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African Agtech Market Map: 99 Technologies Changing the Future of Agriculture in Africa
African Agtech Market Map: 99 Technologies Changing the Future of Agriculture in Africa
FEBRUARY 14, 2018 LINA BELMAACHI
Editor’s Note: Lina Belmaachi is cofounder of The Seed Project, a non-profit think tank. The team spent time on-the-ground in Africa in order to do a diagnosis and identify pain points across the agricultural value chain before heading to worldwide innovation hubs to meet with start-ups and select the solutions best adapted to African specificities. Their goal is to contribute to the African agricultural progress towards a system with optimized resource allocation through technology. Here Belmaachi organizes 99 African Agrifood technologies.
There are seven billion people on the planet and more than one-quarter of them suffer from malnutrition, mostly in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. By 2050, the global population is expected to reach 9 billion people and the number of under-nourished children to increase by 25 million. We are now facing one of the biggest challenges of this century – how can we feed all these mouths?
Innovative solutions need to be implemented and technology and information sharing can help produce enough food and correctly distribute it around the planet.
The African continent has huge potential with 60% of world’s non-cultivated arable lands but still spends $25 billion annually on food imports. Africa could play a major role and take on future food challenges, yet it needs to leapfrog the innovation gap with other continents to produce enough food for its own population and work toward becoming a food exporter.
Even though African farmers are attached to their traditions and quite reluctant to change, they are not immune to the technology revolution. Just like in the banking industry, where mobile money technologies have become pervasive regardless of the quasi-inexistent banking system, agriculture must follow suit.
Coming back to the basics of agriculture, farmers essentially have four main access challenges:
- Financing & Insurance
- Resources (inputs, equipment, labour)
- Knowledge & know-how (business and agronomic)
- Market (logistics, commercialization, transformation)
A representative and non-exhaustive selection of these companies have been visualized in this African Agtech market map, into nine categories by AgFunder and The Seed Project.
Financial Services
Financial services are not intuitively linked to agriculture, but they have a crucial role to play for African farmers. Smallholder farmers are seen as high-risk profile clients, dependent on climate, and with no collateral. This, combined with the lack of credit and risk-scoring capabilities, turns loan and insurance application processes into real hurdles for farmers. Different types of financial solutions are thus arising, such as:
- Micro-banking, with Oradian (Nigeria)
- Micro-insurance, with Mobbisurance (South Africa)
- Transaction services, with M-Pesa (Kenya)
- Data analytics for risk scoring with Acre Africa (Kenya) and credit scoring with Farm Drive (Kenya)
Ag Biotech Inputs
Farmers are using inputs (seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides) that are environmental detractors and not suited for their lands given their underdeveloped agronomic knowledge. There is room for start-ups to use advances in biotechnology such as plant breeding, gene editing, biologicals or microbiome research in order to propose more sustainable and efficient input solutions.
Wanda Organic is a Kenyan start-up providing organic bio-fertilizers to small and medium-sized farmers in order to improve their soil health and yields. Clients can order products by sending a simple SMS with their phone. Another company, InteliSeed from South Africa, partnered with Syngenta to provide farmers with optimized seeds that can offer them an butter output and quality for their crops. They are focused on vegetables, oil, and legumes and are starting to look at new varieties.
Resources Access
Smallholder farmers are operating on just a few acres of land, yet represent 80% of the food production in Africa. They are dispersed, landlocked and limited in cash, thus making it extremely difficult to access inputs or equipment. Marketplaces and sharing platforms aim at giving farmers the production tools they need.
Esoko is an information and communication service for agricultural markets in Africa that recently launched Tulaa, a marketplace for inputs. It combines mobile technology and last mile agent networks to connect input suppliers, financial service providers, and commodity buyers to smallholder farmers.
Apart from inputs, access to natural resources (i.e. water and energy) is a prerequisite for farming activity. Efficient management solutions are necessary to limit costs and waste. SunCulture, a start-up in Kenya is proposing an innovative solution. Their AgroSolar Irrigation Kit is a solar-powered irrigation system – a solar water pumping technology and a high-efficiency drip irrigation, bundled with a “pay-as-you-grow” financing service launched in 2016.
Farmers’ knowledge
With better agronomic practices and knowledge on value-add operations, farmers could obtain higher yields and better quality products. Yet the current farming system is based on traditional practices relayed from father to son. How can these isolated villagers have access and adopt best farming practices? This effort is commonly done by NGOs but a few other actors are also entering the field. For instance:
- Ojay Greene (Kenya) offers training, advisory services and market access for underserved smallholder farmers;
- ICT4Dev (Côte d’Ivoire) integrates ICT solutions for farmers’ problems through platform design, web management tools, mobile, SMS and voice;
- AgroSpaces (Cameroon) is a networking site connecting agricultural communities to share information and form valuable connections.
Farm Management Software, Sensing & IoT
As the saying goes, “what you measure, you optimize”. Farmers are operating in uncertain environments and are eager to obtain smart recommendations. UjuziKilimo is a Kenyan company that utilizes data science and machine learning to provide actionable agronomic insights to farmers. Data on soil and crops are obtained with sensors and farmers can get real-time information and advice by SMS. Sokopepe is another Kenyan startup offering market information and farm records management services through FARMIS, a farm management and diagnostic tool and SOKO+, a digital commodity trading and information system, linking small-scale farmers to end retailers and bulk purchasers of produce.
Farm Robotics, Mechanization & Equipment
Startups are working on automating many repetitive, tiring tasks in order for farmers to save time and energy. A good example is DroneScan, specially-designed drone attachments that can take inventory in food storage facilities and provide live feedback. The Institue for Grape and Wine Sciences is also working on a robot in South Africa for data gathering purposes on vineyards.
Midstream Technologies
Nowadays, consumers are increasingly looking at the life of products from “farm to fork” — they want to know the story behind the product. This is a great challenge in Africa, where logistics can be very tricky. Some Agtech start-ups are laying the foundation for a leaner supply chain, including quality testing devices, sensors for products’ traceability and safety, and smart logistics. iProcure is the largest agricultural supply chain platform in rural Africa. In addition to complete procurement and last-mile distribution services, the Kenyan company provides business intelligence and data-driven stock management across the supply chains. AfriSoft is a technology and software solutions provider in South Africa that addresses challenges such as warehouse management, quality, traceability and production tracking.
AgriBusiness Marketplaces
In Africa, the food supply chain is highly dependent on middlemen that take advantage of smallholder farmers given their limited market connectivity. Margins are then split between all these intermediaries, to the detriment of farmers. Some companies thus enable farmers to sell their products online, reaching final customers and increasing their revenues. M-Farm is a Kenyan startup providing a platform to connect farmers directly to buyers and inform them of price trends to optimize planting and harvesting timing.
Novel Farming Systems
The decreasing percentage of arable lands along with increasing pressure of climate change calls for more sustainable processes to produce food with fewer resources. The most well-known alternative to current farming systems is indoor farming, by growing produce in high-tech greenhouses and automated vertical farms. This includes aquaponics and hydroponics along with production facilities for new living ingredients such as insects and algae. Fresh Direct Nigeria brings fresh premium organic produce closer to market with their container farm technology. Using hydroponics and vertical farming within a shipping container, the company is able to grow directly in urban areas.
Using fly larvae fed on existing organic waste, AgriProtein from South Africa has developed and tested a new large-scale and sustainable source of natural protein.
Africa has the potential to turn into the breadbasket of the world, but the way is still long and arduous. Bright minds should keep looking for solutions fitted to the needs and adapted to the African context. As pointed out by Sudanese billionaire and philanthropist Mo Ibrahim, “This is neither a good time for Afro-optimism nor for Afro-pessimism! Africa needs to move towards Afro-realism.”
Four Growers: Farming For The Future
Four Growers: Farming For The Future
Senior mechanical engineering major Dan Chi promotes Four Growers, a company started by Chi and his friend Brandon Contino that is devoted to creating tomato-harvesting robots to work in greenhouses. (Photo courtesy of Karen Woolstrum)
BRIAN SALVATO | Staff Writer
February 13, 2018
Imagine being able to open a door and go from biting winds and snow to a warm, climate-controlled greenhouse that carries the aroma of fresh tomatoes — being harvested by robots roaming through the aisles.
For Brandon Contino and Daniel Chi, this fantasy is turning into a reality through their company Four Growers, as they aim to develop automated tomato harvesting robots to work in greenhouses.
Contino, CEO of Four Growers and a Pitt 2016 alumnus, takes the spokesperson role for the company, while senior mechanical engineering major Chi focuses on the technical side. The idea developed in April of 2017 when Contino and Chi began talking to tomato growers and associations.
“Dan and I knew we wanted to do something in an indoor farming or hydroponic growing place, so we decided to learn from those who were successful at it,” Contino said.
The two saw firsthand the issues facing modern-day tomato growing when they had their first greenhouse visit a month later with MightyVine — a sustainable tomato growing company in the Chicago area. These issues include weather variability, crop loss and population growth.
Contino’s conversation with the tomato growers made it clear that greenhouses are becoming the future of produce farming. The pair say greenhouse growing is more sustainable, versatile and efficient than traditional farming.
“They require 90 percent less water and provide consistent, yearlong, local, high-yield production with near-zero herbicide and pesticide use,” Contino said. “In fact, over 50 percent of fresh U.S. tomatoes are greenhouse grown.”
Despite the advantages greenhouse farming can provide, Contino said the largest limiting factors growers face are the cost, accessibility and reliability of their labor force.
“There are increasing shortages in workers, and the workers that they are able to find are inconsistent,” Contino said. “Growers desperately need automation to keep providing healthy, local produce at competitive rates.”
This is where Contino hopes Four Growers can provide a solution. Once fully developed, Contino said the automated harvesting robot could replace the role of a human.
“The tomato harvesting robot is able to go down greenhouse aisles, accurately identify ripe versus unripe clusters, harvest them from the plant without damaging them and place them in a cart to get sent back to the packhouse,” Contino said.
The robot — according to Contino’s estimates — will be able to harvest as much as a human, but do it more consistently at a lower cost.
While implementing robots could be more efficient, Four Growers also had to consider what it would mean to replace human labor. But they say that their robot would enable farmers to expand labor resources.
“By enabling this industry we’ll be able to increase the amount of fresh, … pesticide free, local produce greenhouse farms can produce,” Contino said. “It’s a win for the consumer, the greenhouse and the worker.”
So far, the company has developed a vision system for the robot that allows it to learn using artificial intelligence as it works. The two are currently refining a prototype, which they hope to test at major greenhouses.
“We are working with six different farms who wish to beta test our robot, and these farms collectively represent 20 percent of the U.S. and Canadian greenhouse tomato acreage,” Contino said.
For Contino and Chi, reaching the next stage is possible with continued support from Pitt’s Innovation Institute. Susan Dorff — manager for student programs at the Innovation Institute — worked alongside Four Growers since their inception. She said the company became involved with the Institute through student programming.
“We help [students] practice, learn, compete and get funding to continue with their idea,” she said.
Four Growers has been involved with several of the Innovation Institute’s programs, as well as competitions such as the Randall Family Big Idea Competition — an experience-based learning opportunity for Pitt students with big ideas that offers $100,000 in cash prizes.
Babs Carryer — the director of education and outreach at the Innovation Institute — said she has noticed distinct qualities in Contino and Chi’s approach between now and when she first met them.
“I think that the entrepreneurial lead is really important. I view Brandon [Contino] as sort of the driver of this project,” Carryer said. “A lot of student projects don’t quite have that strong a driver. Brandon’s really committed to doing this.”
Carryer said she was amazed by the amount of customer discovery the duo had done and the interest from tomato growers they received. Usually, Carryer sees entrepreneurs get nonspecific, general interest from companies that acknowledge their idea but never move beyond that. She believes the difference in Four Growers is their passion.
“They haven’t just been sitting on their laurels thinking about this. They’ve been actually out there really doing the deep work that’s necessary to advance an idea towards reality,” Carryer said.
As with any early product, there are still more hurdles on the road to completion. Carryer pointed out the challenge of realistically getting a robot to consistently harvest tomatoes without a problem, as well as Four Growers likely having to expand their team as their idea grows. Nevertheless, she believes in what Contino and Chi can do.
“I think they should be one of our leading student spinout companies, and I can’t wait to keep working with them on that,” Carryer said. “They definitely have what it takes.”
Tortuga AgTech Raises $2.4m Seed Round for Indoor Ag Robotics
BREAKING EXCLUSIVE: Tortuga AgTech Raises $2.4m Seed Round for Indoor Ag Robotics
DECEMBER 4, 2017 EMMA COSGROVE
Tortuga AgTech, a Denver-based robotics startup targeting controlled-environment fruit and vegetable growers has raised a $2.4 million Seed round.
Tortuga Agtech is developing robotic systems for harvesting fresh produce in controlled environments, from indoor hydroponics to greenhouses, starting with strawberries.
“Our products will enable advanced growing methods to compete with scale agriculture, which means growers will be able to grow better produce that’s also better for the planet,” says the company’s website.
The round was led by early-stage hardware VC Root Ventures and closed in September. Root Ventures is also an investor inMomentum Machines, San Francisco’s burger-making robot company, which raised $18.4 million in June.
Also participating in this round were Silicon Valley tech VCs Susa Ventures and Haystack, data-focused firm AME Cloud Ventures, AI and robotics VC Grit Labs, the Stanford-StartX Fund and SVG Partners, which runs the Salinas Valley-based Thrive Agtech Accelerator. AME Cloud is also an investor Zume Pizza, a pizza delivery company in the Bay Area with a robot for a chef, which raised $48 million in October.
Harvesting of row crops has been automated for decades, but harvesting of specialty crops, like nuts, fruits, and vegetables, remains an elusive skill for farm robotics startups. Not only do these crops vary greatly in size, height, and color, they can also be more delicate and require not just a light touch in picking, but immediate assessment and packing by size or quality.
Though high-tech indoor agriculture is ripe for robotics interventions because of the easier and more stable working conditions compared to the field, not many robotics startups have emerged servicing this kind of growing.
Spread is a Japanese indoor vertical farming company that will open an automated lettuce farm in early 2018 allowing for a 50% reduction in human labor, according to the company. Transplanting seedlings, managing the growth process, and harvesting will all be automated, according to the company’s website.
South San Francisco-based vertical farm Plenty’s CEO told Business Insider that the company uses tiny robots in its seeding process. Though the company is not yet commercially growing strawberries, CEO Matt Barnard told AgFunderNews this is in the works.
Most operating vertical farms today are growing only leafy greens and microgreens due to the short growing cycles and high yields. There are just a few growing strawberries such as Japan’s Ichigo Company.
Greenhouses, however, are gaining market share of strawberry cultivation worldwide. Though greenhouse-growing of strawberries in the US has not yet taken off, 24% of strawberries grown in the Netherlands, the worlds second-largest exporter of food (by value) grow in a greenhouse according to the Dutch Central Bureau of Statistics.
Also working on harvesting strawberries, but in outdoor environments, are Agrobot and Harvest Croo
The Hydroponic, Robotic Future of Farming in Greenhouses
Here in 2017, the automation revolution in agriculture is poised to take on a whole new life—thanks to robots. In a nondescript office park in Silicon Valley, a startup called Iron Ox is taking the first steps toward roboticizing greenhouse farming, which has so far stubbornly resisted automation.
The Hydroponic, Robotic Future of Farming in Greenhouses
WHEN YOU THINK of automation, you probably think of the assembly line, a dramatic dance of robot arms with nary a human laborer in sight. But that’s child’s play. The grandest, most disruptive automation revolution has played out in agriculture. First with horses and plows, and eventually with burly combines—technologies that have made farming exponentially cheaper and more productive. Just consider that in 1790, farmers made up 90 percent of the US workforce. In 2012, it was 1.5 percent, yet America still eats.
Here in 2017, the automation revolution in agriculture is poised to take on a whole new life—thanks to robots. In a nondescript office park in Silicon Valley, a startup called Iron Ox is taking the first steps toward roboticizing greenhouse farming, which has so far stubbornly resisted automation. In the very near future, then, the salad on your table may come from the hand of a robot.
Unlike a lot of indoor farming operations, Iron Ox isn’t joining the booming movement of LED-powered grow houses. It’s still very much interested in harnessing the energy of the sun (free energy!). So it’s invading the greenhouse instead. “The problem up until today is that greenhouse production costs around twice as much to grow a head of lettuce as the outdoor farm,” says Brandon Alexander, CEO of Iron Ox. “And one reason is there's no tractors or anything indoors.”
Iron Ox doesn't have a tractor, but it also doesn't need one. Its solution begins with a custom hydroponics tray filled with nutrient-rich water. Over that is a cover with a grid of holes, in which the plants sit in little pods. This is all designed so a custom robot—essentially an intelligent rectangular frame—can come along and slide lifters under the tray, then cart it to a different part of the greenhouse.
Why bother with all the shuttling around? Because they can. Out in a field, farmers have no choice but to leave plants where they planted them—and because plants grow, farmers have to space out seeds to accommodate their fully-grown dimensions. But Iron Ox doesn't have to waste that extra space.
Here in the greenhouse, they’re using different trays with different spacing of their holes, some farther apart than others. Leafy greens, in particular, need more horizontal room to expand, so baby plants start off in a more densely packed tray, then graduate to trays with more room as they grow. “This, combined with the fact that we don't have to worry about seasonality—we can always be seeding, always be harvesting—allows us to grow over 30X per acre compared to an outdoor farm,” says Alexander.
The problem then becomes transplanting between trays. That’s where the robotic arm comes in. It sees with stereo cameras on its wrist and grabs the plants with a gripper custom-designed to fit the pods (which the plants never outgrow, by the way). The arm sits between two trays of different densities, eyeballing the plants and moving them from one tray and to another.
Because it’s equipped with a camera, it can simultaneously build a 3-D image of each plant. “Is it the size that we expect?" says Jon Binney, CTO of Iron Ox. "Is it the shape that we expect? If it's going to fall one way or the other, that could be a lighting problem. Brown spots on the edges of the leaves could be too much light and not enough air coming through.”
So Iron Ox’s system not only automates greenhouse growing but supercharges it. The company is developing machine learning algorithms that will automatically detect diseased plants and kick them out of the system before the sickness spreads. Underdeveloped plants would also get the boot. What you end up with is a system that does the repetitive tasks of greenhouse farming faster and more precisely than a human, and uses that data to make the process all the more efficient.
Whether in the greenhouse or the field, it’s this kind of automation that will be essential to the future of humanity. Our species has to figure out how to feed a rapidly growing population on a planet that refuses to grow bigger. So we’ll have to get smarter about how we use the land we’ve got, or we’re going to have trouble. That and climate change will monkey with water supplies around the world, so the inefficiencies of traditional outdoor farming are going to start looking more and more untenable. (Iron Ox claims its hydroponics system uses 90 percent less water than outdoor farming. Studies of hydroponics, in general, have found about the same efficiencies.)
But automation means humans lose jobs though, right? Not in this industry. “We've talked to dozens of commercial farmers, outdoor and indoor, and the biggest issue by far is labor scarcity,” says Alexander. “So the truth is today, it doesn't matter what country, newer generations are not taking up farming. And so there's a significant labor shortage especially here in California.” (He ain’t lying— between 2002 and 2014, the number of full-time farm workers in the US plummeted by 20 percent.)
The solution is to hand the future of our food supply to the machines. There’s simply no other way to go about it. So be careful not to bite the robotic hand that feeds you.
This $40 Million Robotic 'Plantscraper' Will Feed over 5,000 People Per Year
By 2050, the world's population is expected to swell to 9.6 billion, with around 66% living in urban areas. This projection is leaving many cities wondering how they will feed all those people.
This $40 Million Robotic 'Plantscraper' Will Feed over 5,000 People Per Year
- Leanna Garfield
- Nov. 18, 2017
Plantagon
By 2050, the world's population is expected to swell to 9.6 billion, with around 66% living in urban areas. This projection is leaving many cities wondering how they will feed all those people.
A Swedish food-tech company called Plantagon is proposing that cities consider building what it calls "plantscrapers" — office towers that contain giant indoor farms. Plantagon is constructing its first plantscraper in Linköping, Sweden.
Called The World Food Building, the tower will operate hydroponically, meaning vegetables (mostly greens) will grow without soil in a nutrient-rich, water-based solution. The farm will largely be automated, Plantagon CEO Hans Hassle told Business Insider.
Construction of the $40 million building began in 2012, and it's set to open by early 2020.
Check out the plans below.
The World Food Building will produce approximately 550 tons of vegetables annually — enough to feed around 5,500 people each year.
Plantagon
Source: Helgi Analytics
The front of the 16-story tower will include the farm, while the back will include the offices.
Plantagon
About two-thirds of the building will be devoted to offices, while the other third will include a huge indoor farm.
Plantagon
Companies are now signing leases to move in when it's complete.
The crops will grow using both natural sunlight and LEDs.
Plantagon
The LEDs will be calibrated to specific light frequencies to maximize production.
Plantagon
Robots will perform many of the farm's processes. This will keep operational costs down.
Plantagon
Compared to an outdoor farm of the same size, the plantscraper will generate more food while using less land and water, Hassle said. He estimates the tower will save 1,100 tons of CO2 emissions and 13 million gallons of water annually.
Plantagon
Some meeting rooms, like the one below, will have a view of the farm.
Plantagon
In other areas of the tower, there will be eateries for office employees and the public.
Plantagon
In addition, the building will include a market where people can purchase veggies. Local restaurants and other food retailers will be able to buy directly from Plantagon, which will operate the farm, Hassle said.
Plantagon
Plantagon has designed another similar indoor farm with offices, though it's in the shape of a globe. There are no plans to build it yet.
Plantagon
This plantscraper will include a spiraled food production line, which automatically moves the plants from the bottom to the top and back again while they grow. The length of the cycle would depend on the crop, but would normally take around 30 days, Hassle said.
Plantagon
The designers hope Linköping's plantscraper will encourage other cities around the world to build large-scale indoor farms that have multiple uses.
Plantagon
Plantagon is in conversations with other developers in Sweden, Singapore, the United States, Hong Kong, and Shanghai to build similar structures.
Hassle believes that more cities should grow food closer to urban centers. "This project demonstrates how to feed cities of the future when they lack land, water, and other resources," he said.
These Kale Farming Robots In Pittsburgh Don't Need Soil Or Even Much Water
These Kale Farming Robots In Pittsburgh Don't Need Soil Or Even Much Water
AARON AUPPERLEE | Monday, July 3, 2017, 12:09 a.m.
Brac Webb, CIO, Danny Seim, COO, Austin Webb, CEO, Austin Lawrence CTO, of RoBotany, an indoor, robotic, vertical farming company started at CMU sells their products at Whole Foods in Upper Saint Clair,
Friday, June 30, 2017.ANDREW RUSSELL | TRIBUNE-REVIEW
Robots could grow your next salad inside an old steel mill on Pittsburgh's South Side.
And the four co-founders of the robotic, indoor, vertical farming startup RoBotany could next tackle growing the potatoes for the french fries to top it.
“We're techies, but we have green thumbs,” said Austin Webb, one of the startup's co-founders.
It's hard to imagine a farm inside the former Republic Steel and later Follansbee Steel Corp. building on Bingham Street. During World War II, the plant produced steel for artillery guns and other military needs. The blueprints were still locked in a safe in a closet in the building when RoBotany moved in.
Graffiti from raves and DJ parties once held in the space still decorate the walls. There's so much space, the RoBotany team can park their cars indoors.
But in this space, Webb and the rest of the RoBotany team — his brother Brac Webb; Austin Lawrence, who grew up on a blueberry farm in Southwest Michigan; and Daniel Seim, who has pictures of his family's farm stand in Minnesota, taped to the wall above his computer — see a 20,000-square-foot farm with robots scaling racks up to 25 feet high. This farm could produce 2,000 pounds of food a day and could be replicated in warehouses across the country, putting fresh produce closer to the urban populations that need it and do it while reducing the environmental strain traditional farming puts on water and soil resources.
“It's the first step in solving a lot of these issues that are already past the breaking point,” Austin Webb said.
RoBotany is a robotics, software and analytics company aiming to bundle its expertise to make indoor, vertical farming more efficient and economical.
Webb left a job as an investment banker in Washington to attend Carnegie Mellon University's Tepper School of Business in hopes of founding a startup around food security issues. While in D.C., Webb volunteered at the Capital Area Food Bank and donated to food security causes.
At Tepper, he met Daniel Seim, an electrical and computer engineer pursuing his MBA. Seim connected with Webb on his mission. The pair teamed up with Lawrence, who left a prestigious Ph.D. program at Cornell to found RoBotany, and brought in Webb's brother, a self-described nerd who taught himself to code at age 12 and turned into a software and high tech engineering whiz.
The team speaks the same language when it comes to why they formed RoBotany. The population is growing. Traditional farming degrades soil and pollutes water. Current vertical farming takes a lot work and doesn't use labor and space efficiently.
Austin Webb said RoBotany seeks to solve all of those problems. His brother, Brac, said it must.
“This is probably one of the first problems humanity needs to solve,” Brac Webb said.
The company started in June 2016 with its first farm in a conference room at Carnegie Mellon University's Project Olympus startup accelerator in Oakland.
The first version of the farm was 50 square feet and produced about a pound of micro leafy greens or herbs a day. Once the farm was up and running, RoBotany supplied arugula and cilantro to the Whole Foods in the South Hills under the brand Pure Sky Farms. The team delivered its latest produce Friday.
“The company aligns well with our mission of providing high quality, locally grown produce and we are excited about the success of their vertical growing method for urban environments,” said Rachel Dean Wilson, a spokeswoman for Whole Foods.
In February, the company expanded, big time. The team leased 40,000 square feet of warehouse and office space from the M. Berger Land Co. on Bingham Street. Version two of the farm is taking shape in one corner of the warehouse. It will be 2,000 square feet and produce 40 pounds of food per day. Version three is in the works. The team hopes it will be 20,000 square feet and produce 2,000 pounds of food today.
“It does speak to a different form of agriculture,” Lawrence said.
In a RoBotany farm, robots move up and down high racks moving long, skinny trays of plants into different growing environments. The amount and color of LED lights can be controlled. So can the amount and make-up of the nutrient-rich mist sprayed directly onto the roots of the plants.
The plants — micro versions of leafy greens like kale, spinach and arugula and herbs like cilantro and basil — grow in a synthetic mesh rather than soil. The roots hang freely from the bottom of the trays.
Plants grow two to three times faster than outdoors, Austin Webb said. They use 95 percent less water. And they have the nutritional value and taste to rival any traditionally grown produce, he said.
The company has raised $750,000 to date and hopes to raise $10 million when it closes its first round of financing this summer to begin construction of the big farm. The team hopes to have it up and running by the winter.
Austin Webb anticipates hiring seven to 10 people to work the farm when the full version is running. Another four to 10 people will be needed to run the business end of the company and maintain the robots and software. The robots will do the dangerous work, moving around trays high in the air.
Eventually, RoBotany will expand its crops to include other fruits and vegetables.
“You can't just feed the world on lettuce,” Austin Webb said.
Aaron Aupperlee is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at aaupperlee@tribweb.com, 412-336-8448 or via Twitter @tinynotebook.