manual spacing or spacing robots are the most cost-efficient choice for your facility. Next to that our cooperation with the leading breeders in the industry will enable you to pick the right variety for your crop specific requirements.

In the next blog, we will discuss more crucial starting points to boost your chance of success in a vertical farm.

Roel Janssen is the Global Director City Farming at Philips Lighting. With a background in business administration, Roel has 8 years of experience in vertical farming. Roel has led the implementation of two Philips City Farming facilities – GrowWise and BrightBox and currently oversees all activities in the City Farming group. Next to his work at Philips Lighting, Roel is a guest lecturer for courses on vertical farms and growing without daylight at universities and other organizations. 

Plenty Farms: Our Mission Explained And Explored

Plenty Farms: Our Mission Explained And Explored

by Plenty | Nov 30, 2017 | Blog

View fullsize

Plenty is a new kind of farm for a new kind of world. We’re an indoor farming company comprised of passionate people determined to solve systemic problems in our food system.

At Plenty, we’re on a mission to transform produce from a bland commodity to a delicious movement.

But what does that mean? And why are we so deeply invested in bringing this mission to life in local communities around the world?

From a bland commodity

Plenty’s mission began in 2014 when its founders conducted an in-depth study of industrial agriculture. Their conclusion: While traditional agriculture has the ability to feed lots of people, producing large volumes of food cheaply comes at quite a cost.

Most produce is involved in a long, inefficient distribution dance. This journey results in waste, countless miles of transportation, and has changed the very makeup of the food we eat.

Crops are bred, grown, and packaged to increase the shelf life – not to create great flavor and better nutrition. Think: tasteless iceberg lettuce, watery beefsteak tomatoes, or mealy apples.

Agriculture has developed to solve for year-round produce availability, but it’s come at the expense of loss in variety, nutritional value, and perhaps most importantly, taste and freshness.

Plenty’s founders decided to envision a different food system, one optimized for unparalleled taste and experience rather than anything else. And that’s what we’re bringing to life in every farm we build.

To a delicious movement

We know that produce can be so much more than a bland commodity, and that’s why we are committed to expanding the availability of quality, delicious produce.

We also know that solving for the deficits in the current food supply and distribution systems is a complex undertaking.

The good news is that millions of people want what we want and together, we can can build a better system. In three steps, here’s how we plan to do it:

1. Remove waste from almost every step in the supply chain to grow produce that is more flavorful and fresher than it has been in years. This will result in deeper enjoyment and satisfaction in every bite.

2. Build farms near you. We’re bringing back local farming that meets communities where they are, so you don’t have to settle for underwhelming produce that’s traveled hundreds, or even thousands, of miles.

3. Use 1% of the water, a fraction of the land, and zero pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or GMOs. This allows us to grow produce as a force for responsibility and enjoyment so that you can feel confident that your mouth watering meals are driven by responsible farming practices.

Plenty is produce with purpose and we’re reimagining farming for a more responsible, better-tasting future.

Why this mission matters

In the last 125 years, we’ve added six billion people to the planet and are currently running out of land where it’s economical to grow crops. Simply put, we need innovative ways to meet the ever-growing demand for fresh fruit and vegetables.

Just like the world needed the steel plow and the tractor, new and sophisticated agricultural systems are what we need if we want to continue to feed the 7 billion people currently on the planet (8.5 billion by 2030).

Our goal is to give people more delicious produce, while at the same time building a future of farming that can produce food that’s healthier and more convenient.

Join us to create a better food system

Plenty is committed to helping people living healthier, happier, and more abundant lives. We know that food can inspire joy.

We also believe in doing what’s best for the planet and promise to offer the most enjoyable produce specifically grown to delight and inspire you. But we can’t do this alone.

Will you join us in helping to transform produce from a bland commodity into a delicious movement?

If you’re down for the cause, please follow us. With your help and support, we will bring this real food revolution to life!

View fullsize

Pure Harvest Rakes In $4.5 Million

Pure Harvest Rakes In $4.5 Million

• November 16, 2017 |  ABU DHABI
• By Iris Dorbian

Abu Dhabi-based Pure Harvest Smart Farms, an arid climate agribusiness, has raised $4.5 million in funding. Shorooq Investments was the lead investor.

Pure Harvest Smart Farms (Pure Harvest or the Company), a tech-enabled arid climate agribusiness based in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates, announced today a historic Seed investment of USD $4.5 million in a financing round that was significantly oversubscribed. This follows an earlier USD $1.1 million pre-Seed round led by Abu Dhabi-based Shorooq Investments. Venture financing was provided by a leading federal government-backed fund, the Company’s technology partners, and a consortium of angel investors from around the world, all of whom were strongly aligned with the Company’s mission—to offer a true & tangible food security solution to the region by deploying advanced and sustainable controlled-environment agriculture technologies in order to grow premium quality local fresh fruits & vegetables year-round; overcoming the region’s harsh, arid climate and increasingly scarce freshwater resources.

Proceeds from the financing will be used to fund the construction of Pure Harvest’s inaugural high-tech, fully climate controlled greenhouse facility in Nahel, United Arab Emirates. The Company expects to complete the facility by mid-year and to begin selling its products in the second half of 2018. Following the demonstration of its technology and its ability to serve the fast-growing demand for fresh local produce, Pure Harvest intends to quickly expand in the region, recognizing that other GCC countries are facing the same challenges that the UAE faces with regards to import-dependence, water shortages, and climate-driven production constraints.

Pure Harvest also announced the appointment of a new Advisor and Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) Local Partner, Sultan bin Khalid Al Saud. “Sultan is a fellow Stanford Graduate School of Business alumnus and is a trusted advisor who brings a wealth of experience to the Company, having worked for Saudi Aramco, McKinsey, and Passport Capital. He will be working closely with the Company to enable near-term expansion into the attractive Saudi market,” said Sky Kurtz, Co-Founder & CEO of Pure Harvest. “We are extremely pleased to welcome Sultan to our family.”

A member of the Pure Harvest board and a participant in both the pre-Seed and Seed rounds, David Scott, who is also a well-known economic and strategy advisor to regional governments and state-owned enterprises, emphasized the impact that Pure Harvest could have on several pressing regional challenges. “Pure Harvest’s tech-enabled approach to arid climate agriculture and its strong project team offer a realistic and much-needed solution for improving food security across the Gulf, as well as a means not just to maintain domestic agriculture, but to profitably expand it – all while preserving the region’s precious remaining fresh water aquifers. Ultimately, I see this kind of sustainable domestic agriculture as a critical component of any successful post-oil diversification strategy and I’m excited to be a part of this effort,” said Mr. Scott.

Commenting on the successful conclusion of the Seed round, Mr. Kurtz said: “This financing is an important milestone for the Company. We now have sufficient capital to deploy our solution on a commercial scale and to demonstrate to our many stakeholders a future where high quality, sustainably grown, fresh local produce can be abundantly available every single day… and at a lower cost & environmental impact than current imports. We are humbled that such an esteemed group of investors, advisors & partners share our vision and are willing to back us to transform food production in the Middle East.”

“Shorooq Investments is thrilled to see Pure Harvest closing the largest Seed financing to-date in the MENA region. When evaluating investment opportunities, we try to think from a broader regional & macro perspective and to create a positive social impact,” said Mahmoud Adi, Co-Founder at Pure Harvest and the Founding Partner of Shorooq Investments. “With Pure Harvest, we hope to address food security concerns and to take a giant step forward to be less dependent on international imports for fresh produce, which will directly contribute to the UAE’s long-term sustainability. We are proud to have backed this important venture since its inception and to support the strong founding team whom we believe has the right capabilities and core values to succeed”.

In addition to receiving investment from Shorooq Investments, Mr. Scott and Sultan bin Khalid, Pure Harvest is backed by the following (non-exhaustive) list of visionary Angel investors: Magnus Olsson, Founder and Managing Director of Careem; Hazem Abu Khalaf, CFA, Director at The Abraaj Group; Jim Finnigan, Co-Founder of SoFi; Peter Satow, Founder & CEO of PESA Advanced Hydroponics; Abdulrahman Kaki; Anmol Budhraja, Founder and CEO and Arnab Chatterjee, Managing Director of Three Comma Financial Consultancy; Charles Anderson, Founder & CEO of Currency; Florian Weidinger, Fund Manager at NESTOR Far East Fund; Douglas Kelbaugh FAIA, Professor and former dean at the University of Michigan’s Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning; Mohammed Khudairi, Managing Partner of Khudairi Group; Troels Andersen, CEO of Mondo Ride; Husam and Muhammed Al Zubair of The Zubair Corporation; Bina Khan and James Joy, Co-Founders and Managing Partners of Summit Venture Partners; Edmund Ang, CFA, Vice President at First Energy Bank; and Theodore Cleary, Director at Crito Capital, among others.

About Pure Harvest
Pure Harvest Smart Farms (“Pure Harvest” or the “Company”) is a regional innovator in sustainable agriculture focused on the production of premium quality fruits & vegetables in the extreme climates of the Arab Gulf region, using world-leading high-tech, climate controlled greenhouse production technology to deliver vine crops (tomatoes, capsicum, strawberries, cucumbers, eggplants, etc.). The Company will soon deploy a wider portfolio of best-in-class controlled-environment agriculture technologies (e.g. vertical farms, container-based growing solutions) to deliver a wide variety of fresh produce. Pure Harvest seeks to leverage innovative technology solutions to pioneer year-round production of affordable, premium quality fresh produce. In recognition of regional vulnerabilities associated with water scarcity, food import dependence, and sustainability, Pure Harvest is committed to resource efficiency and overcoming climate challenges to deliver European standards to customers with always-available, high quality, farm-to-fork products.

US Businesses Making Farming Technologies for Cities

View fullsize

Cam MacKugler waters a seedsheet at the Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, Nov. 3, 2017. (T. Trinh/VOA)

US Businesses Making Farming Technologies for Cities

November 25, 2017

How do you get the freshest, locally grown fruits and vegetables in a big city?

For an increasing number of Americans, the answer is to grow the fruits and vegetables themselves.

Businessman Cam MacKugler can help. He is the founder and chief executive officer of Seedsheet.

MacKugler was at the Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, New York, earlier this month. He was showing off Seedsheet products, which are for people who live in high-rise buildings or other homes with little space for growing plants.

Seedsheet products come with fabric sheets and small pods, each filled with a mix of seeds and soil. The fabric is placed on top of dirt in a home planter or in the ground. When watered, the pods soften and eventually break up as the plants start to grow.

The seed groupings on any given Seedsheet provide vegetables or herbs for salads and other meals. Pricing starts at $15 for the factory-made sheets. But you can spend up to $100 for a larger, made-to-order outdoor covering measuring 1.2 by 2.4 meters.

Efforts like Seedsheet come as Americans increasingly want to know where their food comes from. Many are looking for socially and environmentally responsible growing methods.

MacKugler told VOA that most of the company’s sales come from young people living in cities.

American consumers are not giving up on the low cost and ease of packaged and prepared foods. But new products and technologies are playing a part in helping Americans understand where their food comes from.

“Consumer education is really progressing,” said Nicole Baum of Gotham Greens, a grower of hydroponically grown produce.

Baum said consumers were less familiar with the term “hydroponics” -- growing plants in water instead of soil -- when Gotham Greens first started in 2011. But more and more Americans have since heard about this form of agriculture.

Baum said she has also seen an increase in competing companies.

“We’re definitely seeing a lot more people within the space from when we first started, which is awesome,” she said. “I think it’s really great that other people are coming into the space and looking for ways to use technology to have more productive, efficient growth.”

Gotham Greens provides leafy greens and herbs grown on buildings to supermarkets and top-rated New York restaurants like Gramercy Tavern.

Companies like Smallhold also advertised their services at the Food Loves Tech event. Smallhold manufactures mini-farms – small, self-contained structures -- for growing mushrooms. The mushroom mini-farms are meant to be used in restaurants, not homes.

Smallhold sets up the devices and services them at restaurants, with restaurant workers harvesting mushrooms when they are ready. Hannah Shufro, operations lead at Smallhold, said the mini-farms help cut down on pollution that comes with transporting and shipping produce.

Shufro also noted that produce begins to lose its nutritional value right from the time it is harvested.

"When you’re harvesting food right out of a system that’s growing onsite, it does not get fresher than that, she said.”

I’m Susan Shand

Tina Trinh reported this story for VOANews.com. George Grow adapted her report for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.

A Beginner’s Guide to Vertical Farming

A Beginner’s Guide to Vertical Farming

November 28, 2017

View fullsize

View fullsize

Written by Claudia Beck

Also known as indoor farming, vertical farming has in recent years gained recognition as a solid method of sustainability. The system was born out of the challenges affecting the 21st century, specifically issues like food shortage, resource depletion, and overpopulation.

Feeding the future: vertical farming

Vertical farming is the practice of food production that takes the form of vertically stacked layers and vertically inclined surfaces. The method is executed inside a controlled environment building, usually without soil or natural light.

The method of growing the crops in a vertical farm involves the following elements.
• Temperature control
• Humidity control
• Artificial lighting
• Control and monitoring of nutrients and fertiliser

When undertaking vertical agriculture as a small to medium business, planning is essential. You need to ensure that you can sell what you grow, and that your production costs are not too high. The first step to ensuring this, therefore, is picking the right crops.

The aspiring vertical farmer needs to conduct a feasibility study and come up with a profitable and sustainable plan. This is because each species you plan to grow will have a growing method tailored to its needs. Determining the daily nutrient and light uptake each crop requires is crucial.

View fullsize

Animated GIF credit: Lizzie Lomax

The indoor farm represents significant benefits to the consumer as it increases food accessibility. Because farms can be located anywhere, more people can start growing their own crops. Production then moves closer to the consumer, and farms are able to produce consistent value and volume year-wide. Currently, building-based and shipping container vertical farms are the most common.

How does indoor farming work?

There are several key factors that determine the viability of a vertical farm.

1. Physical layout

The objective of indoor farming is to maximise volume. This is achieved by maximising the output efficiency per square meter, which is where the vertical tower structure comes from.

2. Lighting

View fullsize

Image credit: Business Wire

Optimising light for crop growth in vertical agriculture usually involves a mixture of grow lights and natural light. Specialised technologies like rotating beds increase the efficiency of the light sources and can fulfil different crop requirements.

3. Growing medium

There are three different models for the indoor agriculture system.

A. Hydroponics

In hydroponics, crops grow in the nutrient-rich water basin and water is recirculated, creating better efficiency and lower water consumption. Scalable in size and cost, hydroponic farming is highly adaptable to its farmers’ production goals and needs. It includes methods like Drip Irrigation, Deep Water Culture, Ebb and Flow, Nutrient Film Technique, and the Wick System.

B. Aeroponics

View fullsize

Image credit: Foundation Far

Aeroponic farming involves frequently spraying crops with a nutrient-based mist, using a periodic timer (no soil, sunlight, or water). Aeroponics delivers nutrients directly to the plant roots to conserve water and reduce intensive labour. Scalability is another massive benefit with this method, and crops are easily harvested without soil.

C. Aquaponics

A closed-loop food production system, aquaponics is the practice of cultivating both fish and plants. The fish provide nutrients and beneficial bacteria to the plants,which in turn filter the water for the fish. Aquaponic farming creates a highly productive and balanced ecosystem with many benefits, including its water-conservative approach.

4. Sustainability features

View fullsize

Image credit: Cleanroom News

Many built-in sustainable features like rainwater tanks, wind turbines, and multipurpose spaces can offset energy costs in a vertical farm. Indoor farminguses less water than conventional farming practices and is not season-dependent for seed growth, which maximises revenue year-round.

What can you grow in your vertical farm?

With the right hydroponic, aeroponic, or aquaponic farm set-up, you can grow almost anything. Just because you can do so, however, doesn’t mean you should. Consider the following aspects when choosing the best crops for your vertical farm.

1. Economic viability

Especially if you’re growing for profit, study the economics of the species you have shortlisted for your indoor farm.

A. Demand

What is the demand for this crop within your area or within the market you choose to serve? You may decide that your project will provide for your family as well as for your local community.

B. Growing technique

Though vertical farming methods mean lower overheads on average, the size and particular system you use dictates your short and long-term production costs. You’ll want to keep these figures as minimal as possible.

C. Climate

Different systems have climate requirements (heating, cooling, and lighting) that may necessitate another sectioned-off space. Consider if you have the room and operations budget for your chosen system design.

As a grower, striking a balance between these elements ensures maximum yield and value out of your indoor farm.

2. Timing and liability

All good things take time—patience is a necessary element of indoor agriculture. This truth is embodied in what is called in farming as a ‘turn.’ A turn is the total amount of time it takes to introduce a seed or seedling into the farm system, grow it, and harvest it as a mature plant, for sale at the market or serving on your plate.

There are two types of crops you can choose to grow: fast turn crops and slow turn crops. Dependent on your growing reason, needs, and requirements, you can pick either one or both for your vertical farm.

View fullsize

Image credit: Forbes

Fast turn crops include lettuce, cabbage, chard, collard greens, mustard greens, parsley, cilantro, mint, chives, basil, and various microgreens. They usually take up to six weeks to produce.

Slow turn crops are typically harder to grow, but have a higher revenue margin compared to leafy greens. This includes ‘woody’ herbs like oregano and rosemary, and fruiting crops like strawberry and tomato. A good guide to follow for a beginner grower is to plant 80 percent greens, and 20 percent herbs.

Vertical agriculture: from farm to fork, all under one roof

Vertical farming can be as small or as large in scale—it all depends on the farmer’s goals and requirements! A vertical farm can benefit both your home and business, providing your community with reliable access to fresh produce.

While the traditional block of land enabled families to grow their own food, block sizes have gotten increasingly smaller throughout the decades.

Luckily, indoor farming lets us grow crops with a fraction of the space, sun, soil, and water conventional farming uses. What’s more, vertical farms are protected from the harsh weather brought about by climate change. The result? Robust and resilient crops turning up whenever needed, grown in soil and water-conservative, stable crop systems.

Title image courtesy of Digital Trends

University Greenhouse Expands to Include An Aquaponics System

University Greenhouse Expands to Include An Aquaponics System

• By Emily Gielink | Reporter
•  
  • November 27, 2017

Aquaponics, the combination of hydroponics and aquaculture, is working its way on to the University’s campus as the greenhouse attempts to expand its newest program. As the University strives to become a more green and sustainable campus, aquaponics may be the next step toward this goal. 

Hydroponics, the study of growing plants without soil, and aquaculture, the farming of fish or other aquatic organisms, are efficient methods of producing both plant and fish crops, according to a study conducted by Iowa State University professor D. Allen Pattillo.  

The University greenhouse is home to different species and biomes, but its newest addition includes tanks of fish, pumps and crops. Kevin Neves, the University biology instructor, started this system in fall 2016 when he arrived on campus along with two other students. He has been working in aquaculture for 15 years, and in the three years before coming to the University, he was working on an integrated multi-trophic aquaculture setup in Maine. 

“In a standard aquaculture operation, you’re growing fish and you’re feeding the fish. Fish produce waste, and we need to deal with that waste in one form or another,” Neves said. 

The greenhouse aquaponics system currently has two tanks full of yellow perch, which are fed standard fish food. The perch grow to about 10 or 12 inches, the standard to sell them for consumption. Next, all the feces and uneaten food go into another tank filled with freshwater shrimp and an orange mesh that allows bacteria growth. 

The shrimp then take the ammonia fish produce and convert it into nitrate, which is a type of plant fertilizer. The nitrates travel through pipes into floating beds in which plant roots grow into water. Most of the water then is drained out and pumped back into the yellow perch tank. 

Plants being grown from this system include kale, spinach and a few experimental plants, such as tomatoes. Neves first tried to grow thyme and lettuce, which failed in the system. 

“It’s environmentally friendly, it’s sustainable, everything looks good and it has so little impact on the environment,” Neves said. 

This system is low maintenance, only requiring those who maintain it to feed the fish, and occasionally add a few gallons of water to the system as water evaporates in the greenhouse. 

Frank Schemenauer, a horticulturist for the greenhouse, became involved with the project after he discussed the possibility of housing the aquaponics system with Neves. Schemenauer focuses on logistics and input during assembly, assisting students growing plants for and within the system and troubleshooting potential pest problems for the plants. 

“I think the aquaponics system is a great addition to the greenhouse,” Schemenauer said. “It highlights the potential to produce food in a closed-loop system, utilizing fish waste as a resource to facilitate plant growth with minimal environmental impact.” 

One of the students who helped create the aquaponics system was Lana Neff, a third-year marine and aquatic biology major. She now helps with basic care and maintenance of the system.  

“I think this system is providing students and future students with a fun and hands-on educational source where students can actually see what an aquaponics system looks like, instead of going off of pictures in a book,” Neff said.  

Although the Office of Campus Sustainability has no knowledge of the system, some students are aware of the newer program and have visited the aquaponics system. 

The aquaponics system can be compared to the green roof system on top of the Oaks Dining Hall. The Oaks grows fresh produce and then incorporates them into the meals served to students. With the current system, Neves hopes to incorporate the fish and plants he grows into Dining Services. 

Aquaculture is expanding in numerous states, including Ohio, where over 25 fish and crustacean species are cultured and sold.  

As the Earth’s population grows, people continue to deplete the Earth’s resources, including marine life, according to Matthew Smith, Ohio State University Extension Aquaculture Specialist. “Overfishing is real, and although harvesting techniques have gotten a lot better, much of our bodies of water are overfished,” he said. “Aquaculture helps alleviate the burden on our waters.” 

As for long-term goals, Neves is trying to gain funding for the greenhouse aquaponics system. If he receives funding, he intends to add on to the greenhouse and add more tanks and plants for large-scale production, in hopes of profiting from the system.  

“It’s proof of the concept, and so the goal would to be to sell these locally-environmentally-friendly, green perch,” Neves said. “There’s a huge market for hydroponic crops, and people are really excited about that.”

Why LED Lighting is Ideal For Indoor Farming

Why LED Lighting is Ideal For Indoor Farming

According to data from National Geographic, the sun radiates enough energy in 15 minutes to equal energy consumption of the entire world for ONE YEAR.

The sun is so powerful that it was worshiped by ancient cultures. 

So how is it possible to have lighting for growing plants indoor that is actually more efficient than the sun? 

And why is it often a shade of purple???

Why is LED lighting is ideal for indoor growing?

Ancient cultures worshiped the sun due to its life giving power (source) 

The idea that plants need exposure to daylight for perfect growing conditions has persisted during the sustained growth of indoor farming in the past several decades. 

But, as numerous researchers (and an increasingly large amount of growers) have realized, the concept of sunlight as a necessity is, in fact, a flat out myth.

Why? 

Read on to find the step-by-step explanation for how LED lighting is revolutionizing indoor growing, and more!

In the rest of the article we will discuss: 

1) Why Purple (a.k.a. blue-red LEDs? 
2) LED Lighting vs Daylight
3) PROS and CONS of LED Grow Lights

Ready? 

Let's get started! 

Why Purple (a.k.a. blue-red) LEDs? 

The technical answer, in a nutshell, is related to the spectrum of color present in different types of light. While good 'ol sunlight contains a variety of color spectra (think rainbows), it turns out that plants only need specific color spectra to grow properly. 

What colors work best? 

According to urban farming research on the way plants respond to light, the blue-red spectra is ideal for plant growth. 

The reason for this is because chlorophyll, which plays a central role in plant growth and photosynthesis, responds primarily to "peak" spectra in the blue and red ranges, or 450 nanometer and 650 nanometer wave lengths respectively. 

Some research has also experimented with using other forms  of light in urban agriculture growing settings, often yellow LED spectra, to alter plant traits such as color, texture, and increased shelf life. 

With a consumer base increasingly enamored by rare and interesting varieties of common fruits and vegetables, concepts such as red or yellow carrots can be marked up as exotic items or at the very least add some extra zest for small-scale urban farmer.

Plant growth does not require the full spectra present in daylight (via Illumitex)

LED Lighting vs Daylight

Sunlight, in fact, is inefficient in many ways when it comes to optimizing small-scale, urban agriculture. 

For one, the heat generated by the sun can be damaging to plants and can have an adverse effect on shelf life immediately post harvest.

This "heat effect" caused by sunlight is even further amplified when the plants are closely packed, as is often the case in urban farming. 

In contrast to sunlight, LED lights are known for transferring nearly undetectable amounts of heat onto plants, and the bulbs themselves are even often cool to the touch. The result? 

Urban farms with LED lighting can have more closely packed arrangements for maximum efficiency. These arrangements would not be possible in normal agricultural environments without compromising the health of the plants. 

Besides the decreased heat transfer, LED lighting is a cheaper alternative to traditional lighting sources that emulate daylight conditions. 

Although there is often a higher upfront cost with LED lighting, the best way to view the cost-savings of LED lighting for urban farming is as a long-term investment. 

This is because LED lighting has a much higher energy efficiency over time compared to other urban farming lighting technologies such as halogen or compact fluorescent (CFL). 

As a quantitative example, average CFL lighting options on the market will have approximately 1/3 the lifespan of LED lighting options, with similar lighting strengths (Look for 12-16 W / 800-1000 Lumens)

Plants, due to the presence of chlorophyll necessary for photosynthesis, respond mainly to red and blue color spectra (via NPR)

Pros and Cons of LED Grow Lights

PROS

1) LED's use WAY less electricity:

Most LED grow lights use 40% - 50% of the wattage of other lighting sources, like high pressure sodium lights or fluorescent.

2) Less airflow needed

It is a simple fact that for indoor growing, proper ventilation is required. 

According to this post from Epic Gardening, ventilation for indoor growing helps prevent at least: 

• Excess Moisture
• Proliferation of Pests
• Weakening of Plant Stems

Now, can you guess the #1 cause of heat in an indoor growing environment?

That's right: Grow lights. 

But here's the catch: 

LEDs generate far less heat than all other types of grow lights. As a result, less ventilation is needed to prevent excess moisture, pest problems, and other ventilation related issues. 

From an economic perspective, smaller fans cost less than larger fans, so your ventilation investment requirement with LED grow lights will typically be lower than with other types of grow lights.

Additionally, the on-going electricity cost of powering fans is also eliminated.

3) Less Heat

As we have already discussed above (#2), LEDs generate far less heat than other grow lights. 

Now, the reason why LED's generate less heat is because they emit far less infrared heat as output. 

Other types of grow lights like high pressure sodium and metal halide grow lights emit enormous amounts of infrared heat - over half of the wattage that powers an HPS or MH light is instantly lost as heat. 

Bottom line? 

LEDs are far more efficient and produce far less heat.

4) EXTREMELY long life

LED's grow lights are as close to immortal as grow lights get: 

They typically have at least 50,000 hours of usable life, which is nearly 6 years of continuous use.

If you are utilizing the lights on a 50% on /50% off schedule (common benchmark), this is over 11 years of shelf life.

5) No need to purchase reflector equipment to improve efficiency

HPS/MH systems often require use reflectors to help re-capture light that was not directed toward plants and instead illuminates walls and ceiling. 

LED's have superb directional focus and therefore reflectors are not necessary.

6) Stackability

Because LED's have so much lower heat emission, they can be placed closer to the plants. 

The result of this is that the ability to "stack" plants in a growing space is possible. 

This is potentially the most exciting benefit of using LEDs: the potential to double the production output (or triple, or 4x, etc) without changing the area of the growing space. 

Now, one consideration to remember is that the height of the growing space is a factor. 

However, this type of stacking functionality is just not doable with other types of grow lights.

Cons

1) Upfront Cost

LED's will commonly be at least 2x more expensive then many other types of grow lights. 

The return on investment may pay off over time with less energy use, replacement cost, and less investment in other previously needed equipment like fans and reflectors.

See how the economics compare with the case study from Diffen above.

2) Heavy

The component of an LED grow light that makes it heavy is the heat sink, which helps absorb excess generated heat. 

As a rule of thumb, a quality LED grow light will have 10 square inches of heat sink space per LED watt.

If you do the math, you will see that this heat sink space adds up VERY quickly and adds a lot of weight. 

The result of this is that investment to support the weight of LED grow lights is often a good idea, *especially* if you are stacking layers into a vertical farming stylesystem.

3) Technology Still Developing

As far as commercial indoor growing, LED technologies have not been around for very long (less than 10 years). 

Previously lighting methods have included High Pressure Sodium and Metal Halidelighting. 

One risk with LED lights is that they are understood less thoroughly than other types of grow lights, which have been studied for several decades.

What does this mean? 

Essentially, the support and knowledge base for LED grow lights is far more limited than other types of grow lights. 

However, where there is a knowledge gap, there is also opportunity...

4) "Purple" Color

The purplish color that most LED grow lights will generate can be problematic beyond just being annoying: 

How? 

This color of lighting presents a couple real challenges that can become huge problems: 

• Pest damage is harder to identify with LED grow lights
• Nutritional deficiencies, such as yellow under-nourishment and black rot, are more difficult to identify
• Potential danger to YOUR eyes without proper protection. As detailed in this article from Electronics Weekly, the potential to damage your vision with LED lights is very real, and protective eyeware is best practice

Solution: Inspecting plants being grown with LED grow lights is best done using an alternate source of light, such as a fluorescent bar. Most commercial LED operations will inspect plants with fluorescent lights at least once every 10 days.

In Summary

So, why does all of this information matter? In an urban farming environment where space and resources may be limited, optimizing lighting will often be a winning strategy for best urban farming results.

- Red and Blue light (purple when combined) are optimal for plant growth in tightly packed, urban farming style conditions

- LED lighting has several advantages over daylight or other lighting alternatives, such as cheaper pricing over time and reduced heat transferred onto plants

- Experimentation with other color spectra with LEDs such as Yellow LEDs can cause changes in urban farming crop flavor, color, and other aesthetic characteristics. 

- There are many pros and cons to using LED grow lights. In general, LEDs are far more efficient than other types of grow lights in many aspects, however they are more expensive and still relatively new as far as large scale commercial use goes. 

Questions, comments, feedback? Follow us @urbanvineco

This Small Pennsylvania Region Produces Half The Mushroom Crop in The U.S.

View fullsize

A small Pennsylvania region is the largest producer in the world of fresh mushrooms. Photo by Flickr user Chris Goldberg

This Small Pennsylvania Region Produces Half The Mushroom Crop in The U.S.

Nation   |  Nov 11, 2017 

In a small section of Pennsylvania, indoor farms are producing more than a million pounds of mushrooms every day.

Farmers in Chester County, Pennsylvania, have been producing mushrooms since the late 1800s when several local Quakers decided to grow them in the space underneath their flowerbeds, NPR reported in 2012, citing local lore.

Today, the industry generates hundreds of millions of dollars in sales each year for Chester County, which has also held a yearly mushroom festival for more than 30 years. The area’s commercial mushroom farms grow them indoors, which allows them to carefully control the environment and maximize production.

Recently, indoor farming — a model that commercial mushroom producers have used for decades — has drawn more attention as an approach to sustainable food production. Michael Guttman, director of the sustainable development office for Kennett Township, Pennsylvania, spoke with the PBS NewsHour Weekend about the area’s mushroom heritage and the lessons that mushroom production offers for other farmers.

Tell me about Kennett Township. How many people live and work here, and what do they produce?

Kennett Township is one of several municipalities in the immediate area that’s in the mushroom industry. We have about 9,000 people. Kennett Square, which is closely aligned with us, has about another 6,000.

We’re the largest producer in the world of fresh mushrooms. And we not only produce but pack and ship all across North America, with delivery typically within 48 hours. That’s about a half a billion pounds of mushrooms a year. And that represents about 50 percent of the U.S. mushroom crop.

So is all of that produce grown indoors?

All mushrooms grown commercially are grown indoors. It’s not possible to produce mushrooms in commercial quantities without completely controlling the environment.

How has indoor mushroom farming changed over the years? Has there been any advancements in technology that have impacted the way you grow?

Of course. So in the beginning, it wasn’t possible to grow mushrooms in the summer, because it was too hot. Mushrooms generate a lot of heat. And so if you’re growing them indoors, you have to keep them cool. So — advancements — first, it was cooled with ice. And then of course refrigeration came in. So that was a major change.

Another, probably more fundamental change was that originally, mushrooms were grown and canned. And there were some canning operations that continued until even into the 21st century. But by and large, we switched over to fresh mushrooms probably by the 1970s or ’80s. Because the canned mushroom market became very competitive. You can can mushrooms anywhere in the world and distribute them. But if you want to deliver them fresh to the U.S. market, you have to deliver them immediately, and obviously quickly.

What are you doing to attract new farming ventures to Kennett Township?

We already control about 50 percent of the production in the United States, and another 15 percent are nearby. So there’s not a lot of growth in that market for us. We’re the top producer in part because we have the lowest cost. But there’s a limit to how much more of the market we can take that way.

So it’s very attractive to us to consider bringing in other crops. But until recently, that just wasn’t economically feasible. So the new developments in what we call green indoor agriculture, mainly new forms of lighting, new forms of computer control, and irrigation and so forth — those make it possible now to grow competitive green products. And that would be very interesting to us, because they would use much of the same infrastructure that we have.

How is that a benefit to an incoming producer?

Well, one of the problems that people have in the green indoor agriculture industry today is reaching the levels of production that allow them to have the price point to be competitive with field-grown crops from areas like California, Mexico, Chile, etc.

In order to get to those costs, they have to ramp their production up to a level where their next problem is distribution. So if they come into a community like us, we can solve two classes of problems for them. One is, when they come to construct their facilities, we know that game and we play that very well. So our utilities understand it. Our rules and regulations are organized around that. And we have services here to help construct those facilities.

But particularly when they wanna distribute, we’re already distributing to exactly the same market, the same produce market, that they wanna get into. We’ve been doing it for a hundred years, and certainly in the fresh market for the last 50 or 60. We have all of those relationships, and we have all the facilities to handle that produce and get it to market within 48 hours.

View fullsize

Chester County in Pennsylvania controls about 50 percent of the country’s mushroom production. The Photo by Flickr user Adam Fagan.

What do you see as some of the challenges facing indoor growers that newcomers to the field might not be aware of?

I think that the biggest emphasis in green indoor agriculture as it’s developed over the last decade or so has been coming up with economical growing techniques to reach the price point where they can compete with field crops. So for the last decade or so, the green indoor agriculture industry has been working on developing efficient techniques of growing that can compete with field crops. But they haven’t given a lot of thought to what happens when they actually produce those things in quantities.

So I think their biggest challenge is to be able to both produce in large quantities and get that distributed. So several companies I’ve talked to have actually cancelled projects because they couldn’t figure out if they grew that much, how they would distribute it.

Are there any newer innovations that have changed the way indoor mushroom farming looks like here in Kennett?

There’s a lot of technology, most of it developed in Europe, to better automate or semi-automate production. So here in Kennett, because we have such a long history, we’ve been building facilities. For example, we build the frames for the vertical farms with wood. That’s the classic way to do it, and it’s still done that way and it’s still economically feasible to do it. But the newer facilities, they now employ aluminum shelving that has tracks, so that you can run different types of equipment up and down. And that makes a big difference.

The other of course is computer-controlled climate. So these systems are just getting more and more sophisticated. And not only do they do a good job of controlling the environment, but they collect a lot of data that can be used for analysis. One of the things that we’re interested in in the longer term is how that could become big data, where we could analyze — at a much larger scale — the impact of anything from climates to nutrients to agricultural pests, whatever, based on a larger base of data.

By Corinne Segal

Corinne is the Senior Multimedia Web Editor for NewsHour Weekend. She serves on the advisory board for VIDA: Women in Literary Arts, and graduated from Tufts University, where she studied English literature.

IPM Essen Show Preview - New Look For Top Trade Fair

IPM Essen Show Preview - New Look For Top Trade Fair

15 December 2017, by Gavin McEwan, 

Venue modernization will mean better display space for exhibitors at Europe's largest trade fair for the horticulture industry, says Gavin McEwan.

View fullsize

IPM Essen: Denmark will be in the limelight with umbrella trade body Floradania bringing almost 100 exhibitors to the event

Show Details IPM Essen

When 23-26 January
Where Messe Essen, Norbertstraße 2, 45131 Essen, Germany
Website http://www.messe-essen.de/
Tel +49 (0) 201 3101 430

Regular visitors to IPM Essen, Europe’s largest horticulture trade fair, will notice a few changes when the event opens its doors later this month. Modernisation of the event site has brought in a new Glass Foyer East, while Fair Hall 9 is being replaced by a new space that organizers describe as "flooded with light" and will be partially open for the show.

National pavilions will again be a major feature and, after a major French push at the show last year, the 2018 show will put Denmark in the limelight, with umbrella trade body Floradania bringing almost 100 exhibitors to the temporary Hall 14 and the foyer of the Grugahalle.

With around 1,600 exhibitors in all from nearly 50 nations, the show can be a little daunting to the uninitiated. With nearly 60,000 visitors expected this year, they would be well advised to plan their trip in advance.

A measure of the industry’s cutting edge can be gained from the Innovation Showcase, which brings together new products and services at the show. From these, winners of the Indega IPM Innovation Award will be selected across the categories of greenhouses and equipment; equipment for heating, irrigation, fertilization and plant protection; store construction and equipment; machines and tools for horticultural production; and fertilizer, peat substrates, and growing media.

With indoor farming making rapid advances around the world, this area is expected to throw up a range of technical innovations. Finnish LED lighting specialist Valoya plans to launch a new range of heavy-duty grow lights, the BX-Series. As well as being resistant to dust and humidity, these can withstand water submersion, chemical sterilization and even dropping. The units also expel hot air and moisture, preventing condensation and overheating, 
and enabling them to function at temperatures of up to 40°C.

German manufacturer BLV will present a new LED multilayer system for the cultivation of seedlings and cuttings as well as for herbs for the food and pharmaceutical industries. It is available in two different spectra — red 2.1, which delivers maximum PAR radiation, and white 1.2, with a colour temperature close to daylight, which makes for easier monitoring of plants for colour and for signs of pests, disease or malnutrition.

View fullsize

LEDs: a range of technical innovations

Showcasing Novelties

Similarly, and despite the unseasonal time of year, the "Novelties" show in Hall 1A will for the 10th year running showcase a wide range of new flower and plant varieties from international breeders, with winners from among them being chosen in the categories of flowering and green houseplants, spring-flowering plants, bedding and balcony plants, cut flowers, perennial plants, woody plants and container plants.

Among entrants in the bedding and balcony category are likely to be several new releases from MNP (formerly Moerheim New Plant) — the Mandavilla Sundaville Mimi Red, a new white addition to the long-standing Pericallis Senetti series and three new colours in its Grandaisy Argyranthemum range — Gold, Ruby Red and Pink Tourmaline — combining bright colours with a more compact habit and shorter flower stems.

Fellow Dutch breeder Varinova will present Merita, a new grower-friendly F1 Cyclamen series with a compact uniform habit, firm flower stems and fine marbled foliage. Initially available in Shine Red and Shine Deep Rose, more colours will be added over the coming years.

View fullsize

Green Living Wall System: an uncomplicated vertical planter that is easy to install

International Award

Alongside this, the International Association of Horticultural Producers will host its own International Grower of the Year Awards, recognizing best practice in horticultural production around the world, across the categories of finished plants and trees, young plants and cut flowers and bulbs.

This year also sees the introduction of two new awards — a Sustainability Award, recognizing best practice and innovation in improving sustainability, and an Inspiring Business Award, for businesses employing fewer than 10 staff that demonstrate unique qualities and innovation. These awards will be presented at 6 pm on Tuesday 23 January.

As usual, there will be healthy numbers of UK exhibitors, most under the overseas promotion scheme run by the Commercial Horticultural Association. "We have a bigger group than usual going out with more companies trying to book than we have space left," says the association’s chair, Pat Flynn.

For all the uncertainty brought by the seemingly interminable Brexit negotiations, the UK’s decision to withdraw from the EU has had one clear, immediate and apparently lasting consequence in the weakening of the pound — making British products and services more appealing to overseas customers. However, uncertainty remains over Britain’s future trading relationship with the EU.

On whether this adds up to a favorable time for UK suppliers to seek overseas markets, Flynn says: "The current exchange rate is opening up new opportunities and the grower community have always had challenges to contend with."

She adds: "As an association, we are making sure the politicians keep horticulture at the forefront of their minds. We do have some excellent advocates in people such as Andrea McIntyre MEP."

Shop Window

For horticultural suppliers, there is no bigger international shop window than IPM, says Tyne Moulds sales and marketing manager James Sword. "It’s an opportunity to be the face of the business. We are there to be a calling point for all our European and worldwide customers. With exchange rates, sometimes they win, sometimes we do. Right now, it’s good for us."

The company will use this month’s event to launch a vertical planter system that he says is "an uncomplicated way to do a green wall that’s easy to install". Mounted on a steel mesh or wooden slats, the Green Living Wall System can hold pots or can be planted up directly.

Interest from the home market has "exploded" since its UK launch at Glee in September, adds Sword. "People like the fact that there is only one irrigation pipe, which makes it far more economical," he points out. "It’s already in use here in Newcastle in retirement homes, hospital courtyards — we’ve had some great feedback."

Also returning to IPM, INDO Lighting of Southampton will be telling growers about trials and product development over the past year using its INDO Element direct-drive grow light range. Enabling simple, one-for-one LED replacement for any high-pressure sodium (HPS) lighting without rewiring or ongoing maintenance, and with a working life of more than 100,000 hours, this has already won a Queen’s Award for Innovation.

Managing director Tom Baynham says: "We’re keen to work with customers in the EU and hope to continue building strong links with all our European partners. LED technology is developing at pace, with increasing opportunities for substantial change in horticulture lighting and growing practices."

Fellow UK lighting manufacturer Plessey will present its recent findings on combining LEDs with conventional HPS lighting. Trials with a Dutch Kalanchoe pot plant grower have shown a substantial increase in yield, quality, and maturity of cuttings, while at a Dutch tomato nursery the combination has shown a 9.4% yield boost and a slight increase in individual tomato weight. 

View fullsize

INDO Element: direct-drive grow light - image: INDO Lighting

Growing International Trade: FitzGerald Nurseries

FitzGerald Nurseries in Ireland has a long-standing commitment to growing its international business, 
and this month marks its 12th time exhibiting at IPM Essen. During this time it has gone from young plants in three countries to selling in 27.

Now the company is split into two divisions, covering food and ornamentals, and this year sees the food business growing internationally via its sister company Beotanics and Portuguese joint venture company Nativaland, which together are developing commercial-scale sweet potato growing in Northern Europe though novel genetics and the application of nursery horticultural skills to this broad-acre crop.

The venture has engaged with consumers, farmers and media through its Beotanics social media platforms.

Meanwhile, the ornamental side will exhibit its MyPlant patio and garden plant collection, along with its EverColor range of plants for year-round colour.

TruLeaf Planning Next Growth Stage

TruLeaf Planning Next Growth Stage

PETER MOREIRA
Published November 15, 2017

With its indoor farm in Guelph, Ont., nearing completion, TruLeaf Sustainable Agriculture is plotting its next phase of growth with more farms, a licensing model for its technology and new round of funding.

Gregg Curwin, founder, and CEO of the Halifax vertical farming company, also says the company is focused ever more on machine learning and data analytics to help it produce the most nutritious local food possible.

Halifax-based TruLeaf aims to be a leader in sustainable agriculture through the use of vertical farming — which combines proven hydroponic technology with advancements in LED lighting and reclaimed rainwater to allow year-round production of plants indoors.

Vertical farming is nearly 30 times more efficient than traditional agriculture, uses as much as 95 percent less water, and takes up less land.

Curwin told a panel discussion at the Big Data Congress last week that the company is now focusing on applying advanced technology to the process of growing plants indoors.

The Guelph plant — which is due to be completed in June, will be fully automated and TruLeaf is looking into using data to improve the process of growing nutritious food.

“The light bulb that’s going off for us is all about machine learning and data,” said Curwin.

Curwin said that in the controlled environment of its growing facilities, the company can monitor data produced over time from the creation of the seed to shipping grown food to the supermarket. Outdoors, a farmer can get 40 points of data in his or her career; TruLeaf can get 10,000 data points in 10 days at its indoor farms.

One example of TruLeaf’s experimentation is the work it has doing with LED lighting.

The company is experimenting with how different plants grow under different light spectrums, and what lighting is best at specific phases of the growing process. It is even examining whether special lighting in a supermarket shelf can prolong the freshness of produce.

Curwin added that the company is investigating whether there is a direct link between adding certain greens to your diet and improving cognitive health.

It is interested in producing in Nova Scotia a vegetable prominent in West Africa, where dementia rates are really low.

“Can we make a defensible claim about the prevention of cognitive diseases?” he asked. “Making accurate claims is a significant goal of ours.”

The last 18 months have been busy ones for TruLeaf. It closed an $8.5-million financing round last December and has been working with Loblaw Companies, the parent company of Atlantic Superstores, on the development of its farms.

Appearing under the company’s GoodLeaf Farms brand, products grown in the company’s farm in Bible Hill are now available in a dozen Superstores spanning the three Maritime provinces.

According to the TruLeaf website, the products include broccoli shoots, kale shoots, daikon radish shoots, pea shoots, baby arugula and baby kale.

The company now has 38 employees in Nova Scotia.

“We’re eliminating low-level jobs and most of the jobs we are creating now are . . . in computer science, engineering and plant science,” said Curwin.

The Next Great Plague Could Destroy Humanity | Hint: It Starts With The Food

The Next Great Plague Could Destroy Humanity | Hint: It Starts With The Food

2017-11-17 | Jack Griffin and CJ Friedman

View fullsize

In 1347, the plague known as The Black Death began and killed 50% of Europe's population.

1665, the Great Plague of London killed 25% of the city's population.

The 1918 Flu Pandemic broke out and killed more people than WW1, affecting populations in every corner of the world. Estimates range from 50-100 million deaths.

1956, the Asian Flu broke out and killed over 2 million people.

The HIV/AIDs pandemic began in 1960 and has killed over 35 million people.

Now, we face an even greater threat.

Many scientists believe the next plague that could kill billions of people will find roots in the current food system. This is a largely unrecognized risk to the general population. Consider the scenario from this angle: with a human plague, a person could escape the infected area and remain relatively safe. But with a plague that affects the food supply, there is no place to hide. Every person on the planet and all of the animals we eat will be affected by starvation.

Think about the ramifications: What would happen if 50-75% of the global food supply died? By the time we replant everything, the damage will already be done. 

That is the risk the current agricultural system is running with how things operate today.

View fullsize

In the past 100 years, 94% of the world's edible seed varieties have vanished. 

We are not fear mongering here. What would happen if 94% of the fish varieties humans eat went extinct? There would be panic all over the world. That has happened to the world's seed varieties. This post is an attempt to educate the public regarding the dangers of the global agricultural system.

Simply stated, a lack of biodiversity in any living system increases the system's risk of spreading a deadly pathogen.

Currently, 75% of the world's food comes from only 12 plants and 5 animal species. This lack of biodiversity dramatically increases the susceptibility to widespread disease, and could result in colossal famine that affects billions of people, and would put companies like Monsanto in control of the fate of human existence.

To help combat this growing issue, Metropolis Farms is planning a robust seed bank propagated by our indoor farming systems to grow, save, store, and distribute diverse seeds to local farmers.

In our continuing exploration of the failing food system, this post will discuss the most important resource available to humans (besides water): SEEDS.

Across all species, especially plant-life, genetic diversity is the safeguard against evolving forms of viruses, bugs, and disease. Low levels of biodiversity are dangerous because as pathogens are introduced to the system, the pathogens encounter less resistance to spreading than they do in diverse systems. As we will explore, outbreaks of disease, invasions of insects, and climatic anomalies have caused many wholesale crop failures in the past, and are causing massive crop failures today.

To begin, looking at history can give us an understanding of this risk the agricultural system is running.

The Irish Potato Famine

View fullsize

Between 1845 and 1852, Ireland's population fell by ~25% due to the poverty-stricken population being heavily dependent on one crop for sustenance.

The Great Famine, more commonly known as the Irish Potato Famine, occurred because a significant amount of Ireland's population lived on one variety of one crop: the lumper potato. Due to the lack of crop diversity, entire fields of potatoes were susceptible to a disease called Phytophthora Infestens, aka potato blight. This disease soon spread across most of the potato crops not only in Ireland, but all over Europe.

Ireland experienced widespread famine because their diet was reliant on the one crop that was susceptible to this disease. The rest of Europe was okay, despite losing massive amounts of potato crops, because their diet was more diversified. Due to Ireland's situation, 1 in 8 Irishmen and women totaling 1,000,000 people died of starvation or starvation related diseases. Another 1 in 8 emigrated to escape the famine. In total, Ireland's population fell by roughly 25%.

A large portion of Ireland's population were reliant on one crop for many economic and political reasons which are similar to the diet trends here in the United States and elsewhere in the world. The moral of the story, however, is that being dependent on a small variety of crops increases the risk of one disease wiping out a population's food source.

Implication's today's food system

Today, the world is vulnerable to experiencing the potato famine on a planetary scale due to a reduction in agricultural biodiversity.

View fullsize

The global dependence on so few crops for a majority of the population's sustenance is replicating the same system that led to the Irish Potato Famine. Only   this time, rather than affecting 1 country, due to globalized specialization, a disease can wipe out crops that affect everyone on earth.

The current food system has valued short-sighted mass production of low quality crops at the expense of long-term survivability, biodiversity, and soil quality. In addition to rapidly destroying the topsoil and causing desertification, the proliferation of massive monocultures poses a serious threat to long-term food security. 

Considering 70% of agricultural crops are grown for livestock and not for humans, this potential problem will not only affect the vegetables we eat, but also the meat, dairy, eggs, and other products that are staples in today's average diet.

Farmers are the backbone of this country. 

"Cultivators of the earth are the most valuable citizens. They are the most vigorous, the most independent, the most virtuous, and they are tied to their country, and wedded to its liberty and interests by the most lasting bonds." 

- Thomas Jefferson

And for a long time, this sentiment held true throughout government. In 1862, the USDA was established and at the start, it devoted at least one-third of its budget to collecting and distributing seeds to farmers across the country. By 1900, over 1 billion seed packages had been sent out to this country's farmers. Furthermore, farmers were encouraged to breed, propagate, and strengthen their own plants and seed banks, resulting in strong localized seed banks in which farmers could depend on themselves or their neighbors for next year's plantings.

However, in 1883, the American Seed Trade Association (ASTA) was founded, recognizing the potential profits that could be made off seeds instead of a free program for all farmers. After 40 years of lobbying by ASTA, Congress eliminated the USDA seed distribution program in 1924 and paved the way for the seed industry as we know it today.

At the time, there were thousands of seed companies and farmers were able to save seeds from their existing crops to establish their own sustainability. 

View fullsize

Today, 10 companies control 73% of the global seed market. The top 6 control 68% of the market and new mergers could lower that number down to 4 companies. Think about that. 4 companies could control the world's food supply. 

Henry Kissinger once said: "Control oil and you control nations; control food and you control the people." Research has shown that US strategy has deliberately destroyed local family farming in the US and abroad and led to 95% of all grain reserves in the world being controlled by 6 multinational agribusiness chemical corporations.  

How did we get here? 

To keep this post from becoming a book, this is a quick synopsis:

• After the USDA seed distribution program ended in 1924, seed companies began to emerge and create hybrid seeds that promised more crop yields.

• These hybrid seeds had recessive gene characteristics that disabled farmers from saving the crop's seeds for the next year's plantings. This made farmers more dependent on purchasing seeds annually. 

• In 1930, the Plant Patent Act (PPA) was signed, thus allowing patents for unique plant varieties. For the first time in human-history, companies could legally own the rights to plants. Although, it's important to note the original PPA did not allow a patent right to plants propagated by seeds, so farmers could still attempt to save seeds for future harvests without violating patents. This would eventually change.

• Over the next decades, seed companies focused on selling a smaller subset of seeds.

• In 1980, Diamond v. Chakrabarty, a landmark Supreme Court case granted the first patent on life. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that living organisms could be patented. This opened the floodgates for companies like Monsanto, and soon over 1,800 patents for genetic material and plants were submitted to the US Patent & Trademark Office. 

• Seed companies slowly became biochemical companies and genetically engineered (GE) seeds, commonly known as GMOs, started to emerge. 

Now, seeds have been engineered to withstand the effects of herbicides so farmers can simply spray their fields with chemical poisons to kill weeds and not their crops. One of the problems is the same company that sells the seeds is also selling the chemicals. This is giving unprecedented amounts of power to companies like Monsanto.

Under this seed industry consolidation, big farmers are now more dependent than ever on these companies, and are forced to purchase seeds and the chemicals annually. Additionally, this consolidation has led to the massive reduction in crop biodiversity on commercial farms.

 This short-sighted approach to agriculture - focusing on massive yields with the least amount of work - has led to specialization rather than diversification. Another consequence of this system is food is no longer grown for people.Food is grown for trucks. In fact, 30-45% of the cost of food is tied to trucking and distributing food over a 3,000+ mile supply chain. 

View fullsize

In review: crop specialization leads to monocultures. Monocultures lead to susceptibility of disease. 

For example, rather than soil regenerative farming practices seen onpermaculture farms, one mega farm will solely focus on growing one crop of corn or wheat or cotton, etc, over acres and acres of land, to maximize planting, maintenance, and harvesting production. Farmers are doing this because the current economics of outdoor farming are not in favor of a diversified field. This agricultural practice is already leading to the collapse of major crops.

View fullsize

In 2016, an article in The Guardian reported that Florida grown oranges 

are already experiencing unfixable collapse. Per the article, "The orange crop devastation began in 2005 when a bacterium that causes huanglongbing - better known as citrus greening or HLB disease - was found in southern Florida. Since then, the Asian citrus psyllid, a tiny flying insect which transmits the disease, has been blown across Florida by various hurricanes... Farmers have spent more than $100m on research into ways to combat the disease, but so far scientists are stumped. 'Farmers are giving up on oranges altogether,' said Judith Ganes, president of the commodities research firm J Ganes Consulting. 'Normally after a freeze or hurricane [which both kill lots of trees], the growers would replant 100% of their plants. But the disease has been spread all over... and made it totally uncontrollable. Farmers are giving up and turning to other crops or turning land over to housing.'" (As a sidenote: this is happening all over the country. Farmers are giving up on agriculture and are becoming land developers for urban sprawl.)

A quick google search will show that coffee beans, bananas, and coconuts are expected to experience some form of collapse within this century due to the monocropping practices.

Imagine what will happen if a superbug wipes out wheat or corn. These major crops, who's source is likely 1 of 6 companies, are a major factor in the global economy and extend well beyond the food they provide for people. 70% of the crops are actually designated to feed livestock. So additionally, meat, energy sources, and other industries will be vastly affected by such an event. And we the people will suffer as a result.

What's the solution?

As is often the solution when facing problems created by the current food system: the world needs more local farms and local farmers that grow diverse crops. People everywhere need to be more conscious of where their food is coming from, how it is grown, and the practices that are being utilized to ensure long-term food security. 

In that light, Metropolis Farms is working with the City of Philadelphia to start an educational farming institute in Fairmount Park, the largest landscaped urban park in the world. In addition to providing training and educational opportunities related to farming, we are planning the creation of a seed bank to help preserve precious varieties of fruits and vegetables that face extinction.

View fullsize

A seed bank stores seeds to preserve genetic diversity. There are seed banks all over the world, but not nearly enough to combat the problem outlined above. In addition to storing seeds, anyone involved with a seed bank needs to continuously germinate seeds, grow crops, and produce more seeds. A current limitation most seed bankers face is a limited growing season in which to propagate their seed collection.

By developing a robust seed bank in conjunction with indoor farming, we can save more seeds annually due to our capability of year-round indoor vertical farming. After creating a seed bank, we will be a point for seed access to local farmers and gardeners who want a diversified farm. Part of Metropolis Farms' mission is to democratize our technology to make local farming accessible to anyone. With the plans of creating this seed bank, we plan to democratize the ability to grow a diverse set of crops for local farmers everywhere. We hope others join this mission and start seed banks as well. 

A rise in seed banks will hopefully correspond with a rise in local farming, in turn creating a new food economy in which fruits and vegetables will be grown for people, and not trucks. 

To learn more about this topic, we recommend viewing the powerful documentary Seed: The Untold Story.

Will Vertical Farming Continue To Grow, Or Has It Hit The Greenhouse Ceiling?

View fullsize

Will Vertical Farming Continue To Grow, Or Has It Hit The Greenhouse Ceiling?

By Rick Stella 

Agriculture has come a long way in the past century. We produce more food than ever before — but our current model is unsustainable, and as the world’s population rapidly approaches the 8 billion mark, modern food production methods will need a radical transformation if they’re going to keep up. But luckily, there’s a range of new technologies that might make it possible. In this series, we’ll explore some of the innovative new solutions that farmers, scientists, and entrepreneurs are working on to make sure that nobody goes hungry in our increasingly crowded world.

A pair of lab workers, dressed head to toe in bright white biohazard suits, patrol rows of LED-lit shelves of lettuce, quietly jotting down a series of numbers and readings. Stacked some 15 to 20 feet high, the shelves cover nearly every inch of a massive 25,000-square-foot facility. As the lab hands pass by each row of lettuce, some in the germination phase, some ripe for picking, a psychedelic pink glow wraps around them, painting an almost extraterrestrial setting.

This isn’t a scene plucked from Alfonso Cuarón’s latest blockbuster; it’s an everyday occurrence at a vertical farm in eastern Japan.

The farm was built in the wake of a devastating magnitude 9.1 earthquake that rocked Japan in 2011 and led to a temporary food crisis in the affected area. After seeing the chaos, Japanese plant physiologist Shigerharu Shimamura decided to develop a more consistent, reliable model for manufacturing lettuce. He ended up turning an old Sony-backed semiconductor facility into the planet’s largest vertical farm – a huge operation that now churns out an astounding 10,000 heads of lettuce per day.

“We’re talking coming in and supplying 10, 20, 30 percent of the food supply of an entire city.”

Recently, the facility (and others like it) has become a poster child for indoor farming. There’s now a rapidly expanding movement to bring this type of food production to urban centers all over the globe.

It’s easy to see the appeal. In theory, indoor farms could allow us to grow food 24 hours a day, protect crops from unpredictable weather, and even eliminate the use of pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides. If these farms were built in cities, we could potentially mitigate crop loss due to shipping and storage and cut down on fossil fuel usage because food wouldn’t need to be transported very far after harvest.

But of course, the idea of indoor farming isn’t without its detractors. Critics are quick to point out the method’s shortcomings when it comes to efficiency, effectiveness, and cost. In their eyes, vertical farming simply isn’t something that can be deployed on a large enough scale, and therefore isn’t a viable solution to our problems.

So, who’s right? Should we start building giant, garden-stuffed skyscrapers in our cities, or abandon the idea and devote our efforts to improving existing (horizontal) farms? Could vertical farming legitimately help us meet the world’s growing demand for food, or are we chasing the proverbial pie in the sky?

UPWARD TRAJECTORY: THE BENEFITS OF GROWING VERTICALLY

In his seminal book, The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, Dr. Dickson Despommier puts forth the theory that vertical farming is a prime candidate to help solve the growing food, water, and energy crisis in the United States.

As populations continue to rise in urban centers around the globe, Despommier sees no other solution.

View fullsize

“As of this moment, the WHO (World Health Organization) and the Population Council estimate that about 50 percent of us live in cities and the other half, of course, live somewhere else,” Despommier said in a video. “Another thing we can learn, from NASA of all places, is how much land those 7 billion people — half urban, half rural — actually need to produce their food every year. It turns out to be the size of South America. So, the size of South America, in land mass, is used just to grow our crops that we plant and harvest. I’m not even talking about herbivores like cows, goats, or sheep.”

When the book was first published in 2011, the indoor farming industry essentially stood as a barren landscape, with few companies setting out to literally put vertical farms on the map. Now, with Despommier’s written blueprint in the wild, the concept has recently gained a good deal of popularity.

“It’s estimated that by around 2050, roughly 80 percent of the world’s population will reside in urban city centers.”

Aside from Despommier, a growing number of people strongly believe in a prominent future for vertical farms. Today, there exist throngs of vertical farming companies all geared toward making this innovative technology a reality. Unsurprisingly, it’s with Despommier and these upstart companies that the industry’s appeal rings the loudest.

Companies such as Bright AgroTech and AeroFarms have set out to educate and inform small farmers to grow locally in urban areas, while other firms like Freight Farms and Edenworks lean on unique and innovative growing concepts — such as shipping containers or rooftop aquaponics — to bring the idea to life. Thus far, there’s no real right or wrong way to go about it, and the recent influx of startups should only prove advantageous to the industry in the long run.

“I do believe there are a few players coming to the table that look poised to supplement local food supplies to a really significant degree,” aquaponics expert Dr. Nate Storey told Digital Trends. “We’re talking coming in and supplying 10, 20, 30 percent of the food supply of an entire city. So, you have this future where you have indoor growers taking on that task, and you have small guys that are kind of collaborating and cooperating to sell to niche markets, really high-value products. Then you have the big boys who are really kind of going head-to-head with some of your field producers, who are growing at much larger scales and interested in replacing that wholesale product.”

As Despommier states on his website, it’s estimated that by around 2050, roughly 80 percent of the world’s population will reside in urban city centers, with the population of the world ballooning by an additional 3 billion people over that time. To Storey’s point, the diversity of vertical farms should allow these urban areas to continue to function as they do today. That is, access to food should remain a basic function of society, as opposed to it serving as a luxury should food production dwindle in the future.

Like the Green Revolution from the 1930s to the 1960s, Storey believes the world sits poised for yet another research and development breakthrough regarding vertical farming.

“When you step back a bit, you begin to realize that we’re kind of on the verge of another green Revolution,” he added. “I think that indoor agriculture plays a huge role in that. So, the 40,000 feet in the air perspective is it’s not just about supporting local demand for food, it’s about controlling the environment completely. This means eventually taking things out of the field entirely and putting them indoors.”

View fullsize

Dr. Nate Storey is the founder of BrightAgrotech — a company that designs and develops vertical farming technologies, such as the ZipGrow hydroponic system pictured above. (Credit: Bright Agrotech)

BRINGING A HIGH-FLYING IDEA BACK DOWN TO EARTH

While the upstart vertical farming community largely agrees with Storey’s stance, there also exists a wing of detractors who point to indoor farming’s inefficiencies.

The loudest voice among these critics is former United States Department of Agriculture biologist Stan Cox. After serving for the USDA  for 13 years as a wheat geneticist, Cox joined the Land Institute as a senior scientist in 2000, specifically focusing on plant breeding in greenhouses and fields. An author of several books looking at the past, present, and future of all things agriculture and food, Cox is an expert in the field — which is why his view of vertical farming as a scam is a perspective that should give anyone pause.

“This will never be able to supply any significant percentage of our food needs.”

Vertical farming’s largest hurdle — a concept Cox thinks should’ve “collapsed under its own weight of illogic” and that he says remains incredibly difficult to overcome — concerns its scale. Cox posits that to be truly effective, vertical farms would require an incredible amount of floor space. Despommier envisions indoor farming as a means to avoid the degradation of soil, but turning the currently cultivated land into soil-preserving indoor farms would require an almost unfathomable amount of space.

View fullsize

To get a true picture of this, Cox breaks down the floor space requirement for growing just vegetables — which clocks in at roughly 1.6 percent of cultivated land in the U.S.

While that number may not sound like much, turning that 1.6 percent of cultivated land into a functioning indoor or vertical farming operation demands the relative floorspace of around 105,000 Empire State Buildings. As Cox also points out, even with that much-dedicated space, 98 percent of U.S. crops would continue to grow at outdoor farms.

“A colleague and I originally did some back of the envelope calculations that show if we grew grain- or fruit-producing crops [in vertical farms], it would take half of the country’s electricity supply or tens of thousands of Empire State Buildings,” Cox told Digital Trends. “These huge numbers would show that this may be fine for growing, on the small side, fairly expensive leafy greens to be used in restaurants or local areas. But the two things we have to always keep in mind is the amount of energy and resources being put into each unit of food, and the second is the scale. This will never be able to supply any significant percentage of our food needs.”

View fullsize

Despite Cox’s calculations painting a grim picture for large-scale urban production of grain or vegetables, he did emphasize that he’s “all for” urban gardening, or growing food as close to a population center as possible. To Cox, it just “makes sense.” Unfortunately, small urban gardening operations won’t likely have any shot at replacing the more than 350 million acres of rural U.S. cropland that consistently churn out America’s food supply.

“We can only grow enough crops within cities to substitute for a very tiny portion of [our food supply],” Cox added. “We’re still going to depend on rural America for growing the bulk of our food. There’s no big problem with that, really. We certainly want for perishable food, like fresh produce, to grow as much as we can close to where we live. But for grains, dry beans, food legumes, oilseeds, quinoa, all of these dry, nutrient-dense foods with a lower moisture content that can be shipped with very little energy or cost (by rail), that’s still going to be grown around our rural areas.”

View fullsize

Plain and simple, Cox doesn’t see a way around the issue of energy as it pertains to vertical farms — at least for the sustained growth of something like grains or fruit. Because leafy greens require less light to grow sufficiently, it makes much more sense to operate vertical farms geared solely around these foods. Conversely, growing something like corn or wheat — which produce much more dry matter — just doesn’t seem like a feasible option if there’s an intention to keep energy, production, and food costs down.

View fullsize

GROWING UP: THE FUTURE OF VERTICAL FARMING

With the vertical farming industry still very much in its infancy, its future remains somewhat murky. Despite the growing number of startups committed to nurturing the idea, its hindrances and drawbacks pointed out by critics like Stan Cox carry just as much clout. Because of this, it’s hard to confidently put stock in either its failure or success.

“The Achilles’ heel of vertical farming or gardening is that it just does not work out energetically.”

Vertical farming’s best shot at a lasting legacy may be to simply pump the brakes on continued advancement. As it stands today, the startups that currently run operations geared toward producing heaps of leafy greens might want to think long and hard about introducing anything capable of completely shutting down momentum — i.e., fruits, grains, etc. In this case, energy usage is the bane of vertical farming’s existence.

“The Achilles’ heel of vertical farming or gardening is that it just does not work out energetically,” Cox points out. “The amount of energy put into [vertical farming] per unit of food you get out of it is very tiny. That’s why almost everything you see being grown this way is some type of leafy green that doesn’t require as much light to produce.”

Now, this isn’t to say vertical farming won’t continue to exist, or even that any of the startups dedicated to its advancement won’t try to introduce fruit or grain to their production. Perhaps there comes a time when someone finds a solution to the energy dependence issue, but for now, leafy greens are the vertical farming industry’s ceiling.

RELATED TOPICS: FOOD, FUTURE OF FOOD, INDOOR FARMING, VERTICAL FARMING, EMERGING TECH, FEATURES

Urban Farming Technologies Crop Up in Homes, Restaurants

Urban Farming Technologies Crop Up in Homes, Restaurants

View fullsize

Cam MacKugler waters a seedsheet at the Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, Nov. 3, 2017. (T. Trinh/VOA)

 Tina Trinh  |  2017   |  NEW YORK

How do you obtain the freshest, locally grown produce in a big city? For an increasing number of urbanites, the answer is to grow it yourself.

Cam MacKugler can help. MacKugler was at the recent Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, New York showing off Seedsheets, roll-out fabric sheets embedded with seed-filled pods.

The sheets are placed atop soil in a home planter or an outdoor garden. When watered, the pods dissolve and plants sprout in 10 days (for pea shoots) to 70 days (for dragon carrots).

View fullsize

An exhibitor displays a Seedsheet product at the Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, Nov. 3, 2017. (T. Trinh/VOA)

The seed groupings on any given Seedsheet provide ingredients for specific dishes like salads or tacos. Pricing starts at $15 for pre-made sheets and go up to $100 for custom outdoor sheets measuring 1.2 by 2.4 meters.

"Someone that's never gardened before might say, 'I want to know where my food comes from but I don't know how to do it, but I like salads so I'm going to buy the salad kit,' " said MacKugler, Seedsheet's CEO and founder.

Efforts like Seedsheet come as consumers increasingly want to know where their food comes from and are more interested in socially and environmentally responsible growing methods.

MacKugler told VOA that most of the company's sales come from urban millennials.

Comparing Seedsheets to meal kit delivery companies like Blue Apron, MacKugler said Seedsheet took an experiential and educational approach to gardening, while making it user-friendly for customers.

"I view it as a way to not only help them grow food, but also help grow their skill sets of knowing how to curate their food, how to actually bring food from seed to supper. It's a life skill," said MacKugler, "It's the same thing that you get from using Blue Apron and learning how to cook."

View fullsize

Gotham Greens hydroponic lettuce on display at Food Loves Tech in Brooklyn, Nov. 3, 2017. (T. Trinh/VOA)

Consumers aren't giving up on the convenience and low cost of packaged foods, but new products and technologies are playing a bigger role in helping them understand where their food comes from.

"Consumer education is really progressing," said Nicole Baum, senior marketing and partnerships manager at Gotham Greens, a New York-based provider of hydroponically grown produce.

Baum said consumers were less familiar with the term "hydroponics," growing plants in water instead of soil, when Gotham Greens started in 2011. Perceptions have since changed, and she has seen an increase in competing companies.

"We're definitely seeing a lot more people within the space from when we first started, which is awesome," said Baum. "I think it's really great that other people are coming into the space and looking for ways to use technology to have more productive, efficient growth."

View fullsize

Gramercy Tavern sous chef Kyle Goldstein with attendees at the Food Loves Tech event in Brooklyn, Nov. 3, 2017. (T. Trinh/VOA)

Gotham Greens provides rooftop-grown leafy greens and herbs to supermarkets and top-ranked restaurants like Gramercy Tavern, which uses seasonal vegetables but also depends on the reliability of produce from urban hydroponic farms.

"When we write our menus, we know that there are staples that we can continue using," said Gramercy Tavern sous chef Kyle Goldstein.

Companies like Smallhold were also on hand at the Food Loves Tech event to promote their mushroom mini-farms — self-contained, vertical farm units that are intended for use in commercial kitchens.

Smallhold's mini-farms are installed and serviced by the company at restaurants, with chefs harvesting mushrooms directly on-site. Hannah Shufro, operations lead at Smallhold, said the mini-farms minimize the environmental footprint that comes with transporting and packaging produce for delivery.

View fullsize

An attendee examines mushrooms inside a Smallhold vertical farm unit, Nov. 3, 2017. (T. Trinh/VOA)

"A lot of chefs these days, I think, are more concerned with sustainability" and have always been concerned with freshness, she said.

Shufro noted that produce starts to lose its nutritional value from the moment it's picked or harvested. "When you're harvesting food right out of a system that's growing on-site, it does not get fresher than that," she said.

5 Repurposed Warehouses Turned Indoor Farms That Need No Land Or Sun To Grow Crops

5 Repurposed Warehouses Turned Indoor Farms That Need No Land Or Sun To Grow Crops

December 2017

Earth's population is expected to reach 8.5 billion people by 2030. That is 8.5 billion mouths to feed. With dwindling land resources and soaring farming costs across the country, vertical indoor farms may be a solution to feeding the world. Often repurposed from former warehouses, the indoor farms need no sunlight or pesticides and require less water to grow produce.

Following are five indoor farms leading the pack.

1. AeroFarms

View fullsize

Company/Owner: AeroFarms

At 70K SF, the world's largest indoor vertical farm cost $39M to build, and uses LED lights and computer controls to tailor the lighting for each plant. A closed-loop aeroponic system mists the roots of the greens and reduces water usage by 95%. Constant monitoring of nutrients allows AeroFarms to grow a plant from seed to harvest in half the time of a traditional farm. AeroFarms produces 2 million pounds of produce a year.

2. Gotham Greens

View fullsize

Company/Owner: Gotham Greens

A pioneer in the indoor farming industry, Gotham Greens built its first rooftop greenhouse in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and installed solar panels, LED lighting, thermal curtains and a recirculating irrigation system to offset electrical use and reduce water usage. Gotham Green's newest greenhouse in Chicago is located on top of the Method home products plant and cost $8M to build. At 75K SF (or two acres), it produces a crop yield equal to that of a 50-acre farm.

3. Green Sense Farms

View fullsize

Company/Owner: Green Sense Farms

Green Sense's 30K SF farm is capable of growing produce for up to 20 million people within a 100-mile radius. The farm is equipped with customized LED lights from Dutch technology firm Royal Philips and grows its produce in automated carousels, while computerized controls provide perfect conditions for year-round farming. Green Sense CEO Robert Colangelo believes his model is scalable and last year raised over $400K in equity crowdfunding to help build a nationwide network of similar indoor farms.

4. Bowery

View fullsize

Company/Owner: Bowery

Dubbing itself the world's "first post-organic greens" grower, Bowery uses LED lights to mimic sunlight, grows its greens in nutrient-rich water trays stacked from floor to ceiling, uses data analysis to monitor plantings from seed to harvest and robotics to harvest the crops.

Investors love what Bowery is doing so much that the company announced Wednesday that it raised $20M to expand its operations in the U.S. and overseas. Bowery raised $7.5M in February from a pool of investors including "Top Chef" judge and chef Tom Colicchio.

5. Local Roots Farms

View fullsize

Local Roots Farms is innovating urban farming design and building indoor farms from 40-foot-long shipping containers. These portable indoor farms are capable of producing the equivalent of a five-acre farm. Local Roots believes this model will disrupt food deserts around the world by setting up the container farmswhere they are needed most.

Source: Forbes

Indoor/Vertical Farms Set to Boom, LEDs Leading The Transition, Says Yole

Indoor/Vertical Farms Set to Boom, LEDs Leading The Transition, Says Yole

November 23, 2017 //By Julien Happich

View fullsize

The 2016 horticultural lighting market (i.e. system level) represented a business of about US$3.1 billion, representing approximately US$3.8 billion in 2017. But according to a recent report from market research firm Yole Développement, this market is set to grow rapidly at a 17.8% CAGR between 2016 and 2022, possibly reaching more than US$17 billion by 2027.

While Yole sees the current business mostly driven by greenhouse applications and incumbent technologies (92% and 79% in revenue, respectively) during 2017, the transition to LED technology and the emergence of new applications will expand the market’s size.
In its report "Horticultural LED Lighting: Market, Industry, and Technology Trends" Yoles sees this market reaching nearly US$8.6 billion in 2022. 

View fullsize

Horticultural lighting market revenue ($B),
2017 vs. 2022 vs. 2017.
Source, Horticultural LED Lighting:
Market, Industry and Technology Trends,
Yole Développement.

than US$17 billion in 2027”, comments Pierrick Boulay, Technology & Market Analyst at Yole.
At the LED device level, market opportunity represents almost US$100 million in 2017 and should grow to about US$400 million in 2022, eventually reaching US$ 700 million in ten years' time.

The LED lighting industry sees horticultural lighting as a new opportunity for which to develop high added-value products with greater margin levels. In Q4/2017, Yole identified less than 50 players as offering dedicated LED-based systems. The industry is highly concentrated in North America with a 50% market share (number of companies involved), the result of medicinal cannabis’s legalization.

“Looking ahead, industry evolution will strongly depend on market dynamics,” explains Joel Thomé, PISEO’s CEO. “Indeed, industrial players’ marketing and communications are currently focused on two main applications including medicinal plants (mostly cannabis) production, which is today the main market driver and vegetable production, which is developing with a “low-end / high-volume products” focus.”

The 2016 horticultural lighting market (i.e. system level) represented a business of about US$3.1 billion, representing approximately US$3.8 billion in 2017. But according to a recent report from market research firm Yole Développement, this market is set to grow rapidly at a 17.8% CAGR between 2016 and 2022, possibly reaching more than US$17 billion by 2027.

Part of the established lighting system industry may never proceed with the medicinal plants application, in order to preserve brand reputation. Such a situation is likely to benefit new entrants that will generate revenue swiftly and rapidly increase their horticultural lighting market expertise.

View fullsize

At the device level, most LED manufacturers embrace a “technology push strategy”, taking advantage of their traditional LED portfolio (i.e. UV, visible, and NIR LEDs) to quickly offer some horticultural lighting solutions and related marketing tools, such as dedicated datasheets.

In the future, with a better understanding of LED light’s effect on plant growth, these players might start offering more dedicated solutions (i.e. fine-tuned wavelength package, multiple wavelength packages, etc.).

The missing block in the supply chain is mostly at the module level, with no real supplier in 2017 – reason being that the market is still emerging and the industry is still young, with no standards and regulations. In this context, each lighting system manufacturer design its own module with a specific wavelength mix/recipe. 
Some companies are finally starting to position themselves as solution providers, offering not only lighting systems but global solutions integrating sensors (humidity, oxygen, etc.) and data management software. The objective of these smart lighting systems is to further increase the productivity of greenhouses and urban farms.

Yole Développement – www.yole.fr

Steven LaFerrière - laferriere@yole.fr

Horticultural lighting applications.
Source, Horticultural LED Lighting:
Market, Industry and Technology Trends,
Yole Développement. 

Urban Crop Solutions Was Awarded The Public Choice Award on The European Finals of The FoodNexus Challenge

Urban Crop Solutions Was Awarded The Public Choice Award on The European Finals of The FoodNexus Challenge

Urban Crop Solutions was awarded the Public Choice Award on the European finals of the FoodNexus Challenge on Wednesday evening December 13th. Fifteen companies from 8 different EU countries were competing during a three-day event in Wageningen (NL) for the European FoodNexus Challenge Award. The expert audience consisting of academic, corporate and venture capital people selected Urban Crop Solutions during a live closing event.

FoodNexus is a European consortium of international food companies and leading knowledge institutions that strives to create a robust and sustainable European Food System.

Fifteen finalists were selected for the European final in Wageningen (NL) out of over 470 applications from European companies. During the past three day event, a boot camp was organized for the European Finalists so that they could work together with R&D and Innovation Managers from corporate partners in facilitated workshops. The goal was to prepare all parties for collaboration projects on e.g. co-development of the startup or scale up’s technology or international marketing and sales.  More than 300 people attended the closing night on Wednesday and were able to vote at the end of the event for the Public Choice Award. Representatives of the corporate partners (Unilever, Nutreco, FrieslandCampina, and Ahold), as well as other managers from international corporations, the academic community, and private equity investors, were present during this final session. Prince Constantijn of The Netherlands joined a panel on Corporate-Startup engagement during this event.

“This award is a very important international recognition for our team and for our realizations in the last year. During the past three days, we felt great support for our business model. The feedback that we received from corporate experts makes us believe even more that indoor vertical farming solutions have a great potential worldwide to optimize supply chains and plant production in many industries”, says Maarten Vandecruys, CEO of Urban Crop Solutions. Brecht Stubbe, Global Sales Director of Urban Crop Solutions adds “Our global approach and our focus on automated and robotized systems were very much liked by the European audience during the event. We should leverage this Award and increase our presence in the world even faster. The last weeks we have felt a lot of international traction for our systems”

Urban Crop Solutions develops tailor-made plant growth installations for its clients. These systems are turnkey, robotized and able to be integrated into existing production facilities or food processing units. Urban Crop Solutions also has its own range of standard growth container products. Being a total solution provider, Urban Crop Solutions can also supply seeds, substrates, and nutrients for clients that have limited or no knowledge or experience with farming. Currently, the company has developed plant growing recipes for more than 200 varieties of crops that can be grown in closed environment vertical farms. These recipes (ranging from leafy greens, vegetables, medicinal plants to flowers) are developed specifically for indoor farming applications and sometimes exclusively for clients by its team of plant scientists. Urban Crop Solutions has started activities in Miami (Florida, US) in 2016 and is soon to open a division in Japan.

Urban Crop Solutions

New Vertical Farming System Being Franchised

New Vertical Farming System Being Franchised

December 13, 2017

Written by Ted Tennison

View fullsize

Crops include micro-greens and leafy greens.

Dec. 13, 2017, Leduc, Alta. – Western Canada’s grocery and food service industries are eagerly waiting for the final commissioning of Trusted Freshness™ Ltd. Canada’s newest vertical farming enterprise. The 37,000 sq. ft. growing facility in Leduc is going through the final steps before launching its commercial operation.

The Trusted Freshness facility provides a controlled indoor urban environment capable of growing a wide assortment of produce including micro greens, leafy greens and vine crops. Many of the crops can be grown and harvested within a seven to 30-day cycle, providing fresh produce year round. 

The local availability of produce ensures that the nutritional benefits of the produce are not reduced by long transportation hauls, which is the case with the produce imported from southwestern U.S. and Mexico. 

“Our franchise approach to vertical farming provides our franchisees with tremendous flexibility in how they can operate their business,” says Jim Schroeder, Trusted Freshness CEO and chief marketing officer. “The franchisee may wish to simply invest in a Trusted Freshness vertical farming module and have the management of the unit out-sourced or operate their franchise themselves.”

The Trusted Freshness franchise business model enables investors to operate their individual growing enterprises in a co-located facility, while at the same time taking advantage of shared core services such as hands-on training, germination, packaging, distribution and marketing of their produce.

 “The demand for Trusted Freshness produce is significant,” says Schroeder. “Since word got out about our vertical farming facility, we have been approached by numerous groups interested in purchasing our freshly-grown produce. Grocery retailers, the food service industry and even individual chefs are looking for that specific herb or micro-green that will give them an extra advantage in their culinary offering.”

“We are delighted with the continued interest our Trusted Freshness operation is receiving from the local business community, the rest of Canada and other parts of the world,” says Schroeder. “We are already investigating additional locations that would be a great fit for a Trusted Freshness operation.”

“With the world-wide market for vertical farming operations projected to be worth a minimum of $3.88 billion U.S. by 2020, this is certainly the time for entrepreneurs and investors to take a look at a Trusted Freshness franchise,” says Schroeder.

For more information on Trusted Freshness™ Ltd. visit www.trustedfreshness.com or contact Trusted Freshness CEO Jim Schroeder at 780.690.8985, email: jim@trustedfreshness.com    

Wisconsin School Grows Crops in Hydroponics System

Wisconsin School Grows Crops in Hydroponics System

by The Associated Press

Sunday, December 10th 2017

View fullsize

(Image Courtesy MGN Online)

PLYMOUTH, Wis. (AP) -- Students at a private school in eastern Wisconsin are growing their own food for lunch in the school's cafeteria.

The hydroponics system at St. John Lutheran School in Plymouth is part of a pilot program through the nonprofit Feeding America, USA Today Network-Wisconsin reported.

The system is kept in a large plastic shell and was installed about a month ago. Nutrient-rich water is cycled through the system and enables growth without the need for soil.

"In this day and age of conservation and resources, what a great way to show the students every day that there are ways to try and be a little more self-sustaining and have less of an impact on the environment," said Jay Lindsey, the school's principal. "Along the lines of problem-solving, it's a great educational tool for the kids."

Students have tried planting lettuce so far. Science teacher Libby MacGillis planted starfighter lettuce seeds in the classroom before students helped transfer the plants to the hydroponics system. The lettuce is a fast-growing and high-yielding green.

"They grow really, really fast. They sprout in about 24 hours," MacGillis said. "We'll plant them one day and by the next day I'll already have plants."

Cafeteria staff then used the lettuce for the salad bar, Lindsey said.

"We'll grow other crops, but we did this first because we know it works really well," MacGillis said. "We might try strawberries and peppers."

It took the school time to find the right water and nutrient balance for the plants. The first batch of crops was killed when the water in the system leaked out overnight. The problems were worth it after seeing the students' excitement, MacGillis said.

"They loved it," she said. "Everyone wanted to try it."

The school has about 200 students from 3-year-olds to eighth graders.

What’s It Like to Be a Vertical Farmer?

What’s It Like to Be a Vertical Farmer?

As the Shift Manager for Farm.One’s Tribeca farm, Tom Rubino juggles early mornings, a fast pace, and a high attention to detail. Here’s how he does it.

You’ve probably seen enough videos and photos of vertical farms: Racks and racks, levels and levels within LED-lit warehouses, growing ‘perfect’ produce year-in, year-out. You might see a white-jacketed figure in the distance, tiny against the equipment. The focus is firmly on the technology, not the people.

What’s more, it’s especially hard to find out what it’s really like to work on an indoor farm, because many companies are extremely secretive — hardly letting anyone past their air-curtained doors.

But don’t let that fool you. Like any other business, urban farms live or die on their people. And real people work in them, like Tom.

View fullsize

Tom Rubino, Farm.One Tribeca

Farm.One is kind of unusual in the world of vertical farms. Most grow just a few crops — normally bulk salad greens. Instead, we grow hundreds of rare herbs, edible flowers and micros (581 at last count) for chefs in some of the best restaurants in New York. Often our product is the last thing a chef puts on the plate, and the first thing a customer sees.

View fullsize

Our leaves and flowers, on a dish by Ronny Emborg for Atera

Our farms are very small (Tribeca is just over 1,200 square feet, and our farm at the Institute of Culinary Education is around 300). But we use the latest LED lights and hydroponics to grow year-round in the heart of the city, giving us an outsized level of production for such a tiny space.

As Shift Manager for Farm.One’s new farm in Tribeca, Tom oversees all day-to-day operations from seed to harvest. The buck stops with Tom.

View fullsize

Tom has always had a love for food and how it’s grown

A Love of Food & Farming

“I spent five months on a family farm in Sicily — and it was the time of my life. It was a huge farm, over 500 acres, growing wheat, almonds, olives, grapes and more—kind of the opposite to this! I’d also done a lot of gardening at my house, starting with a small window box and progressing to a 10x20' planter on the roof, growing common herbs.

“I just feel very at peace when I’m around plants.

“It makes me very happy to see a plant through from germination to the point you harvest it — it’s real satisfaction. And to see someone using it in a dish is even better.

Early Mornings

AtFarm.One, mornings start early — often around 6:30am—as we harvest everything on the day of delivery. Tom likes to get a head start.

“I open up the farm early. This is my chance to get ahead of the day, prepping everything for the beginning of people‘s shifts.

“I’ll have a look at the harvest, and print out the harvest tickets [Farm.One uses our own ticketing system, a little bit like a restaurant] — if there’s anything I think one person will harvest better than someone else, faster than someone else, I’ll assign them that ticket.

Running two farms 15 minutes walk from each other is … interesting, logistically. Tom has to stay on top of this, and any special instructions.

“I’ll have a look at what we need from ICE versus here. I’ll try to get ahead of the harvest, looking at what customers need what, and any special packing or cutting requirements ahead of time before it gets busy. In my mind the harvest is finalized at 8am — ready for everyone to come in.

View fullsize

Thai Red Stem Basil

Unlike most farms, Farm.One plants seeds almost every day of the week — so that our customers get the perfect leaf size for their product.

For example, many microgreens are grown for just 12 or 14 days, meaning that even one day off can mean a product isn’t right.

This means every day has a mixture of planting, transplanting and harvesting, as well as general farm maintenance tasks.

“I’ll look at the planting schedule too — so that I know at what point during the harvest I can peel people off the harvest and onto planting so that we get everything done in time.

“We usually have a big planting scheduled. The key is getting everything prepped—seeds, medium, everything before the full effort starts. We’ll have Farm Hands coming in at different times — either starting their shift or from ICE, so it’s key to be ready. I’m constantly corresponding with our Head of Operations if we are short on something or there are last-minute changes.

“When I get the planting underway, I can think about what I need to do, either re-allocating space in the system, receiving consumables.

“On a busy day, there are also unexpected things happening. New orders, problems with a particular crop. Being able to jump in and troubleshoot problems, being flexible is important.

Important qualities

Tom talks through some of the essential traits you need to succeed on a busy indoor farm.

“Anticipation—you’re not always going to know before there is a problem, but you need to think about what you might do if there is one, and be ready for different things to happen. You want to see a few moves ahead and be ready for a variety of scenarios.

“It’s a rush on busy days. When everything goes smoothly, you can be going through huge quantities of tickets and look back at the end of the shift to see a lot of product done, and that’s very rewarding. But that only happens if you’re thinking in advance.

“We’re always looking for new ways to improve, and figuring out the most efficient ways to do things. Not necessarily the fastest, but the correct way.

Food adventures

“Igrew up in a family where eating was a huge business. We start Thanksgiving at around 11:30 in the morning, and have like a nine-course meal! A constant steady stream of food throughout the day. Some of my best memories from my childhood are from waking up and smelling my mom’s garlic for breakfast. Eating is a very social thing, it’s about enjoyment, very much about pleasure and having a good time.

I’ll often tell a waiter when I go into a restaurant ‘We’re going to be here a while, and we’re going to have fun!’.

“I like all different cuisines, and my fiancée and I get a lot of pleasure out of it.

What’s it like visiting a restaurant where you’ve grown the product yourself?

Since starting at Farm.One, Tom has visited our customers like Daniel, Butter, Mission Chinese Food and Le Turtle.

“That is a lot of fun! The first thing I ever ate in a restaurant from this farm was nasturtium, when I was at Butter. My girlfriend ate most of it while I was texting David (Farm.One’s Head Horticulturalist) about it! The second was Le Turtle — and that’s where we got the full experience; Chef Victor hit us with a lot of things that we grow. He did it on purpose, I know!

“I try everything growing often on the farm so I know how it’s doing, but one of the plants I tasted rarely before was Bull’s Blood. On that occasion, at Le Turtle it stood out though, because we had had a nightmare with a lot of failed batches of that product — getting just two trays-worth out of 6 planted trays by painstakingly picking through it for what felt like hours. So when I saw it on a dish at Le Turtle I had to laugh— that was definitely the fruits of my labor! It tasted that much better.

What’s the best part of the job?

“It’s a lot of fun to visit restaurants, but it’s even better to hear from Sales the compliments we’ve had from chefs. I take a lot of pleasure from giving chefs the best product possible. So when I hear back from chefs, it gives me a huge amount of satisfaction.

View fullsize

Tom deep in the Nepitella

Any advice for wannabe urban farmers?

“Patience and persistence. Despite all the work we put in to systematize and automate, at the ground level it’s a very exact science.

“The smallest of details can throw off germination and maturation of any plant. A tray of Dragon’s Tongue might dry out if you have a slightly elevated side of a tray. Flood height might vary. New trays don’t always fit perfectly with the old trays. Even a few millimeters can make a difference sometimes.

“Attention to detail is vital. I’m meticulous. It’s the only way you can have success with this kind of farm. Constantly adjusting and improving as a farmer and pushing that back to the business is essential.

View fullsize

While automation and software helps, a close eye ensures nothing slips through the gaps.

“I love the challenge and I enjoy the work. I don’t mind the extra effort. You have to have a love for it, and an ability to learn from your mistakes.

Find out more about our farming team and how they work with the overview video below, narrated by Head of Operations, Dana.

Inspired? You can now own a piece of Farm.One at http://farm.one/invest.

How Is Our Culture Changing The Way We Eat?

How Is Our Culture Changing The Way We Eat?

Marissa Peretz,  CONTRIBUTOR

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

View fullsize

Photo courtesy of Local Roots

What does the farm of the future look like?

Whether you have landed your dream job or are just starting your career, lunch and dinner provide a way to bond, network, and share wisdom with friends and teammates. Breakfast can offer the same camaraderie, for those of us who wake up before the sun does. Back in college, our schedules were flexible and the nearest farmer’s market was generally within hiking distance.

As we entered the workforce with longer work hours than previous generations and full podcast length commute times,  we considered the time it takes to shop in a large grocery store and the limited options of most chain restaurants. We craved easier, healthier, and more sustainable options which is why locally sourced produce and meal delivery services are such a huge trend.

We also know that when we buy food from local sources, it creates jobs and benefits our local economy. So the question is: where are we getting our food?

Dinner in the city fresh from a local, sustainable farm

One trend that has been gaining popularity across the country with a variety of people, including millennials, is locally sourced produce. One way to find local produce is to join a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) program. These services often deliver produce to your door (or to your friend’s door if you decide to split a box).  When you reduce the number of steps between when produce is freshly picked and when you place it in your fridge, your food retains more vitamins and minerals.   

Some companies even help connect employees with CSAs.  “There are CSA programs connected with each of our office locations (Providence (HQ), New York, and San Francisco),” said restaurant management platform Upserve'sVP of Talent, Alaina Restivo. “Through these programs, employees can order fresh produce or dairy from local farms to be delivered right to the office, making it easy to eat healthy at home as well as at work. By supporting these CSAs, we’re able to promote a just and sustainable food system in our communities.”

One option includes Imperfect Produce, a service that delivers fruit and vegetables that did not meet cosmetic standards for grocery stores at a lower price. “I just signed up for bi-weekly deliveries,” said Megan Palmer, Public Relations Director, ZeroCater.  “Definitely makes it easier to complete my shopping list but also forces me to switch things up.”  

Matt Vail, Founder & COO of Local Roots sees this local trend growing much stronger. His company is a Los Angeles based indoor farming startup that uses shipping containers to create an optimal growing environment for produce and co-locates them with retail distribution centers to produce longer lasting, fresh food.