Social Entrepreneurs Grow A 'Computer Garden' At Zahn Innovation Center​​​​​​​

Social Entrepreneurs Grow A 'Computer Garden' At Zahn Innovation Center

Anne Field ,  

 CONTRIBUTOR - I cover for-profit social enterprises and impact investing  

A "computer garden" for urban farming that grows food without soil or harmful chemicals. That's the mission of SyStem, a fledgling New York City startup founded by two engineering students at The City College of New York.

"Our mission is to grow food for people in the future," says Alex Babich, a junior electrical engineering major, who founded the company with Adrian Logan.

Wild bloom Photography

SyStem's radishes (Photo credit: Wildbloom Photography)

It's also the winner of this year's Zahn Social Impact Prize, awarded earlier this month. That's a business pitch competition run by the Zahn Innovation Center, a semester-long incubator for City College students and graduates.

The co-founders created what Babich calls a "food computer"--a three-foot-wide by two-foot-deep box with a computer in it, along with an automated controlled environment for growing plants hydroponically. Various sensors monitor such factors as the temperature, humidity, the CO2 in the atmosphere, and the water's pH level. If, say, the latter is too low, the system will pump up the pH solution. "For whatever plant you want, you put in a recipe--software programmed to take the plant through the whole life cycle successfully," he says.

Ultimately, the startup aims to address a looming crisis--as world population increases, there will be less land available on which to grow food for more people. At the same time, the effects of climate change are likely to make it harder to produce enough sustenance. "We're developing ways to bring food closer to where people live and grow it in a more efficient way," says Babich.

But to develop technology capable of providing food on a large scale, according to Babich, time is of the essence. "That's why it's so important to be working on this type of technology now," he says.  The plan is to build a modular system that has a central computer. Thus, you could create a large system with many modular sections or, with just a few, build a much smaller one in, say, someone's home.

Recently, Logan and Babich grew their first crop--radishes, which took about eight days to pop. "They came out really well," says Babich. Next step: Over the summer, they plan to develop their hardware platform. Plus, they're working with a fellow Zahn startup City LABscape to build the hardware for that company. City LABscape, which recently won the Standard Chartered Women + Tech4NYC Prize, has developed a curriculum and prototype for hands-on indoor agriculture STEM education for middle and high school students, using small hydroponic-growing systems. 

SyStem's founders met each other in a CCNY engineering class and discovered they worked together well. One day, after he learned about the Zahn Center, Babich told his friend that he was interested in doing "something with an app." Logan wasn't crazy about the idea. Then Babich  told him, "I really think it would be cool if there were a skyscraper growing plants automatically." So they tossed around ideas, like, for example, a computer that could grow plants, and were accepted into the Zahn program. A semester -long incubator, it takes 24 teams through a boot camp that trains them in how to move from an idea to building a prototype and forming the beginnings of a business.

Then they applied for Zahn's summer-long, a full-time accelerator program, which accepts 10 startups and is aimed at launching their business. Each of those teams gets $10,000, so they can spend the summer working on their startups, instead of at a summer job.

Future Food-Tech Is Returning to New York City

Future Food-Tech Is Returning to New York City

The Future Food-Tech Summit is returning to New York City on June 7 and 8, 2017. Investors, start-ups, technology companies, and food and ingredients manufacturers will convene to develop solutions to meet the global food challenge during the two-day event.

Among this year’s Future Food-Tech speakers are Andrew Ive of Food-X, David Lee of Impossible Foods, Nicholas Chia of Mayo Clinic, Zachary Ellis, Jr., of PepsiCo, and Susan Mayne of the Food and Drug Administration.

Panel discussions will address key questions: How can we create systems that enable access to sustainable, safe and nutritious food for all? How are retailers partnering to create the right digital experience for customers? What role can restaurants have in bringing new food experiences to customers? What is the role of governments in producing dietary guidelines and supporting research and investment in alternative proteins?

The event will include panel discussions, fireside chats, networking breaks, technology showcases, and other presentations encouraging discussion around solutions to meet the global food challenge.

Future Food-Tech is an annual event which is held in London, New York City, and San Francisco. The Summit is intended to create a forum for networking, debate, discussion, and learning while giving new food innovators the opportunity to pitch their early to mid-stage companies to an audience of global food businesses, technology integrators, and venture capital investors.

If you have a great story to tell, a game-changing solution to showcase, or would like to share your expertise on one of the panels, please call Rethink Events on +44 1273 789989 or email Stephan Groves for more information.

Click here to register for Future Food-Tech NYC.

Test Fresh Produce’s Nitrate Content And Geiger Radiation At Home

Test Fresh Produce’s Nitrate Content And Geiger Radiation At Home

A new step in food safety. Chinese website Alibaba offers food counters that immediately measure the amount of nitrate in your fresh produce, and knows whether your food has been exposed to radioactive radiation. For approximately 100 dollar, you can own Greentest, the Portable High Quality Accuracy Food Detector.

Nitrate naturally occurs in vegetables. The nitrate content in vegetables is partly decided by the variety, but can also increase because large amounts of (artificial) fertiliser are used, or the product didn’t get enough sunlight during growing. The counter compares the amount of nitrate to the average amount in that type of fresh produce, and gives consumption recommendations: green is OK, yellow means you have to be careful and red is more than twice the amount allowed.

The more luxurious edition, Greentest Eco, has also been equipped with a Geiger counter, so that you can find out if your food is radioactive. 

Greentest, Portable High Quality High Accuracy Food Detector, Nitrate Tester for Fruit and Vegetable A high quality electronic product that can decrease the chances of getting a cancer. A sophisticated testing equipment that can keep you and your family away from the infringement of harmful pesticide residue, overfertilization, impurities, nitrates, nitrites and heavy metals pollution of soils.

Food safety

In China, food safety is an important topic for the growing middle class. After various food scandals, demand for safely produced food is increasing. The ads therefore mostly say: “Protect your family against unsafe food!” The Geiger counter also focuses on Japan, where there’s much attention on radioactive food, after the disaster with the nuclear reactor.

The products can be ordered globally through Alibaba. When ordering 500, they cost about 60 dollar per piece. Individually, they cost about twice that.

Order your nitrate and Geiger counter here.
 

Publication date: 5/30/2017

Agrilyst Fulfills Digital Need for Indoor Farming

Agrilyst Fulfills Digital Need for Indoor Farming

 KELLY MARSHALL - MAY 26, 2017

Two years ago Allison Kopf left her job of finding ways to be innovative in greenhouse spaces to start a company that would fill a gaping need she saw. While she could find many programs for outdoor crops, Agrilyst is a software program specifically created for indoor farming.

The software is very specific, Kopf explains. It can be difficult to control variables in an outdoor setting, but inside data about temperature and irrigation can be exact, and it can be replicated, meaning finding ideal circumstances using data points is a reality that is making a huge difference for their customers.

The Agrilyst software does three things. It’s an API so it can connect to hardware a grower may already have and sync with sensors already in play. It also offers a way to digitize paperwork that used be done by hand, such as when and where things are planted. Last, it can analyze data across the spectrum, making accessible and actionable reports a grower can see and learn from over time.

Although her product fills and empty niche, Kopf credits the Pearse Lyons Accelerator program she’s been a part of for the last three months with helping her get the product into the hands of customers. “The Pearse Lyons Accelerator has been phenomenal for us. In the last 100 days or so we’ve actually doubled our revenue. I think what they did a really good job at doing was choosing companies who were similarly staged, because what we could do was not only learn from Dr. Lyons and the team at Alltech, but also from each other.”

Learn more about Alltech’s Pearse Lyons program and the Agrilyst software in Jamie’s interview with Kopf below

Why High-Tech Urban Farms Won't Displace Community Gardens

Why High-Tech Urban Farms Won't Displace Community Gardens

Jody Allard/May 16, 2017

To serve neighborhoods, they need to work together.

High-tech innovations can help urban farmers grow anywhere. (Open Agriculture Initiative, MIT Media Lab)

Urban farmers are increasingly leveraging technologies like machine learning and smartphone integration to build high-yield farms in small urban spaces. And while it may seem that those innovations upend the “slow food” idea of working together in the dirt to grow organic zucchini or lettuce, sharing time and crops with neighbors, the success of these higher-tech projects may hinge on the support of local community gardeners.

In theory, a commitment to building a local food system that meets the needs of urban dwellers without relying on long-distance transportation methods—which can leave a substantial carbon footprint—is great. Many contemporary urban farms are cropping up in direct opposition to large-scale agricultural operations that are perceived as harmful to people and the environment. But in practice, urban farmers have struggled with limited real estate, high-priced infrastructure, and other challenges unique to the city environment. (Chicago’s green rooftop initiatives, for instance, were successful in revitalizing interest in urban farming, but even the 3.5 million square feet of urban farmland on 500-plus rooftops has failed to make a real dent in the city’s food demands.) Those are constraints that high-tech innovations aim to solve.

HIGH-TECH HELP FOR URBAN FARMERS

Housed on only one-eighth of an acre, Urban Produce in Irvine, California, harvests the volume of crops typical of a 16-acre facility. The indoor vertical farming operation specializes in growing organic microgreens, herbs, and leafy greens in a controlled environment. While Urban Produce has only one location today, they have big aspirations. "In five years, we hope to build 25 urban farms worldwide. Imagine cities, corporate campuses, master-planned communities, cruise ships, and military bases growing their own local, organic produce," says Urban Produce CEO Ed Horton. "In 20 years, I expect we’ll be growing organic produce on the International Space Station."

Space farming aside, high-yield urban farms that produce thousands of pounds of food are only one piece of the tech-enabled urban farming puzzle. Other initiatives are focusing on bringing families back into the fold with self-contained farms that are designed for use in small city apartments. Grove Garden combines an aquarium with a garden to create a closed-loop ecosystem: you feed the fish, their water is cycled to water the plants, and the plants grow to feed you. Grove Garden uses one-tenth of the water of traditional farming methods, and it's all remotely manageable by a smartphone app.

A beautiful indoor garden that grows fresh, organic herbs, fruits, and vegetables right in your home using the power of aquaponics. Reserve yours today at https://www.GroveGrown.com!

Still in the fundraising stage, Lyfbox is another permaculture garden option that can produce 40 different crops in a few feet of growing space. But Lyfbox goes one step further with an app that leads urban farmers from planting to cooking, reducing food waste by providing recipe suggestions when a crop is ready to harvest. The app even connects farmers with their community to help them buy or sell their crops from their smartphones.

The most productive urban farms have one thing in common: they rely on tightly controlled environments in order to maximize crops year-round, regardless of local growing conditions. In these environments, growing conditions are automated based on a combination of farming wisdom, trial-and-error, and growing models. But until recently, there was no such thing as an ideal "recipe" for growing conditions—making each smart farming environment only as good as the data it has available.

MIT's OpenAg initiative, in partnership with Sentient, hopes to change that. Using the power of 2 million computers located in 4,000 sites worldwide, researchers set out to discover whether advanced artificial intelligence could offer farmers insight into the optimal way to grow crops. Researchers began by testing basil in growing chambers called "Food Computers," which are similar to the type of closed-loop environments used by many urban farmers. Soon, the AI made a surprising discovery: basil grows best when exposed to continuous sunlight. By the end of the 18-week experiment, researchers had collected three million points of data, per plant, per growth cycle. This data is publicly available to anyone who wants to work with it, and in the future, researchers hope to program the AI to adapt its growing conditions based on what it learns throughout the growth cycle.

MIT’s food computer information is open data, so any farmer can build one. (Open Agriculture Initiative, MIT Media Lab)

"Farmers know a lot about the conditions in their own environment, but not even the best farmer knows how to grow the plants optimally when you can control all these environmental factors at will," says Risto Miikkulainen, vice president of research at Sentient. "We believe these recipes will help farmers grow the best crops, with the most yield, in the places that need [them] most. This would not only reduce the cost of exporting food across the world, but also reduce the amount of energy required to grow plants. We might even see food being grown directly in grocery stores."

If grocery stores doubling as farms sounds outlandish, consider how unlikely growing meat in a laboratory would've sounded a decade ago. The technology exists to make these goals a reality, but it will take more than technology to revolutionize urban farming. Their success relies on a community that's interested in and educated about sustainability, and is willing to invest in it—and that's where small community gardens can make a big impact.

COMMUNITY GARDENS HAVE DEEP ROOTS

With increasingly divergent technologies and resources, you might expect community gardeners to be at odds with the new generation of high-tech urban farmers. As urban farms continue to adopt new technologies to enhance their crop yields, space constraints could eventually pit the two against each other. Are community gardeners excited by the prospect or afraid they'll lose the community that made their gardens so successful?

In many cases, today's community gardens exist to solve a problem very different from the one they were aiming at in the 1890s, when Detroit and other cities looked to them to offer residents a place to raise a homegrown solution to an economic recession that left laborers unemployed and hungry. Now, many gardens are an antidote to isolation from nature and neighbors. While some gardeners enjoy the financial benefits of selling food, most community gardens aren't intended to feed their communities entirely. Unlike large-scale urban farming operations, their primary focus is on teaching sustainable farming principles and connecting with members of their communities.

Higher-tech innovations won’t necessarily compete with community gardens that are deeply rooted in their communities. (Carlos Jasso/Reuters)

Karin La Greca is on the board of the Fresh Roots Farm, a two-acre nonprofit organic educational farm in Mahweh, New Jersey. While each volunteer receives some of the food the farm produces, she says it's the community, not the food, that attract volunteers to the farm. "Community gardens give a sense of place to the residents of the community," she says.

Sable Bender used to work for an organic farm that relied on draft horses to plow the fields. Now, she works for the largest greenhouse manufacturer in the country and does her own farming on a smaller scale, helping out at a local school garden. She sees larger urban farms and community gardens as essential to each other's existence. "As people learn about urban farms, it encourages them to get involved with a community garden and it creates a desire to know more and try growing something for themselves," she says. "On the other hand, you have people who have been involved with a community garden taking on larger urban agriculture projects."

La Greca agrees. Far from being afraid of the impacts of urban farms on her own small community garden, she welcomes the opportunity to teach sustainable farming principles to a larger audience. "Community gardens allow residents to connect with nature, something that has been lost along the way," she says. "As community gardens move forward both in municipalities and schools, I believe farmers will get the respect they deserve and the community will support the farmers and collaborate together to change our food system for a better future."

Artificial intelligence and smartphone-integrated farms might seem like strange bedfellows for a movement that prides itself on returning to a more "natural" state. Talking casually about machine learning and closed-loop ecosystems, these aren't your grandparents' farmers—and they may be exactly what's needed to make their vision of sustainable urban farming a reality.

Coffee Grounds Used To Feed A Hungry City

Coffee Grounds Used To Feed A Hungry City

In an Australian first, Port Melbourne based coffee company Red Star Roasters has partnered with urban food production company Biofilta, to transform a disused Melbourne carpark into a pop-up espresso bar and thriving vertical urban food garden. The garden is converting the by-product from Melbourne's unique coffee culture  coffee grounds  into thousands of dollars of fresh edible produce for charity kitchens.

The Red Star Urban Garden Espresso Bar, located at The Holy Trinity Anglican Church at 160 Bay Street, Port Melbourne, features an innovative vertical food garden that uses soil made from composted green waste and coffee grounds, to grow a full range of vegetables and herbs including basil, beans, eggplant, capsicum, kale, lettuce, oregano, rhubarb, spinach, strawberries, thyme, tomatoes, zucchinis, beetroot, broccoli, bok choy and many others. Coffee grounds are collected from the espresso bar, mixed with garden clippings, cardboard packaging, soil and worms to create a rich compost onsite. The compost is then returned to the vertical gardens, to grow food. The produce is then harvested and donated to the South Port Uniting Care?s Food Pantry and Relief Service in South Melbourne. Diane Embry, the Agency's Chief Executive Officer, says, the donations enables us to provide fresh produce to people in our community who are experiencing disadvantage, social isolation and homelessness.

The garden itself is unique - with vertically stacked growing beds that are self-watering and an innovative aeration loop to keep the plants and soil oxygenated and healthy. The garden is ultra water efficient and spatially compact, and by going vertical the garden produces a large amount of food on a very small footprint, effectively doubling food yield per square metre. The vertical garden is integrated into the espresso bar coffee grounds used to feed a hungry city and café patrons are surrounded with edible gardens, aromatic herbs and flowers as they read the paper and have a coffee. In the past 12 months, the garden has produced well over 100 kilograms of vegetables and herbs from 10 square metres of garden area. However, because of the vertical design, the garden is only using 5 square metres of space. This means the garden is producing 10 kg of food per 1 sqaure metre of garden every year and at an average cost of between $5 to $10 per kg for vegetables at the Supermarket, the garden is producing $50 to $100 of food per metre square each year.

It is great having a garden that saves you money while feeding you and the family at the same time. Australia imports over 40,000 tonnes of coffee beans per annum, resulting in a huge waste stream of used coffee grounds that go to landfill. Red Star and Biofilta have worked out a way to divert this useful by-product into food to feed a hungry city and are now looking to replicate the model with cafes and restaurants who are interested in saving on food bills and growing fresh produce onsite. 100% of coffee grounds from the Red Star Urban Garden Espresso Bar are either used in the garden, or given away for free to customers to use in their gardens at home.

Creating A Zero-Coffee-Waste Café!

CEO of Biofilta, Marc Noyce said - Thousands of tonnes of coffee grounds are produced each week in Australia's cafés and restaurants, and most ends up in landfill. Red Star and Biofilta have shown how this wonderful material can be composted to soil and help feed hungry cities at the same time. Both companies are looking for more opportunities to repeat the formula with any café or restaurant who are interested in ethically sourced coffee, and have a spare space, wall, rooftop or balcony to turn.

For more information call:

Diane Falzon, Falzon PR- 0430596699

Marc Noyce, CEO, Biofilta - 0417 133 243

Chris McKiernan, Director, Red Star Coffee - 0418 136 301

www.redstarcoffee.com.au     www.biofilta.com.au

Kimbal Musk Says Food Is The New Internet

Kimbal Musk Says Food Is The New Internet

Former tech entrepreneur Kimbal Musk’s ambitions for innovation in sustainable farming are as grand as his brother Elon’s for space travel and electric cars

URBAN COWBOY | Kimbal Musk at Koberstein Ranch in Colorado. “He’s got good judgment overall and has been put through the ringer a few times,” says his brother, Elon. PHOTO: MORGAN RACHEL LEVY FOR WSJ. MAGAZINE

By Jay Cheshes

May 25, 2017 10:52 a.m. ET

ON A BRISK WINTER morning, Kimbal Musk is an incongruous sight in his signature cowboy hat and monogrammed silver K belt buckle—his folksy uniform of the past few years—as he addresses a crowd outside a cluster of shipping containers in a Brooklyn parking lot. Inside each container, pink grow lights and fire hydrant irrigation feed vertical stacks of edible crops—arugula, shiso, basil and chard, among others—the equivalent of two acres of cultivated land inside a climate-controlled 320-square-foot shell. “This is basically a business in a box,” Kimbal says, presenting his latest venture to its investors, friends and curious neighbors.

Square Roots, his new incubator for urban farming, aims to empower a generation of indoor agriculturalists, offering 10 young entrepreneurs this year (chosen from 500 applicants) the tools to build a business selling the food they grow. It will take on and mentor a new group annually, with more container campuses following across the country. “Within a few years, we will have an army of Square Roots entrepreneurs in the food ecosystem,” he says of the enterprise, launched last November with co-founder and CEO Tobias Peggs—a British expat with a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence—across from the Marcy Houses, in Bedford-Stuyvesant (where Jay Z, famously, sold crack cocaine in the 1980s).  

Clockwise from far left: Elon (left) and Kimbal, at 17 and 16. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KIMBAL MUSK

Entrepreneurial drive runs in the family for Kimbal, 44, a close confidante of his brother, Elon, and a board member (and major shareholder) at Tesla and SpaceX. “If something happens to me, he can represent my interests,” says Elon of his kid brother (one year younger) and worst-case-scenario proxy. “He knows me better than pretty much anyone else. He’s got good judgment overall and has been put through the ringer a few times.”

Kimbal, a veteran of the tech world, has in recent years shifted his focus to food—or the “new internet,” as he called it in a 2015 TEDx Talk. With the missionary zeal his brother brings to electric sports cars and private space travel, Kimbal has launched a series of companies designed to make a lasting impact on food culture, through restaurants, school gardens and urban farms.

‘‘I want to reach a lot of people. We’ve put too much emphasis on preciousness with food.’’

—Kimbal Musk

Since 2010, a nonprofit venture supported by the Musk Foundation has built hundreds of Learning Gardens in American schools, installing self-watering polyethylene planters where kids learn to grow what they eat. Meanwhile, his Kitchen family of restaurants—promising local, sustainable, affordable food—is rapidly expanding across the American heartland, with five locations opening this year, including new outposts in Memphis and Indianapolis. Kimbal hopes to have 50 “urban-casual” Next Door restaurants, 1,000 Learning Gardens and a battalion of container farms by 2020. “I want to be able to reach a lot of people,” he says. “I think we’ve put too much emphasis on preciousness with food—and the result is a real split between the haves and have nots.”

The Musk brothers grew up in South Africa during the last gasp of the apartheid era. Kimbal, the more gregarious sibling, got his start selling chocolate Easter eggs at a steep markup door-to-door in their Pretoria suburb. “When people would balk at the price, I’d say, ‘You’re supporting a young capitalist,’ ” he recalls. While Elon spent hours programming on his Commodore VIC-20, Kimbal tinkered in the kitchen. “If the maid cooked, people would pick at the food and watch TV,” he says. “If I cooked, my dad would make us all sit down and eat ‘Kimbal’s meal.’ ”

Kimbal in the kitchen, 2002. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KIMBAL MUSK

After high school, the brothers moved to Canada, both enrolling, for a time, in Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario (Kimbal studied business, Elon physics). In 1995, they founded a company together in Palo Alto, California, the online business directory Zip2. “I had come over as an illegal immigrant,” Kimbal says of the move. “We slept in the office, showered at the YMCA.”

The brothers were close but also intensely competitive. Sometimes work disputes would get physical. “In a start-up, you’re just trying to survive,” says Elon. “Tensions are high.” Once they could afford it, Kimbal cooked for the whole Zip2 team in the apartment complex they shared. In 1999, the Musks sold their business to Compaq for $300 million. Though they remain investors and advisers in each other’s companies, their official partnership ended there.

HOME FRONT | Kimbal’s mother, Maye (right), with her parents at the family farm near Pretoria, South Africa, 1978. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KIMBAL MUSK

After Elon launched the payment site that would later become PayPal , Kimbal, on a lark, enrolled in cooking school. He finished his studies at the French Culinary Institute in New York in late summer 2001 with no intention of pursuing a career in food. A few weeks later, after two planes flew into the Twin Towers, he spent the next six weeks as a volunteer cook, feeding firefighters out of the kitchen at Bouley. At the end of it he wanted nothing more than to open his own restaurant. “After that visceral experience, I just had to do it,” he says.

Searching for a dramatic change in scenery, post-9/11, Kimbal and his new wife at the time, lighting artist Jen Lewin, set out on a cross-country road trip looking for a place to put down roots and raise a family. They settled on Boulder, Colorado, “a walkable town, a great restaurant town,” says Kimbal at the 140-year-old Victorian home they bought there in 2002 (they have two sons and have since divorced). 

The house he now shares with food-policy activist Christiana Wyly—with a cherry-red Tesla parked out back—is a few blocks from the original Kitchen, an American bistro he launched in 2004 with chef-partner Hugo Matheson, a veteran of London’s River Cafe. The Kitchen sourced ingredients from local farmers, composted food waste, ran on wind power and used recycled materials in its décor. For its first two years, the two partners worked full-time as co-chefs, taking turns composing the menu, which changed every day. Eventually, the daily grind became too much for Kimbal. “I got a little bored with the business,” he says.

Kimbal in his Zip2 office, 1996. PHOTO: COURTESY OF KIMBAL MUSK

By 2006, he was back working in tech, as CEO of a social-media-analytics start-up. The Kitchen might have remained a sideline if not for a series of unlikely events. On February 10, 2010, at a TED conference in California, he listened to Jamie Oliver admonish America for its childhood obesity problem. Four days later, while barreling down a slope in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, Kimbal flipped his inner tube and broke his neck. In the hospital, wondering if he’d ever walk again, he began to reconsider his life, with Oliver’s comments rattling around in his head. “The message I heard was: The people who have no excuse should be doing something about this—and I was one of those people,” says Kimbal. “I told myself, If I get through this I’m going to focus on food and doing things at scale.” Apart from losing some feeling in his fingers, he made a full recovery.

Since then Kimbal has become a cheerful crusader for “real food,” as he calls it, sharing his message on the lecture circuit. “He’s a compelling speaker,” says food writer and activist Michael Pollan. “Particularly in his passion for kids, his recognition that if we’re going to change our approach to eating in this country, it’s about showing kids where food comes from, how to grow it, how to prepare it.”

“In 2004, there were very few local farmers that would work with us,” says Kimbal. “We opened the Kitchen before farm-to-table was a term. We showed that you could be busy and profitable while creating a new supply chain. Now there’s a huge backlash against processed food, industrial food. Real food is simply food you trust to nourish your body, nourish the farmer and nourish the planet.”

GreenGro Technologies, Inc. (GRNH: OTC Pink Current) | Greengro Technologies, Inc. Retains Investor Relations Partners to Support Company's Strategic IR Program

25 MAY 2017 BY MACIEJ HEYMAN

GreenGro Technologies, Inc. (GRNH: OTC Pink Current) | Greengro Technologies, Inc. Retains Investor Relations Partners to Support Company's Strategic IR Program

May 25, 2017

OTC Disclosure & News Service

ANAHEIM, Calif., May 25, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Greengro Technologies, Inc. (OTC:GRNH), a leader in the indoor agriculture technology market, today announced that it has retained Investor Relations Partners (IRP), one of the fastest growth investor and public relations firms in the nation, to expand the Company’s strategic investor relations program.

“GreenGro Technologies is at the forefront of the burgeoning indoor agriculture technology market. Our business units cover the entire indoor agriculture supply chain from developing growing technology to growing structures, plant processing, distribution and sales,” said Jim Haas, Chief Executive Officer of GreenGro Technologies, Inc. “In the past few months we have made a number of strategic acquisitions and partnerships and built what we believe is a solid pipeline of significant deals. However, the market has yet to grasp our unique strategy and the enormous role we expect to play in the indoor agriculture market. We have retained IRP to help communicate the series of expected positive developments to the investment community in an effort to significantly increase our exposure as well as support our overriding goal of building shareholder value,” concluded Mr. Haas.

To be added to the Company’s investor lists, please contact Bill Miller at Investor Relations Partners at 844-565-5665 or via email at bmiller@irpartnersinc.com. 

About Greengro Technologies
Greengro Technologies (OTC:GRNH) is a world class provider of eco-friendly green technologies with specific domain expertise in indoor and outdoor agricultural science systems serving both the consumer and commercial farming markets. It brings together community and commerce through the growth and distribution of healthy, nutritious foods and vital medicines backed by science and technology. Customers include restaurants, community gardens, small and large scale commercial clients. Greengro Technologies also provides design, construction and maintenance services to large grow and cultivation operations and collectives in the medical and recreational marijuana sectors.

The company’s websites: www.greengrotech.com, offer regular updates including educational videos, projects updates, recipes and nutritional information, and where to find the company’s products. https://www.facebook.com/GreengroTechnologiesInc.

About Investor Relations Partners

Investor Relations Partners, Inc. (IRP) is a full-service investor relations firm serving a global client base.  The principals of IRP have received top industry awards for their investor relations programs for a number of high-profile companies, including, but not limited to, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, ValueVision Media, Taro Pharmaceuticals, and LJ International. The firm’s principals have executed effective investor relations programs for dozens of public companies, ranging from emerging micro-cap companies to multinational corporations with market capitalizations in excess of $15 billion.  For further information on IRP, please visit the firm’s Website at www.irpartnersinc.com.

Forward Looking Statements
This release may contain forward-looking statements. Actual results may differ from those projected due to a number of risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the possibility that some or all of the matters and transactions considered by the Company may not proceed as contemplated, and by all other matters specified in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. These statements are made based upon current expectations that are subject to risk and uncertainty. The Company does not undertake to update forward-looking statements in this news release to reflect actual results, changes in assumptions or changes in other factors affecting such forward-looking information. Assumptions and other information that could cause results to differ from those set forth in the forward-looking information can be found in the Company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (www.sec.gov), including its recent periodic reports. 

Investor/Media Contact: 
Bill Miller
Investor Relations Partners
Phone: 844-565-5665
bmiller@irpartnersinc.com

Copyright © 2017 GlobeNewswire. All Rights Reserved

The Spacepot Hydroponic Planter Brings NASA Grade Farming To Your Kitchen

The Spacepot Hydroponic Planter Brings NASA Grade Farming To Your Kitchen

May 20, 2017

Qhilst cooking with fresh herbs is a simple pleasure, most novice urban farmers have never known a basil pot to last more than a few months. that’s why futurefarms have turned to NASA’s hydroponic farming techniques to revolutionize herb growing for the not-so-green-thumbed. reforming space-grade science into an elegant kitchen planter called a ‘spacepot’, futurefarms have set out to downsize the extraterrestrial farming technique into an elegant tabletop planter that grows perfect herbs in just 5 weeks, with almost zero maintenance.

hydroponic farming—that’s the art of growing plants without soil—was first popularized by NASA. widely associated with futuristic space gardens, by cutting out the soil from the equation hydroponic farms provide their plants directly with nutrients, cutting out the middle man to create bigger, healthier shrubs that grow much faster than their soil-situated counterparts. maybe it’s the their extraterrestrial connotoations, or the fact they always seem to be kitted out with endless complicated pumps and tubes, but when it comes to hydroponic farming, until now it’s been widely accepted that you do, indeed, need to be a rocket scientist to master the technique. and that’s a stigmatism futurefarms set out to change with their ‘spacepots’—elegant, hydroponic planters that bring the benefits of soil-free farming to the masses. 

branded ‘hydroponics beautifully simplified’ the spacepot required no pumps, no electricity, and no extra parts to maintain. by mixing space-age technology with cutting edge design, futurefarms have crafted a planted that delivers all the benefits of hydroponics without any of the maintenence. by using the kratky method—the simplest, most hands-off way for gardening—all the spacepot requires from you is to fill the reservoir with water and nutrients, plant a seed, and watch your beautiful plant flourish in just five weeks. fashioned of high-clarity acrylic and food-grade PET,the planter’s aesthetic is designed to represent its functionality—easy and simple.

futurefarms–the LA based startup behind the futuristic and fashionable approach to gardening–comprises a team of designers, creators, and researches leading the field of personal hydroponics. ‘on a macro scale,’ they explain, ‘our mission is to have hydroponics be a part of everyone’s lives because we believe it makes us smarter, and more conscious of our health and well-being.’

beatrice murray-nag I designboom

may 20, 2017

Japan’s New Approach To Farming Without Soil

Japan’s New Approach To Farming Without Soil

By Siyanda Sishuba

May 22, 2017 12:05 pm

Japanese experts have made a breakthrough in agricultural technology, using polymer film to grow food.

Yuichi Mori, the chemical physicist who founded Mebiol in 1995. He spent most of his career developing polymer technologies for the medical industry.
Photo: Drop Farm

• 181SHARES
• Share172
• Tweet5
• Share2
• Print2
• Email0

Dubbed Imec, the innovation, developed by Mebiol’s Dr Yuichi Mori, makes it possible to grow crops ‘virtually anywhere’, according to a report from the Japanese government. Mebiol is a technology corporation based in Tokyo.

The report describes ‘film farming’ as using “waterproof sheets to separate the crops being cultivated from the ground underneath”.

It continues, outlining the basics of what it says is a ‘simple system’: “The special features of the new technology are to be found in the film, which is made of hydrogel, a hydrophilic polymer gel used in disposable diapers and other products. The film’s design incorporates nano-sized (one millionth of a millimetre) pores, which absorb water and nutrients but block germs and viruses. This means only small amounts of agricultural chemicals are needed, ensuring the crops are safe to eat.”

“As the film holds on to water, it also makes the plants work harder to get it by increasing osmotic pressure; the plants create more amino acids and sugar, and so they taste better and have higher nutritional value.”

Ali Adnan, senior adviser at Mebiol, said 150 farms around Japan have introduced the technology, with “over 10 already deployed in China”.

He added that “future projects within the next 12 months are forecasted to be installed in Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and several other countries are in the pipeline for approval”.

Imec is already being used to grow tomatoes around Japan and at overseas locations, including Shanghai, Singapore, and Dubai.

More than 50% of the farmers in Japan come from a non-farming background, and, according to Adnan, “they say that the system is easy to use and enables them to produce high-quality produce”.

With its ‘easy-to-use’ aspect, Imec may prove a boon to small-scale and even urban farmers in South Africa, and Adnan says that, “Farmers in South Africa can access our technology. We will first need to export the simple system and film from Japan.”

For more information about Imec, visit www.mebiol.co.jp/en

Rice University Students Create Indoor Farming Device

Rice University Students Create Indoor Farming Device

By Rebecca Hazen, rebecca.hazen@chron.com

Photo: Lettuce Turnip The Beet

Published 4:11 pm, Tuesday, May 23, 2017

A group of mechanical engineering students at Rice University, called the Lettuce Turnip the Beet team, have come up with a way to cultivate vegetables indoors.

A group of mechanical engineering students at Rice University have come up with a way to cultivate vegetables without needing a large plot of land outdoors.

The Senior Capstone Design project, made up of students Jared Broadman, George Dawson, Sanjiv Gopalkrishnan and Dominique Schaefer Pipps, aptly named their group "Lettuce Turnip the Beet." (LTTB)

According to group member Gopalkrishnan, the mechanical engineering department pitched different projects to the senior students, including a vegetable cultivation machine, and the four choose to work on that particular project.

The main goal of team LTTB, through the vegetable cultivation machine, was to produce one salad per week, for a year.

"Other goals were to make the project sustainable, easy to build and operate, and able to be used in an apartment setting. We have achieved all of our goals - our most recent harvest yielded eleven salads after four weeks of growth," Gopalkrishnan said.

The team has been working on the project since August, and created two versions, both with vegetables growing hydroponically - without soil. The first prototype is in an enclosed area outside. It is based on a triangular frame, has three circular grow tubes, and two pumps with inputs into each of the tubes. It is about 6 feet tall. The second prototype is inside. It is eight feet tall, hosts six square grow tubes, and one pump with an input to the top of the tube arrangement.

"The wooden frame of the second prototype is modular, in that it is composed of four two foot tall sections of two-by-fours, held together by dowel rods. The frame was designed this way to facilitate customization and easy transport. The pipes are square because they are easier to fit into the framework, and have a larger bottom area for the roots to lay upon as the nutrient solution flows across them," Golpalkrishnan explained. "The one input was chosen for ease of operation, as the pipes are all connected in a gravity fed cascade. It is vertical for easy user access. The triangular shape of the first prototype made it hard to access plants at the top. We use a Platinum P900 LED to feed plants at the top of the device, with two smaller fluorescent lights to supplement the bottom plants. The entire device draws about the same amount of power as a microwave."

Golpalkrishnan continued, "We learned quite a bit from the first iteration that we implemented into the second, final prototype. We built the first prototype in November 2016 and the second prototype in February 2017."

It may seem complicated, but the reality is that growing plants is straightforward. They just need light, water, nutrients and a place to grow.

"If the system is set up properly (which is easy to do, and takes about an hour per week to maintain), the plants grow on their own. The biggest key to being able to grow indoors is a good grow light. Plants will grow without light, but one cannot harvest a salad per week without a good light. As far as anyone being able to do this - the answer is yes. Three of the four of our team had no gardening experience, and we have learned as we go," Golpalkrishnan said.

Tomatoes are currently being grown in the outdoor prototype, because there is easy access to pollinators. The LTTB team found that it was easy to grow leafy greens indoors because they do not require pollination. The indoor prototype is currently growing lettuce, kale, Swiss chard and spinach. There are also herbs like basil and parsley, and the team even managed to grow a carrot and radish.

"It is amazing to see the whole plant cycle, from seedling, to adolescent plant, to being able to harvest them. The device has made it easy for us to grow our own vegetables, and our hope is that the device can combat the negative practices utilized by industrial agriculture," Golpalkrishnan said.

Recently, the team showed off their work at the Engineering Design Showcase, which is an event for all Rice engineering teams. Lettuce Turnip the Beet won the Best Environment and Sustainability Design Award.

As the last part of the project, the team will travel to Gothenburg, Sweden, at the end of this month. There, the device will be implanted at the HSB Living Lab at Chalmers University.

"That trip will be the culmination of our efforts as a team, as we are going our separate ways after graduation. However, at least two of us will be building our own versions of the device for personal use," Gopalkrishnan said.

6 Reasons Local Food Systems Will Replace Our Industrial Model

6 Reasons Local Food Systems Will Replace Our Industrial Model

BY JOHN IKERD

September 28, 1958—A Sunday comic strip by Gene Fawcett envisions a future of farming in which “fat plants” and “meat beets” are used to cut down on the amount of farmland devoted to cattle pasture.   (Image: nextnature.net)

A local, community-based food system certainly is not a new idea. It’s simply an idea that is being reassessed in response to growing public concerns about the current global food system. When I was growing up in south Missouri in the 1940s and early 1950s, our family’s food system was essentially local. I would guess close to 90 percent of our food either came from our farm or was produced and processed within less than 50 miles of our home. There were local canneries, meat packers, and flour mills to supply grocery stores and restaurants with locally grown food products. Over the years, the local canneries, meat packers and flour mills were consolidated into the giant agribusiness operations that dominate today’s global food system. Supermarkets and fast-food chains replaced the mom-and-pop grocery stores and restaurants.

Today, I doubt there are many communities in the United States who get more than 10 percent of their foods from local sources, as official estimates put local foods at well less than 5 percent of total food sales. Estimates of the average distance that food travels from production to consumption within the United States range from 1200 to 1700 miles. More than 15 percent of the food sold in the United States is imported, with more than 50 percent of fruits and 20 percent of vegetables coming from other countries. More than 30 percent of U.S. farm income is derived from agricultural exports to other countries. The local food system of my childhood has been transformed into the global food system of today. Most of these changes took place during a 40-year period, between the late 1950s and the late 1990s.

Today, we are in the midst of another transformation.

The local food movement is the leading edge of a change that ultimately will transform the American food system from industrial/global to sustainable/local. Organic foods had been the leading edge of the movement, growing at a rate of 20 percent-plus per year from the early 1990s until the economic recession of 2008. Growth in organics sales have since stabilized at around 10 percent per year. The organic food market reached $43.3 billion in sales in 2015—more than 5 percent of the total U.S. food market. Today, organic fruits and vegetables claim more than 10 percent of their markets. As organic foods moved into mainstream food markets, many consumers turned to local farmers to ensure the integrity of their foods. The modern local food movement was born.

How we got here

To understand the local food movement, it’s important to understand the birth of the modern organic movement. The organic movement has its roots in the natural food movement of the early 1960s, which was a rejection of the industrialization of American agriculture. Following World War II, the mechanical and chemical technologies developed to support industrial warfare were adapted to support industrial agriculture. The “back to the earth” people decided to create their own food system. They produced their own food, bought food from each other, and formed the first cooperative food buying clubs and natural food stores.

Concerns about the health and environmental risks associated with the synthetic fertilizers and pesticides were not the only reasons they chose to grow foods organically. They were also creating and nurturing a sense of connectedness and commitment to taking care of each other and caring for the earth. The philosophy of organic farming was deeply embedded in their communities. To these food and farming pioneers, organic was as much a way of life as a way to produce food.

November 14, 1965—An illustration published by Athelstan Spilhauson speculating that synthetic food products would be needed to feed an ever-growing population. (Image: nextnature.net)

Organic farming and food production remained on the fringes of American society until the environmental movement expanded into mainstream society and science began to confirm the environmental and public health risks associated with a chemically-dependent, industrial agriculture. As organic foods grew in popularity, organics eventually moved into mainstream supermarkets. Except for restrictions on use of synthetic agrochemicals and food additives, organic foods then began to seem more and more like conventional industrial foods.

Consumers who were concerned about the ecological and societal consequences of industrial agriculture then began looking to local farmers to ensure the ecological and social integrity of their foods. Between 1994 and 2015, farmers markets increased in number from 1,755 to nearly 8,476. In the 2012 USDA Census of Agriculture, there were 12,000 CSAs (community supported agriculture) and an estimated 50,000 farmers selling direct to consumers by all means. Many farmers who use organic production practices don’t bother with organic certification. Their customers know and trust them to produce “good food.”

A more recent development in the local food movement has been the multiple-farm networks of local farmers. The networks may be food alliances, cooperative, collaboratives or food hubs. Grown Locally, Idaho’s Bounty, Viroqua Food Coop, Good Natured Family Farms and the Oklahoma Food Cooperative are examples of food networks of which I am personally aware. These alliances range in size from a couple dozen to a couple hundred farmers. The National Good Food Network lists more than 300 “food hubs”—although I cannot vouch for their success or authenticity.

Why local food is part of a larger movement that could actually “change everything”

The local food movement is so decentralized and dispersed that it is impossible to accurately estimate the size or importance of the movement. The USDA estimated the value of local food sales by farmers at $9 billion in 2015. This figure does not reflect the “retail value” of food sold by farmers to local restaurants or retailers. Virtually everywhere I go, I discover new local foods initiatives.

The local food movement also is so diverse that it is difficult to distinguish between those who are committed to ecological and social integrity and those who simply see local foods as another opportunity for profits. Food hubs are generally defined as organizations that allow farmers to aggregate their individual production to serve markets that are larger than they can serve alone. Admittedly, the future of the local food movement depends on being able to “scale up” to serve increasing numbers of consumers. However, if farmers compromise their ecological and social integrity in the process of scaling up, they will be little different from industrial farmers who are producing foods many of their customers are attempting to avoid.

For example, “The War on Big Food”, a recent Fortune Magazine article, begins: “Major packaged-food companies lost $4 billion in market share alone last year, as shoppers swerved to fresh and organic alternatives.” The article identifies artificial colors and flavors, preservatives, pesticides, growth hormones, antibiotics, and genetically modified organisms among growing consumer concerns. All of these concerns are linked directly or indirectly to industrial food production, including industrial agriculture. The organic movement at least attempts to address all of these concerns. The article explains how the giant food manufacturing and retailing corporations are trying to reposition their organizations to coopt the movement or at least to minimize their losses of market-share.

The local foods movement, however, represents an even greater challenge to the industrial status quo than the natural and organic food movements, even though organic obviously is a more meaningful label or descriptor than local. Industrial foods are local to someone, somewhere. However, most industrial farmers, meaning conventional commodity producers, know they can’t sell all, or even a significant part, of their total production locally. They are simply too large and too specialized. Large commodity producers must sell to industrial processors and distributors, which are likewise too large to rely on local markets. Large industrial organizations are inherently dependent on—and must compete in—“non-local” markets.

Sustainability, trust and the true cost of industrial food

According to market research, consumers are primarily motivated to buy local foods for reasons of freshness, flavor and nutrition. People have learned that shipped-in foods generally are not as fresh and flavorful, and are probably not as nutritious, as fresh-picked, locally-grown foods at farmers markets, CSAs and other local markets. Many people consider local foods to be safer because they are more likely to be produced organically, or at least without pesticides or GMOs. In the case of meat, milk, or eggs, hormones or antibiotics are more common concerns. Most farmers who sell locally understand the concerns of people who buy local foods and attempt to address concerns that are not being addressed by the industrial food system.

In return, people who buy local foods often mention their desire to support local farmers economically and to help build stronger local economies and communities. Estimates based on comparison of local and industrial food production in general indicate that foods grown for local markets contribute about four-times as many dollars to local economies as commodities grown for industrial food production. That said, the popularity of local foods and the incentives to produce local foods cannot be reduced to economics.

People tend to trust “their local farmers” to not only produce “good food” but also to be good neighbors, good community members and good stewards of the land. Some experts may question the importance of social, ecological, and unselfish economic motives for buying local. However, the fact that local foods clearly emerged in response to the perceived industrialization of organics suggests otherwise. Americans are trying to restore trust and confidence in “their food system” by “buying local.” For this reason and others, farmers motivated primarily by profits or economics are unlikely to be successful in local markets. Eventually, their customers will see their foods as little different from industrial foods and will value them accordingly.

Perhaps most important, the local food movement not only represents a rejection of industrial foods but also represents an emerging vision of a fundamentally better food system of the future. I can foresee a time when every community will have its own local, community-based food system. Communities will not be “self-sufficient” in food production, but will give priority to buying local foods from local farmers who give priority to local markets. They will give priority to those farmers who maintain personal relationships with their local customers through personally-connected economic transactions. In order to maintain relationships of trust and integrity, face-to-face contacts at farmers markets, on-farm sales, regular farm visits, or local food festivals will punctuate less-personal economic transactions. The primary objective of such community-based food systems would be to provide local assurance of quality and integrity, rooted in shared social and ethical values.

I believe this vision of a new and better food system is emerging from today’s local food networks—alliances, collaboratives, cooperatives, personally-connected food hubs and other innovative relationships. However, the skeptics may ask: would it actually be possible for a new local, community-based food system to replace our current corporately-controlled industrial food system? When I am asked this question, my answer consistently has been, yes. I am convinced such a change is possible, although I am not so naïve or idealistic as to think that the transformation will be quick or easy. Why do I believe such a change is possible?

Six reasons why local food systems will replace the corporation-controlled, industrial model

First, as mentioned previously, I have lived through the transition from the local, community-based food system of my youth to the industrial-global food system of today. The major part of that transition occurred within a span of about 40-50 years during the latter 1900s. I believe the new organic/local/sustainable food systems of farming and food production today are further advanced today than the industrial systems of farming and food production were during the early 1950s. I can still remember the steam engine lumbering by my grade school, moving from one thrashing location to another. This was early industrial agriculture. I can still remember my mother handing her “grocery list” to a person behind a counter at our country grocery store who would select the items on the list from shelves, barrels, and the meat case, weigh and package as needed, put the items in a “paper poke,” and total up our “grocery bill” for the week. There were no supermarkets. I saw my first fast food restaurant when I went to college—a McDonalds.

Second, there were far fewer good reasons to change the system of farming and food production back in those times than there are today. The main reason to change farming in the 1950s was to reduce the physical labor and drudgery of farm work and to free up farmers for jobs in the factories and offices of a growing industrial economy. Changes in food processing and distribution were designed to remove the drudgery of homemaking—making food preparation quicker and more convenient. Industrial agriculture was also meant to reduce costs of production, eliminating hunger by making “good food” affordable and accessible to everyone.

An unidentified comic published in 1963 depicting giant corn, robots and a gamma ray sprinkler on a futuristic farm. (Image: Google Images)

It was a noble experiment but it didn’t work. We have more people in the United States classified as “food insecure” than we had back in the 1960s. More than 20 percent of American children live in food-insecure homes. In addition the United States is plagued with an epidemic of diet related illnesses, such as obesity, diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, and a variety of cancers. The industrial food system may have removed much of the drudgery of farming and homemaking, but it hasn’t eliminated hunger or malnutrition. I don’t want to belabor the point, but an industrial food system is not sustainable. Sustainability is the ability to meet the needs of the present without diminishing opportunities for the future. Industrial agriculture obviously has failed to meet the basic food needs of the present.

Industrial agriculture is also systematically diminishing opportunities for generations of the future, as it pollutes the environment, threatens public health, and depletes and degrades the natural and human resources that must support long-run agricultural productivity. The problems with industrial agriculture are systemic. They are ingrained in specialized, mechanized, large-scale, industrial system of production. Industrial systems gain their economic efficiency by employing fewer people at less pay, while externalizing environmental and social costs on nature and society. These problems cannot be addressed without fundamentally changing the system.

Third, we need not return to the drudgery of farming or homemaking of the past in order to make enough good food affordable and accessible to everyone. New scale-appropriate mechanical and electronic technologies offer new possibilities for ensuring “food security” without degrading the integrity of nature or society and without diminishing opportunities for those of the future. The basic concepts embodied in microcomputers, including laptops, tablets, and smart phones, are equally applicable to small-scale equipment for growing, tilling, harvesting, processing, and preparing healthful, nutritious foods. All that is needed now is the vision to see the potential and the incentive to create what is needed for a different future.

Meaningful work, technology and the next generation

Scale-appropriate technologies in farming include portable electric fencing, which has revolutionized the possibilities for sustainable small-scale humane, grass-based, and free-range livestock and poultry production. Walk-behind and small pull-behind tilling and harvesting equipment is reducing the drudgery, as well as costs, for small-scale organic, local, and direct marketers of produce and field crops. The markets for such technologies are growing with growth in the local food movement. Sales of “human scale” farming and marketing technologies are approaching the point where it will be economically attractive for more inventors and small-scale equipment manufacturers—using new technologies.

In my travels, I meet many young people who are choosing “human scale” farming as their way of life. I recently came across a blog piece on the National Young Farmers Coalition website. It begins: "You want to be a farmer? That’s great news because we need a lot more farmers! But there are some things you should know before diving in…” 

The author is a young farmer who has been farming with her partner in the Pacific Northwest for more than 10 years. She went on to name five things that anyone who wants to be a farmer should understand:  

1. Farming is really, really hard. (Let me stress that one more time….)

2. Farmers are not just farmers (They have to do a lot of other things.)  

3. Farming can be dangerous. (You can get hurt farming.)

4. It takes money to make money (particularly to get into farming).

5. It’s the best work you’ll ever do.

She writes: “Do you want to feel completely satisfied and fulfilled by your work? Lay your head down at night knowing you are doing something that helps the planet and your fellow humans? There is nothing more satisfying than providing a basic need: food. I love what I do, and wouldn’t trade it for anything—sore muscles, financial risks, and all.”

The future

It’s possible to make a good economic living on a “human scale” farm. At a recent conference in Toronto, Canada I met a young farm couple, Jean-Martin Fortier and his wife, Maude-Hélène Desroches. They gross more than $100,000 per acre on a 1.5 acre market garden with an operating margin of about 60 percent. They’ve been farming for more than a decade now, and today, Jean-Martin leaves most of the farming to Maude-Helene while he works on an educational farming project to help other young farmers learn how to make a good living pursuing their purpose or calling as farmers.

His new farming project, Ferme des Quatre-Temps, is designed to further demonstrate how “diversified small-scale farms, using regenerative and economically efficient agricultural practices, can produce a higher nutritional quality of food and more profitable farms.” Jean-Martin writes, “If there is one thing I’ve learned through all my years as a farmer, it’s that if we are going to change agriculture, it’s going to be one farm at a time. All we need is for more people to be willing to go out there and just do it.” 

An aerial photograph of La Ferme des Quatre-Temps—an agricultural project in Hemmingford, Quebec that aims to demonstrate what the farm of the future could look like. (Photo: La Ferme des Quatre-Temps)

With respect to taking the drudgery out of homemaking, prominent chefs are showing us that the most flavorful, nutritious foods typically require very basic and often-minimal preparation when they come directly from the fields and pastures of local farmers. In addition, affordable kitchen technologies are available to make basic food preparation far easier today than it was for my mother. More than 80 percent of the total dollars spent for foods in the United States does not go to pay for the food itself, but for processing, transportation, packaging, advertising, pre-preparation, and retailing.

We can’t eliminate hunger by making food cheap, but we can provide food security by making good, minimally processed, un-packaged, unadvertised, food available locally and helping people learn to select foods for nutrition and health and prepare food for themselves. People will find ways to spend quality time with their families preparing food from scratch once they understand the true costs of “quick, convenient, and cheap,” industrial foods.

Fourth, and perhaps most important, new digital technologies make it possible to develop and sustain meaningful, “personal” connections among farmers and others who share a common commitment to good, wholesome, delicious and nutritious, sustainably-produced foods. Obviously, digital communications can facilitate personal isolation; but email, texting, and tweeting can also help keep close personal friends in even closer personal contact. Digital technologies are already being used to create and sustain local, community-based food networks that give sustainable farmers access to far more local customers than they can stay connected with through farmers markets or CSAs. Equally important, these digital-based local food networks can help local eaters find and stay in contact with the full range of like-minded farmers who are committed to providing their local customers with sustainably produced foods.

I believe local community-based food networks of the future will include regular home deliveries—making local foods more convenient and accessible. The business of retail—including food—is changing fundamentally and rapidly. The total value of Amazon stock recently surpassed the total stock value of Walmart, although Walmart is still far larger in total retail sales. Virtually every major retailer, including food retailers, are scrambling to develop web-based markets. Food home-delivery programs—such as Blue Apron and Hello-Fresh—may be paving the way for local food system that at least include a home-delivery option. Local food networks would seem to have a natural economic advantage in local home delivery of locally grown foods. Supermarkets and restaurants that are committed to supporting their local communities will likely continue to have a significant role in local food networks of the future. However, the challenge will be to sustain a common sense of ecological and social integrity that comes from personal relationships of trust confidence.

"We need a sense that what we do matters, that it is right and good."

My fifth reason for believing a new and better food system is possible is that the local food movement is a part of a much larger movement that eventually will “change everything.” Hartman Group, a leading industry adviser on food and beverage market trends, recently identified 10 major trends in U.S. food retailing and found that, “Health, wellness and sustainability are starting to converge at the most progressive food retail and food service outlets. Consumers see the convergence as being all about mindfulness, integrity and authenticity.”

The good news is that the transformation in the food system is but a part, although an important part, of a transformation in society as a whole that is about mindfulness, integrity and authenticity. We are beginning to awaken to a wide range of symptoms of our unsustainable economy within our unsustainable society. As we respond to national and global challenges, such as natural resource depletion, climate change, dying oceans, species extinction, social injustice, and economic inequity we will create the environment for fundamental changes in our systems of farming and food production.

Growing public pressures eventually will bring about changes in public policies, including farm and food policies. Virtually every major farm policy and food policy of the past 50 years has promoted and supported the industrialization of American agriculture and globalization of the American food system. Simply removing such policies would represent a major step forward. With supportive public policies, the transition from global to local and industrial to sustainable could move from gradual to explosive. Replacing existing farm and food policies with policies supporting local foods and sustainable agriculture could go a long way toward “changing everything” in American food and farming.

I believe the motivation for farming and food production eventually must go beyond “food security” to “food sovereignty”—which includes treating food security as a “basic human right.” Communities need not wait for changes in federal policies. People in local communities can make a commitment to ensuring that everyone in the community has access to enough “good food” to support healthy, active lifestyles. I have suggested establishing “community food utilities” to provide the legal and physical infrastructure for local farmers to share a commitment with fellow community members to provide local food security—using local government to ensure the collective economic means of doing so. Personal relationships of trust among community networks could create national and global food networks sustained through shared social values and a common ethical commitment to meeting the needs of present and future—to sustainability.

This brings me to my final reason for believing a new sustainable future for farming and food production is possible. I believe that people are awakening to the need for the kinds of personal relationships and moral commitments that are being developed in local community-based food networks. There is a growing realization that the pursuit of material economic self-interest, including the quest for quick, cheap, convenient foods, has not brought us greater satisfaction or happiness. We are finally awakening to the fact that we are not only material beings but also social and moral beings.

Certainly we need the economic necessities of life—food, clothing, shelter, health care—things money can buy. But, we are also social beings and need relationships with other people for reasons that have nothing do with any economic value we may receive in return. We need to care and be cared for, to love and be loved. And, we are moral beings and need a sense of purpose and meaning in life. We need a sense that what we do matters, that it is right and good. Caring for the earth is not a sacrifice; it gives meaning to life—it matters. The creation of a new sustainable and local food system for the future, is not just about a better way to fuel the human body, it is also about feeding the human heart and soul. I believe the spiritual awakening that is driving the local food movement eventually will “change everything.” In this kind of awakening, there is always hope.

“The Status and Future of Local Foods" was originally published on JohnIkerd.com and is reposted on Rural America In These Times with permission from the author.

The Ag Tech Market Map: 100+ Startups Powering The Future Of Farming And Agribusiness

MAY 18, 2017

The Ag Tech Market Map: 100+ Startups Powering The Future Of Farming And Agribusiness

Corporate investors such as Mitsui, Monsanto, and Syngenta have backed startups improving irrigation, crop spraying, harvesting, and more.

If you are a startup in the ag tech industry, add or edit your profile directly at

the CB Insights Editor to get in front of our research team.

As population growth increases the need to ramp up food production, tech startups are creating a range of agricultural software, services, farming techniques, and more aimed at bringing more data and efficiency to the sector.

We used CB Insights data to identify more than 100 private companies in agriculture tech and categorized them into nine main categories. We define ag tech as technology that increases the efficiency of farms, in the form of software, sensors, aerial-based data, internet-based distribution channels (marketplaces), and tools for technology-enabled farming. We only include companies that primarily target the agricultural sector.

Farming & Ag Tech Webinar

Tech companies are gradually changing farms and making agriculture more efficient. Register now to see trends, investment data, and more on this growing industry.

The breakdown is as follows:

• Farm Management Software: This includes software like that produced by Andreessen Horowitz-backed Granular that allows farmers to more efficiently manage their resources, crop production, farm animals, etc.
• Precision Agriculture and Predictive Data Analytics: These startups include those that focus on using big data and predictive analytics to address farm-related issues and make better farm-related decisions in order to save energy, increase efficiency, optimize herbicide and pesticide application (such as Prospera, which uses machine vision and artificial intelligence), and manage risk, among other uses.
• Sensors: Startups in the sensor category include Arable, which offers smart sensors that collect data and help farmers monitor crop health, weather, and soil quality.
• Animal Data: These companies provide software and hardware specifically aimed at better understanding livestock, from breeding patterns (Connecterra) to genomics (TL Biolabs).
• Robotics and Drones: This category includes drone companies and related drone services that cater to agricultural needs (such as TerrAvion), as well as robots or intelligent farm machines that perform various farm functions more efficiently (such as Blue River Technology, backed by Monsanto Growth Ventures, Syngenta Ventures, and Khosla Ventures, among others).
• Smart Irrigation: These startups, including Hortau, provide systems that help monitor and automate water usage for farms using various data exhausts.
• Next Gen Farms: A growing category of companies that utilize technology to provide alternative farming methods to enable farming in locations and settings that cannot support traditional farming. Examples include AeroFarms for vertical farming and BrightFarms for new greenhouses.
• Marketplaces: These startups offer marketplaces relevant to agriculture by connecting farmers directly to suppliers or consumers without any middlemen. While some are e-commerce platforms, others use tech to facilitate physical marketplaces (La Ruche Qui Dit Oui).
• Plant Data/Analysis: These startups are getting more granular data about plant composition (microbial makeup, genetic expression, etc.) and/or analyzing that data to improve seed research & development and breeding (such as Benson Hill Biosystems).

Some companies may overlap with different categories and are grouped according to their main use case.

Track all the Ag Tech startups in this brief and many more on our platform

Startups are working to change how our farms work. Sign up for a free trial and look for Ag Tech Startups in the Collections tab.
Track Ag Tech startups

Ag Tech

250+ items

CLONE

See the full company list below:

The Growing Ag tech Industry

CompanySelect InvestorsCategory

Advanced Animal DiagnosticsCultivian Sandbox, InterSouth Partners, Kansas Bioscience Authority, LabCorp, Middleland Capital, Novartis Venture FundsAnimal Data

FarmnoteColopl, GREE, Kanematsu, Kotaro ChibaAnimal Data

Stellapps TechnologiesOmnivore PartnersAnimal Data

MastilineSHIFT InvestAnimal Data

TL BioLabsY CombinatorAnimal Data

ConnecterraBreed Reply, DeNA, Elias Tabet, MENA Venture InvestmentsAnimal Data

CowlarY CombinatorAnimal Data

MoocallThe Pearse Lyons AcceleratorAnimal Data

FarmdokCega GmbH, Tecent EquityFarm Management Software

LandmappHERi Africa, Omidyar NetworkFarm Management Software

AegroSP Ventures, WOW AceleradoraFarm Management Software

ScoutproUndisclosed InvestorsFarm Management Software

GranularAndreessen Horowitz, Emory Investment Management, Fall Line Capital, Google Ventures, H. Barton Asset Management, Khosla Ventures, Tao Capital PartnersFarm Management Software

AgworldREV, Yuuwa CapitalFarm Management Software

AgriviSouth Central VenturesFarm Management Software

ConservisCultivian Sandbox, Heartland Advisors, Middleland CapitalFarm Management Software

Crop-in Technology SolutionsAnkur Capital, Sophia ApSFarm Management Software

TreckerUndisclosed InvestorsFarm Management Software

PickTraceFundersClub, Y CombinatorFarm Management Software

FarmLogsAndreessen Horowitz, Drive Capital, First Step Fund, Huron River Ventures, Hyde Park Angels, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Sam Altman, Silicon Badia, Start Fund, SV Angel, Y CombinatorFarm Management Software

AgriwebbAl Hamra, John MurrayFarm Management Software

OnFarm SystemsMaxfield Capital, Sacramento AngelsFarm Management Software

AggrigatorUndisclosed InvestorsMarketplaces

AgroStarAavishkaar, IDG Ventures IndiaMarketplaces

La Ruche Qui Dit OuiBNP Paribas Securities Corporation, Caisse des Depots et Consignations, Christophe Duhamel, Felix Capital, Kima Ventures, Marc Simoncini, Paris Initiative Enterprises, Quadia, Siparex, Union Square Ventures, XAnge Private EquityMarketplaces

AgriconomieElaia PartnersMarketplaces

EM3 AgriservicesAspada AdvisorsMarketplaces

YagroUndisclosed InvestorsMarketplaces

Bowery FarmingBoxGroup, Lerer Hippeau Ventures, First Round CapitalNext Gen Farms

Alesca LifeBits x Bites, The Pearse Lyons AcceleratorNext Gen Farms

Freight FarmsBridge Boys, Kickstarter, LaunchCapital, Morningside Ventures, Rothenberg Ventures, Spark Capital, TechStarsNext Gen Farms

Aero Farms21Ventures, GSR Ventures, Middleland Capital, Missionpoint Capital Partners, Quercus Trust, Wheatsheaf InvestmentsNext Gen Farms

BrightFarmsNGEN Partners, WP Global Partners, Emil Capital PartnersNext Gen Farms

FreshboxChalsys LLPNext Gen Farms

Green Sense FarmsUndisclosed InvestorsNext Gen Farms

Gotham GreensUndisclosed InvestorsNext Gen Farms

CiBOFlagship PioneeringPlant Data/Analysis

Trace GenomicsIllumina Ventures, Fall Line Capital, Refactor CapitalPlant Data/Analysis

Benson Hill BiosystemsBioGenerator, iSelect Fund, Lewis & Clark VenturesPlant Data/Analysis

AgronosticoNXTP LabsPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

AgribleArcher Daniels Midland Company, Flyover Capital, Serra VenturesPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

GamayaSeed4Equity, VI PartnersPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

S4Arch Grants, BioGenerator, SixThirty, The Yield LabPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

ObserveEntrepreneur FirstPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

StriderBarn Investimentos, Monashees Capital, Qualcomm VenturesPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

GeoVisual AnalyticsTHRIVE AcceleratorPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

AgrilystBrooklyn Bridge Ventures, Metamorphic Ventures, TechCrunch DisruptPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

CropMetricsUndisclosed InvestorsPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

Adapt-NArmory Square Ventures, Arthur Ventures, Cayuga Venture FundPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

Farmers Business NetworkKleiner Perkins Caufield & ByersPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

Premier Crop SystemsUndisclosed InvestorsPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

BovcontrolRedpoint e.ventures, MassChallengePrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

CropZilla SoftwareUndisclosed InvestorsPrecision Agriculture And Predictive Analytics

MyAgDataAdams Street Partners, Alpha Capital Partners, Don Walsworth, Early Investments, John Rose, October Capital, OpenAir Equity Partners, River Cities Capital Fund, Saints Capital, Thorndale FarmPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

AgralogicsUndisclosed InvestorsPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

ProsperaBessemer Venture Partners, HishtilPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

aWhereAgFunder, Aravaipa Ventures, Elixir CapitalPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

ec2ecUndisclosed InvestorsPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

Flurosatmuru-DPrecision Agriculture and Predictive Analytics

Mavrx ImagingShasta Ventures, Slow VenturesRobotics and Drones

FarmBotSYD Ventures, muru-DRobotics and Drones

Airwood AerostructuresStartupXseed VenturesRobotics and Drones

Raptor MapsFounder.org, MIT $100K Entrepreneurship CompetitionRobotics and Drones

Harvest CROOUndisclosed InvestorsRobotics and Drones

Blue River TechnologyData Collective, Innovation Endeavors, Khosla Ventures, Monsanto Growth Ventures, National Science Foundation, Pontifax, Stanford Angels & Entrepreneurs, Steve Blank, Syngenta Ventures, Ulu VenturesRobotics and Drones

SkySquirrel TechnologiesInNOVAcorpRobotics and Drones

SkycisionAccelepriseRobotics and Drones

Leading Edge TechnologiesUndisclosed InvestorsRobotics and Drones

TerrAvionFundersClub, Y CombinatorRobotics and Drones

RessonBDC Capital, BDC Venture Capital, Build Ventures, East Valley Ventures, Monsanto Growth Ventures, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Rho CanadaRobotics And Drones

Abundant RoboticsGoogle Ventures, KPCB Edge, Yamaha Motor VenturesRobotics And Drones

Ceres ImagingImagineH20, Lemnos Labs, Silicon BadiaRobotics and Drones

Centaur AnalyticsOurCrowd, PJ Tech CatalystSensors

SLANTRANGEMainsail Partners, The Investor GroupSensors

GrowneticsCanopyBoulderSensors

Motorleaf500 startupsSensors

PycnoHAX, Launch KCSensors

Spensa TechnologiesEmerging Innovations Fund, Radicle Capital, Village CapitalSensors

Amber AgricultureiVenture AcceleratorSensors

FieldInTerra Venture PartnersSensors

SaturasThe Trendlines GroupSensors

Acuity AgricultureTHRIVE AcceleratorSensors

FarmobileAnterra CapitalSensors

GrassometerEnterprise Ireland, Kernel CapitalSensors

PhytechMitsui & Co., Syngenta VenturesSensors

Farmers EdgeFairfax Financial Holdings, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Mitsui & Co.Sensors

ArableSparkLabs, Imagine H20Sensors

MimosaTEKExpara AcceleratorSensors

Smart YieldsEnergy Excelerator, Blue StartupsSensors

Flux8200 EISPSensors

Garden SpaceHAXSensors

SemiosFedDev Ontario, Haywood Securities, Niagara Angel Network, Verizon CommunicationsSensors

SencropBreega Capital, Emertec GestionSensors

FlowiusImagine H20Smart Irrigation

TevatronicThe Pearse Lyons AcceleratorSmart Irrigation

LivnStart-up ChileSmart Irrigation

HortauAdvantage Capital Partners, Avrio Capital, BDC Venture Capital, Business Capital, Desjardins Venture Capital, TelesystemSmart Irrigation

SprinklIan Woodward-SmithSmart Irrigation

Smart Farm SystemsUndisclosed InvestorsSmart Irrigation

Powwow EnergyCalifornia Energy CommissionSmart Irrigation

HydroPoint Data SystemsChrysalix Global Network, Chrysalix Venture Capital, Firelake Capital, J.F. Shea Venture CapitalSmart Irrigation

CropXFinistere Ventures, GreenSoil Investments, Innovation Endeavors, Lab IX, OurCrowd.com, Robert Bosch Venture CapitalSmart Irrigation

AquaSpyAlpina Partners, Centre for Energy and Greenhouse Technologies, Cleantech Ventures, Colonial First State Private Equity, Cultivian Ventures, Emerald Technology Ventures, ES Ventures, Gresham Rabo Management, Nanyang VenturesSmart Irrigation

EdynFenox Venture Capital, Idea Bulb Ventures, Indicator Ventures, Kickstarter, Morningside Ventures, QueensBridge Venture Partners, THRIVE Accelerator, Y CombinatorSmart Irrigation
 

Beijing Oriental Technologies Ltd. Joins Philips Horticulture LED Solutions Partner Network

Beijing Oriental Technologies Ltd. Joins Philips Horticulture LED Solutions Partner Network 

19 May 2017

Philips Lighting, a Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) company and the global leader in lighting, today announced that it signed a partnership agreement with Beijing Oriental Technologies Ltd. (Beijing Oritech) on 11 May 2017 at the 19th Hortiflorexpo IPM show in Shanghai, China. The partners will cooperate closely on projects in the greenhouse segment. The partnership agreement was signed by Wu Shao Juan, vice general manager of Beijing Oritech, and Udo van Slooten, global general manager of Philips Horticulture LED lighting. 

This partnership strengthens the ability of both partners to further develop the Chinese greenhouse market. By combining Philips innovative greenhouse lighting solutions with the professional greenhouse expertise of Beijing Oritech, the collaboration will allow Chinese greenhouse growers to quickly learn and adapt Dutch cultivation technologies to produce excellent crops year-round with professional service and support. The energy savings realized with LED grow lights will help the Chinese greenhouse industry make more efficient use of resources as well. 

About Beijing Oriental Technologies Ltd.

Beijing Oriental Technologies Ltd. is a modern and professional business that designs, produces and installs industrial grade greenhouses and agricultural equipment that is competitively priced. The company has experience in both industrial and horticultural cultivation. Beijing Oritech is committed to providing high quality agricultural facilities that meet industry standards for the European Union, North America and Japan. Professionally trained staff provide a range of services, including greenhouse research, production and construction. 

For further information, please contact:

Daniela Damoiseaux, Global Marcom Manager Horticulture
Philips Horticultural LED Lighting, Nederland
E-mail:  daniela.damoiseaux@philips.com 
www.philips.com/horti 

About Philips Lighting

Philips Lighting, a Royal Philips (NYSE: PHG, AEX: PHIA) company, is the global leader in lighting products, systems and services. Our understanding of how lighting positively affects people coupled with our deep technological know-how enable us to deliver digital lighting innovations that unlock new business value, deliver rich user experiences and help to improve lives. Serving professional and consumer markets, we sell more energy efficient LED lighting than any other company. We lead the industry in connected lighting systems and services, leveraging the Internet of Things to take light beyond illumination and transform homes, buildings and urban spaces. In 2015, we had sales of EUR 7.4 billion and employed 33,000 people worldwide. News from Philips Lighting is located at http://www.philips.com/newscenter.  

G2V Optics: Shining A Light On Indoor Farming

G2V Optics: Shining A Light On Indoor Farming

Anyone who’s lived through winter in Northern Alberta knows how few precious daylight hours there are in the winter months, and how short the growing season is once spring finally arrives. Now imagine being able to grow plants all year round.

G2V Optics is improving the technology that makes it possible to grow plants indoors by mimicking the sunlight conditions of locations around the world. Its grow lights offer as close a match to natural sunlight as you can get, along with the ability to replicate sunlight conditions for any location on earth.

The venture was founded by Michael Taschuk, a former research associate at the University of Alberta. “We started with solar cell testing and plant research for indoor growing and vertical farming,” he explains. “We were trying to make better solar cells, but were frustrated with the testing equipment available. It was clear that there was a better way to do it.”

The small market for solar cell testing equipment made it an unviable business venture, but food production and indoor farming remains a much bigger problem going forward.

“It was very attractive to see if we could do something there,” said Michael.

The technology uses different coloured LEDs that are precisely controlled to mimic natural sunlight.

Now just over two years old, G2V Optics made a home out of TEC Edmonton’s coworking space, TEC Innovation District. Going in, Michael wanted two things: interactions with other early-stage businesses, and coaching.

“It’s been really good, Michael says. “I’ve had really detailed coaching, which has been enormously helpful.”

Since Michael is trained as a scientist, his biggest challenge remains learning to think of G2V Optics as a business first and foremost, rather than a technical problem. Luckily, marketing help from TEC Edmonton’s Executives in Residence is helping.

“[My coach] is good at challenging my thinking and is able to frame marketing in a way that I can understand,” Michael explains.

Going forward, Michael plans to move G2V Optics into grow lights for commercial applications, farms, research space, or even windowsill growing – he’s already received a lot of interest from the orchid growing community.

We wish Michael and the best as he continues to grow G2V Optics out of TEC Innovation District!

Seeds & Chips 2017 Wraps Up: 13 Prizes Awarded to The Most Cutting-Edge Food Innovation Startups

Seeds & Chips 2017 Wraps Up:

13 Prizes Awarded to The Most Cutting-Edge Food Innovation Startups

John Kerry to be among the Guests of Honor in the 2018 edition

Milano, May 18, 2017 - The closing ceremony of the 2017 edition of Seeds&Chips -The Global Food Innovation Summit – took place in Milano with the winners of the Seeds&Chips 2017 Awards collecting their prizes. The world’s most innovative start-ups in food and AgTech were publicly applauded. At the end of the Award Ceremony, Marco Gualtieri - founder and CEO of Seeds&Chips – took stock of the latest edition of the summit with the extraordinary participation of the 44th US President Barack H. Obama and announced the first of the Guest of Honor of Seeds&Chips 2018, former US Secretary of State John Kerry. Over 200 international speakers, investors, policy makers and startups from all over the world participated in SaC2017 with countries ranging from Italy and Israel to the United States, Jordan and Iraq.

“This exceptional edition of Seeds&Chips and Barack Obama's extraordinary participation have established once and for all that Milan and Italy are the world's hub and global reference point of Food and FoodTech. This, while reaffirming our role as a laboratory focused on finding solutions to the major global challenges, from production and nutrition to the sustainable use of resources and climate change,” stated Marco Gualtieri, founder of Seeds&Chips. “Today, more than ever, especially among the new generations, we have technological tools and skills at our fingertips that make it possible for us to face and overcome these challenges. It is our duty and responsibility to invest in and to support youth and innovation, especially in a key sector such as that of food. This in turn will result in an improvement in our lives and better conditions for the whole planet. President Obama personally asked me to collaborate on the themes of youth, food and innovation. A wonderful opportunity for Milano and Italy as a country and a notable and far-reaching task for Seeds&Chips that next year will host one outstanding keynote speaker each day of the Global Food Innovation Summit. Former US Secretary of State John Kerry has been the first to confirm his participation in 2018”.

Seeds&Chips 2017 Awards

Thirteen prizes for as many categories were awarded to participating startups during the Seeds&Chips Closing Ceremony publicly recognizing Italian and international projects that represent the best of today's innovation in food. The founder of Seeds&Chips, Marco Gualtieri hosted the event with journalist Rula Jebreal, who called the winners to the stage. The 12 startups were acknowledged by their "sponsor" companies that had contributed by supporting and promoting the project. The winner of the NextFood Award by Image Line was applauded by the contest's creators, who were also the leaders of the network awarding the prize. An ad-hoc Jury made up of Seeds&Chips staff, representatives of sponsor companies, by members of the Italian National Research Center in its capacity as a scientific advisor evaluated and selected the winning startups.

Awards and Winners

1. “SEEDS&CHIPS VISIONARY AWARD”

WINNER: Ingredient Optimized by Plasma Nutrition (USA), awarded by Alessandro Russo, President of Gruppo CAP

Plasma Nutrition is transforming the performance of protein powders through our patent-pending Ingredient Optimization process to increase sustainability and improve health outcomes.

2. “BEST DISRUPTIVE STARTUP AWARD”

WINNER: Food Pairing and Tailor Made (Belgium) awarded by Marcello Pincelli, Italy General Manager, PepsiCo

Foodpairing® is a market research automation company identifying the successful flavor combinations of tomorrow, through the combination of scientific flavor insights and unique consumer data.

3. “FUTURE FOOD AWARD”

WINNER: Flatev (Switzerland), awarded by Fabio Ziemssen, Head of Food Innovation and Foodtech, Metro Group

The Flatev Artisanal Bakery and Flatev Dough is Your Personal Baking System (PBS)! The closed baking system expertly prepares single servings of fresh tortillas, rotis, flatbreads, cookies and more with no fuss and no mess. A consumer simply pops a proprietary, recyclable, single serve dough container into the Flatev Artisanal Bakery, selects their desired setting, and soon enjoys a delicious, fresh treat in seconds.

4. “BEST FOOD EXPERIENCE AWARD”

WINNER: The Vegetarian Butcher (Italy), awarded by Niccolo Longoni, Innovation Manager of Just Eat

By 2022, the Meat Substitutes Market will be worth around 6 Billion USD. After a ten-year search, the Vegetarian Butcher team, inspired by our founder Jaap, developed and found innovative meat substitutes with a spectacular bite and texture. Our ideal is to have meat enthusiasts experience the meat free products and to realize they do not have to miss out on anything if they leave meat out of their diet for a couple of days a week. Our mission is also to free animals from the food chain by offering a complete and delicious alternative to meat; by doing that we also aim to reduce the carbon footprint caused by the intensive animal farming.

5. “EAT HEALTHY - BEST HEALTH AND DIET SOLUTIONS AWARD”

WINNER: INDI (Israel), awarded by Gabriella Bartoccelli, Head of Communication and External Relations, CAMST

INDI is the world's first Non Dairy Non Soy infant formula, developed by a team of highly experienced infant nutrition experts with over 60 years of relevant experience. Produced in both powder and liquid forms, INDI is a total solution for allergic, sensitive and vegan infants (0-36m). The Formula is 100% vegan (2 plants composition); Hormones free Antibiotic free GMO free Sustainable with Superior taste. Competitively priced and ready for full scaled production INDI has been approved by the Israeli ministry of health, endorsed by leading infant nutrition medical experts as it is fully conforming to infant nutrition strict intl. standards The formula is Patent Pending in 85 countries around the globe (National phase).

 6. “BEST MORNING SOLUTION AWARD”

WINNER: RISE Products (USA), awarded by Franck Bocquet, General Manager Délifrance Italy

RISE is a green startup that upcycles spent barley from microbreweries into flour for bakers. We produce a sustainable, organic, high-protein, nutritious and inexpensive alternative flour that has a wide range of applications –from cookies to pasta.

7. “INCREDIBLE GROWTH - FASTEST GROWING STARTUP AWARD”

WINNER: Blue Cart (USA), awarded by Francesco Spadaro and Giovanni Rebay, KPMG Partner

BlueCart is a SaaS mobile turnkey procurement platform that connects wholesale buyers with their exclusive network of suppliers in the hospitality industry. Every day, wholesale buyers, restaurants, hotels, etc. spend hours, placing orders to each of their suppliers via email or text messages. BlueCart enables orders to be communicated to all distributors with one click on their mobile phone. Distributors receive all orders in one dashboard, eliminating the need for manual data entry. This digital workflow offers transparency, efficiency, and accountability in the wholesale procurement process that simply does not exist today.

 8. “FARMING OF TOMORROW - BEST INNOVATION IN FARMING AWARD”

WINNER: Agrologies (Greece), awarded by Anders Nilsson, GROW IT UP Partner

Our products and services offer needed technology solutions to the agriculture sector. Agrologies has developed an automation irrigation platform & device, which combine an IOT device, a cloud service & a mobile app. Agrologies enables farmers to plan the irrigation of their crops depending on weather conditions & other data. Additionally, during Seeds&Chips, in partnership with New Holland Agriculture, growITup has opened the #CallForGrowth tender on Precision Farming: a call for all Italian startups and SMEs involved in developing innovative solutions in the food-value chain. To join the call, startups and SMEs must have significant business in Italy and submit their application by 6 June 2017 atwww.growITup.com .

9. “SMARTER RETAIL EXPERIENCE AWARD”

WINNER: Coffee Hat (Italy), awarded by Federica Palermini - Head of Brand & Communication and Digital Innovation, CARREFOUR

Coffee Hat was born with a clear mission: to deliver the finest specialty coffees with a cosmopolitan brewing approach and in line with our modern lifestyles. Our single-serve coffee capsule represents the synthesis of the values of Coffee Hat: Excellence of aromas, Genuineness & Traceability of the coffee beans.

 10. “BEST VERTICAL FARMING INNOVATION AWARD”

WINNER: Robonica (Italy), awarded by Association for Vertical Farming (AVF)

Linfa (Lymph) is Robonica’s smart and beautifully designed home greenhouse, which can have a strong impact on people's habits. It allows you to grow any kind of vegetables, such as herbs, hot peppers or salad, ready to eat in just 5 days. Linfa is a hydroponics culture system with LED lighting to replace natural light, where the recreated microenvironment is fully controlled.

11. “BEST SMART CITY VISION AWARD”

WINNER: AeroFarms (USA) awarded by Marco Moretti, A2A

Aerofarms produces delicious, nutritious leafy greens and herbs without sunlight, soil, or pesticides. Crops get the perfect amount of moisture and nutrients misted directly onto their roots in a completely controlled environment. With our patented technology, we take indoor vertical farming to a new level of precision and productivity with minimal environmental impact and virtually zero risk.

12. “NEXTFOOD AWARD by Image Line”

WINNER: Seamore Food (Netherlands), awarded by Roberto Ghioni, Partner and Graphic Designer at63De-Sign and by Paolo Rumi, Creative Director at63De-Sign

Seamore Food wins a full mentoring package aimed at product placement and industrialization. Seamore Food’s product SEA PASTA, 100% seaweed vegetable noodles -, stood out among participants in this 1st International edition of NEXTFOOD AWARD focused on Food Innovation targeted to all food startups with at least one branded product and which was held in conjunction with Seeds&Chips - The Global Food Innovation Summit. The NEXTFOOD AWARD is promoted by 63DE-SIGN, a team of communication designers with experience in different and converging sectors. Partnering with Seeds & Chips and thanks to the participation of the Politecnico di Torino Department of Architecture and Design and the Ecopak Observatory (OEP), the NextFood Award by Image Line enjoys the support of the main sponsor Image Line …Since 1988 hands on a keyboard, feet in the field ... and eyes on the present and the future of agriculture. With this in mind, Image Line develops digital solutions for professionals: innovative software for the sustainable management of agricultural holdings, vertical portals and search engines for sharing technical knowledge.

13. “BEST SOLUTION FOR A BETTER WORLD AWARD”

WINNER: Impact Vision (United Kingdom) awarded by Hugo Doyle, Head of International Public Affairs, Intesa Sanpaolo

ImpactVision's mission is to build a more transparent and secure global food system using hyperspectral technology. ImpactVision’s software platform provides quick and non-invasive information on the quality and characteristics of different foods, using image recognition and predictive learning. With ImpactVision, a picture of a food product is enough to understand its nutritional content, freshness level, ad protein, fat, sugar, or moisture content. An innovative solution to reduce waste by increasing quality and safety.

Information : www.seedsandchips.com; @SEEDSandCHIPS, #Sac17

For additional information

Close to Media – Seeds&Chips Press Office 

Tel +39 02.70006237
michela.gelati@closetomedia.it; davide.dibattista@closetomedia.it; luigi.borghi@closetomedia.it; francesca.pollio@c

Developing a Tool to Measure Nutrient Levels in Food

Developing a Tool to Measure Nutrient Levels in Food

The Bionutrient Food Association is working with producers to establish growing practices that yield more nutritious crops, while developing a standard for nutrient-dense foods and a handheld tool to measure those nutrient levels. The idea behind the tool is to use existing technology, like the camera in a Smartphone, to scan produce right in the grocery store, measuring the nutrient-density of the consumer’s food options.

The Association’s mission is to empower consumers to choose the most nutrient-dense foods, ultimately rewarding farmers for their improved growing practices.

Food Tank spoke with Dan Kittredge, founder of the Bionutrient Food Association and an organic farmer himself, to discuss why he thinks we need a definition of nutrient density, and the power he sees in this standard to transform the food system.

Food Tank (FT): What first inspired you to start working on nutrient density in food?

Dan Kittredge (DK): It started when I, as somebody who grew up on an organic farm, when I got married I had no other viable skillsets besides farming. And I came to terms with the fact that my crops were not healthy. They were succumbing to infestation and disease, and I was not economically viable. And I knew I needed to do a better job.

FT: What does the Bionutrient Food Association do to promote nutrient density in our food supply?

DK: Our core work is training growers. We work with growers of all sizes across the country, across North America, in what we call principles of biological systems. And we walk them through the growing season, walk them through the year, and talk about how plants grow in relation to the soil and microbiology, and help farmers identify what the main factors are so they can address them. That’s been our core work.

Our overt mission is to increase quality in the food supply. And by quality, I’m referring to flavor, aroma, and nutritive value, which is often times virtuous to nutrient density. So we’re now at a point where we have, I think, sixteen chapters across the country.

And we’re actually working on a definition of what quality means to density in the amount of nutrients. You know, what is the variation in nutrient levels in crops and trying to give consumers the ability to test that at point of purchase. Something along the lines of a handheld spectrometer, something that would be essentially, if a Smartphone had the right sensors, something that could be in your phone. You know, give the consumer the ability to test quality at point of purchase and then make your decisions accordingly, as an incentive to inspire the supply chain to change its practices.

FT: What does soil have to do with nutrient density?

DK: Well for the general public, I think we need to understand what nutrient density is first, because it’s a term that is thrown around a lot without a clear understanding of what it means. So for us, nutrient density is, you have greater levels of nutrients per unit calorie in a crop, better flavor, better aroma, and better nutritive value.

Basically, those compounds that correlate with nutrition, with flavor, and aroma in crops, are built from the soil and through a well-functioning microbial ecosystem. So plants evolved with a gut flora, in the same way that we have a gut flora, that digests their food for them. The bacteria and the fungi in the soil are fed by the plants. When the plant makes sugar in the leaves, it injects that sugar into the soil to feed the soil life, who then digest the soil and feed the nutrients up to the plant.

So it’s only when you have a well-functioning soil life, when the soil is actually flourishing, with vitality, with life, that’s the only time when you’re going to get the plants having access to the nutrients necessary to have nutrient dense crops.

So in many cases, farmers engage in management practices that are counterproductive. Tillage, bare soil, adding fertilizers, fungicides, insecticides, a lot of the basic practices of agriculture are systemically counterproductive to nutrient density in crops. Which is why we have pretty categorical data from USDA and other sources about the decreasing levels of nutrition in food over time.

FT: Why do consumers need standards and definitions to identify the nutrient density of their food?

DK: Because I think in many cases consumers don’t understand that there is a variation in nutrient levels in crops, and they don’t understand the connection between the nutritional value of food and the health giving attributes of food. I think we have a health crisis in this country that is not entirely due to our decreasing nutrient levels in crops, but in large part connects to that.

So helping to make those connections and give consumers the tools they need to actually use their economic leverage to facilitate solutions is our core agenda, a part of our core agenda.

FT: What benefits can producers gain from a better understanding of the nutrient levels of the food they grow?

DK: My experience as a farmer is that when your plants are healthier, they are more productive; they have better pest and disease resistance; you reduce the need for fungicides, insecticides, fertilizers; you’re sequestering carbon, so you’re building resilience into your system. You know, from the farmer’s perspective it’s really like there’s an octuple bottom line of systemic incentives.

But the issue is we don’t have, in many cases, the awareness as farmers or the humility about what we’re doing wrong, and we don’t have the economic incentives to change our practices.

FT: How does the nutrient density of our food supply impact food security and health?

DK: For us, as an organization, nutrient density is the lens with which we can begin to understand how all of these bigger issues are deeply interrelated. We propose that we have epidemic levels of degenerative disease in large part because we don’t have high-quality nutrition in our food.

We have high levels of toxins in our foods because farmers need to use those toxins to kill the pests because the plants aren’t healthy. When you actually have healthy plants they are physiologically indigestible to insects and bacteria. You don’t need fungicides and insecticides when you have healthy plants, when you’re producing healthy crops. All of the issues with aquifers and the ecosystem are by-products of what we call conventional ag.

We propose that by growing healthy plants you can actually sequester all the carbon necessary to reverse global warming fairly rapidly. If we were to, on a global scale, grow healthy food crops, we could sequester 15 parts per million of C02 per year.

So it’s the correlation between nutrient density in food and the reversing of a number of apparently intransigent social, environmental, and political human health issues. It’s really very exciting, we can solve these problems. If we just ate food that tastes good we would solve these problems.

FT: What is one major change in the food system that could increase the nutrient density of our food supply?

DK: I think if consumers had the ability to test the quality of the foods they purchase that would be all we would need. If consumers had the ability to, at point of purchase, choose between the three bags of carrots available the one that was most nutritious, and then they could use their economic power to inspire the supply chain to focus on quality as opposed to aesthetics, we could drive the solutions through that one point.

That’s what we’re focusing on because it feels like it’s the most plausible, it’s founded on transparency, empiricism, and empowerment. We’re not trying to convince federal agencies or governmental bodies or big corporations in any kind of adversarial way. We’re simply giving consumers the ability to choose the food that tastes good to them.

You know, if you have a carrot that tastes bitter, you’re not going to eat it, especially if you’re a three year old. If you have a carrot that tastes like a wonderful carroty flavor, you will want to eat it, even if you’re a three year old. So if we can provide growers the skills and consumers the understanding to choose the food that tastes good, our thought is that simple economic leverage will drive the solutions we’re looking for.

Fresh Food By Prescription: This Health Care Firm Is Trimming Costs — And Waistlines

Fresh Food By Prescription: This Health Care Firm Is Trimming Costs — And Waistlines

May 8, 20174:43 AM ET

ALLISON AUBREY

BigFishDesign/iStockphoto/Getty Images

The advice to eat a healthy diet is not new. Back around 400 B.C., Hippocrates, the Greek doctor, had this missive: Let food be thy medicine.

But as a society, we've got a long way to go. About 1 out of every 2 deaths from heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes in the U.S. is linked to a poor diet. That's about 1,000 deaths a day.

There are lots of places to lay the blame. Calories are cheap, and indulgent foods full of salt, sugar and fat are usually within our reach 24/7.

So, how best to turn this around? Consider Tom Shicowich's story. It begins with a toe. His left pinky toe.

"One day I looked down and it was a different color ... kind of blue," Shicowich says. And he began to feel sick. "I thought I was coming down with the flu."

The next day he was on the operating table. A surgeon amputated his toe, and it took two weeks of intravenous antibiotics to fend off the infection.

Registered dietitian Anna Ziegler counsels Tom Shicowich, who has Type 2 diabetes. Since enrolling in the Fresh Food Pharmacy program, Shicowich has lost about 45 pounds. His hemoglobin A1C level has dropped significantly.

Allison Aubrey/NPR

All told, he spent a month in the hospital and a rehab facility. "Oh, I tell you, it was a bad year," Shicowich recalls.

But this wasn't just bad luck. His toe emergency was somewhat predictable. Foot infections are a common complication of Type 2 diabetes — often due to nerve damage and poor blood flow, especially when the disease isn't well-controlled.

He racked up about $200,000 in medical charges from his toe emergency. The portion he had to pay out of pocket drained his savings account. "I did shell out $23,000 to the hospital, so that was a kick in the head," Shicowich tells us.

It was also a wake-up call.

Shicowich was more than 100 pounds overweight. He was was fighting nerve damage, high blood pressure and kidney problems — all complications of diabetes.

"So I knew it was time for a change," he told me. And last year, he found the help — and the motivation — he was looking for: a new food pharmacy program that has helped him overhaul how he eats.

Welcome to the food pharmacy

"Folks, good morning, and welcome to the ribbon-cutting and opening of the Fresh Food Pharmacy," intoned Sam Balukoff, the master of ceremonies at Geisinger Health System's recent debut of a new food pharmacy located on the grounds of a hospital in central Pennsylvania.

At this event, Shicowich was one of the stars of the show. Over the past year, he and about 180 patients with Type 2 diabetes have been participating in a pilot program aimed at getting them to change their diets and lose weight. They receive free groceries of healthy foods every week.

Shicowich has lost about 45 pounds, and he is now much more active.

The Geisinger Fresh Food Pharmacy is stocked with healthy pantry staples, like oatmeal and peanut butter, as well as fresh produce.

Allison Aubrey/NPR

Each week, Shicowich and the other participants come to the food pharmacy. In its new incarnation, it looks more like a grocery, with neatly stocked shelves filled with healthy staples such as whole grain pasta and beans. The refrigerators are full of fresh produce, greens, low-fat dairy, lean meats and fish.

The participants meet one-on-one with a registered dietitian. They're given recipes and hands-on instruction on how to prepare healthy meals. Then, they go home with a very different kind of prescription: five days' worth of free, fresh food.

Shicowich says it's a huge change from his old habit. "I would stop at a Burger King or a McDonald's or buy a frozen Hungry-Man dinner, basic bachelor food — you know, heat and eat."

But those days are over. Now, he and his girlfriend cook meals at home. He says now it's much easier to climb a flight of stairs or take a walk with his girlfriend.

"It's life-changing"

Shicowich's health has improved. His blood sugar and blood pressure have dropped so much that if he keeps on track, his doctors say they will reduce his medications.

"It's life-changing," David Feinberg, the president and CEO of Geisinger Health System, says of the results Geisinger has seen.

He says, so far, all the patients in the pilot program have made similar improvements. "It's mind-blowing," he says. And he says the range of support patients are offered — everything from dietary counseling to wellness classes and workshops — can help them succeed.

Take, for instance, the significant declines in patients' hemoglobin A1C levels. This is a blood test used to track how well patients with diabetes are controlling their blood sugar.

A year ago, Shicowich's A1C was close to 11. Now it's down in the high-6 range. Anything under 6.5 is considered below the threshold of Type 2 diabetes, according to the Mayo Clinic. Feinberg says this means that Shicowich — and other participants in the program — have a much better chance of avoiding many complications of Type 2 diabetes if they can maintain their A1C levels down in this range.

"[They] won't go blind; [they] won't have kidney disease, amputations," Feinberg says. "The list goes on and on."

Cheaper than paying for complications

When this program started, some questioned the premise of giving away free, fresh food to patients with diabetes. But keep in mind, the costs associated with diabetes in the U.S. now exceed $240 billion a year.

Once you consider that price tag, Geisinger's program can look like a bargain. Over the course of a year, the company will spend about $1,000 on each Fresh Food Pharmacy patient. All of the participants in the program are low-income, so the gift of the food eliminated a key obstacle to eating well.

Patients enrolled in the Fresh Food Pharmacy program receive about a week's worth of free, fresh produce and other healthy items.

Allison Aubrey/NPR

But would this lead to a reduction in health care costs?

Feinberg says as his team tracks hemoglobin A1C levels in the pilot participants, it is also assessing the number of medical visits and sicknesses along with the overall cost of caring for these patients.

It's still early days, and the team plans to fully analyze its first year of data. But here's what it estimates so far: "A decrease in hemoglobin A1C of 1 point saves us [about] $8,000," Feinberg says.

And many of the participants have seen a decline in hemoglobin A1C of about 3 points. "So that's [about] $24,000 we're saving in health care costs," Feinberg says. "It's a really good value." Geisinger is now in the process of expanding the program to new locations within Pennsylvania.

Is prevention medicine the future?

This program is an example of the booming interest in prevention-oriented medicine.

The current health care system in the U.S. is often more aptly described as a disease-care system. "It's reactive," says Mitesh Patel, a physician and assistant professor of health care management at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. "We wait until people get sick and then spend lot of resources helping them get better."

But Patel says there are signs this is beginning to change. "I think the paradigm shift has already begun," he told us. Patel's take on Geisinger's new Fresh Food Pharmacy program: It includes the kind of financial and social incentives that can help motivate people to make changes.

For instance, the Fresh Food Pharmacy gives free, fresh food not just to the patients enrolled but to everyone in their household as well.

"The way we behave is really influenced by others around us," says Patel. So promoting a group effort could "make the program a lot more sticky and more likely to succeed."

It's always a challenge to get people to maintain lifestyle changes over the long term. But, Patel says, "If you get the entire family to change the way they eat, you're much more likely to improve health."

A Coca-Cola truck drives past a Burger King in Northumberland County, Pa. More than 40 percent of county residents have conditions that put them at risk of diabetes, and 14.2 percent of households are food-insecure.

Allison Aubrey/NPR

The evidence that lifestyle-modification programs can reduce health care costs is starting to accumulate.

Earlier this year, researchers published findings in the journal Health Affairs that evaluated the medical expenses of Medicare patients with prediabetes. The patients had completed a one-year diabetes prevention program focused on healthy eating and increased physical activity. The researchers found, overall, the average health care savings was about $300 per person, per quarter — compared with patients who hadn't been through the program.

7 Innovative Solutions That'll Help Us Combat Climate Change & Give Us A Chance At Survival

7 Innovative Solutions That'll Help Us Combat Climate Change & Give Us A Chance At Survival

 ANJALI BISARIA 

MAY 10, 2017

If there ever was a time to innovate, it is now. 

The threat of climate change has sprung several architects and designers into action to devise alternatives that work for everyone. Most of these ideas will be taken to fruition in the future to counter every ill-effect caused by global warming.

These 7 solutions will tackle sea level rises, greenhouse emissions, and the changes in rainfall and temperatures. Based on revolutionary technologies, these solutions will give us hope for survival.

1. Skyscrapers that rotate

A building that can self-sustain using the energies present in nature has to be one of the most intelligent solutions to climate change. 

DYNAMIC ARCHITECTURE GROUP

Already under construction in Dubai, a rotating skyscraper designed by David Fisher will power itself with terrace-mounted solar panels and 79 horizontal wind turbines that will be placed between every storey. The focus here is on solar-powered panels wherein the energy will be clean and devoid of emission.

2. Crops that beat the heat

Traditionally, selective breeding methods have helped crops adapt to different climates. But the need to have drought- and heat-resistant crops is the need of the hour. 

BLACK GOLD

Scientists believe that genetic engineering is a great solution for driving characteristics from drought-tolerant species and introducing them into crops. While drought-resistance varieties of maize are being tested in Canada, drought-tolerant wheat is being tested in Egypt.

3. Skyscrapers that are farms

Climate change is making it difficult for crops to grow in a healthy environment and to slow the pace of this disintegration, vertical farms are one of the best ideas anyone has had in a very long time. 

PAWEL LIPIŃSKI AND MATEUSZ FRANKOWSKI

Vertical gardens with hundreds of species of plants have already become a reality in places like Bengaluru and China. Now the focus is on the farms - one is being planned in Africa where a skyscraper of crops will aim to bring Green Revolution to the sub-Saharan Africa. 

But what these farms will really achieve is this - solar-powered lighting, healthy crop cultivation, protection of crops from floods and droughts, and prevention of water and resource wastage.

4. Air conditioners that use solar energy

In a resource limited world that is being consistently pushed into the arms of climate change, we need to think bigger and better. To that end, solar-empowered air conditioners are the next big change we must accept. 

INFO-OGRZEWANIE

Solar-enabled air conditioners continue to cool even when the sun is at its peak and even provide hot water. By using thermal energy, the system compresses air that sprays refrigerant out of a jet. In the process, once this refrigerant evaporates, it sucks in heat. 

5. Houses that float

The sea level is expected to rise by a metre or more by the year 2100. Taking that into consideration, low-lying areas such as Bangladesh, Australia, and the Netherlands will face great peril. 

INHABITAT

Scientists think that houses, communities, and even cities will be "rethought" so that they can withstand a dangerous rise in the sea level. The Netherlands has created what is known as amphibious homes that are anchored to a vertical pile and come equipped with hollow concrete cubes giving the houses the buoyancy they need to withstand a five-metre rise in the sea levels. 

6. Artificial glaciers

Our glaciers are melting and cracking with alarming speed, aiding toward the rise in sea level and dwindling the supply to agricultural lands. Chewang Norphel, who is a retired civil engineer, came up with a genius idea to use artificial glaciers to keep the water supply alive especially in summers.

INDIEGOGO

A resident of Ladakh, Norphel's system pumps water into shallow pools that have rocky embankments. In winters, these pools freeze and once water is added, they gradually form a sheet of ice. In summers, the water melts and aids the sowing of crops. 

7. Cities that float

Belgian architect Vincent Callebaut's intelligent design for a floating city has grabbed eyeballs. His floating sustainable city will be based on a giant lily pad, which according to Callebaut, will win us our fight against rising sea levels. 

VINCENT CALLEBAUT

This floating city will be home to 50,000 climate refugees. It will help in collecting their own rainwater into a centralised lake system which in turn will help in generating power from renewable sources such as the wind, waves, and solar power. 

Climate change is a challenge that needs to be tackled head-on but that effort just can't be the responsibility of a few. We must join forces to either take forward these initiatives or come up with our own solutions to extend the life of our beautiful planet. 

Pure Harvest Plans UAE Tomato Farm After $1.1m Shorooq Investment

Pure Harvest Plans UAE Tomato Farm After $1.1m Shorooq Investment

The company said its climate-controlled growing system can be used to grow fruit and veg year-round in the Gulf

Agricultural technology firm Pure Harvest Smart Farms has announced plans to launch operations in the UAE after a $1.1m investment from Abu Dhabi’s Shorooq Investments.

Under the plans, the company will establish a 3.3-hectare farm site in Nahel where it will establish the country’s first high-tech commercial-scale greenhouse for year-round tomato production.

Pure Harvest will also establish regional offices in financial zone Abu Dhabi Global Market led by founder and CEO Sky Kurtz and co-founder, director and local partner Mahmoud Adi.

The company’s “semi-closed climate controlled growing system” has been purpose-built to overcome the challenges of year-round production in the GCC, according to the firm.

It uses pressure climate control technology with a hybrid evaporative and mechanical cooling system to maintain optimal climate conditions in what is claimed to be a resource-efficient and sustainable manner.

“In a market where existing commercial farms are forced to cease vegetable production during the extended summer period lasting June-October, the proposed technology offers to deliver a true and tangible food security solution,” Pure Harvest said.

The method can be used for a variety of crops including tomatoes, capsicums, cucumbers, eggplants and strawberries.

The company said it intends to supply premium produce to retailers, airlines and hospitality distributors to replace imported and seasonal fruit and vegetables.

“The region’s economies have begun to experiment with the use of mid-tech hydroponic technologies; however, to our knowledge nobody has ‘fully committed’ – investing the necessary capital and deploying the portfolio of technologies needed to produce Dutch-quality produce year-round at a commercial scale in hot/humid areas bordering the Arabian Gulf,” said Kurtz.

Pure Harvest has established an advisory board of academics, professionals and businessman to support its operations

It has also hired engineer Thomas Larssen of Larssen Ltd to help establish its operations.