Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
Larry Ellison And Dr. David Agus Unveil Their Hydroponic Farming Start-Up.
Larry Ellison And Dr. David Agus Unveil Their Hydroponic Farming Start-Up.
Larry Ellison is the founder of Oracle and the 10th-richest man on the planet, according to Forbes. Dr. David Agus is a best-selling author and physician whose clients included Steve Jobs and Sumner Redstone.
Of all the companies the two could have started together, they’ve chosen an unusual approach: a hydroponic farming start-up focused on creating more healthful food.
Their new business, Sensei, formally unveiled itself Monday afternoon, wading into an industry that has become increasingly popular among investors.
Silicon Valley Start-up Plenty raised $200 million from SoftBank’s $100 billion Vision Fund. Bowery Farming, whose vegetables are now sold in a few grocery stores in New York City, has collected money from the likes of Google’s venture arm and General Catalyst.
Sensei is focused more on wellness. While the company ultimately plans to expand into an array of businesses, its initial focus is on hydroponic farming, using software and sensors to monitor growing conditions. (Its first farm is on Lanai, the Hawaiian island of which Mr. Ellison owns roughly 98 percent.)
Sensei’s first batch of crops includes Black Trifele tomatoes and Komatsuna mustard greens, with its yardstick for production being nutrition per acre.
“So far, the conversation in agriculture has been dominated by productivity: How much food can we grow in a square foot. But scale is just part of the equation,” Dr. Agus said in a statement. “To properly nourish the world, we need to consider how nutritious that food is. This is where Sensei is focused.”
Its first customer is Hawaii, which imports the majority of its food. Sensei said that it can provide the state fresh food within 24 hours of harvesting, compared with over a week for imported vegetables.
But the company is also eager to tout its tech bona fides. Its farm runs off solar power provided by Tesla panels. And it claims to use just 10 percent of the water used in traditional farming methods.
“For so long, agriculture has been one of the least digitized industries,” Daniel Gruneberg, Sensei’s president, said in a statement. “Now, we can combine software, sensors and robotics to make giant leaps in sustainable farming and perhaps, more importantly, the quality of our food.”
— Michael de la Merced
Automation Is Coming…And 9 Other Things You Need To Know About Indoor Farming
The Intelligence Platform For Indoor Farms
Jan 8
Automation Is Coming…And 9 Other Things You Need To Know About Indoor Farming
Curious about indoor farming? You’ve come to the right place.
Last year, we set out to provide detailed insight about the state of the indoor farming industry today — what growers are doing, their challenges, and how they see their field changing over the next few years. With that, the State of Indoor Farming was created.
This year, our report provides not only an outlook of the industry, but also an updated analysis of the industry following our 2016 report. We received over 150 responses from 8 countries, with 81% coming from the United States, 12% coming from Canada, and the remainder coming from other countries.
You can check out the full State of Indoor Farming report here.
If you don’t have time to dig deep, don’t worry. Here are the 10 things you need to know:
1. Automation is exciting.
Labor makes up a huge portion of an indoor farmer’s budget (49% of a hydroponic operation), so finding ways to cut down on those costs is important. As a result, automation topped the list of technologies farmers are most excited about.
2. On the flip side, farmers think container farms are overhyped.
Regardless of its recent growth in the last few years, container farms came in at number one on the list of technologies responding farmers thought were overhyped. LEDs came in both second on the list of things growers think are overhyped as well as tied for third on the list of technologies farmers were most excited about.
3. Indoor agriculture isn’t the same as urban farming.
This is a big misconception. Indoor farms typically locate close to the point of sale or where efficiency can be maximized, which is not just in urban areas. This is one of the major benefits of indoor farming. Because the farmer has more control over climate, they can choose to locate a farm wherever it makes the most sense.
4. Most indoor farms are producing 2 or more crops in their space.
80% of respondents to our latest SOIF survey grow at least two crops. Because growers have the ability to create microclimates within the growing area, they can optimize for more than one type of crop. Below are the five most common crops grown by the responding farmers.
5. Indoor agriculture produces higher yields compared to conventional farming.
Enclosing facilities gives farmers the ability to create ideal growing environments. As a result, farmers can grow a crop from seed to harvest in less time and produce higher yields.
6. Leafy greens and microgreens have the highest profit margin.
On average, leafy greens and microgreens had the highest profit margin for responding farmers in 2017, at 40% across various facility and system types.
7. Vertical farms use a lot of energy.
Artificial lighting is a key component to vertical farming operations. Growers run their lights approximately 16 hours per day, every day, all year round. As a result, expect energy to account for a large percentage of your operating costs. Greenhouses use energy too. Most of the energy consumption in a greenhouse comes from heating and cooling costs.
8. Growers are innovative.
We asked growers if they would buy technology from a startup and 78% indicated they would. Most growers specified they don’t want to be “beta testers” but they recognize the need to innovate. The key for farmers is trusting technology and not buying new technologies that don’t directly benefit their farm.
9. 2018 will be the year of data and analytics.
When asked about the technologies growers are looking to invest in this year, most farmers selected data and analytics; climate control systems ranked second. If you are going to run a profitable farm in 2018, investing in a technology stack is a must.
10. Profitability is the number one goal for growers in 2018.
When asked about their number one goal for 2018, 46% of farmers indicated either increasing profitability or revenue. For an additional 7%, the primary goal is decreasing costs, which takes financial-related goals to 53%.
Special thanks to our survey partners: Urban Ag News, State of the Soil, and Cornell University.
Want more? Check out the full State of Indoor Farming report here.
Agrilyst
The intelligence platform for indoor farms
Stories about agriculture and agtech from the team at Agrilyst.
Tags: 2017 2018 Agriculture Indoor Farming Data
Energy Efficient Lighting Strategies For Vertical or Indoor Farms
Energy Efficient Lighting Strategies For Vertical or Indoor Farms
A question many growers are asking is whether vertical farming of hydroponic lettuce production is profitable.
By: Krishna Nemali
Light requirement (daily light integral, DLI) of lettuce can vary from 15-20 mol/m2/day. Lettuce grown under low DLI has slow growth rate (i.e., takes longer to harvest) and appear poor in quality (elongated). Current estimate is that energy costs for lighting alone can be 40 to 50% of return from sale of lettuce, making it challenging to make profits.
The sustainability of vertical farms will mainly depend on developing research based solutions for decreasing energy costs.
In our lab, we are testing different lighting systems, mostly LEDs, for their efficiencies, energy costs and effect on plant growth. We are also building biofeedback systems that reduce overall energy (for lighting) consumption in vertical or indoor farms.
Source: Purdue University
New York - Cornell University Small Farms Program - Lucrative Mushroom Enterprises
New York - Cornell University Small Farms Program
Seeking Northeast Grower Input For Lucrative Mushroom Enterprises
People may not think of growing specialty mushrooms on logs, in barns, high tunnels or greenhouses as a profitable enterprise. But fresh shiitakes and dried mushrooms are getting really good prices. And you don’t need a huge investment to reach these lucrative markets. Learn more about commercial specialty mushroom cultivation at cornellmushrooms.org.
Grower input sought
The Cornell University Small Farms Program is seeking survey input from farmers who have grown and sold specialty mushrooms commercially during 2017 in Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania. The goal is to get a pulse on the state of specialty mushroom production in the Northeast and track this budding industry’s growth.
According to americanagriculturist.com, the survey asks about harvest numbers, sales, and marketing strategies. Producers are asked to respond by March 23 at CUSFP's Mushroom Growers Survey 2017.
After the results are compiled, the program will offer a summary of the data via a public webinar, which can be useful to individuals and institutions for grants, market assessment and other uses for a growing industry.
Publication date: 3/15/2018
Thailand’s Singha Invests in Temasek’s Vertex, Kejora’s Venture Capital Funds
Vertex Ventures. Photographer: Sam Kang Li/Bloomberg
Thailand’s Singha Invests in Temasek’s Vertex, Kejora’s Venture Capital Funds
Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul
March 12, 2018
Thailand’s Singha invests in Temasek’s Vertex, Kejora’s venture capital funds Vertex Ventures. Photographer: Sam Kang Li/Bloomberg Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul March 12, 2018, Thailand’s new venture capital firm Singha Ventures said it had invested a total of $25 million in Vertex Ventures, the VC arm of Temasek Holdings, and Indonesia’s Kejora Ventures.
This makes Singha the second investor from Thailand in the latest funds of both Vertex Ventures and Kejora. Singha said it had made these investments last year, even as it formally launched Singha Ventures last week.
The investment arm of Thai conglomerate Singha Corporation will focus on investments locally and globally in consumer products, supply chain management and logistical technologies, and enterprise solutions. Vertex Ventures had last year revealed raising funding from Thailand’s Kasikornbank Pcl and Taiwan’s Cathay Life Insurance in its third Southeast Asia-focused fund, which had made a final close of $210 million in October 2017, exceeding its target of $150 million.
This marked the first time that Vertex, the oldest venture capital firm in Southeast Asia, had raised capital from external investors. Its previous two Southeast Asia funds were completely funded by parent Temasek. Incidentally, just like Singha, Bangkok-based Kasikornbank Pcl had also set up its investment arm – Beacon Venture Capital – with an initial corpus of THB 1 billion last year to invest in VC funds and promising startups. Kasikornbank has also invested in Singapore-based fintech focused VC firm Dymon Asia that has been targeting to raise $50 million for its first fund. Beacon VC focuses on strategic investments in early to growth-stage technology startups in fintech, consumer lifestyle and deep technology sectors such as artificial intelligence (AI) and enterprise IT.
The VC firm’s portfolio includes digital lifestyle platform Ookbee, event management company Event Pop and online accounting SaaS firm FlowAccount. Kejora, meanwhile, is an early-stage Indonesia-based venture capital firm that is currently targeting to raise $80 million for its second vehicle, Kejora Star Capital II Fund. Its backers or limited partners (LPs) include Thailand’s Charoen Pokphand Group and Germany’s Hubert Burda Media. Founded in 2014, its portfolio includes P2P lending marketplace Investree, logistics solutions provider Etobee, digital marketing solutions provider bDigital (now Heroleads) and P2P lending and equity crowdfunding startup Crowdo.
Kejora has also partnered with South Korean venture capital firm InterVest to raise a $100-million Southeast Asia fund. In December 2017, the two firms had announced a first close of the fund, having secured more than half of their targeted corpus. Flush with cash, Thai enterprises are increasingly becoming investors in technology companies locally and globally. Last year,
Thai real estate firm Sansiri announced an $80-million investment across six global technology and lifestyle brands in a bid to move beyond reality into technology-enabled next-generation living.
The six brands include boutique hotel brand Standard International, Singapore-based co-working space operator JustCo and smart indoor farming company Farmshelf.
Thai conglomerate PTT Group was also reported to be considering a $45-million corporate venture arm last year.
Tags: Kejora Ventures Singha Ventures Vertex Ventures
Read more at https://www.dealstreetasia.com/stories/thailand-singha-vertex-ventures-kejora-94015/
Apex Farms Corp. Announces Letter of Intent With Ghana for Agricultural Expansion
Apex Farms Corp. is pleased to announce it has signed a non-binding LOI with the President of Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors of Ghana (ABCECG)/CEO of Malkna.
Apex Farms Corp. Announces Letter of Intent With Ghana for Agricultural Expansion
WILMINGTON, DE / ACCESSWIRE / March 7, 2018 / Apex Farms Corp. is pleased to announce it has signed a non-binding LOI with the President of Association of Building and Civil Engineering Contractors of Ghana (ABCECG)/CEO of Malkna. Ambassador Williams Amoah had contacted Apex Farms Corp. sometime in Feb. 2018 with interest to collaborate and help renovate up to 70 acres in Ghana to be retrofitted with Apex Vertical systems.
Currently, Apex Farms Corp. is working closely with Mr. Williams Amoah and the President of ABCECG to prepare a definitive agreement for this joint venture. If this joint venture becomes definitive it would represent 3,500 Apex Rows to be installed on the property in Ghana, which we believe will increase the production of the land up to 10x compared to conventional farming methods. The land already has working electricity and running water, so prefabrication of the Apex Vertical systems and Installation could begin immediately after the parties agree upon terms in a definitive agreement.
We expect that the terms of the joint venture will include a profit-sharing arrangement where Apex Farms would receive a percentage of the revenues from produce that is sold. Furthermore, we expect that the terms of the joint venture will include the granting to the president at ABCECG of exclusive resale rights to any country in Africa. We are calling our "Gateway to Africa" deal.
Alexander M. Woods-Leo the Founder and CEO of Apex Farms Corp. went on to say, "This letter of intent represents the potential entry into a market that has severe mechanizing agricultural issues and food pricing problems. Our system could help satisfy the significant demand for food in a region that desperately needs agricultural change."
Amb. Williams Amoah goes on to state, "Apex Farms Corporation's coming to Africa(Ghana) should be both imperative and indispensable in present circumstances where agriculture and agribusiness have been sighted as major economic emancipation issue required as Filip towards national stability and cohesion for benign purposefulness. The inadequacy in food sufficiency is prime factor beckoning for modern high-tech machinery for the production of high yield and spontaneous market incentive harvests. Thus, Ghana and in a wider vein Africa is ripe for such intervention which Apex Farms could fill. Mind you the rampant hunger and deprivation that have gingered dangerous mass migration in many quarters could be stemmed with firm food security and abundance. The popular African adage simplifies it; 'a hungry man is an angry man.'"
You can learn more about our company and invest in our equity crowdfunding campaign by visiting the micro ventures offering page at:
https://app.microventures.com/crowdfunding/apex-farms
About Apex Farms Corp.
Apex Farms Corp. designs highly practical vertical growing systems that even the little guy can afford! We have analyzed, challenged, and worked out a system for growing food that can be accessible to everyone at the lowest possible price! We see our community as the world at large, standardizing our farming method to create jobs, cultivate healthier eatingopportunities, and reducing the carbon footprint is our main focus.
With global hunger on the rise, many farms face challenges in meeting demand due to the high costs of water, land, energy, and labor. Apex Farms Corp. has developed a Vertical Farming System to address this need. Using patent-pending technology, the hydroponic system can grow a wide variety of plants, including vine plants, root plants, flowers, and greens. The planting rows are stacked to reduce overall resource use but are fully accessible for harvesting from the ground - no need for conveyor belts, scaffolding, or complex machinery. Ultimately, the company wants to achieve near-perfect efficiency and allow clients to fully customize their farm.
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS:
The information set forth above includes statements, estimates, projections with respect to our anticipated future performance and other forward-looking statements, which are subject to risks, uncertainties and assumptions. In some cases, you can identify these statements by forward-looking words such as "may", "might", "will", "should", "expect", "plan", "anticipate", "believe", "estimate", "predict", "potential", "future" or "continue", the negative of these terms and other comparable terminology. The forward-looking statements include statements about our ability to enter into a definitive agreement with the president at ABCECG, our ability to generate revenues in Ghana or anywhere else in Africa, our ability to prefabricate and deliver our systems to Ghana or other international locations, and similar statements about potential future operations in Ghana or elsewhere in Africa. Such forward-looking statements are based on current plans, estimates and expectations and are made pursuant to the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements, estimates and projections are based upon various assumptions that we made concerning our anticipated results and industry trends, which may or may not occur. We are not making any representations as to the accuracy of these statements, estimates or projections.
Our actual performance may be materially different from the statements, estimates or projections set forth above as a result of various risks applicable to our company as discussed in our Form C Offering Statement that was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Such risks include, but are not limited to the possibility that (1) we may experience delays in the commercial operations of our Apex Vertical System; and (2) we are in the process of securing our intellectual property; and (3) sales expectations may not be realized. We undertake no obligation to update or revise forward-looking statements to reflect changed assumptions, the occurrence of unanticipated events or changes to future operating results.
Apex Farms Corp.
501 silverside rd. PMB#342
Wilmington, DE 19809
302-307-3668
www.apexfarming.com
SOURCE: Apex Farms Corp.
Say Goodbye to Importing Fruits And Veggies in The UAE
The UAE has embraced a high-impact agri solution by opening its first commercial vertical farm in Dubai, featuring the latest hydroponic technology and agricultural techniques.
Say Goodbye to Importing Fruits And Veggies in The UAE
March 9, 2018
The UAE has embraced a high-impact agri solution by opening its first commercial vertical farm in Dubai, featuring the latest hydroponic technology and agricultural techniques.
Badia Farms, the GCC’s first vertical farm, was officially inaugurated by Dr Thani Ahmad Al Zeyoudi, UAE Minister of Climate Change and Environment, 5 days ago.
The individuals behind this innovative farming solution are Omar Al Jundi, an entrepreneur from Saudi Arabia, and Grahame Dunling, a British agricultural expert.
Their aim is that such farms will eventually produce enough fruits and vegetables within the region that they remove the need to import these items from abroad.
The need of the hour
Vertical farms are immune to weather, so crops can be grown year-round, under optimal conditions.
According to Dr Al Zeyoudi, Badia Farms is an “exceptional example of how the UAE’s agricultural industry can thrive while protecting our environment for future generations.”
Such solutions are all the more necessary taking into consideration the fact that the world’s population is expected to reach 9.1 billion people in 2050 and food demand, consequently, will be on the rise.
Experts estimate that farmers globally must increase food production by 70% compared to 2007 levels to meet the needs of the larger population, according to a report from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Water availability, environmental impacts and soil health will continue to challenge growers in the future.
What is a vertical farm?
A vertical farm is as simple as it sounds: it is a multi-story greenhouse where fruit and vegetables are grown in stacked up towers. One acre of skyscraper floor is expected to produce the equivalent of ten to 20 traditional soil-based acres.
Further, employing clean-room technologies means no pesticides or herbicides.
But the science part of it, or hydroponics, isn’t as simple.
Hydroponics is a technique of growing produce without soil.
Seeds are planted in a sterile, soil-less growing environment and then grown in nutrient-rich water.
Water is recycled and air and water temperature, humidity and lighting are controlled to create the perfect growing environment.
Thus, vertical farms can grow non-native produce in locations where traditional agricultural methods are impossible – such as deserts, for example.
Dr. Al Zeyoudi noted: “Hydroponic technology will be a major contributor to agricultural sustainability and food diversity and security, as it enhances crop production and lowers cost”.
“We commend the successful endeavor of Badia Farms, which reaffirms the UAE’s position as a leading incubator for innovation,” he added.
Badia Farms began production in December 2017 and offers an extensive range of lettuces, micro-greens and baby leaf herb varieties, as well as micro-greens, such as arugula, kale, radish, red cabbage, basils and mustard. What’s truly amazing is that all of this is done using 90 per cent less water than traditional farming methods.
Promoting sustainability
Speaking at the 21st National Environment Day Exhibition in mid-February at the Festival Arena in Festival City Dubai, Dr Al Zeyoudi noted that the rapid economic growth of the UAE over the past four decades have resulted in booming population growth as well as increased income levels.
These in turn have contributed to production and consumption patterns that are not sustainable in the long run.
Therefore, he continued, the UAE Ministry of Climate Change and Environment has undertaken numerous initiatives to promote sustainable production and consumption patterns in the country.
“In the UAE, we believe that sustainable production and consumption are part of the national responsibility of both institutions and individuals,” he said.
“The consumer society is increasingly gaining importance in this regard, as it dictates production trends and influences producer responsibility.”
This article was contributed by: Sonali Kumar
New York City Start-Up Building Second Indoor Vertical Farm In New Jersey
New York City start-up, Bowery, is making waves in the organic food industry with their use of indoor vertical farming. After raising $20 million in Series A funding last summer, the company is currently in the process of building their second vertical farm in Kearny, New Jersey.
New York City Start-Up Building Second Indoor Vertical Farm In New Jersey
Freelance Journalist, UK | Contactable via hello@livekindly.co
Mar 9, 2018
New York City start-up, Bowery, is making waves in the organic food industry with their use of indoor vertical farming. After raising $20 million in Series A funding last summer, the company is currently in the process of building their second vertical farm in Kearny, New Jersey.
The start-up intends to revolutionize farming and provide a solution to impending water scarcity. “We’re growing post-organic produce, It’s the next evolution,” Irving Fain, Bowery’s CEO and founder, told Fortune. He added, “It’s a better product for us and better way of growing and less destructive to the earth, we’re using technology to grow the purest food possible.”
“By meticulously monitoring the growing process and capturing a tremendous amount of data along the way, we’re able to remove the age-old reliance on “eyeballing,” the team at Bowery explain on their website. “We can give our crops exactly what they need and nothing more – from nutrients and water to light.”
Bowery is more efficient than traditional farmland, Fain also told Fortune. This is due to the environmentally controlled element of the process, outdoor, conventional, farms across the world are subject to seasons and the hand of mother nature, Bowery’s new indoor vertical farms are exempt to this. The vertical farms can consistently produce the same level of good quality crops all year round. “We see very strong demand nationally and internationally right now for high quality locally produced consistent produce,” Fain claimed.
“At Bowery, we’re re-thinking what agriculture looks like in a world where water is scarce, people live in cities, and we’re waking up to the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals,” the team explains. “Our post-organic produce comes from a growing process that not only has a positive impact on our health but the health of the world around us.”
Arugula, baby kale, and butterhead lettuce are just some of the crops currently available across New York City that Bowery grows using the expert software in their environmentally controlled vertical farms. Foragers Market and Whole Foods on Broad Street are two of the locations where the company’s produce can currently be purchased.
Image Credit: Bowery
Vertical Urban Farming - Seminar, Report, and Videos
Vertical Urban Farming - Seminar, Report, and Videos
06 MARCH 2018
In December 2017, Brian Ndyaguma, a young project manager and entrepreneur with several years of experience in business development and acceleration; and innovation hub management in Uganda, gave a seminar at SLU about vertical urban farming in Kampala, Uganda. Read the seminar report, watch the recorded seminar and an interview with Brian.
Watch the interview with Brian Ndyaguma on YouTube.
Urban centers in low-income countries go through an explosive growth in human population. The resulting high levels of unemployment and issues with adequate food supplies, require an appropriate response. Kampala alone needs around 3,000 tons of food per day to feed its population. While cities may not easily be regarded as production centers for food, they do offer opportunities for creating gainful employment in agriculture. In fact, urban farming scattered around Kampala and its suburbs is growing and contributes around 35% of the food that comes to the city. Youth participation in urban farming is increasing because such farms can be easily managed and there is good access to high end markets. But there are challenges: most urban farmers are growing food for subsistence purposes, live in unhealthy environments (e.g. sharing small plots of land with plants and animals), use poor/non-organic farming practices, have poor post-harvest handling methods, lack business management skills and knowledge of the value chains to improve their output.
Brian Ndyaguma showed that there are good possibilities to overcome most of these issues, and farm in the very city centers without access to good soils. His seminar at SLU on the 7th of December 2017 illustrated that whereas science creates knowledge for innovation, (Agri)business can help pinpoint where the knowledge gaps are and where innovations are most needed, and hence help define the research agenda. Brian, who is working with the Resilient African Network lab (RANlab), is an expert on how to facilitate innovations and businesses. However, more than talk-the-talk, he enacts the very principles of his RANlab job during off hours, by running a restaurant in the center of Kampala (Kahwa2Go Restaurant and Café). During his seminar, he showed first handedly how to effectively produce large quantities of high quality and high-value food using mini gardens (bagged soils). Using wooden terraces, the limited space could be more efficiently used and production increased, i.e., vertical urban farming. The idea is grafted on models from Asia, and has every potential to reduce the food chain supply challenges in Kampala, while creating employment for the youth both directly as well as through building the value chains.
During his seminar he posed challenges to the scientific audience for the current knowledge gaps and innovations that could enhance the application of vertical urban farming, such as efficient, low cost drip irrigation systems, methods of space maximization, modified farming practices and food handling practices, and technologic innovations such as methods for quick assessment of soil quality.
Related pages:
Teun Dekker, Researcher at the Department of Plant Protection Biology
Theme leader at SLU Global
teun.dekker@slu.se, 040-415306
SLU Global supports and develops SLU's commitment to improve the situation for people in low-income countries based on the Globals Goals of the Agenda 2030 for sustainable development.
SLU Global
Vice-Chancellor's Office
Agricultural Sciences for Global Development
PO Box 7005, SE-750 07 Uppsala
Visiting address: Almas Allé 7
www.slu.se/slu-global
global@slu.se
This Indoor Farm In New Jersey Can Grow 365 Days A Year And Uses 95% Less Water Than A Typical Farm
This Indoor Farm In New Jersey Can Grow 365 Days A Year And Uses 95% Less Water Than A Typical Farm
Bowery Farming in Kearny, New Jersey can grow 365 days a year.
Bowery CEO and founder Irving Fain: We grow indoors in big warehouse-scale farms that grow in a totally controlled environment, and we do stack LEDs vertically in that space. There's a number of issues with the traditional industrialized agricultural system that exists today, and Bowery's actually able to solve a number of those problems. We use 70% of the world's water supply in agriculture every single year, and just in the US alone, we put down about 700 million pounds of pesticides every year. And it's on the food that we're actually eating.
Here's how Bowery's technology is improving farming.
Fain: Our method of growing allows us to grow 365 days of the year, totally independent of weather and seasonality. On top of that though, we grow pesticide-free and agrochemical-free food. We grow more crop cycles per year than the field does, and we get more yield per every crop cycle. So not only do we grow more than 100 times plus more productively than the same square feet of farmland, but we also save over 95% of the water when we're growing.
At Bowery we grow hydroponically and that means the roots of our crops are actually dangling down into water, and so they're not only immersed in that water, and are able to take up that water when they need it, but the nutrients that those plants need is also in the water itself, so using the Bowery Operating System, we can ensure that all of our crops have exactly the nutrients that they need, the healthiest of ecosystems, the same thing you would find in the healthiest of farms outside, for those plants at any time.
The Bowery OS really acts as the brains of our farm. So it sits on top of our farm, and it's taking in millions of points of data in real time that have an impact on the health of our plants, the quality of those plants, even things like texture, certainly yield, even taste in the flavor of the crops themselves.
We also have a plant vision system, which is taking pictures of the crops in real time and then running those photos through machine-learning algorithms, we can actually understand and see what's happening with those crops.
So it actually enables us to iterate, and continue to drive improvements and tweaks and changes, so that we not only grow healthier crops, better-tasting crops, fresher crops, higher-yielding crops, but you can even tweak things like tastes and the favors to specific crops as you grow.
So, you can look at this arugula right here, and being able to control all the different variables and the attributes that actually affect the way that arugula grows, allows us to do things like make that arugula have a much spicier aftertaste and finish, or add a bit of a peppery flavor to the arugula.
With the consumers today, you see a desire to have a higher-quality product, and a desire to have a product that's not only better for them, but also just grown in a more responsible and sustainable way. And it gives us a lot of optimism that this is an important step forward for agriculture in cities around the US, and ultimately cities around the world.
Growing Microgreens In New York's Urban Jungle
Farm.One was started in 2016 in a 300-sq-ft space in the Institute of Culinary Education by Laing, who was a software developer before he tasted a papalo leaf at a Santa Monica farmer's market and embarked on a new career of bringing fresh herbs and edible flowers to New York City's finest restaurants.
Growing Microgreens In New York's Urban Jungle
A unique vertical plant factory in Manhattan is growing flowers, herbs and microgreens for New York City's finest restaurants.VIDEO: REUTERS
March 5, 2018
NEW YORK (REUTERS) - "What's that smell?" is the first thing you wonder as you walk down a long subway-tiled hallway in the basement of an office building in Manhattan and into a warm, earthy, sweet and herbal fragrance that fills the 1,200-sq-ft space that is the vertical farm, Farm.One.
Then, the overwhelming colors from bespoke flowers, stems and roots from herbs and microgreens greet your eyes. These flowers have never touched the earth nor felt the warmth of the sun.
Instead, Farm.One created a completely controlled environment where they use only the seed, water, and nutrients to grow their produce in vertically stacked hydroponic trays under light-emitting diodes (LED) on rolling racks.
"We can use LED lights to give the plants a perfect day of sunlight year round," said Farm.One's CEO and founder, Robert Laing. "It's also kind of cool because we can stack these growing areas so that we can have a much more efficient use of space. And so in this small room, which is just, 1,200 sq ft in this farm, we can grow crops that might take a whole big field to grow."
There are no pesticides or chemicals or soil used in the process as in traditional farming. But the company uses materials like coconut husks to prop the plants up and give them structure and beneficial insects like ladybugs and tiny parasitic wasps to control any pests. For nutrients, the company uses organic plant-based materials with fish waste and even bat excrement to give more of a natural home for the plants.
Farm.One was started in 2016 in a 300-sq-ft space in the Institute of Culinary Education by Laing, who was a software developer before he tasted a papalo leaf at a Santa Monica farmer's market and embarked on a new career of bringing fresh herbs and edible flowers to New York City's finest restaurants.
The results have been well received. Farm.One's produce was all sold out in its first space in a matter of months, which put them in their second location at 77 Worth Street, below the building in New York's Tribeca neighbourhood.
"We can harvest and deliver same day," said Laing. "And so the product isn't sitting on a truck, it's not in cold storage, it's super fresh. And so these chefs can really taste the difference. And it's exciting for them to taste something that's almost like in their back garden of their restaurant."
Farm.One's website boasts it can deliver by bicycle to 90 per cent of all New York City restaurants within 30 minutes. Otherwise, deliveries are made only by foot or train, creating no emissions.
Fine-dining restaurants like Daniel, Atera, Marea, Ai Fiori, Uchu, Le Coucou and Jungsik get regular deliveries from Farm.One several times a week to ensure their produce goes straight from the farm to a diner's fork in hours.
But the product has to be perfect.
"You're just looking for little microscopic imperfections because I'm ultimately the one who has to be in front of these chefs, and they're very discerning and very demanding," said Farm.One's sales manager, Wilson Gibbons, who also makes deliveries. "We need to make sure that what they asked for is what they're getting. If anyone's not afraid to tell you they're unhappy with something, it's a chef."
Wilson said he tries not to charge the chefs for products they don't use if it doesn't meet their requirements.
At two-Michelin starred restaurant Jungsik, pastry chef Eunji Lee uses marigold flowers to adorn and accentuate the flavour of her petit fours. The flower petals can be no larger than the size of the home button on an iPhone.
"If it's too big, the marigold flower's flavour can be stronger, too much strong, so that's why it should be this size," she said. "For every single plate, we need precision and perfection, so we're always working for that and we're always asking them (Farm.One), we need this size, this colour, this length and every time, they bring to us the perfect one that we want."
So far, Farm.One has focused on growing microgreens, herbs and flowers in Manhattan for chefs in New York City. For patrons who want to explore the farm, Farm.One gives tours and a glass of Prosecco for US$50 (S$65). The next step will be to build additional farms in new cities first in the US, then around the world.
This Indoor Farm Is Trying To Revolutionize The Growing Process In Sweden
This Indoor Farm Is Trying To Revolutionize The Growing Process In Sweden
BY AIMEE LUTKIN
March 5, 2018
Owe Pettersson worked in insurance and finances for decades before becoming the chief executive at Plantagon, an indoor farm that recently opened in Sweden. Pettersson told The Huffington Post that indoor farming is the next big thing, and Plantagon is at the forefront, saying, "This will be one of the most advanced food factories located in a city that we have today."
Indoor farming has become far more popular in recent years, as technology has become even more precise, allowing large amounts of greens and fresh produce to be produced in urban environments with both minimal space and far smaller amounts of water than on a traditional farm. For example, it can take as many as 34 gallons to produce a head of lettuce, but Plantagon claims they can produce their crops at about .25 gallon for the equivalent weight in crops.
Plantagon is building on the newish concept of "agritechture," meaning combining agriculture, technology, and architecture so that the process of growing food is more seamlessly integrated into people's lives. It's also seen as a way to limit travel time for food and the carbon footprint of preserving and transporting organic materials.
An issue their model has attacked is the waste of heat energy produced by the LED lights the plants are exposed to for photosynthesis. The plants only use about one percent of the light produced by the bulbs, and the rest of the energy generally escapes as heat. Plantagon is capturing 70 percent of this heat and using it to warm the building above the 65,000 square foot farm basement. Oxygen produced by the crops is also pumped into the building's air conditioning system.
Pettersson explained that these sorts of circulating systems help make having a Plantagon system in the basement an exciting prospect to landlords. “This is the basic way we get interest from real estate developers to rent out their basements or other spaces to us,” he said.
And that's pretty important, because the most prohibitive thing for indoor farming is the expense of installation. “Most projects are difficult to make economically viable because they tend to focus only on the technology and the growing. You also need to find a business model that works," he added.
Indoor farming is an exciting concept, but a controversial one. Some critics suggest that powering a hydroponic system is far more wasteful than using the sun's energy to grow plants outdoors—though Plantagon is solar powered. Other data suggests it would be difficult to really feed a city from an indoor system, which has limitations on the size and variety of crops in limited space. But it is an intriguing experiment that has had some success in arenas that have a high demand for freshness and variety, especially in restaurants.
Region’s First Commercial Vertical Farm Opens In Dubai
Region’s First Commercial Vertical Farm Opens In Dubai
March 4, 2018
DUBAI: Dr. Thani Bin Ahmed Al Zeyoudi, Minister of Climate Change and Environment, has officially inaugurated Badia Farms, the GCC’s first commercial vertical farm, which will enhance crop production and lowers their costs.
He toured the farm and explored the latest hydroponic technology and vertical farming techniques.
Applauding the work at the farms, Al Zeyoudi said, "Badia Farms is an exceptional example of how the UAE’s agricultural industry can thrive while protecting our environment for future generations. The initiative reflects the nation’s commitment to becoming more sustainable and helps us achieve our goal of food security."
He added that the farm’s agricultural concept is aligned with the UAE Vision 2021 to work towards a sustainable future and reduce water usage. He further indicated that supporting innovations and latest technologies that enable the agricultural industry to adapt to climate change and ensure food security is one of the main outcomes of the fifth edition of the World Government Summit 2017.
"Sustaining food diversity relies heavily on innovation and the employment of cutting-edge technologies. The Ministry supports all efforts in this field and works on enhancing its ties with the private sector to explore potential investment opportunities," said Al Zeyoudi.
He pointed out that hydroponic technology will be a major contributor to agricultural sustainability and food diversity and security, as it enhances crops production and lowers their cost. This is evident in the successful production achieved by Badia Farms in a very short time since its inception in December 2017. "We commend the successful endeavor of Badia Farms, which reaffirms the UAE’s position as a leading incubator for innovation," he added.
Omar Al Jundi, founder and Chief Executive Officer at Badia Farms, said, "We set up Badia Farms in the UAE with a vision to provide a sustainable solution for food and to reduce the region’s reliance on imports. Growing crops in the region has always been a challenge due to the hostile climate, and this is where Badia Farms offers a viable solution. Not only can we grow the freshest greens, with no pesticides or chemicals, but we actually do this in the most eco-friendly way possible, using minimal recycled water. This is our way to give back to the UAE and start the new wave of farming in Dubai - the home of innovation."
The farm began production in December 2017 with ambitious plans to pioneer the region’s "green revolution" with innovative agri-tech methods that optimize growing conditions within a controlled indoor environment. Using the latest hydroponic technology and vertical farming techniques, the farm produces nutritious and pesticide-free leafy greens without the need for sunlight, soil or chemicals.
The eco-system created by Badia Farms uses 90 percent less water than open field farming and recycles the water it uses. The farm also combats the carbon footprint of food imports that typically travel an average of 3,000 miles to reach restaurants in Dubai.
The farm produces an extensive range of lettuces, micro-greens, baby leaf herb varieties.
Interview With Arturo Escaroz
Interview With Arturo Escaroz
Arturo is a specialist on bio systems engineer and got his masters degree from the university of Wageningen. Arturo has been involved in research and managing a LED farm at The New Farm.
Arturo is excited and starts telling me about his interest in agriculture when I ask him to tell me more about himself. This interest motivated him to move from the deep warm south of Mexico, he smiles when telling me temperatures can rise up to 43 degrees Celsius in summer, to the Netherlands with its cold climate. Arturo (30) and his wife both moved to the Netherlands to complete a master’s degree at the University of Wageningen. Arturo completed the program for Bio Systems Engineering and contributed significantly to the introduction of The Leafy Green Machine (LGM) into the European Market.
Arturo smiles again when he elaborates on the story about the truck driver who had no idea about the cargo he was moving around The Hague. He explains the truck drivers surprise after showing him the container on the inside. He didn’t think something like this existed. It’s a mind set issue Arturo reckons.
When Arturo continues about his hometown in Mexico he explains it used to be a agricultural area, majorly. In the last decennia, however, people moved to the cities for work and the typical culture for agricultural towns got lost. Today, however, youngsters are showing new interest in food production and sustainability, like Arturo. He is fascinated by the engineering of plants and animals and wants to understand their relationship with their environment. He loves to study these properties and relationships in controlled environments.
I ask Arturo what he really likes about The New Farm. Again, he gets exited and starts telling me all the innovative solutions we work on in The New Farm to tackle the world’s challenges. ‘Everyone is so innovative here’ he explains, ‘and there is always an opportunity for testing new prototypes’. Arturo continues, ‘when people come to The New Farm they get exited about all the concepts in one building, a greenhouse, a farm in a container, an oyster-mushroom farm, there is no other place like this’. He continues his plea about the integration of technologies, systems and all this knowledge available on one spot. Furthermore, The New Farm is a fantastic spot for start-ups, businesses that have a proof of concept already or businesses that want to grow their business and network further. Many activities and events are happening in The New Farm and we get a lot of visitors from different countries, sectors and industries.
At last, I ask Arturo if he would like to add anything more to the interview. He thinks for a moment and says he would like to invite entrepreneurs, students and investors and to have a look in The New Farm to see what we have on offer and to cooperate with us.
Thanks Arturo, I have nothing to add to that.
How Benjamin Swan Is Spearheading Sustainable Farming In Singapore
MARCH 5, 2018
How Benjamin Swan Is Spearheading Sustainable Farming In Singapore
Trailblazers under 40: Co-founder and CEO of Sustenir Agriculture has a grand and green vision to share.
KAREN TEE
Built to be completely sealed off from the external environment, Sustenir Agriculture’s high-tech farming facility in the Admiralty industrial estate offers a glimpse of the future for food. The brainchild of Benjamin Swan, a former engineer, the 8,000 sq ft farm comprises tiers of tightly packed plants illuminated by colorful LED lights. Anyone entering must don lab coats and surgical masks before undergoing an air shower to ensure that no foreign material is introduced. “The plants are 100 percent clean and are free of pesticides and pollution such as heavy metal contamination. Freshly harvested, they can be eaten unwashed,” says the 37-year-old co-founder and CEO of Sustenir.
He plucks kale and arugula leaves, cherry tomatoes and strawberries right off the plants, offering them around for a taste. Nurtured with a careful mix of nutrients, the kale isn’t as bitter and fibrous as regular kale, the arugula has a pleasant peppery aftertaste, and the fruits are intensely sweet and juicy.
The patented farming system enables precise calibrations in lighting, nutrients, temperature, and air – allowing the crops to grow in half the time required of traditional farming and with 95 percent less water, says Swan. In a 54 sqm space, Sustenir’s growing system produces one tonne of kale per month and double that for lettuce.
“WE COULD TAKE OVER DILAPIDATED BUILDINGS OR ABANDONED LOTS AND GROW AMAZING PRODUCE FOR THE COMMUNITY.”
Swan, who’s always been passionate about sustainability, grew up spending a lot of time at his grandfather’s cattle ranch just outside Sydney, where he cultivated an appreciation for the natural world. When the Australian moved to Singapore in 2008 as a construction manager for Marina Bay Sands, it was to work on the building’s green features. Subsequently, as a regional project manager at Citibank, he oversaw the construction of its regional offices to meet sustainability standards.
In 2012, he read an article about vertical farms and believed his skills in project management and engineering put him in an advantageous position to increase the efficiency of those operations. That very night, he sketched a series of prototypes for an indoor farm system that could be set up in any building. To refine the model, he spent the next six months meeting farm operators and professors around the world. “Not having an agriculture background allowed me to think outside the box, speak to the professionals about the way they did things and take sound bites from everyone to craft my own hypothesis,” he says.
To test his theories, he set up a makeshift “farm” in the basement of co-founder Martin Lavoo’s home. There, he experimented with the conditions affecting plant growth, playing with multiple permutations of everything from light to nutrients. “We’ve taken farming from analog to digital by capturing big data around plants,” he says, of the 18 months he spent testing about 48 iterations of the system before launching Sustenir in 2013. To date, the company has been self-funded by Swan and Lavoo.
Today, the facility is producing at full capacity and grows arugula, lettuce, tomatoes, strawberries, and two types of kale. The kale, harvested daily, is sold at over 50 Cold Storage outlets and supplied to restaurants including Les Amis, Da Paolo, Tung Lok Group and Salad Stop.
He emphasizes that Sustenir has no intention to drive local farms out of business. “We grow non-native crops that otherwise wouldn’t do well in these environments.” Sustenir’s kale, for example, can keep for two weeks. At $8 for 200g, the company’s Toscano kale retails for 20 percent less than imported organic American kale.
This year, Sustenir is setting up a farm in Hong Kong. There are also plans to establish an R&D laboratory to further improve the efficiency of crop growing. Swan sees this as just the beginning. “Unlike other growers that need to build a superstructure to house their equipment, our growing environment has been designed to go into any building as a plug-and-play system. We could take over dilapidated buildings or abandoned lots to grow amazing produce for the community. It’s an opportunity to fight the good fight and make a difference.”
NYC’s Farm One Delivers Rare, Ultra-Fresh Produce In Just 30 Minutes
In April 2016, Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education planted its very first on-site farm with over 150 crop varieties. The hydroponic gardens are lit by LEDs and feature high-tech systems that provide specific growing conditions for even the rarest of greens.
NYC’s Farm One Delivers Rare, Ultra-Fresh Produce In Just 30 Minutes
- February 26, 2018
- by Nicole Jewell
The farm-to-table movement has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few years – and now NYC chefs can pick up sustainable, 100% “nasty-free” produce grown within city limits. Farm One is a Manhattan-based hydroponic farm that grows hundreds of rare herbs, edible flowers, and microgreens, which can be delivered to 90% of NYC restaurants by bike in just 30 minute
In April 2016, Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education planted its very first on-site farm with over 150 crop varieties. The hydroponic gardens are lit by LEDs and feature high-tech systems that provide specific growing conditions for even the rarest of greens. The grow room is 100% free from pesticides and herbicides, and it uses around 95% less water than traditional gardens.
The garden organizers have spent years researching and growing rare seeds from all over the world. Farm One is currently one of the city’s largest providers of edible herbs and greens, and it’s a major resource for chefs looking to cook with fresh produce. The system is so efficient that local eateries can have their greens on-site just minutes after being harvested.
In addition to delivering fresh, sustainably-grown produce immediately after harvesting, Farm One offers classes and workshops on hydroponics and indoor farming for budding chefs or home cooks. The Tribeca location also hosts tours where guests can taste dozens of rare plant varieties – most of which cannot be found anywhere else in New York.
Via Uncrate
Images via Farm One
- under Agriculture, Gallery, Manhattan, Urban Farming, Vertical Garden
This Swedish Indoor Urban Farm Wants To Revolutionize How We Live And Eat
03/02/2018
This Swedish Indoor Urban Farm Wants To Revolutionize How We Live And Eat
But people can’t live on microgreens and exotic salads alone.
Oliver Balch On assignment for HuffPost
PLANTAGON
In the basement of a landmark 27-story tower in Stockholm’s central Kungsholmen district, Owe Pettersson is hoping to sow the seeds of an indoor urban farming revolution.
Pettersson is the chief executive of Plantagon, a new Stockholm-based urban farming venture set to kick off operations in the basement of an office block in the Swedish capital later this month.
“This will be one of the most advanced food factories located in a city that we have today,” says Pettersson, who has spent more than 25 years in the insurance and banking industries.
He is by no means the first enthusiast for indoor farming, which has become increasingly fashionable in recent years. Claims for the practice of growing food in basements or warehouses range from feeding people in desert environments to reversing the negative environmental effects of monoculture farming.
“Nature will repair itself if you give it a chance, and indoor farming gives it that chance,” says Dickson Despommier, author of The Vertical Farm and a vocal proponent for this novel approach to agriculture.
Plantagon’s early promises echo this nascent optimism. Pettersson calls the farm’s approach “agritechture”: the combination of agriculture, technology and architecture hoping to revolutionize how we live and eat.
The term may be new, but the concept isn’t. Indoor farming is made possible by agricultural technologies such as hydroponics (growing plants without soil) and aeroponics (in which plants are grown in air strung over containers). Food can be produced without direct sunlight or soil.
The Swedish startup says it will be more efficient than similar enterprises. While that’s impossible to prove at this stage, in theory the company’s main bases seem covered.
Plantagon plans to grow high-value foods ― mostly salads and herbs ― in a pumice-like substance rather than soil. Water for the plants is measured with scientific precision. It will also dehumidify the air and reuse any excess water to ensure zero waste.
In conventional agriculture, the amount of water required to produce a kilo of food can vary from about 130 liters (34 gallons) for lettuce, to 3,400 liters (900 gallons) for rice. In contrast, Plantagon says it will only need to use one liter per kilo for its crops.
Energy is also a key issue for indoor urban farms, which have to create artificial sunlight. Although advances in the efficiency of LED lights have helped bring down energy consumption in recent years, plants use only about 1 percent of the artificial light produced. This leads to a colossal waste of energy, most of which disappears as heat.
Plantagon says it will capture around 70 percent of this wasted heat in its 6,500-square-foot basement farm, and pipe it into the heating system of the office block above. Oxygen produced by the plants will be sent to office workers via the building’s air conditioners.
PLANTAGON
The office block which will house Plantagon’s farm.
The current capitalist system is broken. Get updates on our progress toward building a fairer world.
“This is the basic way we get interest from real estate developers to rent out their basements or other spaces to us,” says Pettersson.
Indoor urban farms may be proliferating, but the ability to produce affordable food, at scale, and in a manner that is economically viable escapes many in this nascent industry. Plantagon hopes to reverse this trend and turn a profit.
The firm’s recent crowdfunding campaign raised 4.4 million Swedish krona ($559,000) that will help its ambition to install up to nine more urban farms across Stockholm over the next three years. The inaugural farm, which cost about $863,000, was backed by a group of private investors.
Plantagon also has a charitable arm, which owns 10 percent of the business and commits to invest in innovative for-profit companies that seek to address societal challenges. People can invest in “generation shares” in the charity that cannot be cashed for seven generations.
The firm’s confidence that it can be profitable rests in part on reducing expenses, with lower costs for energy and water, and savings on rent. Plantagon has negotiated a three-year, zero-rent deal in exchange for the heating and clean air that its farm provides to the building.
“Most [indoor farming] projects are difficult to make economically viable because they tend to focus only on the technology and the growing. You also need to find a business model that works,” says Pettersson.
Keeping operations hyper-local will help meet that requirement, the startup says. It intends to set up a retail pop-up stall in the foyer of its host building, and sell produce to a local supermarket and nearby restaurants. Its virtually non-existent supply line will keep transport costs to a minimum, while its “ready-to-sell” distribution model will eliminate the need for expensive and wasteful packaging.
Plantagon says its business model answers many of urban farming’s critics, who argue that the approach is energy-intensive and expensive.
Some will never be convinced. For Stan Cox, a U.S. writer and plant breeder, converting sunlight directly or indirectly (via fossil fuels) into electricity to help grow plants is “about as wasteful as a system can be.” Plantagon uses solar energy, but it’s still no replacement for natural sunlight, hardened critics like Cox argue.
As for the venture’s business model, even Pettersson admits that all the pieces of the puzzle have to be in place to stand any chance of success. That limits the model’s scalability, he concedes. “It’s a completely new supply chain model that you need for each project [so] we won’t do these projects just anywhere.”
Nor, as some hope, will hydroponics meet the world’s nutritional needs. While Plantagon has a guarantee from the local supermarket not to sell its products above market rates, thus tackling questions of affordability, its nutritional scope is limited. People cannot live on microgreens alone.
Even if they could, production volumes would fall well short. Expanding the scope of high-tech ventures like Plantagon’s to roof gardens, allotments and other more conventional forms of urban farming would still see cities struggling to feed themselves. As a recent paper published in the Journal of Social Change concludes, agriculture in cities represents a “secondary source of food” at best.
For more content and to be part of the ‘This New World’ community, join our Facebook Group.
HuffPost’s ‘This New World’
Packaging Solutions For The Vertical Farmer
Vertical farming is on the rise in big cities around the globe and new growers and distributors are hustling to get into the market. In fact, by 2023, the vertical farming market is expected to reach 6.4 billion U.S. dollars around the world.
Packaging Solutions For The Vertical Farmer
Vertical farming is on the rise in big cities across the globe and new growers and distributors are hustling to get into the market. In fact, by 2023, the vertical farming market is expected to reach 6.4 billion U.S. dollars around the world. One company is poised to back this trend’s growth.
“More produce means more packaging—and that’s where we come in,” says Michael Esposito, Vice President of Orange Packaging, a fully integrated manufacturing facility in Newburgh, New York. With 150,000 square feet of manufacturing space and 10 production lines, the team at Orange Packaging is ready to assist vertical farmers with their packaging needs at a moment’s notice.
I’m so encouraged by the growth of vertical farming across our area,” says Esposito. “The fact that it allows farmers to produce more food using less resources makes it a win in my book. It sounds like a viable, long-term solution and we’d like to help it succeed.”
Orange Packaging’s facility is filled with a diverse array of tools and equipment to meet any packaging need. Their Thermoforming tools have created packaging for every type of grower—from the top produce companies sold at big box retailers to the smaller, local farms you’d find at a local grocery store or farmer’s market.
Orange Packaging also offers a variety of Thermoformed packaging materials like small herb clamshells, bulk lettuce containers, tubs and bins in several different materials like food-grade APET and rPET as well as corn-based PLA.
“Partnering with hard-working business owners is what we do best—and that includes local farmers and growers,” says Esposito. “Let us help you get your product to market. Whether that’s the farmer’s market or the supermarket—we’re here for you!”
Packaging isn’t the company’s only forte. The company also specializes in designing and engineering POP displays and custom molds. The team can even handle fulfillment and has the ability to drop ship anywhere in the world. Their expansive facility allows them to run high-volume orders quickly. They keep stock items on hand that can be purchased immediately, while custom orders can be produced in as little as 3-4 weeks.
For more information or to set up a quote, contact michael@orangepkg.com.
SKYBERRIES Conference Celebrates Two Years of Vertical Farm Institute
International conference SKYBERRIES invites urban farmers, researchers, and pioneers to Vienna, Austria, to discuss the future of agriculture from February 28 to March 2, 2018.
SKYBERRIES Conference Celebrates Two Years of Vertical Farm Institute
International conference SKYBERRIES invites urban farmers, researchers, and pioneers to Vienna, Austria, to discuss the future of agriculture from February 28 to March 2, 2018.
Visitors will be able to network on location with the attendees of the URBAN FUTURE Global Conference, which will be held during the same dates. In total, about 3,000 people are expected to convene and discuss topics surrounding food security, urban agriculture, and vertical farming.
Both conferences take place at the Messe Wien Exhibition & Congress Center, the Vienna trade fair venue, and both conferences are accessible with the SYKBERRIES ticket.
SKYBERRIES presents Dickson Despommier, author of The Vertical Farm; Saskia Sassen, sociologist and author of The Global City; Franz Fischler, President of the European Forum Alpbach; representatives of farms such in Infarms, AeroFarms, Green Sense, or Vertical Harvest; and many more speakers. In addition, the conferences will hold industry speed dating activites, a poster exhibition, and field trips.
One of the highlights of the event is the presentation of Ruthner-Towers. These Tower-Greenhouses, built in Vienna as well as many more sites in the 1960s and 1970s, were the world’s first vertical farms. SKYBERRIES highlights this innovation, presenting learnings as well as an excursion to one of the few Ruthner-Towers left.
SKYBERRIES is offering a special discount to the Food Tank community. Click here to order your standard ticket, and enter the voucher-code FOODTHINKTANK to get your ticket for 25-percent off. All tickets include full access to the URBAN FUTURE global conference.
SKYBERRIES SPEAKER UPDATE
SASKIA SASSEN
Saskia is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology and member of The Committee on Global Thought, Columbia University. Her latest book is Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy (Harvard University Press 2014) now out in 18 languages. She is the recipient of diverse awards, including multiple doctor honoris causa, the Principe de Asturias 2013 Prize in the Social Sciences, and made a Foreign Member of the Royal Academy of the Sciences of the Netherlands
DICKSON DESPOMMIER
Dickson is a microbiologist, ecologist, and emeritus professor of Public and Environmental Health at the Columbia University. In 2010, he published his widely received book: “The Vertical Farm: feeding the world in the 21st Century”. Well known for his podcasts, TED Talks and lectures on vertical farming, Dickson also supports the vertical farm institute as Board Member.
INFOGRAPHICS
Have you already seen our infografics? At almost every speaker's profile you can find a graphic on one of the topics to be discussed at SKYBERRIES.
All grafics are creative commons and we invite you to use them, share them, work with them!
NONA YEHIA
Nona is uniquely positioned in the Vertical Farming sphere as she is at once a practicing Architect, the Co-Founder, Owner, Designer and CEO of a cutting edge greenhouse, Vertical Harvest of Jackson Hole. This combination has cultivated expertise in both the design, implementation and operation of innovative systems and programs that position Vertical Harvest to be an impact model for communities around the globe
DANIEL PODMIRSEG
Daniel is founder of the vertical farm institute and Vertical Farming expert, studied architecture. His dissertation “up!” deals with the potential of vertical farms with regard to the reduction of energy and land consumption. “up!” is considered a standard work and Dickson Despommier assesses the work as the most comprehensive research on Vertical Farming in the world so far.
VALENTIN THURN
Valentin is a director and producer of more than 50 television documentaries and reports on social, developmental, environmental and educational issues. His shooting and lecture tours have taken him to over 50 countries on all continents. For his films, he received a number of prizes and awards. “Taste the Waste” was a box office hit in 2011/12, and “10 Billion – What’s on your plate?” was the most successful German cinema documentary in 2015.
ISABEL MOLITOR
Isabel is co-founder and CMO at Farmers Cut, an indoor vertical farming company based in Hamburg with the mission to build a global farm network to deliver locally produced, pesticide-free greens from farm-to-fork. Prior to Farmers Cut Isabel lived in New York working in Marketing for a Swiss skincare company. Isabel holds a B.Sc. in Business Administration from the European Business School and a M.Sc. in International Development from from New York University’s Center for Global Affairs.
FRANZ FISCHLER
Franz Fischler became widely known and much respected both domestically and internationally when he was EU commissioner. Between 1995 and 2004, the future of European agriculture was in his hands. Franz Fischler implemented his vision of modern agriculture in far-reaching reforms of European farming policies, rural development and fisheries. Since December 2015 he is president of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, since 2012 president of the European Forum Alpbach.
BARBARA IMHOF
Barbara is an internationally active space architect, design researcher and educator. Barbara Imhof is the co-founder and CEO of LIQUIFER Systems Group, an interdisciplinary team comprising engineers, architects, designers and scientists. Her projects deal with spaceflight parameters such as living with limited resources, minimal and transformable spaces, resource-conserving systems; all aspects imperative to sustainability.
DAVID SCHMIDMAYR
David is an expert in LED-lighting with many years of experience in horticulture. Using his in-depth knowledge of photonics and semiconductor technology, he co-founded five years ago SANlight (as a company and research institute), with the purpose of developing and manufacturing LED illumination systems for commercial greenhouses, special applications and household use. SANlight won the “Born Global Champion” award in 2016.
... and many more! You will find all our inspiring speakers on ourWebsite.
We leave you with one last reminder of our SKYBERRIES conference discount: Save € 55,- by purchasing a combined ticket for SKYBERRIES and URBAN FUTURE global conference! Exclusively via our SKYBERRIES ticketshop.
Also follow us online:
Big Data Suggests Big Potential For Urban Farming
GETTY IMAGES
This story originally appeared on CityLab and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Gotham Greens’ boxed lettuces have been popping up on the shelves of high-end grocers in New York and the Upper Midwest since 2009, and with names like “Windy City Crunch,” “Queens Crisp,” and “Blooming Brooklyn Iceberg,” it’s clear the company is selling a story as much as it is selling salad.
Grown in hydroponic greenhouses on the rooftops of buildings in New York and Chicago, the greens are shipped to nearby stores and restaurants within hours of being harvested. That means a fresher product, less spoilage, and lower transportation emissions than a similar rural operation might have—plus, for the customer, the warm feeling of participating in a local food web.
“As a company, we want to connect urban residents to their food, with produce grown a few short miles from where you are,” said Viraj Puri, Gotham Greens’ co-founder and CEO.
Gotham Greens’ appealing narrative and eight-figure annual revenues suggest a healthy future for urban agriculture. But while it makes intuitive sense that growing crops as close as possible to the people who will eat them is more environmentally friendly than shipping them across continents, evidence that urban agriculture is good for the environment has been harder to pin down.
A widely cited 2008 study by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University found that transportation from producer to store only accounts for 4 percent of food’s total greenhouse gas emissions, which calls into question the concern over “food miles.” Meanwhile, some forms of urban farming may be more energy-intensive than rural agriculture, especially indoor vertical farms that rely on artificial lighting and climate control.
An operation like Gotham Greens can recycle water through its hydroponic system, but outdoor farms such as the ones sprouting on vacant lots in Detroit usually require irrigation, a potential problem when many municipal water systems are struggling to keep up with demand. And many urban farms struggle financially; in a 2016 survey of urban farmers in the US, only one in three said they made a living from the farm.
Although cities and states have begun to loosen restrictions on urban agriculture, and even to encourage it with financial incentives, it has remained an open question whether growing food in cities is ultimately going to make them greener. Will the amount of food produced be worth the tradeoffs? A recent analysis of urban agriculture’s global potential, published in the journal Earth’s Future, has taken a big step toward an answer—and the news looks good for urban farming.
“Not only could urban agriculture account for several percent of global food production, but there are added co-benefits beyond that, and beyond the social impacts,” said Matei Georgescu, a professor of geographical sciences and urban planning at Arizona State University and a co-author of the study, along with other researchers at Arizona State, Google, China’s Tsinghua University, the University of California, Berkeley, and the University of Hawaii.
A MODIS Land Cover Type satellite image of the United States, similar to imagery analyzed by the researchers. Different colors indicate different land uses: red is urban; bright green is a deciduous broadleaf forest.
Using Google’s Earth Engine software, as well as population, meteorological, and other datasets, the researchers determined that, if fully implemented in cities around the world, urban agriculture could produce as much as 180 million metric tons of food a year—perhaps 10 percent of the global output of legumes, roots, and tubers, and vegetable crops.
Those numbers are big. Researchers hope they encourage other scientists, as well as urban planners and local leaders, to begin to take urban agriculture more seriously as a potential force for sustainability.
The study also looks at “ecosystem services” associated with urban agriculture, including reduction of the urban heat-island effect, avoided a stormwater runoff, nitrogen fixation, pest control, and energy savings. Taken together, these additional benefits make urban agriculture worth as much as $160 billion annually around the globe. The concept of ecosystem services has been around for decades, but it is growing in popularity as a way to account, in economic terms, for the benefits that humans gain from healthy ecosystems. Georgescu and his collaborators decided to investigate the potential ecosystem services that could be provided through widespread adoption of urban agriculture, something that had not been attempted before.
The team began with satellite imagery, using pre-existing analyses to determine which pixels in the images were likely to represent vegetation and urban infrastructure. Looking at existing vegetation in cities (it can be difficult to determine, from satellite imagery, what’s a park and what’s a farm), as well as suitable roofs, vacant land, and potential locations for vertical farms, they created a system for analyzing the benefits of so-called “natural capital”—here, that means soil and plants—on a global and country-wide scale.
Beyond the benefits we already enjoy from having street trees and parks in our cities, the researchers estimated that fully-realized urban agriculture could provide as much as 15 billion kilowatt hours of annual energy savings worldwide—equivalent to nearly half the power generated by solar panels in the US. It could also sequester up to 170,000 tons of nitrogen and prevent as much as 57 billion cubic meters of stormwater runoff, a major source of pollution in rivers and streams.
“We had no notion of what we would find until we developed the algorithm and the models and made the calculation,” Georgescu said. “And that work had never been done before. This is a benchmark study, and our hope with this work is that others now know what sort of data to look for.”
Robert Costanza, a professor of public policy at Australian National University, co-founded the International Society for Ecological Economics and researches sustainable urbanism and the economic relationship between humans and our environment. He called the study (in which he played no part) “a major advance.”
“This is the first global estimate of the potential for urban agriculture,” Costanza wrote in an email. “Urban agriculture will never feed the world, and this paper confirms that, but the important point is that natural capital in cities can be vastly improved and this would produce a range of benefits, not just food.”
“Urban agriculture will never feed the world … but the important point is that natural capital in cities can be vastly improved.”
Costanza said he would like to see the researchers’ big data approach become standard in urban planning, as a way to determine the best balance between urban infrastructure and green space—whether it’s farms, forests, parks, or wetlands. That is the researchers’ hope as well, and they’ve released their code to allow other scientists and urban planners to run their own data, especially at the local level.
“Somebody, maybe in Romania, say, could just plug their values in and that will produce local estimates,” Georgescu said. “If they have a grand vision of developing or expanding some city with X amount of available land where urban agriculture can be grown, they can now quantify these added co-benefits.”
That could be very valuable, said Sabina Shaikh, director of the Program on the Global Environment at the University of Chicago, who researches the urban environment and the economics of environmental policy.
“Ecosystem services is something that is very site-specific,” she said. “But this research may help people make comparisons a little bit better, particularly policymakers who want to think through, ‘What’s the benefit of a park vs. food production?’ or some combination of things. It doesn’t necessarily mean, because it has the additional benefit of food production, that a farm is going to be more highly valued than a park. But it gives policymakers another tool, another thing to consider.”
Meanwhile, policy in the US and internationally is already changing to accommodate and encourage urban agriculture. California, for example, passed its Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act in 2014, allowing landowners who place urban plots into agricultural use to score valuable tax breaks. The idea has proven controversial—especially in housing-starved San Francisco. Beyond raising rents, critics have argued that urban agriculture, if it impedes the development of housing, could reduce density, contributing to the sort of sprawl that compels people to drive their cars more. Put urban farms in the wrong place, and an effort to reduce food’s carbon footprint could have the opposite effect.
On the other hand, businesses like Gotham Greens that aim to expand may still be hampered by zoning—Puri and his co-founders had to work with New York’s zoning authority to change regulations affecting greenhouses before they could open their first farm. As the company looks to add sites in other cities, the wide array of their zoning rules, utility access, and regulations will influence its decisions.
“I think we could benefit from a more cohesive policy,” Puri said, “but it’s also a very new industry. And then there are so many approaches to urban agriculture. How does a city approach something that is so broad and diverse at this stage?”
While more data about the potential ecosystem services and tradeoffs would surely help create a more navigable regulatory landscape, Puri, like others in his industry, is also something of an evangelist, eager to put in a word for urban farming’s less quantifiable benefits.
“I don’t believe that urban farming is ever going to replace more conventional farming,” he said. “I don’t think a city is going to be able to produce its entire food supply within city limits, but I think it can play a role in bringing people closer to their food, and in making our cities more diverse and interesting and green.”