Vertical Farming Startup Oishii Raises $50m In Series A Funding

By Sian Yates

03/11/2021

Oishii, a vertical farming startup based in New Jersey, has raised $50 million during a Series A funding round led by Sparx Group’s Mirai Creation Fund II.

The funds will enable Oishii to open vertical strawberry farms in new markets, expand its flagship farm outside of Manhattan, and accelerate its investment in R&D.

“Our mission is to change the way we grow food. We set out to deliver exceptionally delicious and sustainable produce,” said Oishii CEO Hiroki Koga. “We started with the strawberry – a fruit that routinely tops the dirty dozen of most pesticide-riddled crops – as it has long been considered the ‘holy grail’ of vertical farming.”

“We aim to be the largest strawberry producer in the world, and this capital allows us to bring the best-tasting, healthiest berry to everyone. From there, we’ll quickly expand into new fruits and produce,” he added.

Oishii is already known for its innovative farming techniques that have enabled the company to “perfect the strawberry,” while its proprietary and first-of-its-kind pollination method is conducted naturally with bees.

The company’s vertical farms feature zero pesticides and produce ripe fruit all year round, using less water and land than traditional agricultural methods.

“Oishii is the farm of the future,” said Sparx Group president and Group CEO Shuhei Abe. “The cultivation and pollination techniques the company has developed set them well apart from the industry, positioning Oishii to quickly revolutionise agriculture as we know it.”

The company has raised a total of $55 million since its founding in 2016.

US: INDIANA - Purdue Students Earn Top Honors For Crop Stimulant Developed From Soybeans

by: Wes Mills, Inside INdiana Business

March 25, 2021

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. (Inside INdiana Business) — A group of students from Purdue University has developed an organic additive that is designed to promote crops in vertical farms. The primary ingredient of the liquid biostimulant is soybeans. The innovation earned the team top honors during the 27th annual Student Soybean Innovation Competition sponsored by the Indiana Soybean Alliance.

To win this competition, Purdue University students must develop novel applications for soybeans that satisfy a market need.

“The goal of this contest is to highlight the versatility of soybeans while addressing a need in agriculture or the general public,” said Anngie Steinbarger, a farmer from Edinburgh and one of the judges for the contest. “This biostimulant is mostly made of a soybean protein, and it has been developed to help grow crops. This seems like a slam dunk for what we want from this competition.”

The soybean alliance says biostimulants help crops germinate rapidly, achieve greater plant mass and yield, and improve nutrient uptake. The team says its organic product is not a fertilizer, but it does improve grow rate and ease crop stress.

“One of the major successes we saw with our product is how great it worked with lettuce we’ve grown in the greenhouse,” said Purdue Sophomore Cai Chen, who is a member of the winning team.

Chen says when biostimulant was added to lettuce, it was 30% larger than standard lettuce.

In addition to Chen, the other members of the team include Nate Nauman, a sophomore from West Lafayette, and graduate student Emmanuel Alagbe of Nigeria. They will share the competition’s $20,000 top prize.

The team says soy protein peptides have antimicrobial and antibacterial properties which could help reduce the risk of foodborne illnesses in leafy greens.

Second place was awarded to a team that developed a hypoallergenic tape for athletes. Third place honors went to the creators of a biodegradable cosmetic face mask.

“Indiana soybean checkoff funds are used to find new uses and new markets for our soybeans; thereby creating demand and helping our farms to be more profitable and sustainable,” said Steinbarger. “Some of the products that evolve out of this contest could potentially have a positive impact on our soybean prices.”

Lead photo: (photo courtesy: United Soybean Board)

© 2021 Circle City Broadcasting I, LLC. | All Rights Reserve

GrowGroup IFS Introduces Their Own Grow Container Systems GCS 40HQ

March 12, 2021
GrowGroup IFS Introduces Their Own Grow Container Systems GCS 40HQ

GrowGroup IFS introduces the GrowGroup Grow Container Systems “GCS 40HQ” for small container cluster farms, research & development, schools & universities, and pilots for new indoor farms. With this new solution now GrowGroup IFS can support also small farms in an accessible way with their unique and full approach including support with the operation through their partners GaaS Wageningen and Hoogendoorn Growth Management.

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Grow Container Systems “GCS 40HQ”

The GCS 40HQ is available in different models. All models are in a 40ft container and includes LED technology, climate computers with remote control, and extensive control on water, temperature, humidity, CO2, and lighting. The basic model has a very low entry-level and is upgradeable on different levels. The client can choose for example for an upgrade to the highest quality of climate computers of partner Hoogendoorn Growth Management or the highest quality of LED technology of Signify. The client can even choose for the support with the operation through partner GaaS Wageningen.

“We support the bigger farmers with our unique and full approach on indoor farming for some time already but noticed also that smaller farmers, in particular, have a great need for this. That’s why we launch our own GCS solution right now, so all farmers can use the newest technology of indoor farming for year-round cultivation all over the world”, John Breedveld, CEO GrowGroup IFS.

GaaS Wageningen

Partner GaaS Wageningen from the Netherlands has access to a pool of more than 200 agricultural specialists. Its core business is supporting the operation of high-tech indoor farms from the small ones as the container farms up to the large ones as the big indoor factories. They have high knowledge of indoor farming and sharing their knowledge with the farmers by supporting and training them but also with schools and universities.

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GrowGroup IFS

GrowGroup IFS (Innovative Farming Solutions), founded by CEO John Breedveld in Barendrecht in the Netherlands, is specialized in developing indoor farming based on the most advanced Dutch innovative farming solutions, especially in regions where normal cultivation is restricted by extreme climate and or limited space.

Vertical Farms Nailed Tiny Salads. Now They Need To Feed The World

Gartenfeld Island, in Berlin’s western suburb of Spandau, was once the bellows of Germany’s industrial revolution. It hosted Europe’s first high-rise factory and, until World War II, helped make Berlin, behind London and New York, the third-largest city on Earth.

Today’s Berlin is still a shell of its former self (there are over a hundred cities more populous), and the browbeaten brick buildings that now occupy Gartenfeld Island offer little in the way of grandeur. Flapping in the gloom of a grey November morning in 2020 is a sign which reads, in German, “The Last Days of Humanity”.

Yet inside one of these buildings is a company perched at agriculture’s avant-garde, part of the startup scene dragging Berlin back to its pioneering roots. In under eight years, Infarm has become a leader in vertical farming, an industry proponents say could help feed the world and address some of the environmental issues associated with traditional agriculture. Its staff wear not the plaid or twill of the field but the black, baggy uniform of the city’s hipsters.

Infarm has shipped over a thousand of its “farms” to shops and chefs across Europe (and a few in the US). These units, which look like jumbo vending machines, grow fresh greens and herbs in rows of trays fed by nutrient-rich water and lit by banks of tiny LEDs, each of which is more than ten times brighter than the regular bulb you’d find in your dining room. Shoppers pick the plants straight from the shelf where they’re growing.

Infarm crop science director, Pavlos Kalaitzoglou, in his Berlin lab

Credit Ériver Hijano

Gartenfeld Island, however, is home to something more spectacular. Here, in a former Siemens washing machine factory, stand four white, 18-metre-high “grow chambers”, controlled by software and served by robots. These are the company’s next generation of vertical farms: fully-automated, modular high-rises it hopes will scale the business to the next level. According to Infarm, each one of these new units uses 95 per cent less water, 99 per cent less space and 75 per cent less fertilizer than conventional land-based farming. This means higher yields, fresher produce and a smaller carbon footprint.

Agriculture is a £6 trillion global industry that has altered the face and lungs of the Earth for 12,000 years. But, unless we change our food systems, we’ll be in trouble. By 2050, the global population will be 9.7 billion, two billion more than today. Fifty-six per cent of us live in cities; by 2050 it will be 70 per cent. If the prosperity of megastates like India and China continues to soar, and our diets remain the same, we will need to double food production without razing the Amazon to do it. That sign on Gartenfeld Island might not be so alarmist.

Vertical farmers believe they are a part of the solution. Connected, precision systems have grown crops at hundreds of times the efficiency of soil-based agriculture. Located in or close to urban centres, they slash the farm-to-table time and eliminate logistics. New tech is allowing growers to tamper with light spectra and manipulate plant biology. Critics, however, question the role of vertical farms in our food future. They are towering lunchboxes for late capitalism, they argue – producing garnishes for the rich when it is the plates of the poor we must fill. Vertical farms already make money, and heavyweights including Amazon and SoftBank are investing in various companies in the hopes of cornering a market expected to be worth almost £10 billion in the next five to ten years. Infarm is leading that race in Europe. It has partnered with European retailers including Aldi, Carrefour and Marks & Spencer. In 2019 it penned a deal with Kroger, America’s largest supermarket chain. Venture capitalists have handed the firm a total of £228 million.

Not bad for a hare-brained experiment that started in a Berlin apartment.

An Infarm employee tends to a batch of seedlings in a special incubator

Credit Ériver Hijano

In 2011, a year before he moved to Berlin, Erez Galonska went off-grid. He grew up in a village in his native Israel, but the young nation was growing too, and farms made way for buildings. Soon the village was a town, and its inhabitants ever more disconnected from their natural surroundings.

Galonska’s father had studied agriculture, and the son had dreamed of recovering a connection with nature he felt he had lost. The search took him to the mountains of the Canary Islands, where he found a plot of land and got to work. He drank water from springs, drew energy from solar panels, and spent long hours farming produce he then sold or bartered at local markets.

When he met his now-wife Osnat Michaeli, “I traded it for love,” he says. “Love is stronger than anything.” In 2012, the couple, alongside Galonska’s brother Guy, who had studied Chinese medicine, moved to Berlin to work on a friend’s social media project. But the hunger for self-sufficiency remained. It was “a personal quest,” Michaeli says. “How we can be self-sufficient, live off the grid. Food is a big part of that journey.”

We meet at a Jewish restaurant in Berlin’s historic Gropius Bau art museum. It is mid-morning, and Covid-19 has cleared the tables. But a row of Infarm units whirs away quietly along one wall, producing basil, mint, wasabi rocket (a type of rocket leaf with the punchy flavour of wasabi), and other, more exotic herbs. Such produce was a pipedream for the three Infarm co-founders eight years ago. Growing crops when living on a tropical island was one thing. Doing it in a small apartment, located in the tumbledown Berlin neighbourhood of Neukölln, was quite another. Soon after moving from the Canaries, Erez Galonska typed “can you grow without soil” into Google.

Japan had taken to indoor farming in the 1970s, and this bore some helpful information on its techniques. The same was true of illegal cannabis growers, who swapped tips about hydroponics – growing with nutrient-packed water rather than soil – across subreddits.
Several trips to a DIY store later, the trio had what resembled a hydroponic farm. It was a big, chaotic Rube Goldberg machine, and it leaked everywhere. Growing wasn’t simply a case of switching on the lights and waiting. Brightness, nutrients, humidity, temperature – every tweaked metric resulted in an entirely different plant. One experiment yielded lettuce so fibrous it was like eating plastic. “We failed thousands of times,” Erez Galonska says.

Two of Infarm’s co-founders, Osnat Michaeli and Erez Galonska

Credit Ériver Hijano

Eventually, the team grew some tasty greens. They imagined future restaurant menus boasting of food grown “in-farm”, rather than simply made in-house, and founded Infarm in 2013. But there was a hitch: indoor-grown cannabis sells for around £1,000 per kilo. Lettuce for £1.20. Most of the early vertical farms required heaps of manual work and operated in the red. “It simply wasn’t a sustainable business model,” Erez Galonska says.

By 2014, they decided to roadshow their idea and shipped a 1955 Airstream trailer – a brushed-aluminium American icon – to Berlin. The trailer belonged to a former FBI agent, but it was conspicuous in a city of Volkswagens, caravans and Plattenbau buildings. Michaeli and the Galonska brothers transformed it into a mobile vertical farm, then pitched up at an urban garden collective in Berlin’s trendy Kreuzberg district. There they proselytised indoor farming to urban planners, food activists, architects and hackers, handing out salads and running workshops. Fresh, local food – even if it cost a little more – would entice a growing number of foodies who were interested in where their meals came from. The trailer cost nothing but petrol money to move, and emissions from the growing process itself were almost nil.

When the designer of a swanky hotel across town came by trailer, he asked if the team could install something similar in his restaurant. “That was really the trigger,” says Guy Galonska. “We rented a workshop and we got to develop a system for them.”

When they installed their first “farm” in a Berlin supermarket, VCs took notice and visited Infarm’s young founders at their Kreuzberg office-cum-kitchen, where they hosted dinner parties featuring Infarm crops. But a return on investment still seemed distant: some investors thought the farms were an art project. Maintaining locations manually was exhausting, and the team almost went bankrupt “two or three times,” Guy Galonska says. “I think all of us got a lot of white hair during that time,” he adds. “It was a very challenging thing to do.”

A €2 million grant from the European Union in 2016 helped. With it came deals to place Infarm units in supermarkets and restaurants across Germany. Managing them all would require something precise, connected and efficient. To become a sustainable business, Infarm would have to behave less like a farm, and more like a tech startup.

An Infarm kiosk in the Edeka Supermarket E Center in Berlin

Credit Ériver Hijano

For around 2,500 years after King Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon gifted his wife some hanging gardens, little changed in the world of hydroponic farming. Asian farmers grew rice on giant, terraced paddies, and Aztecs built “chinampa” rigs that floated along the swamps of southern Mexico.

Life magazine published a drawing of stacked homes, each growing its own produce, in 1909, and the term “vertical farming” appeared six years later. The US Air Force fed hydroponically-grown veggies to its troops during World War II, and Nasa explored the tech as a solution for life off-planet. But vertical farming didn’t really capture public imagination until 1999, when Dickson Despommier, a Columbia University professor, devised a 30-storey skyscraper filled with farms. In 2010, Despommier published The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century, which has become the industry’s utopian testament.

“I had no expectations whatsoever that this would turn commercial,” Despommier says. “We just thought it was a good idea, because we didn’t see any other way out of stopping deforestation in favour of farming, and keeping the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere at a reasonable level. It turned out to be a crazy idea whose time has come.”

The vertical farming concept is simple: growing produce on vertically-stacked levels, rather than side by side in a field. Instead of the Sun, the vertical farm uses artificial light, and where there is ordinarily soil, growers use nutritious water or, in the case of “aeroponic” farms, an evenly-dispersed mist.

Vertical farms take up a vanishing amount of land compared to their conventional cousins. They use almost no water, don’t flush contaminating pesticides into the ecosystem, and can be built where people actually live. But, by and large, they have not functioned as businesses. Only the black-market margins of weed, and Japan’s high-income, high-import food ecosystem, have catered to profit. It costs hundreds of thousands of pounds to erect a mid-sized vertical farm, and energy use is prohibitively high.

Advances in technology are changing this. By bolting automation, machine learning and cloud-connected software on to vertical farms, firms can trim physical labour, increase capacity and maintain a dizzying range of cultivation variables. Infarm staff at a separate office to the new Berlin farm, located some 23km southeast of Spandau in the Tempelhof district, keep track of “plant recipe” settings at any one of the startup’s 1,220 in-store units, including CO2 levels, pH and growth cycles, via the company’s Farm Control Cloud Platform, a bit like a giant CCTV room. Machine learning finesses recipes, and keeps each plant as uniform as possible.

Inside the new vertical farm, trays of produce are tended by automated systems

Credit Ériver Hijano

Gartenfeld Island’s employees – mechanical and electrical engineers, software developers, crop scientists and biologists – get closer to the produce, but only just. They monitor via an iPad and feed crops into the building’s four massive grow chambers, or farms, each one about the height and width of two London buses, with ventilation systems that whoosh like a subdued turbine hall.

From there on in, robots do the hard work. Inside the farms, a robotic “plant retrieval system” – basically a tricked-out teddy picker – scoots up and down a perpendicular beam, plucking trays of plants in various stages of growth and shuffling them closer, or further, from LED lights at the summit. The firm claims this reduces service time by 88 per cent. A sliver of the window is the only way to see the device in-person: everything is hermetically sealed to keep out pests. “With automation, you invest once and then that price goes down over time,” says Orie Sofer, Infarm’s hardware lab lead. “With human labour, unfortunately, over time the price goes up.”

The number of crop plants varies depending on the produce, but there are usually just under 300 in a “farm” at any one time. Each farm yields the equivalent of 10,000 square metres of land and uses just five litres of water per kilo of food (traditional vegetable farming uses around 322 litres per kg).

Infarm is not alone in this revolution. AeroFarms, a Newark, New Jersey-based startup, feeds an aeroponic mist to roots that are separated from their leaves by a cloth. It’s most recent funding round was led by Ingka Group, the parent of Swedish furniture giant IKEA. New York’s Bowery Farming, like Infarm, focuses on automation and a proprietary dashboard called BoweryOS that, among other things, takes photos of crops in real-time for analysis. It’s £123 million in backing comes from investors including Singapore’s sovereign fund Temasek. Bowery CEO and founder Irving Fain believe his addressable market “is about a hundred billion dollars a year, just in the US, of crops that we think are good candidates for us to grow.”

Leading the vertical farming VC race is Plenty, a San Francisco-headquartered brand that has raised almost half a billion pounds in the capital since it was founded in 2013, including a 2020 Series D round led by Masayoshi Son’s $100 billion SoftBank Vision Fund. Plenty feeds its greens with water that trickles down six-metre-tall poles; infrared sensors pour data into an algorithm that nudges the plant’s growth recipe accordingly.

Plenty co-founder and chief science officer Nate Storey, who works at the company’s test farm in Wyoming, likens these deep-tech solutions to the tools that powered agriculture’s most recent revolution: “The tractor allowed farmers to be freed from constraints. Half of their land was dedicated to raising draft animals, and the tractor came along and freed them from a life where they were basically managing animals just so they could plough their land.”

For them, he says, automation is similar. “It allows us to get rid of the hardest work – the work that is unpleasant, the work [growers] don’t like to do – and focus on the work that really matters.”

Infarm kiosks inside the Beba restaurant in the Gropius Bau museum

Credit Ériver Hijano

Infarm differs from the competition on two fronts. The first is its focus on modular design: each component is compatible and scalable, like a giant, noisy LEGO set. Modularity makes it possible to install Infarm units anywhere in the world in a matter of weeks, no matter the size. That enables the company’s second USP: its business model. Infarm has no stores, selling produce instead via its remote units.

Clients tell Infarm which produce they want, and “create a schedule,” says Michaeli. “You buy the plants. Everything on the farm is controlled by Tempelhof. Everything that’s grown belongs to the client.” A chef may demand pesto that’s made from particular three-day-aged Greek and Italian basil, for example. Infarm can do that (Tim Raue, Berlin’s most famous chef, is a customer). “Everyone stops and asks about the farm,” one Berlin store manager says. “It’s great to have innovation here.”

Infarm has “two big advantages,” says Nicola Kerslake, founder of Contain Inc, a Nevada-based agtech financier. “One is that they’ve figured out how to do product onsite, which is really not very easy. And the other is that they have these great relationships with big purchasers like Marks & Spencer.”

“When you look at where the arms race is in this industry,” she continues, “it’s really been in two areas: How do I get hold of as much capital as possible, and how do I sign up the right partners? Having Marks & Spencer in your back pocket is really useful.”

It has helped encourage investors to open their chequebooks. Hiro Tamura, a partner at London VC firm Atomico, first met Infarm’s founding trio in 2018. A year later he led its £75 million Series B round. “They could roll these things out,” he says. “They worked, and they didn’t need some industrial-sized warehouse to do it. I didn’t lean in, I fell into the rabbit hole. And it was incredible. I was like, wow, these guys are thinking about time and speed to market modularity.”

Infarm ploughs a chunk of its revenue back into research. In a mezzanine-level lab sitting above the farms at Gartenfeld Island, a dozen white-coated analysts conduct tests on herbs to a soundtrack of Ariana Grande, measuring crop sugar levels, acidity, vitamins, toxicity, antioxidants and more. Via a process of phenotyping – the study of organisms’ characteristics relative to their environment – they hope to create more flavourful plants, or new tastes altogether.

“It’s not just about the hardware,” Kerslake explains. “It’s about how the hardware interacts with the rest of your farm system. And we’re starting to see a lot more sophistication on that front because the AI programs these companies started three or four years ago are now starting to bear fruit.”

Infarm’s results are high-quality: juicy lettuce, wasabi rocket that kicks, and basil that’s far more fragrant than the budget variety. “The end goal with almost everything that we’re doing is developing some sort of playbook, some sort of modular and standardised system, that we can then copy-paste to wherever we go,” says Pavlos Kalaitzoglou, Infarm’s director of plant science. Across from the lab, tomatoes and shiitake mushrooms grow in wine cellar-size chambers. They are living proof of how the firm is looking to diversify from herbs and leafy greens, whose low energy and water requirements make them the staple crop of every vertical farming startup today.

Rows of LED-illuminated produce inside one of Infarm’s four massive new grow chambers

Credit Ériver Hijano

We are in danger of farming the planet to death. Agriculture already occupies 40 per cent of all liveable land on Earth, and food production causes a quarter of all greenhouse gases. An area the size of Scotland disappears from tropical rainforests, responsible for up to a quarter of land photosynthesis, each year. Clearing more trees to feed our spiralling population will not help.

“We need to go back to the drawing board and rethink which avenues we can environmentally afford to pursue,” says Nicola Cannon, a professor at the Royal Agricultural University in Cirencester. Nitrogen fertiliser is particularly harmful to the environment, Cannon adds, “and has led us to adopt systems which have grossly exceeded the planetary boundaries.”

Current food systems are wildly inefficient: waste accounts for 25 per cent of all calories. And yet, almost a billion people suffer from hunger worldwide. These are not issues vertical farming will solve, critics, argue. Going local does little beyond satisfying consumers.

Energy is another tricky issue. Ninety per cent of Infarm’s electricity today is renewable, and it wants to reach zero emissions in the next few years. But this doesn’t factor in the environmental cost of building a steel-and-cement facility.

“Vertical farms are a round-off error to the round-off error in terms of contributing to the big levers out there,” Jonathan Foley, an environmental scientist based in Minneapolis, says. “Like most technologies that are getting a lot of venture capital and which come from Silicon Valley kind of thinking, it’s being massively overhyped at the cost of real solutions. There’s an opportunity cost to put all this technology, money and renewable energy – that could be used for other things that we need energy for – into growing arugula for rich people at $10 an ounce.”

More than half the world’s food energy comes from its three “mega-crops”: wheat, corn and rice. They require wind, seasons and micronutrients that vertical farms are unable to replicate today. These are the crops that can prevent famine in Somalia, Bangladesh or Bolivia – not lettuce. “Vertical farms are growing the edge of the plate, not the centre of the plate,” Foley says.

But Despommier says it’s too soon to criticise the young industry for not addressing issues such as crop diversity. “What you’re really seeing is a rush towards profitability to get their feet wet, and to get their ledgers in the black and to pay off their investors, before they start diversifying,” he says.

“In a world where you think that land is unlimited and that resources are unlimited, indoor farming would be nonsensical,” Plenty co-founder Storey says. “As crazy as it seems to replace the Sun with electricity, it makes sense today. And it really makes more and more sense as time goes on.”

Much of the hope vested in vertical farms rests on the light-emitting diode. This tiny bead of light is the industry’s packhorse: it is a farm’s biggest financial layout and the nucleus of its most exciting advances. Modern LEDs are nothing like the ones that powered your childhood TV. They’ve progressed at such a rate, in fact, that they’ve developed their own law to adhere to: “Haitz’s Law”. Each decade, their cost drops by a factor of ten, while the light they generate leaps by a factor of 20.

That curve will eventually plateau, experts say. But not before LEDs improve enough to allow vertical farms to profit from food closer to the middle of the plate. Infarm’s current smart LED set-up is over 50 per cent more efficient than the one that lit its first farms. Haitz’s Law has helped some companies experiment in growing potatoes, which require far more energy and water than leafy greens. Turning profit from a crop that delivers the highest calories per acre would be momentous for the industry.

The cutting edge of LED technology today is smart sensors that can regulate the brightness and spectrum of light to replicate growing outdoors – or enhance it. Much of the planet’s first flora grew only in the ocean, which looks blue because it absorbs blue light at least.
Photosynthesis, therefore, occurs best between the blue and red light spectra. By tailoring LEDs to emit only these colours, or by dimming at intervals meant to mirror a plant’s natural cycle, vertical farmers can further reduce their energy burden – like stripping a road car to its bare bones so it can drive faster.

Recent discoveries have been more surprising. Strawberries, for example, react particularly well to green light. Some spectra can increase vitamin C in concentrated fruits like kiwis, while others extend shelf-lives by almost a week. In the future, says Fei Jia, of LED firm Heliospectra, growers “can get feedback from the lighting and the plants themselves on how the lighting should be applied… to further improve the consistency of the crop quality.”
“If you judge it from what you have today, you understand what [critics] are saying,” Guy Galonska says. “How can you grow rice and wheat and save the world? And they are right. But they can’t see ten years ahead: they can’t see all the different trends that are going to support that revolution.”

Other technological advances are helping agriculture in different ways. Drones and sensors help map and streamline growing. Drip irrigation dramatically reduces the burden on dwindling water supplies. Circular production – where waste products from one process contribute to fuelling another – is becoming more commonplace, especially in livestock farming. Cell-grown or insect-based meat (or vegetarianism) will reduce our reliance on livestock, which consume 45 per cent of the planet’s crops. Infarm, and the broader vertical farm cohort, may not be saving the world today. But it wants to build taller farms, place them in public buildings like schools, and teach people the value of fresh, healthy vegetables. If 70 per cent of us are to live in cities, then cities “can become these communities of growing,” says Erez Galonska.

Ultimately, Infarm wants to build a network of tens of thousands of automated farms, each one pumping streams of data back into a giant AI system in Berlin. This “brain”, as Galonska calls it, will pour that information into algorithms to generate better food at lower costs, each new yield shaving fractions from the water, energy and nutrients required. Then, Infarm could become something closer to the dream Galonska left behind in the Canaries: truly self-sufficient.

It’s a long way from the leaky, DIY gadget he and his co-founders built in their front room. “The way the world is going now, it’s very clear to everyone it’s running in the wrong direction,” Galonska says. “We definitely believe in the power of collaboration: bringing those outside-the-box thoughts to create a new system that will generate more food, better food, much more sustainably, and help to heal the planet – because that’s the main issue on the table.”

Urban Farming In New Zealand

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craigfer

February 26, 2021

While New Zealand is renowned the world over for its farming systems, with world-class food and fibre being exported daily, it’s a little-known fact that Urban farming is starting to take off as well.

Urban farming is pretty much what it says on the can. Growing or producing food in a heavily populated area. One doesn’t have to be a business owner growing a product to sell to be an urban farmer. Anyone with a bit of area and a Kiwi can-do attitude can be an urban farmer.

Now more than ever, consumers are wanting to know where their food comes from, the story behind its provenance, and the story of the people producing it. Food security (especially in the future) and climate change are other big factors in our communities today. This poses significant opportunities (and equal challenges) for traditional farmers and growers who farm on large scales; but it also poses some opportunities for urbanites.

While the term urban farming and community garden tend to be used interchangeably in NZ, the essence is still the same; producing food in your own backyard. NZ is home to a number of urban farming groups like the Urban Farmers Alliance ( a national group), Farm Next Door (Taranaki region) to name a few.

While each have their own set of values and purpose, they all have the same key messages. Building local and national food security, using regenerative farming practices and the bringing together of communities. Climate change resilience is a key motivator for all, which is why many urban farms work on regenerative and organic principles.

In partnership with Massey University, Farm Next Door was awarded a $100,000 grant to fund research into the benefits and barriers to ‘hyperlocal community agriculture’. Many involved in urban farming in NZ say that urban farming could provide part of the solution for the vulnerabilities that exist within NZ’s current food system, including the reduction of productive land to residential areas. The idea of urban farms being dotted throughout the country complete with roadside honesty boxes is the goal for many, making food available to entire communities for affordable prices.

Regenerative approach

For many urban farmers, the regenerative approach is key to the whole system. Working with regenerative agriculture principles within an urban context. While there is still a lot of debate on a national level about the details of regenerative farming, with a lot of people calling for more research to be done on the claimed efficiencies of the system, in a general sense, the principles are simple, and mimic natural ecosystems. Working with the environment. Sun, water, soil, biodiversity and social make up the five key principles of regenerative agriculture. Soil in particular plays a large role in carbon holding and nutrient cycling, a growing topic of importance in traditional agriculture in NZ.

So it makes sense that those interested in urban farming would follow the regenerative route. After all the values align almost perfectly.

Community and people-centered model

This model increases food resilience by introducing more diversity into the system. Many stress that urban farms aren’t a replacement for larger scale producers, quite the opposite. By expanding and strengthening the local ‘food ecosystem’ will only support the nation’s export markets and add to their marketing story.

Telling their story aside, urban farms are also a unique way of educating locals about food production and passing on growing knowledge to the next generation. Increasingly people are becoming aware of the big separation we have between paddock and plate. This issue is why there are numerous initiatives in the traditional agriculture industry to get people out on farms. Open Farms NZ is one such initiative which invites farms from across the country, be them dairy, horticulture, beef or so on, to open up their farm gates for a day for locals to visit, learn and get back to their grass roots. Urban farming, in a way, is doing that, but on a smaller scale.

NZ is working on putting its own data together around the influence of urban farms on employment rates, but it’s thought that the data from the US (which suggests that urban farms focusing on local and regional markets employ four times as many FTE staff than farms not engaged in local markets), could hold somewhat true, if not to quite the same extent.

Kiwi’s are renowned for supporting independent and local brands which further supports the urban farming model.

Education

A key component of many of the urban farming groups is collaborative learning and education. Unlike many industries, each urban farm isn’t necessarily viewed as a competitor, rather an ally to work with. The more the merrier – so they say.

With a variety of educational resources on carbon, soil, regenerative practices, organic practices, composting, data collection, and more, wanna-be urban farmers have a plethora of tools available.

Organic Market Garden – Auckland

OMG is a collaboration between a number of local businesses which was first set up to show the huge potential of underutilized inner-city spaces to the benefit of the local community.

Locals can purchase a three-month subscription for fresh produce or volunteer in the garden. While being a productive garden that feeds the community, OMG is also about educating people and ‘creating a regenerative food system for Auckland’. Working off a community supported agriculture (CSA) model, they thrive off being part of the community and are working at getting market gardens all across Auckland city.

Freeman Farms – Taranaki

Situated in urban Taranaki, the Freeman family grows over 25 types of fruit and vegetables plus honey and eggs. The farm is part of Farm Next Door and Urban Farmers Alliance and makes a decent living off of the farm.

Kaicycle – Wellington

First established in 2015 Kaicycle is an urban farming and community composting project. It was first started to provide produce to a local smoothie business but has grown to selling to local restaurants. They are also trialing a CSA model.

It runs an ‘ebike-powered food waste collection and composting service’ which services 125 households and businesses. That compost then goes onto the farm to help build soil quality creating a nutrient cycle.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CLJUWMPsS7p/

Cultivate- Christchurch

This urban farm functions in conjunction with a local youth programme. Over 25 young people so far have been supported into more positive outcomes (with education, employment and housing) through Cultivate with the aim of helping 12 young people every year. The farm supplies local hospitality businesses.

The above are just a sampling of the urban farms dotted around the country, with interest growing all the time. With NZ’s recent Climate Change Commission report out, it’s likely that more and more urbanites will follow the path of veteran urban farmers in a bid to do their part. Plus, growing food is good for the mind, body and soul.

Vertical farming in NZ – growing up, not out.

Vertical farming, along with urban farming, has become a popular reply to the question of land loss to urban development and population growth.

Vertical farms have popped up in a number of major urban centers. In high rises, derelict buildings and abandoned warehouses, this form of growing crops is reportedly helping to reduce carbon emissions and maximising unused spaces in cities. While similar to urban farms, vertical farms take it one step further. It’s a win win for many cities around the world, like China, that have a high monopoly on space and land use.

Under the system, layer after layer of crops are grown in trays, with mostly everything used being recycled for the next round of growing. The practice often incorporates controlled-environment agriculture to maximise crop yields. The aim of vertical farming in general is to conserve land area, control climatic conditions and maximise unused space. Some overseas believe its a great way of navigating the adverse effects of weather.

But in NZ, with their large focus on outdoor, pastoral farming, is there a need for it? Some say yes, others say no. NZ has some unique features to it, including high levels of sunshine hours and generally good growing conditions.

While it could be a great way for inner-city dwellers to get their green thumb, industry bodies like Horticulture NZ say it wouldn’t work. The problem is more that of current land-use vs land-use suitability. Not to mention the investment needed for start-up costs and urban development issues. Of the few vertical farms around, it’s suggested that all have been started up with investors or government funding, with it taking many years for the business to stand on its own legs.

Over the last 20 years, the amount of land available to grow fruit and vegetables in NZ has decreased, while the demand has gone up, and this gap is forecast to get larger. This change in supply and demand prompted many to suggest that vertical farming could offer a solution.

Vertical farming requires the replacement of natural, solar energy to be replaced with artificial lighting, most commonly LED lights, which are cool to the touch and are easier to control or hydroponic lamps. This alone led to the conclusion that the cost of lighting and temperature control would be too expensive, making it an unviable economic option. The limited number of crops able to be grown vertically (mainly leafy greens and herbs) wouldn’t fill the gap that’s required by the industry – that is, things like potatoes, rice and corn that are staples for millions.

While it perhaps wouldn’t fit the bill for supporting export demands, there is still the possibility, if economically viable, it could help fill local demand.

There aren’t many vertical farms around in NZ, but the ones that are around are trying to provide proof of concept.

Shoots microgreens

NZ’s very first vertical farm had humble beginnings housed in a former nightclub. The company started its journey in 2018 growing tiny crops mainly for restaurants with some sold through large supermarket chains. Microgreens are intense flavoured first shoots and leaves and are a popular garnish for meals and cocktails.

It’s thought that microgreens can contain up to 100 times more nutrients than fully-grown plants.

The company got investment to install special LED grow lights which conserve around 45% in electricity over hydroponic lamps. The lights are customistables and can be adjusted to optimise the growth of specific varieties of microgreens. They don’t produce heat so vertical layers can be done with no fear of heat damaging plants.

In 2020 the business kicked off a first-of-its-kind system by launching an in-store growing stand complete with automated LED lighting and watering technology in a supermarket. The system allows customers to see the growing of the produce in real time and purchase.

The idea behind the system was to ensure people were taking home produce that was fresh as possible. The business hopes more supermarkets will get on board with the system.

The supporters of vertical farming say that, like urban farms, the idea is not to replace existing horticultural systems, but create new opportunities in the form of retails and tourist experiences, add value, enhance education and provide hyperlocal plant production for affordable prices.

In major cities like Auckland, it can take hours to get out to farms to pick your own produce from the paddock. As the nation’s housing crisis seems to keep increasing, much of the country’s most productive horticultural and agricultural land is being snapped up and subdivided for residential and lifestyle block builds.

Aside from bringing food production closer to home, the social aspect of vertical farming, and urban farming for that matter, is that it offers opportunities to develop new careers in agriculture. Vertical farming in particular requires a complex knit of disciplines like computers, agronomy, economics, biosecurity, design, marketing – the works.

So, is there a future for vertical farming in NZ? Depends who you talk to. With the success of businesses like Microgreens, there’s a very strong argument for yes. However the economics of it, as they currently stand, might delay others in getting onboard the vertical train.

Categories: Urban Farming

Tagged: new zealand, urban farming

PHILIPPINES: Smart Farming In Metro 3rd

Food security is among the priority development thrusts of Cong. Kiko Benitez for the Third District and the proposal of the Technological University of the Philippines-Visayas (TUPV) focusing on micro-farming through aquaponics offers positive potential for both urban and rural communities.

 Cong. Kiko recently visited the demo farm developed by TUPV in Talisay City where Director Eric Malooy showcased a single mini farm-set-up using aquaponics technology with lettuce, pepper, tomatoes and tilapia ready for harvesting.

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The project that will pool the efforts and resources of TUPV, the Congressional District Office, Negros Women for Tomorrow Foundation and IF Green Technologies targets the development of a sustainable business model for food security, increased production of healthy food choices, training of beneficiary communities on aquaponics technology assisted farming and financial literacy. Micro-financing for expansion plans and marketing support through an e-commerce platform for the produce is also a vital component of the project.

In the meeting with Cong. Kiko, Director Malooy and key TUPV representatives also introduced the solar powered water supply technology and disaster preparedness technologies – flood prediction, detection and monitoring through analytics, air quality monitoring, and data-driven disaster monitoring and response.*

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Little Leaf Farms Raises $90M to Grow Its Greenhouse Network

by Jennifer Marston

Image from: Little Leaf Farms

Massachusetts-based Little Leaf Farms has raised $90 million in a debt and equity financing round to expand its network of hydroponic greenhouses on the East Coast. The round was led by Equilibrium Capital as well as founding investors Bill Helman and Pilot House Associates. Bank of America also participated.

Little Leaf Farms says the capital is “earmarked” to build new greenhouse sites along the East Coast, where its lettuce is currently available in about 2,500 stores. 

The company already operates one 10-acre greenhouse in Devins, Massachusetts. Its facility grows leafy greens using hydroponics and a mixture of sunlight supplemented by LED-powered grow lights. Rainwater captured from the facility’s roof provides most of the water used on the farm. 

According to a press release, Little Leaf Farms has doubled its retail sales to $38 million since 2019. And last year, the company bought180 acres of land in Pennsylvania on which to build an additional facility. Still another greenhouse, slated for North Carolina, will serve the Southeast region of the U.S. 

Little Leaf Farms joins the likes of Revol Greens, Gotham Greens, AppHarvest, and others in bringing local(ish) greens to a greater percentage of the population. These facilities generally pack and ship their greens on the day of or day after harvesting, and only supply retailers within a certain radius. Little Leaf Farms, for example, currently servers only parts of Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey. 

The list of regions the company serves will no doubt lengthen as the company builds up its greenhouse network in the coming months.

Agritech: Precision Farming With AI, IoT and 5G

Image from: Photo by Mohd Izwan Mohd Nazam/The Edge

For a company that grows and delivers vegetables, Boomgrow Productions Sdn Bhd’s office is nothing like a farm, or even a vertical farm.

Where farms are bedecked with wheelbarrows, spades and hoes, Boomgrow’s floor plan is akin to a co-working space with a communal island table, several cubicles, comfortable armchairs, a cosy hanging rattan chair and a glass-walled conference room in the middle.

At a corner, propped up along a walkway leading to a rectangular chamber fitted with grow lights, are rows of support stilts with hydroponic planters developed in-house and an agricultural technologist perched on a chair, perusing data. “This is where some of the R&D work happens,” says Jay Dasen, co-founder of the agritech start-up.

But there is a larger farm where most of the work behind this high-tech initiative is executed. Located a stone’s throw from the city centre in Ampang is a 40ft repurposed shipping container outfitted with perception technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities that mimic the ideal environment to produce more than 50,000kg of vegetables a year.

Stacked in vertical layers, Boomgrow’s vegetables are grown under artificial lights with Internet of Things (IoT) sensors to detect everything from leaf discolouration to nitrate composition. This is coupled with AI and machine learning algorithms.

Boomgrow is the country’s first 5G-connected vertical farm. With the low latency and larger bandwidth technology, the start-up is able to monitor production in real time as well as maintain key para­meters, such as temperature and humidity, to ensure optimal growth conditions.

When Jay and her co-founders, K Muralidesan and Shan Palani, embarked on this initiative six years ago, Boomgrow was nowhere near what it is today.

The three founders got together hoping to do their part in building a more sustainable future. “I’ve spent years advising small and large companies on sustainability, environmental and social governance disclosures. I even embarked on a doctorate in sustainability disclosure and governance,” says Jay.

“But I felt a deep sense of disconnect because while I saw companies evolving in terms of policies, processes and procedures towards sustainability, the people in those organisations were not transforming. Sustainability is almost like this white noise in the background. We know it’s important and we know it needs to be done, but we don’t really know how to integrate it into our lives.

“That disconnect really troubled me. When we started Boomgrow, it wasn’t a linear journey. Boomgrow is something that came out of meaningful conversations and many years of research.”

Shan, on the other hand, was an architect who developed a taste for sustainable designs when he was designing modular structures with minimal impact on their surroundings between regular projects. “It was great doing that kind of work. But I was getting very dissatisfied because the projects were customer-driven, which meant I would end up having debates about trivial stuff such as the colour of wall tiles,” he says.

As for Murali, the impetus to start Boomgrow came from having lived overseas — while working in capital markets and financial services — where quality and nutritious produce was easily available.

Ultimately, they concluded that the best way to work towards their shared sustainability goals was to address the imminent problem of food shortage.

“By 2050, the world’s population is expected to grow to 9.7 billion people, two-thirds of whom will be in Asia-Pacific. Feeding all those people will definitely be a huge challenge,” says Jay. 

“The current agricultural practice is not built for resilience, but efficiency. So, when you think of farming, you think of vast tracts of land located far away from where you live or shop.

“The only way we could reimagine or rethink that was to make sure the food is located closer to consumers, with a hyperlocal strategy that is traceable and transparent, and also free of pesticides.”

Having little experience in growing anything, it took them a while to figure out the best mechanism to achieve their goal. “After we started working on prototypes, we realised that the tropics are not designed for certain types of farming,” says Jay. 

“And then, there is the problem of harmful chemicals and pesticides everywhere, which has become a necessity for farmers to protect their crops because of the unpredictable climate. We went through many iterations … when we started, we used to farm in little boxes, but that didn’t quite work out.”

They explored different methodologies, from hydroponics to aquaponics, and even started growing outdoors. But they lost a lot of crops when a heat wave struck.

That was when they started exploring more effective ways to farm. “How can we protect the farm from terrible torrential rains, plant 365 days a year and keep prices affordable? It took us five years to answer these questions,” says Jay.

Even though farmers all over the world currently produce more than enough food to feed everyone, 820 million people — roughly 11% of the global population — did not have enough to eat in 2018, according to the World Health Organization. Concurrently, food safety and quality concerns are rising, with more consumers opting for organically produced food as well as safe foods, out of fear of harmful synthetic fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.

According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, consumer demand for global organic fruit and vegetables was valued at US$19.16 billion in 2019 and is anticipated to expand at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.5% by 2026.

Meanwhile, the precision farming market was estimated to be US$7 billion in 2020 and is projected to reach US$12.8 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 12.7% between 2020 and 2025, states MarketsandMarkets Research Pte Ltd.

Malaysia currently imports RM1 billion worth of leafy vegetables from countries such as Australia, China and Japan. Sourcing good and safe food from local suppliers not only benefits the country from a food security standpoint but also improves Malaysia’s competitive advantage, says Jay.

Unlike organic farming — which is still a soil-based method — tech-enabled precision farming has the advantage of catering for increasing demand and optimum crop production with the limited resources available. Moreover, changing weather patterns due to global warming encourage the adoption of advanced farming technologies to enhance farm productivity and crop yield.

Boomgrow’s model does not require the acres of land that traditional farms need, Jay emphasises. With indoor farms, the company promises a year-round harvest, undisturbed by climate and which uses 95% less water, land and fuel to operate.

Traditional farming is back-breaking labour. But with precision technology, farmers can spend less time on the farm and more on doing other things to develop their business, she says.

Boomgrow has secured more than RM300,000 in funding via technology and innovation grants from SME Corporation Malaysia, PlaTCOM Ventures and Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation, and is on track to build the country’s largest indoor farms.

Image from: Boomgrow

The company got its chance to showcase the strength of its smart technology when Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) approached it to be a part of the telco’s Smart Agriculture cluster in Langkawi last October.

“5G makes it faster for us to process the multiple data streams that we need because we collect data for machine learning, and then AI helps us to make decisions faster,” Jay explains.

“We manage the farm using machines to study inputs like water and electricity and even measure humidity. All the farm’s produce is lab-tested and we can keep our promise that there are no pesticides, herbicides or any preserving chemicals. We follow the food safety standards set by the EU, where nitrate accumulation in plant tissues is a big issue.”

With TM’s 5G technology and Boomgrow’s patent-pending technology, the latter is able to grow vegetables like the staple Asian greens and highland crops such as butterhead and romaine lettuce as well as kale and mint. While the company is able to grow more than 30 varieties of leafy greens, it has decided to stick to a selection of crops that is most in demand to reduce waste, says Jay.

As it stands, shipping containers are the best fit for the company’s current endeavour as containerised modular farms are the simplest means of bringing better food to local communities. However, it is also developing a blueprint to house farms in buildings, she says.

Since the showcase, Boomgrow has started to supply its crops to various hotels in Langkawi. It rolled out its e-commerce platform last year after the Movement Control Order was imposed. 

“On our website, we promise to deliver the greens within six hours of harvest. But actually, you could get them way earlier. We harvest the morning after the orders come in and the vegetables are delivered on the same day,” says Jay.

Being mindful of Boomgrow’s carbon footprint, orders are organised and scheduled according to consumers’ localities, she points out. “We don’t want our delivery partners zipping everywhere, so we stagger the orders based on where consumers live. 

“For example, all deliveries to Petaling Jaya happen on Thursdays, but the vegetables are harvested that morning. They are not harvested a week before, three days before or the night before. This is what it means to be hyperlocal. We want to deliver produce at its freshest and most nutritious state.”

Plans to expand regionally are also underway, once Boomgrow’s fundraising exercise is complete, says Jay. “Most probably, this will only happen when the Covid-19 pandemic ends.”

To gain the knowledge they have today, the team had to “unlearn” everything they knew and take up new skills to figure what would work best for their business, says Jay. “All this wouldn’t have been possible if we had not experimented with smart cameras to monitor the condition of our produce,” she laughs.

How This Vertical Farm Grows 80,000 Pounds of Produce per Week

Bowery Farming uses technology to prioritize accessibility and sustainability in their produce growing operations

To some, the pristine growing conditions and perceived mechanical interference of a vertical farm can seem unnatural, but at Bowery Farming “interference” is actually not the goal at all. “We don’t really think about how people are involved in the growing process, but how to take people out of the growing process” says chief science officer Henry Sztul. “Our goal is actually to have as few people walking around our plants as possible.”

Bowery Farming is a network of vertical farms working to reengineer the growing process. Using a system of light and watering technology, Bowery is able to use 95 percent less water than a traditional outdoor farm, zero pesticides and chemicals, and grow food that tastes as good as anyone else’s. 

Bowery Farming uses vertical farm-specific seeds that are optimized for flavor instead of insect resistance and durability. Seeds are mechanically pressed into trays of soil, and sent out into growing positions, or racks within the building that have their own lighting and watering systems. Each tray gets its own QR code so that they can be monitored and assigned a customized plan for water and light until they’re ready to be harvested.

Irving Fain, Bowery Farming’s founder and CEO contemplates the prediction from the United Nations that 70 to 80 percent of the world’s population will be living in and around cities in the next 30 years. “Figuring out ‘how do you feed and how do you provide fresh food to urban environments both more efficiently as well as more sustainably?’ is a very important question today, and an even more important question in the years to come.”

Bringing The Future To life In Abu Dhabi

Amid the deserts of Abu Dhabi, a new wave of entrepreneurs and innovators are sowing the seeds of a more sustainable future.

Image from: Wired

A cluster of shipping containers in a city centre is about the last place you’d expect to find salad growing. Yet for the past year, vertical farming startup Madar Farms has been using this site in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, to grow leafy green vegetables using 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture. 

Madar Farms is one of a number of agtech startups benefitting from a package of incentives from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office (ADIO) aimed at spurring the development of innovative solutions for sustainable desert farming. The partnership is part of ADIO’s $545 million Innovation Programme dedicated to supporting companies in high-growth areas.

“Abu Dhabi is pressing ahead with our mission to ‘turn the desert green’,” explained H.E. Dr. Tariq Bin Hendi, Director General of ADIO, in November 2020. “We have created an environment where innovative ideas can flourish and the companies we partnered with earlier this year are already propelling the growth of Abu Dhabi’s 24,000 farms.”

The pandemic has made food supply a critical concern across the entire world, combined with the effects of population growth and climate change, which are stretching the capacity of less efficient traditional farming methods. Abu Dhabi’s pioneering efforts to drive agricultural innovation have been gathering pace and look set to produce cutting-edge solutions addressing food security challenges.

Beyond work supporting the application of novel agricultural technologies, Abu Dhabi is also investing in foundational research and development to tackle this growing problem. 

In December, the emirate’s recently created Advanced Technology Research Council [ATRC], responsible for defining Abu Dhabi’s R&D strategy and establishing the emirate and the wider UAE as a desired home for advanced technology talent, announced a four-year competition with a $15 million prize for food security research. Launched through ATRC’s project management arm, ASPIRE, in partnership with the XPRIZE Foundation, the award will support the development of environmentally-friendly protein alternatives with the aim to "feed the next billion".

Image from: Madar Farms

Global Challenges, Local Solutions

Food security is far from the only global challenge on the emirate’s R&D menu. In November 2020, the ATRC announced the launch of the Technology Innovation Institute (TII), created to support applied research on the key priorities of quantum research, autonomous robotics, cryptography, advanced materials, digital security, directed energy and secure systems.

“The technologies under development at TII are not randomly selected,” explains the centre’s secretary general Faisal Al Bannai. “This research will complement fields that are of national importance. Quantum technologies and cryptography are crucial for protecting critical infrastructure, for example, while directed energy research has use-cases in healthcare. But beyond this, the technologies and research of TII will have global impact.”

Future research directions will be developed by the ATRC’s ASPIRE pillar, in collaboration with stakeholders from across a diverse range of industry sectors.

“ASPIRE defines the problem, sets milestones, and monitors the progress of the projects,” Al Bannai says. “It will also make impactful decisions related to the selection of research partners and the allocation of funding, to ensure that their R&D priorities align with Abu Dhabi and the UAE's broader development goals.”

Image from: Agritecture

Nurturing Next-Generation Talent

To address these challenges, ATRC’s first initiative is a talent development programme, NexTech, which has begun the recruitment of 125 local researchers, who will work across 31 projects in collaboration with 23 world-leading research centres.

Alongside universities and research institutes from across the US, the UK, Europe and South America, these partners include Abu Dhabi’s own Khalifa University, and Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence, the world’s first graduate-level institute focused on artificial intelligence. 

“Our aim is to up skill the researchers by allowing them to work across various disciplines in collaboration with world-renowned experts,” Al Bannai says. 

Beyond academic collaborators, TII is also working with a number of industry partners, such as hyperloop technology company, Virgin Hyperloop. Such industry collaborations, Al Bannai points out, are essential to ensuring that TII research directly tackles relevant problems and has a smooth path to commercial impact in order to fuel job creation across the UAE.

“By engaging with top global talent, universities and research institutions and industry players, TII connects an intellectual community,” he says. “This reinforces Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s status as a global hub for innovation and contributes to the broader development of the knowledge-based economy.”

USA - ARIZONA: UA-CEAC 2021 Online Short Course

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Only a few weeks away from the 2021 Online Greenhouse Crop Production and Engineering Design Short Course put on by the University of Arizona's Controlled Environment Agriculture Center. This virtual program will be hosted through Zoom on Wednesdays- March 3rd, 10th, & 17th from 10 am-3 pm (MST). Come expand your knowledge, sharpen your skills, and hear innovative presentations given by industry leaders and academia experts in Controlled Environment Agriculture.  Click here to register.  Registration will close on February 26th.

For more information, visit ceac.arizona.edu/events/cea-short-course or email ellenworth@email.arizona.edu

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[WEBINAR] Hiring For Indoor Farming | Human Resources In 2021

WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE INDOOR FARMING JOB MARKET? JOIN THE CONVERSATION & FIND OUT!

SAVE YOUR SPOT

HIRING FOR INDOOR VERTICAL FARMING: HUMAN RESOURCES IN 2021

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2021
2-3 PM EDT

During this insightful session, our panel will touch on the hot areas of hiring in the Indoor Vertical Farming market today, including:

• Disciplines Hiring Manager are Seeking (computer science, A/I, robotics, engineering, & more)

• Expansion and Hiring Regions

• How Academia Can Help With Farmers of the Future | NextGen Farmers 

MODERATOR

Tim Hammerich, Senior Director for Strategic Communications, Cogent Consulting and creator |host of “Future of Agriculture” podcast

PANELISTS

MaryAlice Feinstein, Chief People Officer, People Operations, AeroFarms

Brac Webb, Co-founder, and CTO, Fifth Season

Keri Gasiorowski, Chief Human Resources Officer, Kalera Inc.

LEARN MORE & REGISTER

SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR INDOOR AG-CON 

EXHIBITORS, SPONSORS, MEDIA ALLIES &
INDUSTRY PARTNERS

Indoor Ag-Con, 950 Scales Road, Building #200, Suwanee, GA 30024, United States

“Autonomy Will Not Happen Until We Start Sharing Data”

In an emerging industry with companies eager to prove their technologies’ worth, Sensei Ag remains form-factor agnostic, meaning that the agtech company remains unbiased towards different farm hardware solutions – focusing more on software and plant biology.

Sensei Ag is a market-changing agtech company that develops agile growing solutions through a highly iterative approach to farming, focused on improving the nutritional quality of fruits and vegetables while also reducing production costs. The company combines plant science, computer vision, machine learning, automation and artificial intelligence into its growing systems.

According to Sensei Ag CEO Sonia Lo, remaining form factor agnostic is key to the company’s mission of providing hyper-nutritious food to as large a consumer base as possible, which it achieves through both vertical farms and greenhouses.

Image from: Sensei Ag

“We believe that the most robust data comes from operating farms of multiple types. So, not just vertical farms, but also low-tech and high-tech greenhouses. And with vertical farms, we are looking at a number of form factors. Our end goal is to be  a grower’s resource and know more about growing at scale with different form factors than anyone else.”

The company is also a strong advocate for open data in the vertical farming industry, which is currently lacking, as evidenced by the siloed development of multiple systems and products, some of which cannot be easily integrated into third-party systems.

“There are lots of data flows and increasingly inexpensive farm management systems. The question, then, is the organization of data into intelligence. Intelligence facilitates autonomy, and as we manage data flows, more farms can become autonomous. But I don’t think autonomy will happen until we start sharing data. For example, we saw an automation supplier with a great robot.

The problem was the robot only works in their ecosystem, so you have to buy the whole farming solution in order for the one robot to work. Ideally, that robot would be plug and play and be able to work in greenhouses and vertical farms,” says Sonia.

Image from: Sensei Ag

According to Sonia, open data in the vertical farming industry may currently be restricted by the dominance of venture financing, which has its own return mandates to fulfill and sometimes wants a “winner takes it all” mentality for the ventures it chooses to back. While such financing has allowed the vertical farming industry to emerge, it may ultimately hinder the industry’s scalability and information sharing.

“There is definitely a capital model in Silicon Valley and in venture capital world in general which is not focused on profitability but is focused on technological achievement and market penetration. We saw this in solar and in the renewables industry when multiple venture capital funds invested in solar assets. Then, the bottom fell out because government subsidies fell away in certain jurisdictions.

I hope that agricultural infrastructure currently financed by venture capital will not necessarily follow the same pathway as solar, but will instead find a public-private partnership model. At some point, these farms need to demonstrate a profit for the debt capital markets to allow scale to occur.”

Image from: Sensei Ag

By embracing open data and transparency, Sonia explains that the vertical farming industry can further mature and iterate with technology to continue lowering costs. By continuously collecting and sharing data from different farm forms, the vertical farming industry would have better insights into the true costs which, according to Sonia, “helps drive scale because it enables the finance community to understand how the farms can be risk assessed and financed.”

Looking ahead, Sensei Ag hopes to form partnerships around the world to bring its innovative, data-driven growing systems across the globe. Taking the Middle East, China and Japan as examples, Sonia explained that the goal would be to choose strategic partners in each region whose local knowledge and business prowess would allow Sensei Ag to iterate its technologies appropriately and serve local markets, bringing cost-competitive farming techniques and nutritious, local produce around the world.

Is AppHarvest the Future of Farming?

Special purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, are red-hot right now, with investors clamoring to get into promising young companies.

In this video from Motley Fool Live, recorded on Jan. 28, Industry Focus host Nick Sciple and Motley Fool contributor Lou Whiteman discuss AppHarvest, one such SPAC that is looking to disrupt the agriculture industry. Here are the details on what AppHarvest wants to do, and a look at whether the company represents the future of farming.

Nick Sciple: One last company I wanted to talk about, Lou, and this is one I think it's -- you pay attention to, but not one I'm super excited to run in and buy. It was a company called AppHarvest. It's coming public via a [SPAC] this year. This vertical farming space. We talked about Gladstone Land buying traditional farmland. AppHarvest is taking a very different approach, trying to lean into some of the ESG-type movements.

Lou Whiteman: Yeah. Let's look at this. It probably wouldn't surprise you that the U.S. is the biggest global farm exporter as we said, but it might surprise you that the Netherlands, the tiny little country, is No. 2. The way they do that is tech: Greenhouse farm structure. AppHarvest has taken that model and brought it to the U.S. They have, I believe, three farms in Appalachia. The pitches can produce 30x the yields using 90% less water. Right now, it's mostly tomatoes and it is early-stage. I don't own this stock either. I love this idea. There's some reasons that I'm not buying in right now that we can get into. But this is fascinating to me. We talked about making the world a better place. This is the company that we need to be successful to make the world a better place. The warning on it is that it is a SPAC. So it's not public yet. Right now, I believe N-O-V-S. That deal should close soon. [Editor's note: The deal has since closed.] I'm not the only one excited about it. I tend not to like to buy IPOs and new companies anyway. I think the caution around buying into the excitement applies here. There is a Martha Stewart video on their website talking up the company, which I love Martha Stewart, but that's a hype level that makes me want to just watch and see what they produce. This is just three little farms in Appalachia right now and a great idea. This was all over my watchlist. I would imagine I would love to hold it at some point, but just be careful because this is, as we saw SPACs last year in other areas, people are very excited about this.

Sciple: Yeah. I think, like we've said, for a lot of these companies, the prospects are great. I think when you look at the reduced water usage, better, environmentally friendly, all those sorts of things. I like that they are in Appalachia. As someone who is from the South, I like it when more rural areas get some people actually investing money there. But again, there's a lot of execution between now and really getting to a place where this is the future of farming and they're going to reach scale and all those sorts of things. But this is a company I'm definitely going to have my radar on and pay attention to as they continue to report earnings. Because you can tell yourself a story about how this type of vertical farming, indoor farming disrupts this traditional model, can be more efficient, cleaner, etc. Something to continue paying attention to as we have more information, because this company, like you said, Lou, isn't all the way public yet. We still got to have this SPAC deal finalized and then we get all our fun SEC filings and quarterly calls and all those sorts of things. Once we have that, I will be very much looking forward to seeing what the company has to say.

Whiteman: Right. Just to finish up along too, the interesting thing here is that it is a proven concept because it has worked elsewhere. The downside of that is that it needed to work there. Netherlands just doesn't have -- and this is an expensive proposition to get started, to get going. There's potential there, but in a country blessed with almost seemingly unlimited farmland for now, for long term it makes sense. But in the short term, it could be a hard thing to really get up and running. I think you're right, just one to watch.

Advice For New Vertical Farmers: Grower Spotlight on Andrew Worrall

Last week we spoke about running a farm at LettUs Grow. What excites you about vertical farming? 

It’s the future of the industry. Also, the amount of salad that these farms can produce for their local community. We want to be able to eat salad all year round and we import to make that happen. However, just a small farm can easily provide for its local community, very efficiently and all year round. The sustainability element is also exciting: with our salad there’s no food miles, it’s very minimalistic. You could use an electric van or bike to distribute this crop if you wanted to. It’s a step forward in terms of what we need to do to take care of our planet. 

What do you think are the biggest downsides to vertical farming?

It’s still a new technology and it can be expensive. The biggest roadblock facing the industry is that we need more people and companies to collaborate together to make sure we can build these farms at a sensible rate, so we can provide farms to anyone. We want to be able to provide farms to people, communities and countries that don’t have a lot of money, so that they can provide affordable fresh produce to local people. 

How has vertical farming impacted your life?

Massively!  I wanted to find my passion, a job that I loved - that was very important to me. It’s satisfying to be in a position now where I’m very happy to be doing what I do and I look forward to going into work. I was happy to make the move from London to Bristol. I would have moved even further if it meant being able to continue working within this industry.

Image from: LettUs Grow

How do you see vertical farming playing a part in the future? 

When indoor farming first came about, it had a reputation of being competition for outdoor farming, which just isn’t the case. There’s so much we can’t grow that outdoor farming can provide, such as cereal crops. I’m glad we’re at a stage where indoor and outdoor farms can start to work together to optimise both methods. With these new relationships, there should be a good increase in the amount of indoor farms you’ll be seeing. What LettUs Grow offers with DROP & GROW™ is an exciting project because that’s a 40ft shipping container which can be placed pretty much anywhere. It’s not that big - it could go in a car park or behind a restaurant, but actually provide quite a lot of salad to that area. 

How much of our food should be grown this way? 

Good question. If you had asked me a while back I would have just said salad, but now I’ve changed my mind. Indoor farming can have a massive impact on propagation, especially aeroponics, because of how we aerate and nourish our roots. We could start lettuce for greenhouse projects and we can also propagate tomatoes, strawberries and tree whips. Propagating trees in this way could potentially be hugely beneficial and it’s something we want to do more of. 

We can also quickly grow large amounts of microgreens, baby leafs, herbs and we can grow fruiting crops like strawberries. We are slowly chipping away and it’s really exciting. I’m waiting to see if I can ever say I’ve grown or propagated every crop that can be grown in these farms! 

What do you think are the biggest benefits of vertical farming? 

How fast these crops can grow! The turnover can be as short as 5 days from seed, depending on the crop. Also how clean it can be - I’m very dedicated to making sure these farms are built to ensure they are easy to be maintained and clean. The most exciting part is the crop growth rate though - it’s incredible how fast our crop grows from seed to plate. In a very well maintained growing calendar, which Ostara® is great for supporting, you can optimise your beds so that the day you harvest can also be the day you germinate onto that same bed. Your farms can be forever providing salad at very fast rates. 

Image from: LettUs Grow

What was the biggest change you encountered during your years indoor farming?

Moving from being a production grower to an R&D grower. It has been a great change! As a production grower I knew what I needed to know about growing the plant safely and getting it onto a plate so it was good for the consumer. Now I’m fully optimising, learning and understanding the plants completely, so that I can help the grower that I used to be. We spend a lot of time on crop recipes to make sure that whoever we sell our farms to can start up very quickly and they won’t have to spend months developing their crops. If they have the customers and clients behind them, they can buy DROP & GROW and start producing salad as soon as it's been commissioned. 

What was the biggest change you encountered in the industry?

More and more people are speaking about what’s going on in the industry and getting involved. I get so many messages on LinkedIn with people who want to get into this career. It’s exciting to see that indoor growing is a career people can access now. When I was developing my skills I didn’t know I would end up in indoor farming. There are more opportunities than ever before. For example, our Crop Technician is doing a placement here for 2 years. The aim is that they can gain the skill sets and knowledge they need to then go off and do the same practice in any farm they want. 

What advice do you have for people who are looking to start a career in growing? 

Reach out to companies who are already out there. You could start off part-time or as an assistant. If you are patient and dedicated then it’s a journey I promise you won’t regret. It takes a lot of work, but the outcome is amazing - you’ll be learning so much about this new technology. You’ll also build great relationships: there are so many amazing people in this industry who are so interesting, with different backgrounds, who are willing to share their knowledge. You can always learn more and other people are a great source of that. 

What about for those looking to start a vertical farming business?

Do your homework.  There are people out there who you can reach out to and it’s very easy to get information. It’s very easy to get excited about the idea and jump straight into it, because it is exciting and can be very rewarding, but it’s really important to do it step by step. Know how to scale properly, learning the differences between a small and larger farm. Understand how many people you’ll need and the logistics. I’d also advise people to get some practical work experience before you buy. You want to start the company knowing the tricks of the trade. 

Image from: LettUs Grow

LettUs Grow Blog: www.lettusgrow.com/blog/advice-for-vertical-farmers

Israeli Agritech Company, Vertical Field In UAE Project

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27 January 2021

Globes correspondent

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Israeli agritech company Vertical Field, which specializes in vertical farming, has signed an agreement with Emirates Smart Solutions & Technologies (ESST) a company that develops innovative agricultural projects in the Persian Gulf, to deploy pilot vertical farms as a first stage to full-scale deployments in the United Arab Emirates.

Vertical Field develops vertical agricultural farms that enable crops to grow in the city. Vertical Field’s technology enables produce to grow on a bed of soil (geoponically) inside repurposed shipping containers. Vertical Field claims that its advanced technologies enable high-quality crops to grow quickly and efficiently in optimum conditions without the use of chemical fertilizers or pesticides. These customizable urban farms can grow a range of fresh crops for supermarkets, restaurants, urban farmer’s markets, and distribution centers. Vertical Field says that its technology is more efficient and less wasteful than conventional agricultural methods, using 90% less water, and growing precise quantities of produce in a controlled environment.

Produce inside Vertical Field’s containers can therefore grow 365 days a year, are not limited to seasonality constraints, weather conditions, extreme climate events, or geographic location. The farms are modular, expandable, and moveable, and can be managed automatically. Produce is grown in a sterile container with minimal human interference. Crops that are currently grown in the farm include: several varieties of lettuce, basil, parsley, kale, mint, and more, which are sold at competitive prices.

Under the UAE agreement, Vertical Field will conduct a pilot project that will ascertain the most suitable crops for the local market. The first stage of the project will be launched in the United Arab Emirates, and is expected to expand into a multimillion-dollar partnership that will include deployments in additional states of the Gulf region. The first farm will be installed in Umm Al Quwain as part of a research, development, and training center, which is expected to support additional projects in the rest of the Gulf states.

According to market research firm Markets and Markets, in 2020, the vertical farming industry reached $2.9 billion, and it is expected to reach $7.3 billion by 2025. Approximately 80% of the agricultural consumption in the Emirates is imported from around the world, equivalent to over $10 billion (2018). The rising costs of shipping food as well as an increased desire for food security and regional independence has played a strong role in the development of the ESST-Vertical Field partnership.

Vertical Field CEO Guy Elitzur said, "This collaborative project is a first-of-its-kind partnership that offers Vertical Field’s innovative agricultural technologies to the Emirates and the Gulf Region. The Makalde Group brings forty years of experience and wide knowledge in the field of agricultural inputs and resources and we bring innovative technology.

"Arid desert regions face many challenges surrounding the production of high-quality agricultural produce at low prices. With the help of various agricultural technologies and new developments we believe that we can successfully align the demands of the market with competitive prices without compromising quality- and most importantly with increased access and availability."

Maher Makalde, CEO and Partner of ESST said, "Our goal is to establish food security that is independent of imports and to develop a high-quality agricultural infrastructure that reaches the retail market."

Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on January 27, 2021

© Copyright of Globes Publisher Itonut (1983) Ltd. 2021

Coimbatore’s Hydroponic Farm Delivers Fresh Greens Within Three Hours of Harvest

K Jeshi

Sustainable farming and fresh, zero-carbon food are the philosophy behind the city’s first urban hydroponic farm, located inside an industrial building campus. To know more, MetroPlus makes a visit

I grab a leaf of peppermint from a bed of mint leaves and taste the intense freshness. Next, I look at thyme and smell the powerful aroma. A little away, purple basil with a beautiful, coppery glow beckon. I crush a lemon balm leaf and take in the uplifting, mild scent.

I am at Parna Farms, Coimbatore’s first urban hydroponic farm, located right in the heart of the city at an industrial building campus. Spread across 3,000 square feet, it grows 2,520 plants.

Akhila Vijayaraghavan | Photo Credit: S Siva Saravanan

“Our fresh lemon balm leaves impart a subtle flavour and fragrance, making it especially nice for custards, jam and jellies, cakes and tea,” says Akhila Vijayaraghavan, owner of the farm. “The purple basil is used for colour in salads. Except maybe amaranthus and palak (spinach), you can eat all the greens we grow here raw,” says Akhila pointing to varieties of lettuce, basil, bok choy, and kale.

Asian water spinach (kang kong), red gongura, mustard leaves and methi (fenugreek) are some of the new additions. “We also grow dill leaves, which are used as a garnish for fish and meat dishes and pasta. Fresh peppermint extracts are used in baking. We constantly try new crops based on demand, after rounds of trial-and-error.”

Peppermint grown at the hydrophonic Farm | Photo Credit: S Siva Saravanan

A graduate of Molecular Biology from the University of Glasgow, Akhila ran her own environmental consultancy for over 10 years before turning an urban farmer. “I worked with a lot of companies, from pharmaceuticals to FMCG, and learnt that the supply of quality end-product is a difficult task. Agriculture has always been one of my passions; I was interested in food crops. A herb can be used in cooking, to extract oil, extract nutrients in dry form, and maybe in alternative medicine, perfumery… the possibilities are exciting,” adds Akhila.

She researched hydroponic methodology and educated herself on farming before diving into it. “Anyone can do it, it is not rocket science,” she says.

“Hydroponics combines both sustainability and technology. In indoor hydroponic cultivation, the control on nutrient supply ensures more quality products, for example, improved oil content in herbs, as well as better crop yield. A hydroponic mint has more methanol content than a soil-grown one. The system also uses 80% less water than conventional agriculture. The water is upcycled for reuse.”

At Parna Farms, greens are grown using the nutrient film technique (NFT), where a thin ‘film’ of nutrient-rich water with macronutrients like nitrogen, potassium, phosphorous and calcium nitrate, and micronutrients like manganese and zinc nourish the roots of the plants.

Seedlings at the nursery at the hydroponic farm | Photo Credit: S Siva Saravanan

The farm has a germination area that uses coco peat to sprout plants and a nursery where net cups (small planters) are filled with clay pebbles. There is also the growing system, which involves metal stands and PVC pipes attached to a covered nutrient tank that pumps water to the plants. “We incubate the net cups in a plastic tray for a couple of weeks. Once the plant grows roots, it is transferred to the main system with higher nutrients in the water. This is where it is fully grown and harvested,” explains Akhila.

Hydroponic agriculture, she says, has existed for over 3,000 years, with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon being one of the often-quoted examples of this technique. “It is one of the more accessible forms of modern agriculture, tackling the dual problems of water scarcity and shortage of farmland. It reduces soil-borne pests and diseases.”

Akhila says the objective is to ensure that customers get fresh, pesticide-free produce within three hours of harvest. “Though a palak bunch from here costs ₹130, they are willing to pay the premium to enjoy good health,” says Akhila, adding, “You are what you eat. In hydroponics farming, every day is a learning curve.”

Follow @parnafarms on Instagram to know more

&Walsh Finds Comfort And Warmth In Rebrand For Plenty, A Sustainable IndoorVertical Farming Company

Written by Katy Cowan

 21 January 2021

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New York creative agency &Walsh is behind the rebrand for sustainable indoor vertical farming company, Plenty, featuring a bold and "approachable" custom font inspired by plants, and an identity and packaging influenced by the flavour of its produce.

It's a refreshing approach by Jessica Walsh and her team, who have avoided any of the clichéd "healthy green" visual cues like some of Plenty's competitors. With a bright and friendly colour palette and non-fussy, almost retro aesthetic, at its heart lies the crafted font, known as Plenty Custom – a humanist sans serif with leaf-like corners and terminals. "Wherever possible, the font avoids straight lines and is made up of curved and tapered strokes," as &Walsh puts it. "The stroke endings are sharp and the curves are as round as a ripe tomato."

There's a purpose behind Plenty that caught the attention of &Walsh: "What stood out to us was its commitment and desire to make the tastiest, freshest cleanest greens accessible to the masses," Jessica tells Creative Boom.

"Making greens and healthy foods flavorful and accessible to people is very important. Right now, many people turn to unhealthy, processed, and fast foods because of the price and accessibility. In the long term, this causes numerous health problems, which has become a public health issue in America."

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In their research, Jessica and her team looked at what would make the brand feel more warm and accessible, while also evoking comfort and tastiness – and that's where nostalgia steps in: "Fast food companies (such as McDonald's and Wendys) often use red and yellow colours in their branding, which have been shown to make people feel hungry. Why not use this technique for healthy foods?" adds Jessica. "With the colours and type choices, we wanted to create a friendly and happy brand that also stood out on the shelf from the competition.

"Almost all greens brands use a similar design aesthetic, so we aimed for the Plenty packaging to pop off of the shelf and pique people's interest. We did extensive target audience testing on the logo and packaging throughout the process to test the new packaging and typeface design, with the final result of our work scoring higher for warmth and accessibility than the previous brand work."

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Vertical Grower Plenty Adds Former Impossible Foods’ Sales VP

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By CHRIS KOGER

January 14, 2021

Vertical farming company Plenty, South San Francisco, has added former Impossible Foods vice president of sales Dana Worth as senior vice president of commercial.

Worth led the debut of the plant-based Impossible Burger, building the sales and commercial teams for the company, according to a news release from Plenty. While at Impossible Foods, he helped sign deals with Starbucks, Burger King and other foodservice outlets to build the Impossible Burger brand.

"We are delighted to welcome Dana to the Plenty family as we continue to manage our substantial growth trajectory," Nate Storey, Plenty co-founder, said in the release. "Dana's experience working with fast-growing companies, such as Impossible Foods and PayPal, who are pioneers in their markets, will be instrumental as we accelerate both our corporate and commercial footprint and establish our platform as the standard for indoor vertical farming." 

Plenty has promoted Megan Gillespie to vice president of farm operations and Daniel Malech to senior vice president of strategy and general counsel.

Gillespie, formerly of Tesla, joined Plenty in 2019 and has been pivotal in getting the company’s flagship farm operational. In 2020, she led an expansion strategy, tripling the production and ensuring product made it to stores and food banks, according to the release.

In her new role, Gillespie will oversee farm operations for Plenty's farms, including its latest facility - the world's first high-output, indoor vertical farm in Compton, California - bringing access to healthy vegetables and new jobs to the community.

Malech joined Plenty in 2018 as head of legal, advising the company on business strategy and implementation. His new role includes regulatory, compliance, and overseeing the company’s intellectual property portfolio.

Hydrobuilder Holdings Raises $70 Million And Combines West Coast Hydroponics Chain With Online Retailer

January 15, 2021

Published by NCV Newswire

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Hydrobuilder Holdings Acquires Hydrobuilder.com and GreenCoast Hydroponics to Form a Leading Omni-channel Seller of Specialty Agriculture and Hydroponics Equipment and Supplies

Secures over $70 million in financing from broad base of investors

PALM BEACH, Fla.-January 15, 2021-(BUSINESS WIRE)–Hydrobuilder Holdings LLC (“Hydrobuilder Holdings”) today announced its formation through the acquisitions of Hydrobuilder.com, a leading online retailer of hydroponics and horticultural supplies, and GreenCoast Hydroponics, the second largest hydroponics retailer in the United States, to create a leading omni-channel retailer of specialty agriculture and hydroponics equipment and supplies. Hydrobuilder Holdings secured over $70 million in financing from a broad group of investors, led by Broadband Capital Investments. As part of the transaction, the sellers of both Hydrobuilder.com and GreenCoast Hydroponics retained a meaningful equity stake in Hydrobuilder Holdings.

Hydrobuilder Holdings will be led by Markus Hockenson, Chief Executive Officer, and Avi Levine, Chief Financial Officer, both of whom bring extensive digital and retail experience, and a proven track record of driving revenue, earnings growth and value creation at private-equity owned companies. Hydrobuilder.com and GreenCoast will continue to be operated by their existing management teams under the newly-formed Hydrobuilder Holdings platform and substantially all team members from Hydrobuilder.com and GreenCoast will remain with Hydrobuilder Holdings.

Mr. Hockenson previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer of International Car Wash Group and Vision Group Holdings, and has served in leadership positions at Enterprise Rent-a-Car, Starbucks, Advance Auto Parts, and TBC Corporation (Tire Kingdom). Mr. Levine previously served as Chief Financial Officer of International Car Wash Group, and has additional experience at Deloitte Consulting, Versa Capital Management, Flashpoint College and Driven Brands.

“We are excited to bring together two proven leaders in hydroponics e-commerce and brick-and-mortar retail as the initial partnerships within Hydrobuilder Holdings, which we believe is poised to be a leading omni-channel seller of specialty agriculture and hydroponics equipment and supplies,” said Hockenson.

Hydrobuilder Holdings is uniquely positioned to provide commercial growers and home gardeners with the highest level of service, product selection, education and value.

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Markus Hockenson, Chief Executive Officer

With strong investor support and significant follow-on interest from our investors, we have substantial growth capital to execute our organic and M&A growth strategies, and see significant opportunities to expand these businesses in the rapidly growing hydroponics, specialty gardening and controlled environment agriculture (CEA) markets.

Hydrobuilder.com Founder and President, Justin Marshall, commented, “Partnering with GreenCoast and joining Hydrobuilder Holdings is a dream come true. I am incredibly grateful and excited to be working alongside these experts and pioneers within the hydroponics industry as well as professionals from many outside business ventures. The combined knowledge and experience will allow us to take the Hydrobuilder.com platform and apply it to some of the most successful brick-and-mortar stores in our space by utilizing our custom IT infrastructure, which enhances automation while also providing an omnichannel approach to sales for our customers. With this combination, we’ll be able to scale and automate at a far greater speed than what was possible on our own. The amount of industry and historical knowledge will allow us to further position ourselves as a leading online retailer of hydroponics equipment and supplies.”

Jordan Weiss, Chief Executive Officer of GreenCoast Hydroponics, said, “We couldn’t be more excited to see our business develop and grow into an omni-channel national model. This will better integrate and support our customers’ needs across all of our three pillars: e-commerce, retail and commercial. Along with better serving our customers, we feel great about how this partnership will support our employees and the culture that we have worked 20+ years to build.”

Michael Rapp, Managing Partner of Broadband Capital Investments, added, “We are excited to be investing in the formation of Hydrobuilder Holdings. Justin, Jordan, and their respective teams have built best-in-class companies and have deep domain knowledge. Markus and Avi are world-class executives who understand how to drive efficiencies and scale enterprises, both organically and through acquisitions. We are serving a nascent but fast-growing end market and our customers are in need of a local supply chain partner who can offer a suite of products and services to solve problems and add value. We are excited by this opportunity and we look forward to building a leading company in this space.”

About Hydrobuilder.com

Founded in 2011, Hydrobuilder.com is based in Northern California and has rapidly grown to become a leading online retailer of hydroponics and horticultural supplies. The management team previously helped Build.com grow to over $1 billion in sales, and has built Hydrobuilder.com into a complete online hydroponic gardening center that is known for having the top product lines, a fast, user-friendly website and knowledgeable employees.

About GreenCoast Hydroponics

Founded in 1999, GreenCoast is a Southern California-based specialty agriculture/hydroponics products retailer and the largest independent retailer of its kind in the United States. GreenCoast operates 12 stores (10 in California, 1 in Las Vegas, and 1 in Portland, OR), that provide equipment, plant consumable products, and design services to growers ranging from the hobbyist to the largest licensed commercial operators. Senior management is known throughout the industry as experts in design of large-scale industrial growing facilities.

About Broadband Capital Investments

Broadband Capital Investment (BCI) is a boutique merchant bank that invests in high growth industries. BCI (and/or its affiliates) was the founding investor in Vroom.com (Nasdaq: VRM), a leading used car e-commerce company, co-led the management buyout of Hydrofarm Holdings (Nasdaq: HYFM), a leading hydroponics manufacturer and distributor, prior to its initial public offering, and invested in Montrose Environmental (NYSE: MEG), an environmental services provider offering measurement & analytical services as well as environmental resiliency & sustainability solutions.

Original Press Release

Published by NCV Newswire

BROADBAND CAPITAL, GREENCOAST, HYDROBUILDER, HYDROPONICS