Hort Americas And VegBed Team Up To Offer New Microgreen Medium For Farms

Hort Americas partnering with VegBed to offer their sustainable bamboo fiber microgreen mats

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NEW YORK, NY [February 12, 2019]

Hort Americas, North America’s top commercial horticultural supplier, and VegBed, the leader of innovative hydroponic growing mediums have announced today an exciting new partnership to offer microgreen farms a sustainable medium to grow with.

The agreement complements the current growing media product lineup at Hort Americas and strengthens the distribution reach of VegBed's sustainable microgreen mats. It will give farmers a new option and allow them to speed up their production process by growing their microgreens efficiently and cleanly.

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VegBed Bamboo Fiber Microgreen Mat (Photo: VegBed)

The demand for soil-alternative growing mediums and more efficient growing methods have been increasing over the past few years, with Hort Americas being the premier supplier to many CEA farms.

VegBed’s microgreen mats fit industry standard 10” x 20” trays and leave no residue. The bamboo fiber is highly absorbent and 100% biodegradable, preventing trays from drying out quickly. The mats will be available on Hort Americas website on [date] and farms can take advantage of a bulk discounted rate.

Commenting on the agreement, Albert Lin, founder of VegBed said "We are thrilled to be partnering with Hort Americas to supply the industry’s growing needs for sustainable microgreen mediums. We are set to increase our presence in the growing medium space and plan to expand in 2019 with new materials and designs. The partnership with Hort Americas is a great addition for our distribution channels and will help both of our companies to continue to grow."

Chris Higgins, founder at Hort Americas adds "Hort Americas is always looking for new, innovative and sustainable products for the commercial greenhouse, vertical farm and hydroponic industries.  We tested VegBed at the Big Tex Urban Farm and were very happy with the results we achieved with a product that comes from a renewable resource and is easy to dispose of.  We are excited to add this to our ever growing portfolio of grower solutions."

For more information on Hort Americas and their full line of products please visit www.hortamericas.com

To learn more about VegBed growing mediums contact Albert Lin at (646)-247-1783 or email, info@vegbed.com, or visit www.vegbed.com.

About Hort Americas

Hort Americas is an innovative leader in North America’s controlled environment agriculture industry (CEA). Hort Americas strives to innovate agriculture via premium technical support, professional salesmanship, unmatched customer service and outstanding products to our customers in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. 

About VegBed

VegBed provides the cleanest and easiest to use grow medium for hydroponic farms and other horticultural applications. We currently offer 3 products – foam grow cubes, bamboo fiber microgreen mats and a bamboo fiber microgreens roll.

VegBed can custom size their products for many application types – aeroponics, deep water culture, nutrient film technique, floating raft, vertical, flood & drain and many more. We work with commercial farms, hobby growers and are headquartered in New York,

80 Acres Farms Strikes 'Significant Investment' From San Francisco Private Equity Firm

15-Jan-2019 By Mary Ellen Shoup

Vertical indoor farming company, 80 Acres Farms, has received a "significant investment" from Virgo Investment Group, a San Francisco-based private equity firm, to help rapidly commercialize the company's specialized indoor farming technology.

For more information:

HTTPS://WWW.FOODNAVIGATOR-USA.COM/ARTICLE/2019/01/15/80-ACRES-FARMS-STRIKES-SIGNIFICANT-INVESTMENT-FROM-SAN-FRANCISCO-PRIVATE-EQUITY-FIRM 

LED Lighting for Indoor Agriculture

Len Calderone for | AgritechTomorrow

01/10/19, 08:14 AM

Since the beginning of time, plants have relied on the sun to feed and grow through the method known as photosynthesis—a process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy into chemical energy. Now, plants can be commercially grown without any sun light. LED lighting is replacing the sun due to advanced technological innovations.

Light emitting diodes (LED) work by passing a current between semiconductors. Compared with other forms of electrical illumination, LEDs use less energy, give off little heat and can be controlled to optimize plant growth compared to other forms of electrical illumination, such as fluorescent lamps, which contain mercury, which is needed to make the inert gasses conductive at all temperatures and to make the lamp work properly and efficiently. Mercury is a heavy metal, which is hazardous to the environment.

Then, we have incandescent lamps that are considered the least energy efficient type of electric lighting commonly found in residential buildings. Because of their inefficiency and brief life spans, they are more expensive to operate than LED and fluorescent lights.

LEDs are tiny light bulbs that fit into an electrical circuit. Unlike incandescent bulbs, they don't have a filament that will burn out, and they don't get very hot. They are illuminated uniquely by the movement of electrons in a semiconductor material. The lifespan of an LED exceeds the short lifespan of an incandescent bulb by thousands of hours.

In LEDs, the conductor material is usually aluminum-gallium-arsenide. In pure aluminum-gallium-arsenide, all of the atoms adhere entirely to their neighbors, leaving no free electrons to conduct electric current. Additional atoms change the balance by adding free electrons or creating holes where electrons can go. Either of these variations make the material more conductive.

In agricultural applications, LED lights are used to change how plants grow, alter when they flower, transform how they taste and even modify their levels of vitamins and antioxidants. LED lights can extend a plant’s shelf life as well.

Growers can use LED light modifications to grow two types of basil from the same plant.  For example, they can grow sweeter basil for the grocery store and more spicy versions for chefs.

These plants are grown indoors, utilizing a fraction of the land, water and fertilizers of greens raised outdoors with conventional farming. Since the plants are gown indoors, they can be grown close to urban centers. Growers don’t need varieties bred for disease resistance, or plants genetically modified to handle the stresses of growing outside. The harvest isn’t transported across the country in refrigerated trucks, and they are not susceptible to the effects of climate change, which is making growing much more difficult for a lot of farms around the country and around the world.

Indoor growing and LEDs allow fast, year-round crop cycles. This permits growers to produce 200,000 pounds of leafy greens, vine crops, herbs and microgreens annually in a 12,000-square-foot warehouse, which is the equivalent of 80 acres of farmland. Not dependent on the outside weather, plants can grow year-round, enabling a grower to produce 15 or more crops a year.

Conventional greenhouses have depended on on high-pressure sodium lamps (HPS) to complement sunlight, but HPS lights don’t work as well as LED because they consume much more power to produce the same light levels. They also generate too much heat to place near young greens. Greenhouses are moving to a combination of HPS and LED lighting for supplemental lighting, though growers see a time when they will use LEDs alone. Lately, LED lighting costs have been cut in half, and their effectiveness has more than doubled.

Scientists have acknowledged that photosynthesis is improved within the red band, but plants also need blue light waves to prevent stretching and enhance leaf color. A visible range beyond red, known as far red, encourages larger leaves, branching and flowering. With advances in LED technology, light recipes can be finely tweaked to each crop and even to each phase in a crop’s life.

Sunlight is inefficient when it comes to improving small-scale, urban agriculture. The heat produced by the sun can damage plants. The sunlight’s heat effect is further amplified when the plants are packed close together, which they are in urban farming.

In contrast to sunlight, LED lights are known for shifting nearly undetectable amounts of heat onto plants, and the light bulbs are cool to the touch. When using LED lighting, urban farms can closely pack plants for maximum efficiency. This would not be achievable in ordinary agricultural environments without conceding the health of the plants.

There is normally a higher upfront cost using LED lighting. The best way to acknowledge the cost-savings of LED lighting is to look at it in terms of a long-term investment. Over time, LED lighting has a much higher energy productivity over time as compared to other urban farming lighting technologies.

LED's use much less electricity than pressure sodium lights or fluorescent, as much as 40% - 50%. For indoor growing, proper ventilation is required. Ventilation for indoor growing helps prevent excess moisture, the propagation of pests and the weakening of plant stems. LEDs produce much less heat than other types of grow lights, resulting in the need for less ventilation.

LED's grow lights have an extreme life length. They typically have 50,000 hours of usable life, which is approximately 6 years of continuous use. So, if you are utilizing the lights on a 50% on 50% off schedule, the life of LED grow lights is over 11 years.

Since LED's have much lower heat output, they can be located nearer to the plants. This allows the grower to stack more plants in the same vertical space. Therefore, the benefit of using LEDs is to double or triple the production output without changing the area of the growing space. Of course, this depends on the height of the growing space.

As used in commercial indoor growing, LED lighting technologies have been around less than ten years. LED lights are less understood than other types of grow lights, which have been studied for several decades. So, what does this mean? The support for and the knowledge of LED grow lights is far more limited than other types of grow lights. Most importantly, because of the knowledge gap, there are great opportunities.

Signify Makes It Easier To Switch From HPS to LED Toplighting Using Existing infrastructure

January 16, 2019

       Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact provides easy 1-to-1 switch while re-using your existing HPS plug and infrastructure

   Replace 1000W HPS lighting and get the same amount of light with 40% less electricity use

    Replace 600W HPS lighting and get 80% more light for the same amount of electricity

Eindhoven, Netherlands – Signify (Euronext: LIGHT), the world leader in lighting, today unveiled its new concept for the Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact. This compact, passively cooled LED toplighting provides a 1-to-1 replacement for HPS lighting that fits seamlessly in existing HPS connections and trellis constructions. The goal is to make it easier for growers to make the switch to LED lighting as a way to improve their crop results or reduce energy costs.

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Compared to a 1000-W HPS light, the Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact will produce the same amount of light, while using 40% less electricity and producing very little radiant heat. This gives growers more independent control over heat and light in their greenhouse climate. Compared to a 600-W HPS light, the new energy efficient compact produces 80% more light, using the same amount of electricity.

Robust solution

“Many growers are looking for an easy way to step into LED lighting and generate the additional benefits of LEDs, including higher yield, better quality crop and more predictability. They often would like to see this happen in their existing greenhouse and structure mounted on the trellis. I’m delighted that we are working on a really robust solution with minimal light interception and without the need for active cooling, so they can take advantage of all the benefits that LED toplighting offers for a whole range of light-loving crops,” says Udo van Slooten, business leader horticulture at Signify. “Together with the plant specialists, account manager and application engineer, the optimized lighting solution for your greenhouse situation shall be determined.”

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Easy fit for low installation costs

The new compact module is being developed to fit seamlessly in existing HPS connections and trellis constructions, so growers can easily switch from HPS lighting to LED toplighting or create a hybrid LED and HPS lighting system. This new concept has the potential to give growers the flexibility to increase light intensity for a specific crop or expand the illumination area, using the same or much less electricity.

The Philips GreenPower LED toplighting compact is expected to be commercially available in Fall 2019 as an extension to the existing Philips GreenPower LED toplighting program.

 Signify became the new company name of Philips Lighting as of May 16, 2018.

Masdar City Unveils Sustainable Smart Home Farming

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Exhibition at Eco-Villa highlights Masdar’s support of the UAE’s National Food Security

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Published:  January 17, 2019 Staff Report

Abu Dhabi: Masdar City in Abu Dhabi has unveiled a Smart Home Farming Showcase called ‘Bustani’ at its Eco-Villa prototype to demonstrate emerging farming solutions that will help UAE residents produce their own food at home.

The exhibition, which will be open to the public throughout 2019, will demonstrate more than 15 innovative home solutions, around food production, water and waste recycling, said a press release issued on Thursday. These solutions, which Masdar sourced from local and international suppliers before being installed at the Masdar City Eco-Villa earlier this month, will be tested throughout the year.

The showcase is a collaboration between Masdar and the UAE-based agri-tech specialists Madar Farms, and is one of the outcomes of a partnership between the UAE Office for Food Security and Masdar.

The objective of the showcase is to highlight how progress in technology has allowed the emergence of solutions to increase food security at the home level, as well as raise awareness of the broader global challenges of sustainably and nutritiously feeding a growing population.

Mariam Al Muhairi, Minister of State for Food Security, officially opened the showcase in the presence of Mohammad Jameel Al Ramahi, CEO of Masdar; Yousuf Baselaib, Executive Director, Sustainable Real Estate at Masdar; and Abdul Aziz Al Mulla, CEO and Founder from Madar Farms.

Mariam commented that Smart Home Farming as showcased in Masdar City encourages self-sufficiency and reduces the burden on commercial food producers and suppliers by enabling villa-dwellers to produce food from facilities on their own premises. Smart Home Farming turns consumers into ‘prosumers’ and if initiated on a wide enough scale, could result in a new paradigm of food security for the nation, she said.

Al Ramahi, Masdar CEO, said: “Global food systems are faced with the challenge of sustainably feeding more than nine billion people by 2050. Today’s food systems are falling short of these objectives and remain both unsustainable for the environment and unable to adequately nourish a major part of the global population.” He said the smart home farming showcase demonstrates Masdar’s commitment to exploring innovative and sustainable approaches to farming.

Masdar is supporting start-up companies and entrepreneurs to develop an innovation ecosystem focused on improving food and water security for the region. One of Masdar City’s key themes for 2019 is sustainable agriculture.

Al Mulla, founder Madar Farms, said: “By showcasing innovative smart farming solutions from all over the world, we hope to raise awareness of the exciting change that is currently taking place in the ag-tech landscape.”

Launched during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week 2017, the Eco-Villa pilot project at Masdar City incorporates various water and energy saving technologies. The 405 square-metre residential property is the first villa to achieve a 4-Pearl rating under the Estidama Pearl Building Rating System (PBRS), introduced by Abu Dhabi’s Department of Urban Planning and Municipalities.

It uses around 72 percent less energy and 35 per cent less water than a typical Abu Dhabi property of the same size, while displacing an estimated 63 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, said the press release.

Considering Growing Controlled Environment Edible Crops?

By David Kuack, UrbanAgNews.com

January 17, 2019

Regardless of whether specialty crops are grown in hoop houses, greenhouses or indoor vertical farms, growers are incorporating technology to improve production and profitability.

When it comes to technology, most controlled environment growers are looking for ways to produce their crops as efficiently and as economically as possible. Purdue University horticulture and agricultural economics professor Ariana Torres is focused on the marketing and economics of specialty crops, especially those grown in controlled environments.

“Because of my educational background in controlled environment I focus more on that type of production,” Torres said. “I have three appointments at the university. I teach entrepreneurship. I do research on technology adoption for specialty crop operations, including vegetables, ornamentals, herbs and organic agriculture. I also investigate how consumers perceive grower technologies. My extension appointment allows me to bring the findings from my research to growers and other stakeholders.

“I collect information on farmers markets every week. I have an extension program called Horticulture Business with a website that is hosted by Purdue University. I am also working on developing financial tools like online enterprise budgets and financial calculators where growers can learn about risk and the break-even analysis of various crops.”

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Purdue University horticulture and agricultural economics professor Ariana Torres tours Big Tex Urban Farms at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas.
Photos courtesy of Ariana Torres, Purdue Univ.

As a graduate student at Purdue, Torres studied controlled environment production learning that light requirements and nutrition not only vary by crop, but also by variety.
“I can transfer those learning skills to other crops,” she said. “Ninety percent of my current research is on edible crops and 10 percent is on ornamentals. This split also reflects what is happening in the industry. Greenhouse growers and ornamental growers are slowly transitioning to edible crops as well. Many hydroponic systems that were developed for greenhouses and poly houses were designed for ornamental production.

“Of the specialty crop growers I’m working with, 50 percent are controlled environment and 50 percent are outdoor field growers. I initially started working with field crop growers and have transitioned more into controlled environment systems.”

Focused on cost-efficient technology

Torres is focusing on how growers can adopt cost-efficient technologies. She is particularly interested in assisting growers in accessing information about the cost efficiency of technologies.

“I am also interested in finding out how these technologies are perceived by consumers,” she said. “I am starting to study consumers’ perceptions and their willingness to pay for specialty crops.

“One project I’m particularly interested in studying is related to value-added technologies. There are specialty crop growers who sell wholesale in bulk while other growers cut, wash, dry and label products. Value-added can be defined as any physical or labeled transformation of a product. I’m evaluating the transformation of the identity of a crop. Anything related to whether a crop is non-GMO, organic, pesticide-free, locally grown or domestically produced.”

Differences in operation size, customer base

Torres said that small and large specialty crop growing operations have very different market channels.

“The goal of most large operations is to produce large volumes,” she said. “That involves a lot of efficiency—producing the highest value crops that can provide the highest profits selling large volumes to one or two customers.

“Small hydroponic growers are not only looking for a higher profit, they are also looking to access different market channels than large operations. They tend to diversify their number of crops and their number of market channels. For example, small operations tend to sell to restaurants, farmers markets, independent grocery stores, community supported agriculture and they may also sell online.”

Torres said once small operations incorporate technology they tend to stick with it for as long as possible to recover their investment.

“At small hydroponic operations there tends to be less technology and lower investments,” she said. “They also tend to grow more edible crops, including tomatoes and other small fruit, and try to capitalize on higher prices for locally-grown hydroponic crops.

“Large operations are aiming to produce fewer crops and larger volumes with potentially smaller profit margins than small operations. These large operations grow fewer crops and their technologies tend to be more expensive. For example, large growers tend to use more expensive sensors, substrates, irrigation systems, lighting fixtures, and they are usually more willing to experiment with newer technologies. These operations also tend to be more efficient as a result of technological efficiencies.”

Automation limitations

Torres said Europe still leads the way in agricultural automation.

“More technology will be coming from Europe, but I’m not sure if it will come from European companies,” she said. “There are more U.S. researchers and companies doing research on automation and its impact on controlled environment agriculture.

“The Dutch have been very innovative on controlled environment technologies for automation. One of the successes for the Dutch growers is that they are very specialized. A grower has one crop, two crops at most. If a grower is producing one crop like tomatoes, then automation makes a lot of sense. In the U.S. it’s more difficult because growers are more likely to produce a larger number of different crops. The challenge is when growers produce multiple crops like baby kale, microgreens and tomatoes. These are crops that have different production requirements, different stages and different pest pressures. In regards to automation, what works in Europe may not necessarily work in the U.S.”

Factors affecting profitability

Torres said the type of structure and facility can also impact investment and profitability.
“With hoop houses there is usually less technology and fewer investments compared to greenhouses,” she said. “There also tends to be less technology and lower investments at small operations. If these small growers capitalize on higher prices for hydroponic crops, they can be profitable relatively quickly.”

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Ariana Torres and a visiting scholar collect prices of specialty crops sold at Indiana farmers markets.

Torres said indoor vertical farms tend to take longer to be profitable because of the startup costs. There can be a large investment in technology.

“Even though greenhouse growers typically need more employees than vertical indoor farms because their operations are larger, most vertical farms are dealing with a higher level of technology requiring more qualified labor resulting in higher labor costs,” she said.

“Energy costs are also going to be higher for vertical indoor farms. The reason profitability is harder to reach for large indoor farms in the first and second year is a reflection of the investment and operational costs.

“Customer base also impacts profitability. A bag of lettuce may cost $4 at a farmers market and $5 at Whole Foods. The prices are not that different considering that selling at a farmers market allows a grower to capture a higher share of the consumers’ dollars. Also considering that operational costs for growers selling wholesale are very different, it is evident why profitability is harder to reach for large growers. If growers sell to wholesalers, the price they receive can be considerably lower than the price paid by consumers. In addition, labor costs per square foot tend to be higher for indoor farms and operational costs can be higher. However, these indoor farms can produce a lot of product so that they are able to supply large volumes.”

Vertical farms can be profitable

Torres said she has been able to collect limited information on indoor vertical farms.
“Small vertical farms tend to sell to independent grocery stores and local farmers markets,” she said. “The vertical farms I have seen in the Midwest tend to be small and their level of technology they usually have built themselves and/or recycled a lot of equipment. They can be very profitable because they are small and are able to capitalize on high prices for locally-grown crops like leafy greens and microgreens.

“Even though these vertical farms are producing on a small scale, they can be very profitable because they are rotating crops every four to six weeks. They can have as many as 12 crop cycles, which is a lot of production.”

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Ariana Torres is visiting urban hydroponic operations like this one in Indianapolis.

Torres said where these indoor vertical farms start to run into trouble is when they look to scale up production.

“When small operations scale up, they are going to become a full time job and may need to start hiring employees,” she said. “Once they start to scale up because of increased demand for their product or just because they want to expand their business, that’s when they are likely to run into financial stress. They would need to invest in more technology and their customer base is going to change, moving from direct-to-consumer markets to wholesale or retail. When growers move into bigger market channels and start selling to larger retailers and wholesalers, their business model changes and with that their financial performance.

“With indoor vertical farms, scaling up may involve a lot of investment, especially going from a small to large operation. In field agriculture, it is much easier to scale up to increase profit and revenues. For large indoor vertical farms, for the first three to five years depending on how much money is invested, they are going to just break even or maybe generate negative numbers. Those indoor farms that are able to succeed during the first three years usually have investors with deeper pockets who are willing to see the operations through the long term.”

For more: Ariana Torres, Purdue University, Horticulture and Landscape Architecture, West Lafayette, IN 47907; (765) 494-8781; torres2@purdue.edu; https://www.purdue.ag/hortbusiness.

This article is property of Urban Ag News and was written by David Kuack, a freelance technical writer from Fort Worth, TX.

TAGS Education Greenhouse Technology Indoor Ag Technology Plants Purdue University

Research Technology

Seeking Fresh Produce, Mumbai Duo Quits Jobs To Grow Over 1,000 Plants Soil-Less!

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by Jovita Aranha January 23, 2019

When Joshua and Sakina decided to quit their well-paying jobs and switch to farming, everyone, including their parents, thought they were wasting their time and efforts with a dead project.

“Who in their right frame of mind decides to leave a comfortable job in a city like Mumbai and get their hands dirty with farming?” naysayers asked.

Today, amid the chaos of the city, the duo is successfully running, what they call, Mumbai’s first hyperlocal farm!

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Herbivore Farm in Andheri East

In a room less than 1,000 sq ft, with over 1,000 plants, they grow seven varieties of lettuce (lollo rosso, oakleaf, French romaine, summer crisp, butterhead), three varieties of Swiss chard (red, yellow and white), two types of rocket (wild and cultivated) and four varieties of kale.

All using hydroponic farming!

Operating from a warehouse in an old industrial estate that they transformed into an indoor farm in the Andheri suburb of Mumbai, the duo is growing pesticide-free, healthy and flavourful leafy greens, and delivering them at the doorsteps of their customers mere hours after harvest.

The Better India got in touch with the urban farmer duo to document their journey.

This journey towards growing their own food has its roots in a trip they took to Auroville in June 2017.

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Joshua Lewis and Sakina Rajkotwala

“Our jobs were good. The money was flowing in, but there was no greater meaning to what we were doing. We wanted to do more with our time. We had goals, but didn’t know what to start with,” confesses Joshua.

He continues, “Besides, it felt like each day was passing by in a monotonous routine. It was a never-ending loop where we were neither living to the fullest nor giving enough. And so, on a whim, we decided to pack our backs and travel to Auroville in Puducherry. We spent three months there working at a natural farm and getting our hands dirty.”

This is the same Solitude Farm run by musician and organic farmer Krishna McKenzie, who moved to Auroville from the UK 25 years ago. Over 140 varieties of plants, ranging from wild greens, flowers, fruits, vegetables, oilseeds, cereals, grains, grams, and pulses, are grown across six acres of land. Read more about it here.

“The farm had a beautiful concept where the lunch for a particular day would be prepared using veggies harvested the same morning and served at the cafe. We would work at the farm in the morning and relish a heavy lunch cooked with the fresh veggies we harvested ourselves,” says Joshua.

Not only were these veggies at their maximum level of nutrition when consumed fresh but they gave them the energy to continue working in the farm without getting tired.

“We realised how food back home in Mumbai was sedative, doused with pesticides. Besides, the vegetables we consumed were off the shelf and at the very least, a week old, considering the harvest-to-transportation time,” says Sakina.

“When I ate lunch at the office, I felt sleepy at my work desk. Back in Auroville, we could work tirelessly even after lunch. This highlighted the crucial need for fresh food,” Joshua agrees.

After their return to Mumbai, the duo could hardly find anyone around them who grew and delivered fresh leafy green veggies.

And so, they decided to start growing their own leafy greens.

Joshua continues, “We are big-time lovers of salads. But we could hardly find any suppliers of clean, pesticide-free, leafy greens which could be consumed raw. Even the ones we consumed lacked flavour, often alternating between bland and bitter. And so, we decided to test hydroponic farming on Sakina’s terrace.”

The idea behind hydroponics was to avoid moving to the outskirts in search of land suitable for organic farming.

The goal was set. They wanted to grow fresh leafy greens in the middle of the chaotic city and consume them fresh.

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Varieties of Swiss Chard

The classic trial-and-error method ensued for months. Whoever they sought guidance from had nothing more to share apart from the basic principles of hydroponics.

But the duo did not give up. They conducted extensive researched and kept trying. This was coupled with the pressure from home about trudging down an unconventional road.

Once they succeeded in growing three varieties, they invited their parents for a tasting session. Although their labour was appreciated, the parental units were unsure how the youth would be consistent.

But they decided to support the youngsters and gave them initial capital to kickstart their indoor commercial farm in Andheri East.  

“I still remember how we made a 16-slide presentation to convince them to invest in our project. I don’t think they were convinced, but they had no option than to agree,” she laughs.

“With the customer base we have gathered and the farm that we have set up, they are now convinced we did not make the wrong choice,” says Joshua.

Christened Herbivore Farms, the concept behind the initiative is to make freshly harvested leafy greens available to their customers.

You May Also Like: Exclusive: UP’s Award-Winning Banana King Earns Rs 48 Lakh/Year, Becomes Idol For Farmers!

How is it beneficial?

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Hydroponic farming is water-efficient

The climate within the greenhouse is artificially controlled, so the crops are protected against the weather outside.

Hydroponics is soil-less farming, where macro and micronutrients dissolved within a water solution directly facilitate plant growth. The system uses 75-85 per cent less water than conventional farming!

Growing plants in a vertical system allows them to grow five times more. The only challenge currently is that since the food is delivered within hours of harvest, the locations they cater to are limited.

When I ask them how their venture stands apart from their competitors, Sakina quips, “We consider our USP to be that our produce is delivered to the customer’s home a few hours post-harvest. So it is always at its peak of freshness, nutrition, and flavour. Our indoor farm enables a clean, sterile environment, which has zero pesticides, so it’s 100 per cent safe. We use 80 per cent less water to grow our produce with a recirculating irrigation system.”

To market their produce, the duo also gave away free samples which received an amazing response.

Every week, they harvest 350 plant heads which cater to 150 customers who have a monthly subscription.

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Lettuce

A Herbivore Harvest Box (Monthly Subscription) costs Rs 1,500 (with extra delivery charges for South Mumbai) for one month. The deliveries are staggered over four weeks–one per week on a decided day–depending on the location of the subscriber.

Every week, this subscriber gets one box containing two to three varieties of leafy greens harvested the same morning.

“Most people who tried our produce conveyed how fresh and flavourful the leafy greens were, how different their texture was. Many of them subscribed to us soon after. It helped change their age-old perception of leafy veggies being ‘bitter’ or ‘bland’. And that was certainly morale-boosting for us. To be honest, I myself wasn’t such a big fan of greens until we started growing them ourselves,” signs off Sakina.

Also Read: Heights of Hydroponics: Meet the Chennai Man Who Grows 6,000 Plants in 80 Sq Ft Space!

To all the aspiring urban farmers who want to grow their own food, but often find excuses not to, Joshua has a message.

“Every time you wake up in the morning, you often have things on your bucket-list that you want to achieve before you die. You might often overthink about how much time you’d be wasting in pursuing those goals. In the process, you do not land up doing anything about them. So our message simply is–if you are passionate about what you want to do and know that you will enjoy it, just do it. The universe will conspire to remove all the obstacles in your path and everything will fall in place.”  

To know more about Herbivore Farms, contact them on 89280 94239. Check out their Facebook and Instagram accounts. To sign up for a monthly subscription of their produce, click here.

(Edited by Shruti Singhal)

Like this story? Or have something to share?
Write to us: contact@thebetterindia.com
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Written by Jovita Aranha

A lover of people, cats, food, music, books & films. In that order. Binge-watcher of The Office & several other shows. A storyteller on her journey to document extraordinary stories of ordinary people.

Bristol Startup LettUs Grow Attracts £1M Funding To Develop Sustainable Farms For Future

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January 11, 2019

The UK agri-tech startup LettUs Grow has obtained £1 million in funding to build commercial indoor farm facilities. The startup designs aeroponic irrigation and control technology for vertical farms. The funding will steer the company to expand globally and develop innovative eco-friendly farming solutions.

Supported by renowned organisations

Innovate UK has endowed LettUs Grow with £399,650 to manoeuvre a £700,000 project enabling food security in the emergent challenge of climate change.

The agri-tech startup will work in collaboration with ECH Engineering and Grow Bristol. Besides, the company has won several research grants including the Green Challenge, amounting €100,000 in total.

Prior to the latest capital ingestion, LettUs Grow raised £460,000 from ClearlySo, Bethnal Green Ventures, and the University of Bristol Enterprise Fund II, managed by Parkwalk Advisors and angel investors.

Matias Wibowo, investment manager at ClearlySo articulated, “Innovation is critical to ensuring long-term food security and sustainability. Our investors see the value, both in terms of financial and environmental/social returns from tackling this systemic global problem. That’s why they got involved in LettUs Grow. LettUs Grow provides the technological innovation piece to the vertical smart farming movement that is currently trending rapidly in the urban context.”

Challenges of rising populace and climate change

With the exponentially growing population, the food production needs to be augmented by many folds. The traditional farming will not be enough to feed this escalating global population facing the menace of climate change, soil degradation and looming farmland. Besides, a significant proportion of crops get damaged due to logistical anomalies.

LettUs Grow – sustainable farming for a better future

LettUs Grow has invented a patent-pending aeroponic technology for growing shrubs and herbs with over 70% higher growth rate compared to existing methods. In this technology, plant roots are suspended in a nutrient-rich mist instead of using soil. This ensures faster, consistent and predictable yields resulting in 95% reduction in water usage against open-field farming. LettUs Grow enables reduction of carbon footprints with 0% use of pesticides and chemicals.

Headquartered in Bristol, LettUs Grow was founded by Ben Crowther, Charlie Guy and Jack Farmer in 2015.

Charlie Guy, co-founder and Managing Director of LettUs Grow stated, “This injection of private and public funding into the company enables us to accelerate our innovative products to market and build one of the most technically advanced facilities for indoor growing in the world. The global agri-tech industry is very exciting right now, all stemming from the necessity to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of food production. We are fielding enquiries from all around the world from food producers and farmers who want to experience the benefits of our technology across a growing range of crops.”

Stay tuned to Silicon Canals for more updates in the tech startup world.

Calgary’s Indoor Urban Farms Breaking Down Barriers, Eye Expansion of Local Food Production

December 10, 2018 Darren Krause CALGARY 1

Megan Janz with Deepwater Farms looks over some of the greens the Calgary commercial aquaponics company grows. DARREN KRAUSE / LIVEWIRE CALGARY

The seeds of Calgary’s commercial food industry have been planted, but conditions aren’t yet ripe for the city to harvest the full rewards of urban food production, local producers say.

Former oil and gas engineers Paul and Ryan Wright, along with Dan Clayholt, launched NuLeaf farms, a hydroponic agriculture operation in a southeast Calgary garage.

“We really wanted to find something where we had some passion and where we could apply our skills to really solve some problems,” said Paul.

“Agriculture stood out like a sore thumb.”

They saw an opportunity to use high-end tech they’d been exposed to for the development of more sustainable and efficient year-round food production in Calgary.

“That led to the beginning of us not only developing something that was environmentally sustainable, but we wanted something that was economically sustainable,” Paul said.

They have a proprietary software that optimizes climate conditions and nutrient delivery, light conditions and amount of CO2. It’s allowed them to build a vertical growing system that produces 180 plants per square foot annually, enough to allow them to sell to smaller grocery stores and Calgary restaurants.

Now they’re scaling up. They have a module designed – similar to the size of the garage – but they also have plans for a full-sized manufacturing operation.  

While headway’s been made in the adoption of land-uses for indoor commercial food growth in Calgary, Paul said accessibility to programs to help them scale up is a challenge.

(From left) Ryan Wright, Paul Wright and Dan Clayholt with NuLeaf Farms, a hydroponic operation based in southeast Calgary that grows basil. DARREN KRAUSE / LIVEWIRE CALGARY

“A lot of (granting) agencies are looking for innovation, but the parameters for grants aren’t tailored to anything like this. They seem pretty closed-minded to anything that far out of the norm,” Paul said.

He added that when setting up operations he’s cognizant of the business tax regime in the city and how it compares with jurisdictions like Rocky View County.

Kristi Peters Snider, sustainability consultant with the City of Calgary’s CalgaryEATS! Food Action Plan, said indoor commercial food operations are new in Calgary, with the city seeing mostly outdoor “spin farms” and other  smaller urban farms over the past decade.

Peters Snider said the city’s land use bylaw amendments coupled with Calgary Economic Development’s saying agri-business should be an area of focus has boosted efforts to modernize Calgary’s food rules.

“There’s some work to do, and the role the city can play is in enabling more food distribution pathways to help these growers,” she said.

Paul Shumlich, founder and CEO of Calgary’s Deepwater Farms, an aquaponics operation in southeast Calgary, said it’s early days in all this and any movement forward should be done in consultation with the growers.

“If they go ahead and start implementing things, or drafting policy or bylaws without input from industry, they’ll screw it up. Or they’ll make hurdles that don’t need to exist,” Shumlich said.  

“They (the city) need to understand what we need and then reverse engineer as if we’re the customer.”

Shumlich’s operation, which he started a number of years back, grows plants without soil and feeds the plants with water whose nutrients come from the waste of edible sea bass they’re raising in the same operation.

They’re at one-third capacity and will be expanding in their current space through 2019, also with eyes on a new facility. They’ve launched a crowdfunding campaign to push the production forward.

He said it’s been a challenge being a pioneer locally, as they’re paving the way through the civic bureaucracy.

“We’ve definitely been pioneering a lot of it in terms of getting through all the permitting, land use and through all the inspections,” said Shumlich.

“Everybody that we deal with, from a permitting perspective, has no idea what they’re looking at or how to deal with us, so that’s been a bit of a headache.”

Peters Snider said the city’s working on the development of an urban farm that will not only allow them to test a model of city-owned land used for food production, but also to help inform them on best practices for approaching things like permits and approvals.

She said they have a 17-point action plan that will help break down some of the barriers new operations face – including creating new pathways for the sale of urban farm products.

• Background on City of Calgary rules around food processing, growing and distribution
  

They piloted pop-up LRT markets for the sale of fresh produce and will continue to build out that program. They’re also hoping to open up more markets on city-owned land. More changes to land use are expected in 2019.

“There’s lots more work. I feel that each area of focus helps achieve that goal of producing more local food,” she said.

That’s the goal. Both NuLeaf and Deepwater Farms are committed to the safe, environmentally-friendly and sustainable growth of local food. They both want to scale up and push the boundaries of their business to deliver fresh produce (and in Shumlich’s case, sea bass) to the Calgary and Alberta market.

“We’re trying to supply the big guys,” said Paul from NuLeaf.

“We’re trying to eliminate as much imported product as possible.”

While there are some hiccups, Shumlich said that’s normal when breaking new ground.

“More than anything it’s exciting and fun because there’s no playbook, so what we’re doing is novel,” he said.

Newbean Capital Announces Agreement to Sell Indoor Ag-Con to Event Industry Veterans, Expands to New Locations & Topics

ATLANTA, GA, USA, December 10, 2018 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Atlanta, GA (December 9, 2018) – Newbean Capital, a US registered investment adviser, today announced an agreement to sell Indoor Ag-Con LLC to three event industry veterans; Nancy Hallberg, Kris Sieradzki and Brian Sullivan.

Founded by Newbean Capital in 2013, Indoor Ag-Con was one of the first events to recognize the potential in the nascent indoor agriculture industry, the practice of growing crops in containers, greenhouses and warehouses using hydroponic, aeroponic and aquaponic techniques. The tech-focused events have grown rapidly and are now hosted in Las Vegas, the US East coast and Singapore each year. In 2015, the events became crop agnostic, expanding to cover legal cannabis and alternate proteins as well as leafy greens and non-food crops.

The acquisition sets the stage for a significant expansion of Indoor Ag-Con globally, bringing exceptional talent and experience to the events. Nancy and Kris founded leading event housing group Connections Housing over thirty years’ ago; the Company manages over 250 events annually, some with over 100,000 participants. Brian brings a wealth of experience in event planning and trade show management, with more than 20 years’ experience in managing large scale shows for companies such as Reed Exhibition and Clarion Events. Nicola Kerslake, founder of Newbean Capital, will remain involved in Indoor Ag-Con as Chief Curator, creating agendas and curating speakers for each event. She remains deeply involved in the indoor agriculture industry, thanks to her rapidly growing alternate finance business, Contain Inc, which will provide white papers for Indoor Ag-Con events going forward.

“We see great potential for growth in indoor agriculture, and are excited to bring greater resources to Indoor Ag-Con” commented Nancy Hallberg. “We’ll be rolling out new initiatives, partnerships and event locations in short order” says Brian Sullivan, adding “we’ll again be returning to Las Vegas for our flagship event in spring 2019 and will announce the details of our plans before the end of the month.”

Our next event is the 4th Annual Indoor Ag-Con Asia, a two-day event that will be hosted at the Marina Bay Sands, Singapore on January 15-16, 2019. It will include exhibition tables and an exciting lineup of industry-leading speakers, and will be opened by SMS Koh of the Republic of Singapore. We will be covering a broad range of crop types – such as, leafy greens, mushrooms, insects, aquaculture and medicinal crops – as well as technologies ranging from artificial intelligence to LED lighting to control systems. New features for 2019 include a startup alley in the exhibition hall, allowing entrepreneurs to easily showcase their startups, unconferencing sessions, and onsite mini workshops from Singaporean vertical farming equipment company Upgrown Farming.

The event is accompanied by a pitch competition, Indoor Ag-Ignite, whose goal is to find the most innovative new ideas globally in indoor agriculture, and the competition is open to any team or company of under 40 employees developing or deploying technologies for the indoor agriculture industry. Three winning teams will receive prize packages including Startup SG grants of S$50,000 per team thanks to the sponsorship of Enterprise Singapore, as well as substrates and technical advice from Smithers Oasis.

4th Annual Indoor Ag-Con Asia
Date – January 15-16, 2019
Place – Marina Bay Sands, Singapore
Registration – currently open to the general public from US$399
Features – Two-day seminar, with keynote speakers, exhibition hall, after-party, and pitch competition
More Info - please visit www.indoor.ag/asia and www.indoor.ag/pitch, email hello@indoor.ag or call +1.775.623.7116

About Indoor Ag-Con LLC
Indoor Ag-Con was founded by Newbean Capital in 2013, and has since grown to the premier event in indoor agriculture, the practice of growing crops, raising fish and insects in indoor systems, using hydroponic, aquaponic and aeroponic techniques. Its events are tech-focused and crop-agnostic, covering produce, legal cannabis, alternate protein and non-food crops. It hosts events in Las Vegas, Singapore and the US East coast. In December 2018, three event industry professionals – Nancy Hallberg, Kris Sieradzki and Brian Sullivan – purchased Indoor Ag-Con LLC from Newbean Capital, so setting the stage for further expansion of the events globally.
More information: https://indoor.ag

About Newbean Capital
Newbean Capital is a US-based registered investment adviser that manages an early stage venture capital mandate for the US Treasury and has a consulting practice in indoor agriculture that works primarily with multinationals and large institutional investors. Its founder – Nicola Kerslake – has a longstanding interest in agriculture investment, having previously covered agriculture stocks as a highly-rated equity analyst and managed investment portfolios that covered the sector for large institutional investors. In late 2016, she founded an alternate finance business – Contain Inc – that works with indoor farmers and with lenders to provide lease finance and – through a relationship with an independent broker – insurance.
More information: https://newbeancapital.com, https://contain.ag

Nancy Hallberg
Indoor Ag-Con LLC
+1 404-358-7100

CO2 GRO Inc. Is Pleased To Present An Audio Interview Conducted By The OTC Markets Group With John Archibald

CO2 GRO Inc. is pleased to present an interview conducted by the OTC Markets Group with John Archibald, CEO. John presents an overview of CO2 GRO, an outlook for 2019 and the significance to the Company of the recently enacted US Farm Bill.

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CO2 GRO Inc. | Suite 2400 120 Adelaide Street West Toronto, Ontario M5H 1T1

ZipGrow Helping To Transform Indoor Agriculture

December 13, 2018
By Bob Peters

Cornwall Ontario – A dedicated team of farming pioneers based in Cornwall are helping to bring local fresh food to the table in a growing number of communities.

ZipGrow manufactures vertical growing systems in Cornwall and works with farmers in external markets to install the technology and build economically viable indoor farms.

Essentially plants are grown from seeds in rows that are oriented vertically as opposed to on a traditional horizontal plane. Light, water and nutrients are supplied via a system that maximizes efficiency and crop yield.

“Our towers are designed by farmers for use by farmers,” says Eric Lang, President and Co-Founder of ZipGrow. “Going vertical allows you to grow crops in a relatively small physical area, which makes it ideal for indoor locations.”

The system is scaleable as well, which means that restaurants can grow their own greens, students can learn about agriculture and entrepreneurs can build commercial farm operations are that are climate-proof.

The ZipGrow method of farming is versatile and can accommodate different crops. Indoor farmers have had success with leafy greens such as lettuce, kale and arugula while herbs like basil, mint, and rosemary are perfect matches for growing vertically. With a little extra planning and preparation, you can also successfully grow fruiting plants such as strawberries, cucumbers, and bell peppers.

ZipGrow is located on Fourth Street West in the middle of Cornwall. Demand for their product has led to continuing increases in production, requiring the company to expand its physical footprint. The company now employs 15 people.

“We are selling ZipGrow systems in North, Central and South America and demand continues to increase quarter after quarter,” says Eric Lang. “Each sale paves the way for another as people become familiar and comfortable with the technology.”

Mr. Lang is partners with Eric Bergeron who first brought the concept of indoor farming to Cornwall with SmartGreens in 2014.

“Indoor farming offers solutions to problems that conventional agriculture struggles with – namely environmental impact, timely transportation of perishable goods to distant markets, climate change and more,” says Mr. Bergeron, Co-Founder and Chief Marketing Officer for ZipGrow. “We believe that with right knowledge and the right technology, individuals and communities can help bring farmers and consumers much closer together for the benefit of all.”

About ZipGrow

ZipGrow designs and builds vertical farming technology for installations around the world. Its team of proven leaders in the field educate, equip, and empower local farmers to grow better food for their communities and operate successful vertical indoor farms.

Web: ZipGrow.com

Princeton Environmental Institute Urban Challenges Awards $509,000 To New Urban Sustainability Projects

Morgan Kelly, Princeton Environmental Institute

January 18, 2019

Vertical farms in post-industrial America, origami-based noise-pollution barriers and cement made from burned waste make up the latest round of projects funded by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) Urban Grand Challenges program. Totaling $509,000, the new awards are active through September 2020 and are described below.

The Urban Grand Challenges program combines the study of the natural and built environments to address the interrelated environmental and social issues facing the world’s rapidly expanding urban areas in a world of increasing environmental volatility. Urban Grand Challenges supports and encourages interdisciplinary faculty and student research at Princeton in the environmental sciences, engineering, architecture, the humanities, policy, the creative arts and the social sciences.

Results from these projects are not only published, but also form the basis of community outreach efforts. In addition, each project includes an educational component — particularly in the form of Princeton courses and PEI internships — that perpetuate the knowledge needed for a sustainable future.

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The Princeton Vertical Farming Project was established by Paul Gauthier, associate research scholar in geosciences and the Princeton Environmental Institute, to study how vertical farms can be implemented in communities, particularly in cities.

Photo by Nick Donnoli, Office of Communications

The sustainability of vertical farming in the cities of tomorrow

Paul Gauthier, associate research scholar in geosciences and PEI, is building on the Princeton Vertical Farming Project (PVFP) he established in 2017 to study how vertical farms can be implemented in local communities, particularly in cities. He is working with the nonprofit Isles Inc. based in Trenton, New Jersey, and the 1,200-square-foot Kêr Farms based in Hamilton, New Jersey, to develop a 1,200-square-foot vertical farm and a “food hub” in Mill One, a former industrial building in Trenton. The goals of the project are to prove the feasibility of establishing vertical farms in former industrial buildings, study the social impacts of vertical farming on underserved communities, and better identify the energy and environmental costs of vertical farms. Most importantly, the farm will serve as a source of fresh food for local residents and be used to teach Trenton and Princeton communities about the benefits of vertical farming and the nutritional benefits of “hyper-local” organic food. Gauthier will build on the PVFP’s current partnerships with Hopewell Elementary School and Princeton Public Schools to develop an educational program at Isles Youth Institute designed to help students learn the necessary skills to become a successful farmer.

What Bowery’s Latest Funding Round Says About Indoor Farming

By

Jennifer Marston -

December 13, 2018

New Jersey-based indoor-farming startup Bowery announced yesterday that it has raised $90 million in fresh funding. The round was led by Alphabet Inc.’s GV with participation from Temasek and Almanac Ventures, General Catalyst and GGV Capital (Bowery’s Series A investors), and various seed investors.

Bowery produces what founder Irving Fain calls “post-organic produce.” Or to put it more plainly, Bowery produces leafy greens in an indoor environment it controls with proprietary software. The FarmOS system, as it’s called, helps farmers manage crops by collecting data about water flow, light levels, humidity, and other environmental factors that impact the taste of greens. And because the farm is indoors, Bowery can grow its crops without soil, pesticides, or chemicals.

This new investment round brings Bowery’s total funding to $117.5 million. That sounds like a lot until you compare it to Softbank’s $200 million investment in Bowery’s West Coast competitor Plenty, which took place in July of 2017.

Both companies’ raises illustrate the enormous amount of interest in indoor and vertical farming right now. The latter field is expected to have a market valuation of more than $13 billion by 2024, and there are dozens of other companies working on various iterations of indoor farming today.

AeroFarms grows leafy greens inside a 70,000-square-foot facility in New Jersey and has backing from IKEA and Momofuku’s David Chang. Crop One Holdings and Emirates Flight Catering are building what they call “the world’s largest vertical farm.” And Ford Motors operates a farm in Detroit that helps feed the homeless.

Okay, but will leafy greens really feed the homeless? Will butter lettuce and fresh basil help alleviate the global food shortage we’re expected to face as the population nears 9 billion people?

By itself, indoor farming can’t do either of those things, at least not adequately. But that doesn’t render indoor farming an overhyped segment. What it does mean, though, is that we need to start moving beyond the leafy greens and start producing foods with a little more substance. Plenty says cucumbers and strawberries are next on its list. Meanwhile, it’s possible to grow root vegetables like turnips, beets, and sweet potatoes using hydroponics. It’s just more expensive and more challenging than basil.

Bowery says its new capital will go towards “scale its operation in new cities across the country and open multiple farms by the end of 2019.” There’s no word yet on whether those new farms will stick to leafy greens or branch out, though Fain did say Bowery is working on “scalable solutions for an impending climate and food crisis.”

We’ll hopefully see Bowery put those words into action by figuring out how to widen the possibilities of what we can grow with indoor farming.

A Method To Monitor Indoor Crop Health No Matter What Planet You're On

PUBLIC RELEASE: 17-DEC-2018

BOTANICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

IMAGE: SINGLE-IMAGE NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE VEGETATION INDEX (SI-NDVI) ANALYSIS ENABLES EARLY DETECTION OF PLANT RESPONSE TO STRESS, PRIOR TO WHITE LIGHT-VISIBLE DETECTION. SI-NDVI IMAGES OF ARABIDOPSIS PLANTS SHOW RESPONSE TO SALT STRESS... view more

CREDIT: NICOLE S. BEISEL, JORDAN B. CALLAHAM, NATASHA J. SNG, DYLAN J. TAYLOR, ANNA-LISA PAUL, AND ROBERT J. FERL. 2018. UTILIZATION OF SINGLE-IMAGE NORMALIZED DIFFERENCE VEGETATION INDEX (SI-NDVI) FOR EARLY PLANT...

As the world urbanizes and technologies such as LED grow lights bring down costs, indoor farming is becoming an increasingly important part of the food supply. Eventually, indoor farming techniques could help humans maintain a healthy diet in space. However, because of the completely closed systems in which indoor crops are grown, imbalances in soil nutrients, salinity, temperature, and other factors must be caught quickly to avoid losing a whole crop. In work published in a recent issue of Applications in Plant Sciences, Dr. Robert Ferl and colleagues at the University of Florida Space Plants Lab developed a light-based tool to assess plant health quickly, accurately, and inexpensively.

Not surprisingly for work coming from the Space Plants Lab, this study was conducted with an eye toward extraterrestrial farming. "Imagine a greenhouse being robotically maintained on Mars," said Dr. Ferl, corresponding author on the study. "The only data we can get back from that greenhouse is electronic. No sample return. Under those conditions it becomes really beneficial to derive as much data as possible from the photons that are coming off the leaves of plants." These photons make distinctive light signatures that can tell quite a bit about how a plant is doing, when analyzed using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI).

The NDVI is a widely used metric of plant health and photosynthetic rate that was originally developed for satellite-based monitoring of plant growth. This metric compares the plants' absorption of different spectra of light; healthy plants give off an identifiable light signature, absorbing light in the photosynthetically active region of light spectra, and reflecting near-infrared light. "[NDVI] proved to be an interesting starting point for the project simply because there is a large dataset and collective understanding that underpins the idea of using different spectral components to understand plant health," said Dr. Ferl. They adapted single-image NDVI (SI-NDVI), a low-cost version of this analysis, to see if it would be practical for monitoring crop health in indoor farming conditions.

Dr. Ferl and colleagues assessed the efficacy of this monitoring technique by exposing two different plants (arugula and the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana) to two different stressors (salinity and a high-concentration ammonium nitrate treatment) that create distinctive and well-understood stress responses. "Using these well-controlled stresses that have a well-defined biochemical basis for their responses is allowing us to probe the root causes of NDVI difference detections of stress or health responses," said Dr. Ferl. They were able to detect stress signatures from both treatments well before stress was visible to the naked eye, proving the utility of these techniques as early monitoring systems that can be deployed remotely and relatively inexpensively.

While these authors were primarily motivated by an interest in growing plants in space, the monitoring technique they developed could prove useful here on earth for indoor farmers looking to catch problems in the grow room quickly. "Single-image NDVI offers the opportunity to derive spectral character from a single RGB image. This keeps costs down," said Dr. Ferl. "It also opens the door to a large community of citizen scientists and applications developers that are interested in using SI-NDVI concepts commercially." This means that this method could be adapted to monitor a variety of crops grown under indoor conditions, which could mean less expensive, healthier salad greens on your table, whether that table be here or on Mars.

New York Vertical Farm Aims To Instill Consumer Trust With Transparency

By Laura Drotleff| December 19, 2018

Consumers can simply scan the QR code with the camera on their phones to get the full story on when, where, and how Square Roots’ herbs are produced in Brooklyn, NY.

In the wake of the romaine lettuce recall, Square Roots, a Brooklyn, NY-based vertical farm with famous co-founders, has launched new labeling that will allow consumers to access the full backstory for when, where, how, and by whom their food was grown with a simple scan.

Starting today, consumers can just point their camera app at the QR code, or type in the lot number, found on all Square Roots food packaging to trace their food’s path from seed to sale, with the aim of bringing a “whole new level of transparency” to the food chain.

Co-founded by Tobias Peggs and Kimbal Musk (yes, Elon’s brother), Square Roots is a seed-to-sale indoor urban farm that produces a variety of fresh, pesticide-free herbs that are hand-harvested, self-packaged, and same-day-delivered to retail stores in New York City. The company was built on the premise of reconnecting city dwellers with the “comfort, nourishment, and taste of food and the people who grow it.” In addition to growing and selling herbs, Square Roots has taken it upon itself to groom next-generation farmers and future leaders in urban farming through its training platform that requires a one-year commitment to the company.

The Why Behind Square Roots’ Transparency Timeline

Musk wrote in a blog-post revealing Square Roots’ reason for launching its new scan-able label is that the operation wants to provide consumers with the transparency they’re demanding about where and how their food is grown.

Following the E. coli outbreak that resulted in the recall of all romaine lettuce grown in the U.S., consumers were put at risk, and the complexities and lack of traceability in the agricultural supply chain resulted in it taking weeks for federal agencies to track down the source of the bacteria.

Meanwhile, by growing in controlled environments, indoor food producers can provide advantages to minimizing the occurrence of outbreaks. Musk says by promoting this, Square Roots’ customers can enjoy the operation’s locally grown products “with the comfort and confidence of being able to see exactly how and where your food was grown and who grew it.”

Grown hydroponically inside climate-controlled, refurbished shipping containers, Square Roots’ end-to-end system monitors and controls every aspect of the production process, Musk says. The operation’s technology stack surrounds its farmers with data, tools, and insights to make smart decisions in real time, allowing them to sustainably produce food year-round.

Musk says while there’s a lot of excitement around the possibilities that blockchain offers for food traceability that could improve the current supply chain, consumers are turning to locally grown produce because there are fewer steps and less time involved from farm to fork.

“We, like many local farmers, don’t need to utilize blockchain architecture to give the consumer what they want today – total transparency, without the buzzword BS.”

Read Musk’s full article on the Square Roots blog, and learn about the company on its website. Stay tuned for more stories on how indoor producers are promoting food safety and transparency on GreenhouseGrower.com.

How Sustainable Farming Stacks Up

Published:  December 04, 2018 14:38 Suparna Dutt D’ Cunha, Special to GN Focus

Emirates Flight Catering’s 130,000-sq-ft facility will harvest 2,700kg of herbicide- and pesticide-free leafy greens a day at full production.Image Credit: Supplied

In a country where it’s common to find apples from South Africa, potatoes from India and carrots from Australia — all marked at a price to cover the import costs — in supermarkets, some farming initiatives in recent years are bringing to reality a new breed of green agriculture that seeks to produce more crops in less space and water, and is efficient, easier and kinder on the natural environment.

It is hard not to be dazzled by the current pace of technological change in agriculture in the country. An ambitious manifestation of agricultural technology is coming to fruition next year. Emirates Flight Catering and US-based Crop One Holdings are building what they say will be the world’s largest vertical farm, producing 2,700kg of pesticide-free leafy greens daily, in Dubai.

The greens will be manufactured using hydroponics, a technique in which crops are grown in vertical stacks of plant beds, without soil, sunlight or pesticides. Above each bed of greens will be columns of LED lights, which when plants photosynthesise will convert light of certain wavelengths into chemical energy and store it for future use.

Proponents of new-age farming tout the potential of such technology to address the country’s largely hostile desert landscapes, its reliance on the global food trade, importing more than 80 per cent of its food needs, and food shortages as the population continues to grow.

“It is encouraging to see the initiatives that are underway, including some of the larger scale projects, using highly advanced technologies,” says Nicholas Lodge, Managing Partner at Abu Dhabi-based agriculture consultancy Clarity. “Developing sustainable farming with smart use of water will not only provide improved supplies for the local market but also potentially create viable businesses for export to neighbouring countries. Furthermore, technology and an ecological approach will contribute to food diversity and security as it will enhance crop production and lower its cost.”

For Omar Al Jundi, Founder and CEO of Badia Farms, the Middle East’s first commercial vertical farm in Dubai, sustainable farming is a solution for more pressing and concrete concerns such as land — less than 5 per cent of the total land area being arable in the UAE — and water shortages, meeting the demand for locally grown greens, and climate change. Growing and selling locally means emissions associated with transportation are reduced.

“The only solution is to grow smart. Sustainable farming is the future. It is time for the country and the region to become food producers rather than just consumers, since ensuring food security will be challenging in the future due to impacts of climate change.”

Using hydroponics technology on an 800-square-metre plot of land in Dubai, Badia Farms grows gourmet leafy greens for sale 365 days of the year.

Hydroponics brings some important benefits, explains Amjad Omar, Farm Manager at Emirates Hydroponics Farms (EHF). “Because crops are grown in a controlled environment there is no need for chemicals; it allows farming without soil. Most importantly, [hydroponics] uses 90 per cent less water than traditional open-field farming, although the tech uses water as a medium to grow plants, and the yield is six times more from the same amount of land.”

Situated halfway between Dubai and Abu Dhabi, EHF has adapted modern technology to grow lettuce and other herb crops year-round as well. The produce, which it sells both online and offline, is not only cheaper than imported goods but fresher too, adds Omar.

Meanwhile, to grow tomatoes, Abu Dhabi-based Pure Harvest Smart is using a fully climate-controlled high-tech, water-efficient greenhouse, which is yielding ten times more food per metre using one-seventh the water.

As the movement continues to evolve, some are experimenting with novel ways to make local agriculture an integral part of urban life. At this year’s World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, Maha Al Muhairi displayed her innovative energy-efficient automated system, FreshFridge, which lets you grow a wide range of herbs and microgreens in your kitchen. “The FreshFridge allows users to grow more than 50 varieties of microgreens in 10-15 days. People can grow whatever they want in any season,” says Al Muhairi.

Technology is fundamental to the future of agricultural production in the region, says Lodge. “Whether in the form of vertical farm, or through the research and development work of organisations such as the the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture in Dubai. The region will not enjoy an increase in water availability in our lifetime, so we must use what we have carefully and intelligently.”

But growing crops sustainably isn’t always easy. “Steep costs of acquiring cutting-edge technologies and unavailability of raw materials locally for production are among the challenges,” says Omar.

While according to Al Jundi, the concept of vertical farming is still in its infancy in the region. “Governments and the private sector need to invest heavily to accelerate learning and development in this sector,” he says.

Although these new-age farming initiatives will not change the UAE’s reliance on food imports drastically, it certainly represents a better way of growing produce and a future of continually increasing food supplies in ever more sophisticated manipulation of agro-ecosystems.

Indoor Farming with Bowery Farming

Tell us about Bowery Farming and what you do.

Bowery is growing food for a better future by revolutionizing agriculture. Our modern farming company combines the benefits of the best local farms with advances made possible by technology to grow produce you can feel good about eating. BoweryOS, our proprietary software system, uses vision systems, automation technology, and machine learning to monitor plants and all the variables that drive their growth 24/7. Bowery produce is currently available at select Whole Foods and Foragers stores in the Tristate area, at select sweetgreen and Dig Inn locations in New York, and featured on the menus of Tom Colicchio’s New York restaurants Craft and Temple Court.

What got you started in the search to improve your energy monitoring and consumption?

While Bowery farms offer vast improvements compared to traditional agriculture - using zero pesticides, 95% less water, and are 100+ times more productive on the same footprint of land - we knew there was an opportunity to make our farms even more efficient and sustainable. We began our search to improve energy monitoring and consumption so that we could reduce our Co2 emissions, which make up a meaningful majority of our energy usage.

Tell us about the microgrid system you will be installing at Bowery Farming.

Bowery’s microgrid system will use distributed energy resources (DER), including a rooftop solar array, a natural gas generator equipped with advanced emissions control technologies and Schneider Electric’s lithium-ion battery energy storage system (BESS) interconnected in a behind-the-meter configuration. The system will greatly reduce Co2 emissions by using sustainable energy to offset the electric grid, reducing the power load we put on the grid, and offsetting our power load during periods of peak demand.

The main drawback currently for Indoor Farming is energy expense from lighting, what are your expectations for overall energy savings you will see with this system?

While Bowery farms require energy to power LED lighting systems, LEDs are effective and have more than doubled in efficiency in the last five years, making them an energy efficient solution. The offerings provided by Schneider Electric and Scale Microgrid will help cover a meaningful amount of our energy consumption needs and set us up with the knowledge and experience to install significantly more sustainable solutions in future farms.

Bowery Farming is at the forefront of the indoor farming industry.  Why is it important for you to continue to innovate and lead the industry?

We’re continuing to innovate and lead the industry because we believe technology applied at scale can solve difficult and important, global problems. Agriculture sits at the epicenter of many global issues; over 70% of our global water supply goes to agriculture, we use over 700 million pounds of pesticides each year in the U.S. alone, and industrial farming practices have caused a loss of over 30% of the arable farmland in the last 40 years. At the same time, our global population is growing to 9-10Bn people by 2050 and we will need 70% more food in order to feed a population of that size. The result is a world in which the current food system must support the needs of an expanded population with a rapidly dwindling set of resources.

At Bowery, we’re re-thinking the current agricultural system to address the needs of an ever-increasing population by growing produce in large scale indoor farms. We’re reappropriating previously unusable industrial space to grow crops indoors, closer to the point of consumption, at a rate that is 100+ times more productive per square foot of land than that of traditional agriculture. In addition, our proprietary software and work management system BoweryOS organizes and directs the entire workflow inside the farm, driving efficiency, collecting data and creating a highly scalable framework for our farms.

Where do you see the indoor farming and Bowery Farming 5 years down the road?

We believe that indoor farming will continue to be a great contributor to solving difficult and important global problems. Our goal is to build a Bowery farm in every major city of the world to address major global challenges around food supply, environmental degradation and food waste.

Disruptive 'Precision Farming' Spells Opportunities for This AgTech Company

Jon Markman Dec 19, 2018 9:00 AM EST

The world is going to run out of food. Don't worry, the best minds are on it. They are using robots, better seeds, lighting and irrigation systems to reimagine farming.

Bowery Farming Inc. calls the process precision farming. According to a report from Bloomberg, the indoor agriculture technology company is about to secure $90 million in funding.

It is a larger opportunity for investors with vision.

Like many technology startups, Bowery founders are determined to solve the big problems confronting the world. The United Nations projects that the world population will swell to 10 billion people by 2050. To keep up, global farmers will have to produce 70% more food. Unfortunately, most of the world's water resources are used for food production, and 30% of arable agricultural land has been lost to poor planning, pesticides and urbanization.

There is not enough water or land to possibly meet future demand.

Engineers are Bowery set out to do more with less. The solution began with controlling as many variables as possible. Crops are grown indoors under ideal conditions, without pesticides. Complex, LED lighting mimics the full spectrum of the sun. Irrigation systems deliver nutrients with exact specificity, resulting in 95% less water use than traditional farming and a 100x improvement in crop yields.

The urban farm company is using all of the tools of modern technology -- robotics, machine learning, computer vision and data science - to fine tune the entire process.

Bowery is not the only company in the game. Last year, Plenty, another indoor farm company from made headlines when it secured $200 million in financing from Softbank (SFTBY) , the Japanese firm led by billionaire Masayoshi Son, and investment companies associated with former Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The gigantic investment in the tiny San Francisco startup sent shockwaves through the burgeoning ag-tech community. Early investors understood the potential of marrying sensors, robotics and data science with agriculture. The Softbank vote of confidence underscored the urgency.

The latest $90 million round was led by GV, the new name of Google Ventures. Alphabet (GOOGL- Get Report) , the parent company of Google, has made a cottage industry out of developing businesses models around machine learning. Its investment in Bowery is on brand.

Farming has not changed much in centuries. Yes, there are now self-driving tractors and even drones to monitor the growing process, but the basic premise still involves sowing seeds and waiting patiently for mother nature to bless the soil with bountiful crops. Companies like Bowery and Plenty completely disrupt that notion.

They want to control every aspect of the growing environment. They are cutting mother nature out of the loop in an effort to reduce costs, speed up growing cycles and reduce the footprint of farms. It's a revolution made possible by automation, better information and data science.

Even five years ago the economics of this revolution did not make sense. However, falling prices for cloud computing, robotics, sensors and machine learning have opened new doors. Information technology is being commoditized, just like fruits, vegetables and livestock.

Cognex Corp. (CGNX - Get Report) is the leading maker of sensors and vision systems for smart, industrial robots.

For a long time, truly smart machines were a pipe dream. Robots were impressive for their might. They stamped or welded or pushed items along a precision conveyor belt. But they were dumb. They didn't have eyes. They could not make sense of their place in the process.

The Cognex Insight Vision system gave industrial robots eyes. Machine learning and better software systems gave them intelligence. These attributes that are in high demand as factories get smarter, and ambitious startups push the limits of ag-tech.

The Massachusetts company has an impressive history of growth. Since 2013, sales are up 2.2x to $748 million. During fiscal 2017, the last full year of financial data, revenues shot up 43.5% while income ballooned 18% to $177 million. These metrics are certain to increase as more industrial robots gain sight, and smarts.

Cognex shares have been cut in half amid concern about the health of the global economy. The stock has fallen from a high of $73 in October 2017, to the lower $40s, bringing the market capitalization to only $7.2 billion.

At 29x forward earnings, Cognex shares are still expensive, but not ridiculous, for a unique, patent-protected, cutting-edge tech company in a growing field. Long-term investors with vision should consider using weakness in the weeks ahead to establish positions.

Square Roots Implements “Transparency Timeline” for Greens

Tom Karst December 19, 2018

Urban farm Square Roots has unveiled what they call a transparency timeline, accessed via QR code on their packaging.
( Square Roots )

An indoor farm in Brooklyn, N.Y., wants to do its part to restore consumer confidence in greens.

Urban farm Square Roots has unveiled a new food packaging system that the company says will give consumers a comprehensive story of how the firm’s basil, sage, chives, and mint traveled from seed to the retail shelf.

In a Dec. 19 blog post by co-founder Kimbal Musk (younger brother of Elon Musk) headlined “After the Romaine recall nightmare, here’s how Square Roots is going to get Americans to trust their food again," the company said it was introducing a labeling program that would allow consumers to see “the complete story of where and how their food was grown, and who grew it, with a simple #knowyourfarmer scan.”

“By simply scanning a QR code or typing in the lot number found on every package of Square Roots fresh produce, you are now able to see the complete story of where and how your food was grown and who grew it — tracing the entire path from seed-to-store,” Musk said in the blog post.

The QR code scan — readable by most smartphone cameras — informs consumers of what Musk called the “transparency timeline” for the commodity. The timeline includes information about the crop’s development, including:

• Seeding: the scan tells where the seeds were sourced from, when and where they were seeded and the first name of the worker who seeded the commodity;

• Nursery: The date the commodity was placed in the company’s climate-controlled nursery in the specified farm and the first name of the individual that transferred the tray;

• Transplant: The date the seedlings were moved from the nursery to the hydroponic grow towers i in the specified farm, and the name of the worker who moved them;

• Harvest: The date the herb commodity was hand-harvested and the first name of the worker that harvested it; 

• Packing: Date of packing and first name of the worker who packed it; and 

• Delivery: Date of delivery to retail store, with a note that delivery was done with “low impact transport.”

Musk said future versions of the transparency timeline could add information about the specific climate that food was grown in, recycling information relevant to the packaging for the product and perhaps other data. “If you would like see any other information added to the timeline, just let us know,” he said in the post.

With recent the recent E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce — the third outbreak in two years — Musk said that consumers are at risk from foodborne illnesses.

“The situation was compounded by opaque supply chains in the Industrial Food System, making it ridiculously difficult to accurately trace the source of guilty pathogens,” he said in the blog post. “To their credit, the big lettuce producers did eventually react, and agreed to start labeling their products with a mark of the state in which their products are grown. But that’s not enough. Consumers demand — and deserve — to know more.”

Musk said that indoor climate-controlled farming “has many advantages” over open field growing when it comes to minimizing the risk of such outbreaks. He said that Square Roots’ distributed, modular farm network reduces that risk even further.

“Square Roots customers can enjoy our products not just because they taste great and are grown hyper-locally, but also because they come with the comfort and confidence of being able to see exactly how and where your food was grown and who grew it,” he said.

Musk said blockchain technology has created buzz but so far hasn’t delivered much information to consumers.

“We’re optimistic on that long-term vision (of blockchain), and we know many of the people working hard on blockchain solutions right now,” he said in the post. “But the reality is that initial implementations, while heavily buzzword-compliant, have been distinctly underwhelming in terms of the information they provide.”