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Vertical Field Has Signed A ‘Multi-Million Dollar’ Deal With Rami Levy Supermarkets To Offer Customers Fresh Produce Picked From Vertical Farms
The startup creates unique vertical plant installations made up of separate blocks of plants that can be rearranged at will
You’ve got kale: Grocery chain to sell salad leaves, herbs grown on ‘green wall’
12-13-20
Israeli startup Vertical Field has signed an accord with one of Israel’s largest supermarket chains to provide its stores with vertical farm installations, enabling customers to buy freshly grown produce such as lettuce and parsley.
Vertical Field, formerly called GreenWall Israel, said on Sunday that the “multi-million dollar agreement” with Rami Levy Hashikma Marketing 2006, a low-cost supermarket chain, will see the vertical farms installed at locations over the course of five years. The deal will enable the chain to sell produce grown locally, in Vertical Field’s proprietary soil-based container technology.
The startup creates unique vertical plant installations made up of separate blocks of plants that can be rearranged at will. This green wall of vegetation is suitable for growing vegetables in stores, offices and apartment buildings, or anywhere in urban areas, which have little space but many walls.
Produce grows vertically on the container’s walls, and according to the firm, minimizes both water consumption and use of soil. The plants are initially grown on tabletops and then planted into walls, where the soil is held via a special method.
The produce sold is grown in a sterile indoor environment without chemical pesticides or fertilizers, the statement said, and in controlled conditions, ensuring product consistency and yield throughout the year with no seasonality or weather effects.
An example of a vertical garden at the Vertical Field (formerly called GreenWall) greenhouse during a tour on March 23, 2016. (Melanie Lidman/Times of Israel)
Vertical gardens are part of a worldwide trend looking for ways to marry technology and agriculture in an attempt to feed an ever-expanding global population.
The deal with Rami Levy was signed after a successful pilot was held with the supermarket chain, the company said in a statement on Sunday.
The crops, which include lettuce, basil, parsley, kale, and mint, will be sold daily, directly to clients after harvest, “at competitive prices,” the statement added.
The walls will be in containers stationed outdoors, on the premises of the supermarkets. Customers will be able to buy the produce on the spot from a seller who will pick the produce from the container and hand it over, with payment happening on the spot.
Customers will also have the option of purchasing the produce with the soil bedding that it was grown in, “allowing the customers to enjoy all the nutritional benefits of a freshly harvested crop and a longer shelf life,” the statement said.
Lettuce and parsley grown by Vertical Field (Courtesy)
The containers are already stationed at Rami Levy stores in Bnei Brak, Ashdod, and Modiin, a spokeswoman for Vertical Field said.
The “vertical farm” was developed at the company’s research headquarters in Ra’anana, Israel.
“The portable urban farm that we have developed is designed to be located in indoor and outdoor spaces at supermarkets, restaurants, shopping malls, rooftops, and other on-premise locations,” said Guy Elitzur, the CEO of Vertical Field. “Over the past year, we conducted a number of successful pilot projects, and installed vertical farms adjacent to supermarkets and restaurants in the United States and Israel.”
This is the first supermarket chain that with the startup has reached an agreement, a spokeswoman said.
“Our customers bought Vertical Field’s produce during the pilot, and returned to purchase more,” said Yafit Attias Levy, VP Marketing at Rami Levy, said in a statement. “Therefore, we have decided to expand the partnership with Vertical Field to additional branches of the supermarket, and to offer fresh, high-quality, and pesticide-free produce in a way that increases shelf-life for our customers.”
Vertical Field was founded by Guy Barness in 2006.
Lead photo: A Vertical Field container stationed at the Tel Aviv port (Courtesy)
Indoor Farming Gets Greener Via Solar Load Aggregation
Transportation to markets is one expense addressed by controlled environment agriculture. Other direct energy costs remain a challenge
DECEMBER 28, 2020
The economic feasibility of plant factories has been questionable because of energy costs. Now, customers of one containerized farm provider can opt for 100% clean energy using a subscription service.
Food and commercial crops that grow outside can soak up sunshine in order to grow. But move those same plants indoors as part of so-called “controlled-environment agriculture” and the associated energy costs can make all but the highest-margin crops prohibitively expensive.
That’s because, in a greenhouse or plant factory, up to 60% of operating costs can go to energy; about half of that goes to lighting. And, because the grid still is not decarbonized, fossil-based electricity sources wind up making controlled environment agriculture something less than green.
To read the entire article, please click here.
Lead photo: Transportation to markets is one expense addressed by controlled environment agriculture. Other direct energy costs remain a challenge. David Wagman
Urban Crop Solutions Solidifies Presence In North America With The Appointment of Douglas Gamble As Sales Manager
He joins UCS from the more traditional side of agriculture – having been raised on a dairy farm, which later transitioned into a large-scale Greenhouse operation
Urban Crop Solutions (UCS) is pleased to announce the appointment of Doug Gamble as their North American Sales Manager. Doug has spent over 25 years in management, sales, and business development roles; and brings his own entrepreneurial experiences and spirit to the position. He joins UCS from the more traditional side of agriculture – having been raised on a dairy farm, which later transitioned into a large-scale Greenhouse operation.
As the company’s first North American Sales Manager, Doug will lead the supply and delivery of UCS’s latest solution – the ModuleX plant factory; and ramp up the export of the company’s technology and environmentally beneficial solutions to urban farming in Canada and the United States. Doug will lead the operation from the small town of Sackville, New Brunswick in Canada – where his office, home, and family are located.
Urban Crop Solutions is a Belgium based pioneer in the fast-emerging technology of indoor vertical farming. It has developed over the past five years, 220 plant growth recipes, for which all drivers for healthy plant growth – such as optimal LED spectrum and intensity, nutrient mix, irrigation strategy, and climate settings – are tested and validated daily in its Indoor Farming Research Lab in Waregem (Belgium). To date, UCS has delivered over 25 projects for clients throughout Europe, North America, and Asia-Pacific. Its commercial farms are being operated for vegetables, herbs, micro-greens for food retail, foodservice, and industrial use. Research institutions are also operating UCS’s grow infrastructure for scientific research on banana seedlings, flowers, and hemp.
For more information:
Urban Crop Solutions: www.urbancropsolutions.com
For more information on this press release, or on Urban Crop Solutions and their products and services, you may contact Doug Gable, Sales Manager - North America; or Brecht Stubbe, Global Sales Director.
Doug Gamble, Sales Manager doga@urbancropsolutions.com
Brecht Stubbe, Global Sales Director brst@urbancropsolutions.com
European headquarters: Regional headquarters:
Grote Heerweg 67 800 Brickell Avenue, 1100 Suite
8791 Beveren-Leie (Waregem) Miami, FL, 33131
Belgium USA
(+32) 56 96 03 06 +1 (786) 408-6027
Facebook: www.facebook.com/urbancropsolutions
Twitter: www.twitter.com/U_C_Solutions
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/urbancropsolutions
YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/c/UrbanCropSolutions
ISRAEL: The Supermarkets That Have A Farm In The Parking Lot
“Our first Vertical Field farm at Rami Levy was launched in Modi’in. Now we have four farms at Rami Levy branches whose produce is already sold inside the supermarket
Four Israeli supermarkets sell their customer’s pesticide-free greens and herbs grown inside an indoor vertical farm set up in a trailer just outside their doors.
DECEMBER 14, 2020
When you buy supermarket veggies, you don’t know how far they traveled or when they left the farm. And that matters because picked produce loses nutritional potency rapidly.
Now, shoppers in four Israeli supermarkets can buy pesticide-free greens and herbs harvested from an indoor farm right on the premises.
This unusual setup comes courtesy of Israeli agri-tech business Vertical Field and the Rami Levy supermarket chain.
A Vertical Field indoor farm at a Rami Levy supermarket in Israel. Photo courtesy of Vertical Field
“Vertical Field has been operating in partnership with Rami Levy for approximately a year,” says Noa Winston, marketing director for Vertical Field.
“Our first Vertical Field farm at Rami Levy was launched in Modi’in. Now we have four farms at Rami Levy branches whose produce is already sold inside the supermarket,” Winston tells ISRAEL21c.
“Additionally, we have a farm at the Tel Aviv Port in collaboration with the city of Tel Aviv. We have plans to significantly expand our operations with Rami Levy and to open more farms over the course of 2021.”
The indoor farms raise leafy greens and herbs such as kale, lettuce, basil, cilantro, dill, parsley and peppermint. Bok choy and spinach are now being planted.
Leafy greens and herbs growing in a Vertical Field farm at a Rami Levy supermarket.Photo courtesy of Vertical Field
The space-saving vertical containers grow the plants in soil under LED lighting from BioLed EcoLight Systems based at Kibbutz Tzuba. (BioLed also provides the lighting for Energy Boxes that Innovation: Africa provides to off-grid African schools and health centers.)
The Ra’anana-based company says that indoor vertical farming uses 90 percent less water than traditional field farming and saves as much as 20 days’ time from seeding to harvest in a typical growth cycle. The system is weather- and pest-resistant.
Vertical Field has two installations in New York State – at a supermarket and a restaurant – and has ambitious expansion plans.
“Our goal is to penetrate the global market,” says Winston. “We have begun that process starting with the United States, where we have two farms, and we plan to continue to expand there. We are also currently developing several promising projects both in the field of vertical urban farms as well as vertical landscaping that will be launched in the USA, in Europe, and other regions.”
Lead photo: These boxes of Vertical Field greens say, “Grown and picked here and now,” because they are raised on the supermarket premises. Photo courtesy of Vertical field
Food Will Be Grown Hydroponically In Shipping Containers In Cardiff's Bute Park
Starting with one trial shipping container in Bute Park, the plan is to expand across the city to grow much more food locally and with much less water. Growing food locally is seen as a key way to reduce carbon emissions, rather than shipping food from across the world
New Technology Means One Shipping Container
Could Grow The Same As 3.5 Acres Worth of Land
A hydroponics unit growing strawberry plants
Local democracy reporter
23 DEC 2020
Food will be grown hydroponically in shipping containers as part of Cardiff council’s plan to become a carbon-neutral city by 2030.
Starting with one trial shipping container in Bute Park, the plan is to expand across the city to grow much more food locally and with much less water. Growing food locally is seen as a key way to reduce carbon emissions, rather than shipping food from across the world.
Cardiff council has been consulting the public on its plan to cut the city’s carbon emissions to net zero in a decade. The draft One Planet strategy includes several schemes to reduce emissions and mitigate the effects of the climate crisis and rising global temperatures.
Food is a big part of that strategy, with the shipping container in Bute Park; plans to revamp Cardiff Market; letting community groups grow food on council-owned land, and making space on new housing developments for growing food.
Councillor Michael Michael, cabinet member for the environment, said one shipping container could grow the same amount of food as 3.5 acres of land. He said: “I’m a great believer in this technology,” as he revealed details of the plans.
The shipping container used to be in Bristol, growing herbs and vegetables for local restaurants. The council will pilot the technology in Bute Park, before potentially rolling it out further, working with community groups and possibly growing food to feed schoolchildren.
The technology works by growing food on racks without soil, using much less water, and controlling the heat and light inside the container to grow all throughout the year.
Cllr Michael said: “You can grow in that one container equivalent to three and half acres, because it’s 24 hours a day. This is becoming much more prevalent. Private companies are putting more and more money into hydroponics. If you can grow basil hydroponically in Scunthorpe, then why would you fly it in from Kenya?
“We do well with allotments in this city, but mostly at this time of year, they’re dormant. What if we work with people with these types of units? Unfortunately because of Covid, we haven’t been able to use it yet — but we will. This is an experiment. I’m a great believer in this technology.”
Several Marks and Spencer stores in London are also trialing the new technology, growing herbs in their shops. Cllr Michael said in the future Cardiff could see “giant greenhouses” above supermarkets growing food to be sold in the shops below.
He added the One Planet strategy will explore how food is bought for schools, and whether more of that food could be grown locally. Fruit trees could also be planted across the city for people to pick and help themselves.
Councillor Michael Michael, cabinet member for the environment (Image: South Wales Echo)
The draft carbon-neutral plan was welcomed by the Conservative and Liberal Democrat groups in Cardiff council, who both pointed out where they thought were gaps in the strategy.
Cllr Emma Sandrey, the Liberal Democrat’s spokesperson on the environment, said the council needs to focus more on reducing how much meat people eat. As well as transporting, a lot of emissions from food come from eating meat, especially beef.
She said: “We believe the council should implement ‘meat-free Mondays’ or a similar scheme across local authority canteens, to educate and inform people about the alternatives to meat, and the benefits of reducing meat consumption for the environment and for individual health.”
She added tackling food waste should be another priority. Currently, apps like Too Good to Go help link up restaurants with surplus food at the end of the day to customers who can buy that food at a discount, to save it from going to waste.
Cllr John Lancaster, the Conservative’s spokesperson on the environment, said the strategy failed to mention the docks or Cardiff airport. Shipping and flying both emit a lot of carbon and are currently difficult to fuel with electricity.
He added the council only has one ecologist and one tree officer, despite promises to address the biodiversity crisis and plant thousands of trees. He said: “There’s a disparity between the words in this One Planet strategy and how they go about it.”
Monitoring emissions needs to be another priority, Cllr Lancaster said: “There’s no plan for committed monitoring or achieving targets. That’s a big concern. How do we know how well the council is doing, how do we know if their targets are on course?”
The latest available data, from 2018, showed that Cardiff emits about 1,647 kilotonnes of carbon dioxide annually — down from 2,679 in 2005. The plan is to get this number to zero by 2030.
The public consultation on the draft One Planet strategy has now ended, and the council is considering the responses, with a full strategy and delivery plan due in the spring.
All the details can be found on www.oneplanetcardiff.co.uk.
Did You Miss Our Q&A With Our first Farmer? Here Is The Recording!
Catch up on the recording of their conversation below and learn firsthand how the CNSC achieved their milestone of 40,000 Rocket Greens sold in just three years of operation
Reaching 40,000 Leafy Greens Sold - Watch Now To
See How This Farmer Got There!
We’re sorry we missed you! Last week during the Q&A, Carley Basler, sustainability coordinator at The Churchill Northern Studies Centre (CNSC), and Corey Ellis, co-founder, and CEO of The Growcer, chatted about:
Lessons learned in distribution
Crafting the Rocket Greens brand
Carley’s experience growing in The Growcer system
Adopting to seasonality
Catch up on the recording of their conversation below and learn firsthand how the CNSC achieved their milestone of 40,000 Rocket Greens sold in just three years of operation.
The recording should open in another tab and the passcode to access it is: Growcer@1
If you have any follow up questions about how you can also start your own container farming project, reach out to Growcer's Project Consultant, Nick Halverson, at nick@thegrowcer.ca.
VIDEO: Local-For-Local Food Production In Climate Containers
Bosman Van Zaal is getting more and more questions about the use of Grow & Roll climate containers for food production, equipped with cultivation systems with multiple cultivation layers. Organizations that are committed to local food products are showing particular interest
18-12-2020 | Goedemorgen
NETHERLANDS- Bosman Van Zaal is getting more and more questions about the use of Grow & Roll climate containers for food production, equipped with cultivation systems with multiple cultivation layers. Organizations that are committed to local food products are showing particular interest.
Under own management
The Grow & Roll climate containers have been developed in-house since 2016 and adapted to applications by third parties. In 2019, for example, an entrepreneur from the United States, together with several other companies from the Green Innovators Group, developed a closed climate unit in a sea container for research and cultivation of plant material. The results of this research will form the basis for large-scale Vertical Farming in the future.
The knowledge gained has led to further development at Bosman Van Zaal, as a result of which the climate containers are now also suitable for food production on location.
Multilayer cultivation
Vertical Farming is one of the solutions to the problem of the growing demand for food. A multi-layer system uses less surface area, energy, and water. And production takes place all year round, resulting in higher yields.
Tailor-made climate
Each unit is equipped with various installations, which together determine the climate in the container in an integrated way, controlled by a climate computer. Systems for heating, cooling, ventilation, water, air, and water purification, fertilization, CO2 and LED lighting are often the ingredients for an optimally closed climate, anywhere in the world, on an outdoor site, or in a building. Peripheral equipment or hardware are easy to install, allowing this flexible form of food production to continue to take place quickly and efficiently, even in the longer term.
Housing
For practical reasons, standard sea containers are widely used because they are relatively easy to transport and move. Because of their handy dimensions, these units are also suitable for placing in buildings, possibly stacked. In this way, the vertical food production is taken even further.
Bosman Van Zaal
Bosman Van Zaal develops, produces, and builds complete horticultural projects at home and abroad. The projects are based on the latest developments and the latest insights for the sustainable and efficient cultivation of food crops, ornamentals, and plants for the cosmetics and pharmaceutical industries. For more information, please visit www.bosmanvanzaal.com.
E. coli Strikes Again
On November 10th, the CDC issued a statement alerting us that E.coli has struck again, this time in a pre-packaged single-head romaine after several people became ill from eating E. coli contaminated lettuce
The World Is Scary Enough Without Our Lettuce Trying To Kill Us.
On November 10th, the CDC issued a statement alerting us that E.coli has struck again, this time in a pre-packaged single-head romaine after several people became ill from eating E. coli contaminated lettuce.
This calls us back to the past two Novembers where salad mix and commercial romaine were mass-recalled surrounding the most popular eating holiday in the US: Thanksgiving.
You might remember, the shelves all looked like this:
No lettuce as far as the eye can see. Photo: Washington State University
Lucky for us, the food system is slowly changing (too slowly), so that when E.coli strikes some lucky consumers can turn to small-scale indoor farmers in their area for salad greens that are not only safe, but also very tasty.
We know E. coli is bad... but what, exactly, is it?
E. coli is a bacteria found in the intestines of humans and animals.
That’s right...it’s inside of us.
Before you freak out, most strains of the bacteria are completely harmless. Unfortunately, the bad one that makes you sick (E. coli 0157:H7) is the one that’s currently in our lettuce. Womp-womp.
E. coli makes its way into the outside world… through poop. If the poop makes contact with food, you’ve got an E. coli contamination. If the poop makes contact with a lot of food, it becomes a full-on outbreak.
This isn’t just gross, it's dangerous. E. coli 0157:H7 causes intestinal infections (read: diarrhea, abdominal pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, and fatigue). In severe cases it can cause bloody diarrhea (*silent scream*), dehydration, kidney failure… even death.
This is awful. How the heck did it get on our lettuce?
The best explanation we have is animal or human poop infected the soil or water source at a big romaine farm. The scary thing is, this is only an educated guess. Since people might not start getting sick until several weeks after harvest, it’s hard to go back and try to figure out what actually happened at Ground Zero (or even where Ground Zero is).
Feel like you’re having deja-vu?
That’s because this happened literally the past two years! In 2018 we had three E. coli outbreaks in romaine alone, the worst of which was in the spring: There were reported outbreaks in 36 states with 210 infected, 96 hospitalized and 5 dead. Only months later, another outbreak struck 12 states with 43 infected and 19 hospitalized just after Thanksgiving. Since then, romaine-related Ecoli has been popping up all over the place. The most frustrating part is that it usually takes the CDC months to investigate, meaning we don’t even hear about these outbreaks until well after the dangerous food is long-forgotten.
By now you’re probably thinking…
Before you denounce all salad, forever, we may have a solution.
The problem is with the system as a whole.
The reason that E. coli outbreaks are so widespread is because we source 95 percent of our leafy greens from a few farms in California and Arizona. Those greens (romaine included), get harvested and amassed at big distribution points before making their way cross-country to stores and restaurants. This means zero transparency into where the E. coli originated, making it difficult to eradicate. Not to mention, a lack of regulations prevents any actual accountability. The result? We keep eating the nasty stuff, and more people get sick.
One solution is surprisingly simple… decentralization.
This problem wouldn’t exist if we moved away from a centralized food system to a distributed one with small indoor farms. Here's why:
(1) Small, indoor farms create total environmental control with all types of fancy filters and regular water tests. Plus, this prevents exposure to two common sources of E. coli: contaminated soil and animal waste.
(2) Decentralization = transparency. Lettuce from small farmers isn’t changing hands, like, a million times. In the event of an outbreak, we can easily trace it back to its source to confirm that it’s safe to eat. With a shorter supply chain, this process take days, not months.
(3) While chances of contamination in a small indoor farm are much, much, much smaller… it is theoretically possible. Distributed production means, even if you do have one contaminated small farm, the exposure is contained, so it’s still safe to eat lettuces from other local farms.
Cultivar Boston | Massachusetts, @chefmarydumont @cultivarboston
These are all things we know a lot of our farmers' customers appreciate about the Leafy Green Machine. Throughout this whole ordeal, they've had access to safe greens in their neighborhoods.
It’s always rattling to see how fragile our food system can be, and we hope this whole hoopla motivates policymakers, wholesalers, and shoppers to think more about how we source our food.
Want to be the change you want to see in the world?
Become a farmer
VIDEO: Reviving Urban Life - An Innovative Soil-Based Indoor Vertical Farm That Brings The Production of Food to The Place It Is Consumed
One revolutionary agro-tech company, Vertical Field (www.verticalfield.com), is harnessing the power of geoponic technology, agricultural expertise, and smart design to tackle all of these issues and more
VERTICAL FIELD’S NEW PORTABLE FARMS ARE MAKING
THE WORLD MORE SUSTAINABLE – AND BETTER FED
Consistent Supply
Reduces Inventory Waste
Less Human Handling
More Sterile Environment
[DEC 9, 2020, New York/Rana’na, Israel] – Urban areas contain more than half the world’s population and contribute to some 70% of the planet’s energy emissions. Cities guzzle the bulk of Earth’s resources and produce more waste. Many residents live in “urban food deserts.” And buildings are literally making their occupants sick.
Vertical Field’s Urban Crops offers an ideal alternative to traditional agriculture. The soil-based platform can grow hundreds of types of crops – pesticide-free, indoors or outdoors – and requires no training to operate.
Our planet is home to some 7.7 billion people. In many places, hunger is a reality. Unpredictable climate patterns are threatening the availability and stability of fresh produce. Yet the global population is rising. How will we feed the world by the mid-21st century, when an expected 10 billion of us need food? And now in-light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the food supply chain is in jeopardy more than ever before -- the need to bring food easier and faster directly to consumers is more important than ever.
One revolutionary agro-tech company, Vertical Field (www.verticalfield.com), is harnessing the power of geoponic technology, agricultural expertise, and smart design to tackle all of these issues and more. The Israeli startup – cited by Silicon Review as a “50 Innovative Companies to Watch in 2019” and named by World Smart City in 2019 as “Best Startup” – produces vertical agricultural solutions that help the environment, improve human health conditions, cut down on human handling, reduce waste, and make fresh, delicious and more produce available 365 days a year locally and directly to consumers and other end users.
“Vertical Fields offers a revolutionary way to eat the freshest greens and herbs, by producing soil based indoor vertical farms grown at the very location where food is consumed,” said Vertical Field’s Chief Executive Officer, Guy Elitzur of Ra’anana, Israel who is hoping to place his ‘vertical farms’ in retail chains and restaurants establishments in cities throughout the US.
“Not only do our products facilitate and promote sustainable life and make a positive impact on the environment, we offer an easy to use real alternative to traditional agriculture. Our Urban farms give new meaning to the term ‘farm-to-table,’ because one can virtually pick their own greens and herbs at supermarkets, restaurants or other retail sites,” he adds.
Vertical Field’s Urban Crops offers an ideal alternative to traditional agriculture, especially in urban settings where space is scarce. The soil-based platform can grow hundreds of types of crops – pesticide-free, indoors or outdoors – and requires no training to operate.
From Wall to Fork
Vertical farming in cities is an energy-efficient, space-saving, farming alternative to traditional crops grown in acres and fields. Thanks to Vertical Field, everyone from city planners and architects to restaurants, supermarkets, hotels are using vertical farming to create lush, green edible spaces in congested areas around the world.
Portable Urban Farm
An alternative to the living wall is Vertical Field’s unique Vertical Field®, which can be placed in either a 20-ft or 40-ft. container equipped with advanced sensors that provide a controlled environment. This technology constantly monitors, irrigates, and fertilizes crops throughout every growth stage. Healthy, high-quality fruits and vegetables flourish in soil beds that contain a proprietary mix of minerals and nutrients.
Advantages of Vertical Field’s Vertical Farm:
Bug-free and pesticide-free – healthy, fresh, and clean produce
Less waste – uses 90% less water
Shorter growing cycles, longer shelf life
Plants are “in season” 365 days/year - grow whatever you want, no matter the weather or climate conditions of the geography
Consistent quality
Modular, expandable, and moveable farm
Automated crop management
More Sterile Environment
Less Human Contact
Creating a more sustainable way of life in cities across the globe has never been more urgent. Vertical Field is responding to the challenge today. Green cities will enrich life in urban areas, provide healthier and better food, and shorten the distance between consumers and their food.
About Vertical Field: Vertical Field is a leading agro-tech provider of vertical farming and living green wall solutions for urban environments and smart cities. The company is operated by professionals, agronomists, researchers, and a multi-disciplinary team, enabling the development of smart walls that combine the best of design and manufacturing, smart computerized monitoring, soil-based technology, water and lighting technology, and more. Vertical Field delivers next-generation vertical farming systems for a global clientele, including Facebook, Intel, Apple, Isrotel, Microsoft, and many more.
VIDEO: Things Are Still Blossoming On Fifth Avenue
David Litvin, Crop specialist at 80 Acres Farms, hasn't stopped growing cherry tomatoes since the pandemic. Earlier this year, the container farm was installed outside the Guggenheim museum, as a part of the 'Countryside' exposition
It's quiet and silent in the City, like never before. There are no people to be seen on the streets. Restaurants, bars, and shops are closed. The grimness has replaced the former liveliness. Walking around the corner at Fifth, something's glowing in the darkness. When approaching nearer, there are many blossoming cherry tomatoes to be found.
David Litvin, Crop specialist at 80 Acres Farms, hasn't stopped growing cherry tomatoes since the pandemic. Earlier this year, the container farm was installed outside the Guggenheim museum, as a part of the 'Countryside' exposition. The exhibition aimed to emphasize the importance of the countryside and show possible solutions that are decisive for the future of our planet.
Have a look at the video below to see what David's daily visit to the farm looks like.
For more information:
80 Acres Farms
www.80acresfarms.com
Publication date: Mon 14 Dec 2020
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
New Partnership Brings Clean Energy To Indoor Farming
The benefits of indoor farming–including chemical-free food production unrestricted by seasonality, climate change and water scarcity–have been recognized globally and are driving rapid industry growth
Hydroponic vertical container farming company Freight Farms and Arcadia, a monthly subscription service connecting renters and homeowners across the U.S. to clean energy, have partnered to provide Freight Farms’ U.S. customers with access to clean energy for their everyday operations. With this partnership, Freight Farms and Arcadia are taking the first critical stride to align their respective industries, moving indoor farming into a more sustainable future.
The benefits of indoor farming–including chemical-free food production unrestricted by seasonality, climate change and water scarcity–have been recognized globally and are driving rapid industry growth. While it has made significant advancements in resource efficiency, the industry continues to struggle with the sustainability of electrical power use.
Together, these two companies are moving towards addressing this limitation by connecting Freight Farmers to affordable clean power at a time when the nation’s grid is dominated by fossil fuel. With an Arcadia membership, Freight Farmers can choose to match their electrical use with wind and solar energy, which will also help create more demand for clean energy providers overall.
Without changing anything in their day-to-day operations. Freight Farms’ customers can now connect the utility for their container farm to Arcadia to match 100% of the farm’s electrical usage with clean energy.
Clean energy accessibility
“Our farmers are passionate about sustainability by nature of their efforts to grow healthy food hyper-locally. But many are unable to adopt clean energy directly based on cost and availability of options in their location,” said Rick Vanzura, Freight Farms’ CEO. “With Arcadia, our farmers are able to further reduce their business’ carbon footprint while simultaneously increasing demand for more clean energy in the market.”
“Arcadia was built so that anyone anywhere can use our platform to access clean energy,” added Alexa Minerva, senior director of partnerships at Arcadia. “We’re excited about partnering with Freight Farms to make it possible for farmers to reap the benefits of renewables, potentially save money and combat the effects of climate change.”
Freight Farms’ modular container model makes this partnership uniquely possible within the indoor farming industry, as large agricultural enterprises use too much energy for community solar projects, which are capped at a relatively small size by state law.
Connecting to clean energy
Without changing anything in their day-to-day farm operations, Freight Farms’ customers can now connect their utility through Arcadia in two minutes. Upon connection, Arcadia will begin matching 100 percent of the Freight Farm’s electricity by purchasing an equivalent amount of wind and solar energy in the form of Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs). The result reduces Freight Farmers’ carbon footprint to one-quarter of industrial farming operations. Based on location and other factors, Arcadia can also help farmers save on their electricity bills.
Memberships are available in two options:
As enabled by state law, farmers located in MA, RI, NY, IL, CO, MD and ME can sign up to access the community solar power market and will see a reduction in their electricity bills.
All other U.S. Freight Farmers can sign up for $5/month to access clean energy.
Innovation in sustainability
The partnership with Arcadia is the latest initiative in Freight Farms’ history. Freight Farms’ Greenery has been involved with technological advances driving greater sustainability within the sector. The Greenery uses 98.9 percent less water than industrial farming--even achieving water-positive operations in certain locations. The Greenery’s proprietary fixed lighting arrays also leverage LED market technology to triple light energy output without an increased corresponding energy draw. The result is a growing platform that pairs the highest potential yields with resource efficiency.
Freight Farms’ pioneering modular design enables hyper-local farming anywhere, including harsh climates and urban areas lacking land access, reducing food production carbon impact in other ways as well. Transportation missions are reduced or eliminated and irrigation isn’t necessary. Hyper-local farming also reduces food waste by providing consumers just-picked produce with freshness, flavor and shelf life, says the company.
15 Dec 2020
Mario Saw Container Farming As A Chance To Become His Own Boss
In order to understand the indoor farming industry better, Mario enrolled in an online course of hydroponics which gave him the basics of the farming process
Mario from New Age Provisions Farms left his 9-5 to start his own container farming company. It hasn’t always been easy, but Mario loves his new independent lifestyle.
The team with Freight Farms recently sat down for a chat with what they call an amazing Freight Farmer–Mario Vitalis! Mario’s journey to start farming wasn’t the smoothest, but Mario applied his incredible work effort, perseverance, and general positive attitude towards launching New Age Provisions Farms in August 2020. All the hard work paid off–Mario is already expecting to receive his second Greenery container farm in December 2020!
Be Your Own Boss
Before August, Mario had no experience with farming. He spent the majority of his professional life in the business and corporate world, getting his first taste of freedom when he decided to go into real estate as a side business. That side business showed Mario the huge potential that he could have as an entrepreneur. It was in an effort to expand his real estate business by monetizing empty lots that Mario first stumbled upon container farming.
Originally, Mario was thinking of using the lots for container homes, but the regulations around residential projects were far too complicated. With agriculture, however, Mario found that there was a much greater opportunity. Today, Mario has left his corporate job to pursue farming and real estate full time and he loves it.
“Farming allows me to be my own boss. One thing I’ve always wanted to do is own a business. That is what will set you apart from being a thousandaire to a millionaire.”
In order to understand the indoor farming industry better, Mario enrolled in an online course of hydroponics which gave him the basics of the farming process. He then started doing some research about the available technology, eventually choosing the Freight Farms Greenery as the container farm that was the easiest to use and produced the greatest yields. Mario signed a purchase agreement the same day that he saw the Greenery, knowing that it was the right technology for his plans.
But before he could start, Mario had to overcome a few hurdles.
Container Farm Financing
The first was financing. In August 2019, Mario applied to the USDA Farm Service Agency for a $50,000 loan to put down a deposit for the Greenery, with plans to supplement the rest with a private loan. In spite of providing the Agency with a thorough and well-reasoned business plan and yield projection, he was informed that the application was ‘incomplete’, and in December 2019 was denied without any explanation. Mario was shocked–in his eyes, the application had been bulletproof.
It was only after a great deal of prodding that Mario was able to get some clarity into his denial. Due to a lack of experience with hydroponic container farming, the FSA had re-run all of Mario’s calculations within the scope of traditional linear farming and determined that he could not possibly reach the yields–and therefore the profit that he was projecting. This, plus Mario’s lack of farming experience earned him a denial.
Initially, Mario was devastated. When he turned to his family for support, he received some pivotal words of wisdom from his grandfather: “They don’t want you to own the land. They want you to work the land.” Mario’s grandfather was referring to the huge dearth of Black farmers in America–only 2% of the national farming population–which is a direct result of long-standing discrimination within organizations like the USDA that makes it difficult for minority farmers to receive crucial financing. So Mario decided to fight.
The first step was to appeal the decision. Mario wrote a letter to the USDA requesting an appeal, which the USDA denied by backing the original decision. Mario then appealed again, and this time he went to court against the USDA FSA. In court, Freight Farms was able to support all of Mario’s initial claims about the Greenery’s yield potential, allowing Mario to prove without a doubt that his farm was the right candidate for the loan. The judge ruled in Mario’s favor and shortly thereafter, he received a call from the FSA with an offer for the original $50,000 loan. Mario looked at it all and said:
“I don’t want $50,000… I want $250,000. I want you to pay for the container that I have–plus buy me a new container.”
Farm Site & Zoning
With the fight with the USDA behind him and the money in his pocket, Mario turned his attention into getting his business started. This is where he encountered his next hurdle: zoning. Mario initially intended to put his farms on a property he owned, but then found out that the land was zoned residential. As a piece of agricultural machinery, Mario would need to secure a variance (i.e. an exception) from the municipality–a long and expensive process. This time, instead of fighting, Mario turned his resourcefulness towards his personal network. He reconnected with a friend from high school who owned a used car lot and offered it as a place for Mario to keep his farm.
Farm Business Plan & Customers
Unfortunately, Mario’s trials were not quite over. Just as Mario was finalizing all of his financing and zoning, the COVID-19 pandemic struck, effectively turning Mario’s original business plan on its head. Mario had originally planned to sell to restaurants in the area, but as the local establishments shuttered, he was forced to pivot quickly. He found his footing with an online marketplace called Market Wagon, which aggregates dozens of local farmers and craftsmen on one platform. For the shopper, it’s a simple way to shop from multiple small local businesses on one platform–for the businesses it’s great exposure and easy logistics.
“The Greenery allows you more flexibility, more longevity…it’s fresher, it looks great… and it tastes great! It hits all five senses.”
Since Mario’s first harvest in August, Market Wagon has brought a steady stream of success. In using the platform, he’s been able to fine tune his crop menu to the best sellers (lettuce and basil) and to find the right price point. He’s also able to leverage the Greenery to his advantage, reacting faster to market changes than his competitors. The most recent example was a November 2020 outbreak of E.coli in the romaine lettuce supply–within a week Mario already had romaine seedlings in production.
Plus, the shoppers love Mario’s greens, recognizing it as a superior product that’s worth a higher price point.
“You grow art…
…if [customers] want regular vegetables, [they] can go to a store. What you’re growing here is artisan.”
Hydroponic Cannabis
Mario also grows a variety of experimental crops, including tomatoes, strawberries, and… cannabis! In 2020, Mario became the first Freight Farmer to grow commercial cannabis in our container farms. His growing operations are strictly monitored in accordance with the 2018 Farm Bill, which mandates that his plants have a THC level at or below 0.3%. Mario uses clones to ensure he only gets female (flowering) plants, which grow about 12 inches high at maturity and produce 7-10 grams of flower each.
While the cannabis market is still young in Indianapolis, Mario sees it as a huge business potential as medical and recreational marijuana becomes more common. Although he’s only just starting to experiment with the cannabis crop, he’s excited to use the Greenery’s intricate climate control settings to adjust the taste, smell, color, and potency. He believes this will allow him to stand out in the market as a premium product that is fresher and completely safe from pesticide exposure.
Connecting the past with the future
While there have been challenges along the way, Mario loves his new Freight Farmer lifestyle. His container is a second home–complete with armchairs and a TV–and a symbol of his independence and success in overcoming the odds. With personal mantras like “never give up”, “live life to the fullest”, and “against all odds”, Mario is not only a great inspiration for the future, but also a testimony about how we can overcome our past.
“I’ve always known the city life… but there’s always been a desire to get back to, and discover, my roots.”
Mario speaks candidly about a life and family history full of adversity. He is able to trace his family lineage all the way back to West Africa: his great-great-grandparents were Southern slaves, his great-grandparents were sharecroppers who escaped the south in the 1930s to come to San Francisco. So, in many ways, farming has allowed Mario to reconnect with his past, and to redefine what it means to be a Black farmer for his young daughters and other members of this community.
“Having this type of farm allows me to connect to a history that I have forgotten. I am a descendent of the slaves… this farm enables me to... get back to the type of living where our people once lived off the land.”
As Mario awaits the arrival of his second farm, he’s beyond excited about growing his business. Not only does he see it as a crucial step in developing his own business, but he wants to maximize his impact in his community. With few grocery stores and little access to fresh food, Mario’s neighborhood is one of many food deserts that exist in cities around the country. He hopes to help change the community from within with an infusion of healthy and affordable produce. You can follow along with Mario through his website, Facebook, and Instagram.
For more information:
www.freightfarms.com
Growing Crops Onsite Through Technology, While Fostering Holistic Wellness
Feeding America projects more than 50 million Americans will have faced hunger in 2020 – up from 35 million before the coronavirus pandemic. That is 1 in 6 people experiencing food insecurity this year, and food banks are struggling to keep up with demand
Feeding America projects more than 50 million Americans will have faced hunger in 2020 – up from 35 million before the coronavirus pandemic. That is 1 in 6 people experiencing food insecurity this year, and food banks are struggling to keep up with demand.
While dry goods can be extremely important at food banks, fresh produce like greens and vegetables are frequently lacking in the mix because they can be quick to spoil between long transport/donation times in getting to the pantry, often need refrigeration, and can be expensive.
Growing crops onsite
Below are 5 examples of nonprofits that are using hydroponic vertical container farms from Boston-based Freight Farms to grow fresh leafy greens and vegetables onsite to support the nutritional needs of their communities and supplement other pantry staples with just-harvested crops. Despite the cooling winter weather, these organizations are able to continue growing year-round. Crops are also produced with 0-5 gallons of water per day and are herbicide and pesticide-free.
Growing food to nurture bodies has also provided these organizations with the additional ability to unify communities and empower individuals through integrated therapeutic programming, hands-on skill-building, and nutritional education.
Lotus House: Miami, FL
Lotus House is a holistic women’s shelter that uses its Freight Farm to grow fresh, healthy greens for its community kitchen, which serves an average of 500 women and children every day. As of July 2020, Lotus estimates about $40,000 worth of fresh vegetables and greens have been produced in the farm.
The farm has also been an innovative after-school program for children, many of whom are accompanied by their mothers. This gives the staff the chance to teach nutrition while residents connect with the process of growing their own food. Prior to COVID, Lotus had also begun the development of a new job training program to teach teen and adult residents basic farming skills for paid jobs with local container farming community partners, like Hammock Greens, another Freight Farmer in Miami. It plans to turn its attention back to this when it is safe to do so.
San Antonio Clubhouse: San Antonio, TX
The Clubhouse supports adults with mental health conditions, giving more than 2,000 members a place where they can learn and grow through meaningful work. The Clubhouse also offers job training and helps members build a resume, search for employment, and advocate to potential employers.
The Clubhouses’ Freight Farm not only provides healthy greens for the facility year-round, but it is one of the ways members can volunteer to gain job experience. Any produce not used by San Antonio Clubhouse is donated to local nonprofits.
Boys & Girls Club of the Capital Region: Troy, NY
Last year, the greens from BGCCA’s Freight Farm became part of ~1,100 meals served per day at its locations. In safe times, the farm gives young people hands-on experience planting, growing, harvesting and selling fresh crops as part of the club's after-school programs.
Metro Caring: Denver, CO
Metro Caring meets people’s immediate need for nutritious food while building a movement to address the root causes of hunger. It is well-known for its free fresh food market.
Regarding the launch of its Freight Farm in collaboration with St. Joseph Hospital, Metro Caring’s chief gardener Jess Harper said, “Being able to grow fresh produce all year round, providing healthy local access to fresh greens and teaching people how to farm hydroponically, I think we’ve got a win all the way around.” The organization believes hunger is about more than lack of food, designing programs to include job training and to connect people to other support services and utility assistance.
Cass Community Social Services: Detroit, MI
Cass uses its Freight Farm to bring fresh food access and nutritional education to Detroit residents. The container farm enables them to grow crops year-round to supplement the community kitchen.
Additionally, the produce from the farm is sold locally to neighborhood restaurants to create a revenue stream that supports other initiatives.
“The greatest feature for us is the ability to have fresh, free, organic food all year long. Our food choices are as critical as our exercise habits in terms of health.”— Reverend Faith Fowler, Executive Director of Cass Community Social Services
For more information:
Freight Farms
www.freightfarms.com
December 1, 2020
Colorado Students Become Virtual Farmers During Pandemic
Students at a Douglas County high school are learning COVID-era business skills using a freight container converted into a high-tech hydroponic vertical farm as their virtual classroom
December 3, 2020
HIGHLANDS RANCH, Colo. -- Students at a Douglas County high school are learning COVID-era business skills using a freight container converted into a high-tech hydroponic vertical farm as their virtual classroom.
After Mountain Vista High School recently switched to remote learning, students and teachers had to completely reorganize the farm's workflows and lesson plans.
David Larsen, agriculture business teacher and farms manager at Mountain Vista High School, said while some students may go on to pursue biology or horticulture, skills learned during the pandemic should transfer to any field.
"Most of these kids are not going to actually be farmers," Larsen admitted. "But they all will have jobs in which they have to troubleshoot, scheduling, logistics, it all comes into play. And the goal I always have with students is to, as much as possible, involve them in that decision-making."
With kids unable to be physically inside the farm to seed, plant, tend, harvest, package and sell crops, Larsen live streams, and records every lesson.
Supply-chain disruption during the pandemic drove up sales, and Larsen saw an opportunity for a business lesson in supply and demand. Crops typically sold during two-day markets have been selling out within two to three hours.
Larsen noted the Greenery unit created by Massachusetts-based company Freight Farms is resistant to pandemics, but also extreme weather and drought.
The unit uses nearly 99% less water than a traditional farm, running on less than the average dishwasher uses.
While most food consumed in the U.S. travels hundreds or even thousands of miles, Larsen observed the Mountain Vista operation is as close to zero food-production miles as you can get.
"So we are literally harvesting and putting into bags as the customer is standing right there," Larsen explained. "So they are living plants. People love lettuce; it's definitely delicious and very clean."
Larsen added students still are able to interact with local shoppers via live video streaming, learning important customer-service lessons.
Because the climate is controlled inside the container, Larsen said food can be grown all school year long with a predictable commercial-scale output.
A Greenery unit can support 13,000 plants at a time, producing harvests of up to 900 heads of lettuce per week.
Lead photo: Crops produced by students at Mountain Vista High School in Douglas County usually are sold during two-day market sales, but post-COVID, customer volume has shot up, selling out within two to three hours. (Mountain Vista High School)
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WEBINAR: How And Where To Site Your Indoor Farm | Indoor Ag-Conversations
JOIN OUR DECEMBER CONVERSATION!
LEARN MORE
Join our expert panel to discuss key factors to
consider when securing a location for your operation, including:
Consideration and determination of critical municipal requirements when siting an indoor vertical farm (zoning laws, water/energy sources)
How renewable energy, like solar and wind, is being incorporated into current indoor farming operations
Are vacant former retail facilities viable options for indoor vertical farms and if so, what are the key steps in acquiring such buildings
How to site an indoor farm within an existing and operational building
Critical areas to consider when investigating a building to be used as an indoor vertical farm
Moderator:
Kim Lovan, Managing Director and Co-Founder, NextGen Ag Team, Black & Veatch
Panelists:
Jake Counne, Founder, Wilder Fields
Tim McGuinness, Chairman, Sterling Advisory Group and Former Senior Vice President, International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC)
Jim Pantaleo, Indoor Farm Operator | Advisor
LEARN MORE & REGISTER
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR INDOOR AG-CON 2020
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Indoor Ag-Con, 950 Scales Road, Building #200, Suwanee, GA 30024, United States
CANADA - VIDEO: Agritech Startup Reimagines Hydroponic Farming
Dunya Habitats is developing modular “tiny farms” that stand about two metres high that can be combined in clusters
BY: OBJ staff
Dec 2, 2020
A team of entrepreneurs incubating their early-stage company in Kingston is hoping its modular hydroponic farming solution will help reduce food insecurity around the world – particularly in places acutely affected by climate change and shortages of arable land.
Dunya Habitats is developing modular “tiny farms” that stand about two metres high that can be combined in clusters. They allow farmers to grow produce year-round in any climate, ranging from freezing locales in the Canadian Arctic to drought-prone regions of sub-Saharan Africa, and are currently being tested in Kingston, Atlantic Canada, and Alberta.
“Hydroponics is a proven method. We’ve helped to optimize it,” says Sumi Shanmuganathan, chief strategy officer at Dunya Habitats.
Hear more of Shanmuganathan’s conversation with OBJ’s Mark Van Dusen by watching the video above
TAGS: Hydroponics.
What COVID Means For Indoor Ag Lending
Contain works with a pool of lenders to help indoor farmers find lease financing for their farm builds
By Nicola Kerslake
"This year has been strange for everyone, and lenders are no different. They live in a world of rules, and stats and data. And there’s almost no way to account for a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic in that world view," says Nicola Kerslake, Founder and CEO of Contain Inc. Contain works with a pool of lenders to help indoor farmers find lease financing for their farm builds.
"Ahead of this week’s Thanksgiving holiday here in the US, we caught up with some of those lenders to talk about surviving 2020 and looking forward to 2021," Nicola adds.
Nicola Kerslake, Founder and CEO of Contain Inc.
Nicola states that indoor farmers generally find credit from three sources: banks, private lenders and government lenders. During March and April, many lenders effectively shut up shop for new loans and leases: “we saw volumes drop by 90%” said one of the private lenders that Contain works with.
Government funding
As government funding supplied by the CARES Act kicked into action, banks were preoccupied with dispersing the paycheck protection program (PPP) loans that kept many small businesses afloat for a while, leaving less time to work on private lending. At a Brookings Institute event in April, KeyBank’s CEO said that it usually completes around 50 loans per month, but this leaped to 37,000 in the first half of April alone, thanks to the PPP program.[1] Elsewhere, several online business lenders, such as Kabbage and OnDeck, stopped initiating loans altogether.
"Now that the dust has settled, private lenders are back to business, with a few tweaks. Universally, the lenders that we spoke with saw indoor agriculture as a beneficiary of the COVID-era: “everyone has to eat, so farming looks like a better option now” one told us. They’re especially interested in seeing farms that supply to supermarket- and institutional buyers," Nicola affirms.
Other beneficiaries include testing labs and home gym equipment providers, whilst restaurants, gyms and salons were of course the worst hit. Lenders remain loath to issue new loans in these sectors, and are instead focusing on helping their existing borrowers navigate through difficult times. Nicola adds, "For instance, one lender told us he had allowed affected businesses to defer a few months’ payment to the end of their leases."
There are a few tweaks
Lenders are taking the time to check on local lockdown restrictions, concerned that unpredictable mandates could swiftly curtail farms’ ability to sell produce. Some are insisting on higher deposits for loans, and on stronger overall balance sheets. This approach is especially hard on startup farms, which generally have less capital of their own to deploy than longer-standing farms.
What will 2021 bring?
"Most of the lenders we spoke with were cautiously optimistic, citing resilient business results in areas that remain open and the promise of imminent vaccine rollouts. Across the market as a whole, rates are expected to stay low for the foreseeable future. Despite this, as one lender put it: “we’re not even going to be able to start talking about ‘normal’ again until the second quarter of next year"," Nicola says.
For more information:
Contain Inc.
Nicola Kerslake, Founder and CEO
nicola@contain.ag
www.contain.ag
Publication date: Mon 30 Nov 2020
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© VerticalFarmDaily.com
AppHarvest And Save The Children Team Up To Provide East Kentucky Kids Hands-On Education in Growing Food, Eating Healthy
Through the Grow Green Eat Green project, AppHarvest is working with Save the Children to create and provide indoor hydroponic grow kits to more than 1,600 children and their families in six Eastern Kentucky counties
1,600 Children Receive Hydroponic Grow Kits
As Part of Grow Green Eat Green Project
NOVEMBER 24, 2020 — BEREA, Ky. — Save the Children today announced a new partnership with AgTech leader AppHarvest to help educate children across Eastern Kentucky on how to grow their own nutritious food and the importance of healthy eating. Through the Grow Green Eat Green project, AppHarvest is working with Save the Children to create and provide indoor hydroponic grow kits to more than 1,600 children and their families in six Eastern Kentucky counties.
Participating children – who live in some of the state’s most impoverished counties, including Floyd, Harlan, Knott, Leslie, Owsley, and Perry – are receiving everything they need to help start their own indoor gardens, such as seeds, growing nutrients, and supplies, pots and instructions to help them get growing. They can also receive live instruction via video conference on how to grow their own food from AppHarvest’s farming experts, as well as learn the benefits of hydroponic farming.
“During a time when COVID-19 is having significant, detrimental impacts on children across Eastern Kentucky — including the alarming increase of child hunger across our region — Save the Children is proud to partner with AppHarvest to educate children and families about ways to help end this vicious cycle of food insecurity in the future,” said Alissa Taylor, Save the Children’s Kentucky State Director.
“AppHarvest was founded as a benefit corporation and is also a certified B Corp because we believe companies should be in the business of doing good,” said Amy Samples, Director of Community Outreach and People Programs. “We’re building America’s AgTech capital from within Appalachia and know that education is core to achieving that.”
Virtual instruction for the children will take place with their teachers in the coming days.
Committed to combatting child hunger across Kentucky and rural America, Save the Children has helped prepare and deliver more than 9 million meals as part of its coronavirus response efforts since March. In rural Kentucky alone, Save the Children staff have helped distribute more than 2.5 million nutritious meals to children in some of the state’s most impoverished communities since COVID-19 impacted the region this spring.
Prior to starting operations at its 2.76-million-square-foot indoor farm in Morehead, Ky., AppHarvest invested more than $150,000 in starting a high-tech container farm educational program. The program retrofits shipping containers with high-tech farming equipment to teach students to grow healthy leafy greens. The program started at Shelby Valley High School in Pike County in 2018 and has since expanded to Rowan County with additional units planned.
###
AppHarvest is an applied technology company building some of the world’s largest indoor farms in Appalachia. The Company combines conventional agricultural techniques with cutting-edge technology and is addressing key issues including improving access for all to nutritious food, farming more sustainably, building a home-grown food supply, and increasing investment in Appalachia. The Company’s 60-acre Morehead, KY facility is among the largest indoor farms in the U.S. For more information, visit https://www.appharvest.com/.
Forward-Looking Statements
Certain statements included in this press release that are not historical facts are forward-looking statements for purposes of the safe harbor provisions under the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements generally are accompanied by words such as “believe,” “may,” “will,” “estimate,” “continue,” “anticipate,” “intend,” “expect,” “should,” “would,” “plan,” “predict,” “potential,” “seem,” “seek,” “future,” “outlook,” and similar expressions that predict or indicate future events or trends or that are not statements of historical matters. All statements, other than statements of present or historical fact included in this press release, regarding Novus Capital’s proposed acquisition of AppHarvest, Novus Capital’s ability to consummate the transaction, the benefits of the transaction and the combined company’s future financial performance, as well as the combined company’s growth plans and strategy, future operations, timing of first crop harvest, estimated financial position, estimated revenues and losses, timing of expected revenues, projected costs, prospects, plans and objectives of management are forward-looking statements. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of AppHarvest’s management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on as, a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction, or a definitive statement of fact or probability. Actual events and circumstances are difficult or impossible to predict and will differ from assumptions. Many actual events and circumstances are beyond the control of AppHarvest. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, including those discussed in Novus Capital’s registration statement on Form S-4, filed with the SEC on October 9, 2020 and as amended to date (the “Registration Statement”), under the heading “Risk Factors,” and other documents Novus Capital has filed, or will file, with the SEC. If any of these risks materialize or our assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect AppHarvest’s expectations, plans, or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. AppHarvest anticipates that subsequent events and developments will cause its assessments to change. However, while AppHarvest may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, AppHarvest specifically disclaims any obligation to do so. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing AppHarvest’s assessments of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.
Save the Children believes every child deserves a future. Since our founding 100 years ago, we’ve changed the lives of more than 1 billion children. In the United States and around the world, we give children a healthy start in life, the opportunity to learn, and protection from harm. We do whatever it takes for children – every day and in times of crisis – transforming their lives and the future we share.
Follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.
Important Information for Investors and Stockholders
In connection with the proposed transaction, Novus Capital has filed the Registration Statement with the SEC, which includes a preliminary proxy statement to be distributed to holders of Novus Capital’s common stock in connection with Novus Capital’s solicitation of proxies for the vote by Novus Capital’s stockholders with respect to the proposed transaction and other matters as described in the Registration Statement, as well as the prospectus relating to the offer of securities to be issued to AppHarvest’s stockholders in connection with the proposed transaction. After the Registration Statement has been declared effective, Novus Capital will mail a definitive proxy statement, when available, to its stockholders. Investors and security holders and other interested parties are urged to read the proxy statement/prospectus, any amendments thereto and any other documents filed with the SEC carefully and in their entirety when they become available because they will contain important information about Novus Capital, AppHarvest and the proposed transaction. Investors and security holders may obtain free copies of the preliminary proxy statement/prospectus and definitive proxy statement/prospectus (when available) and other documents filed with the SEC by Novus Capital through the website maintained by the SEC at http://www.sec.gov, or by directing a request to: Novus Capital Corporation, 8556 Oakmont Lane, Indianapolis, IN 46260. The information contained on, or that may be accessed through, the websites referenced in this press release is not incorporated by reference into, and is not a part of, this press release.
Participants in the Solicitation
Novus Capital and its directors and officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies of Novus Capital’s shareholders in connection with the proposed business combination. Security holders may obtain more detailed information regarding the names, affiliations and interests of certain of Novus Capital’s executive officers and directors in the solicitation by reading the Registration Statement and other relevant materials filed with the SEC in connection with the business combination when they become available. Information concerning the interests of Novus Capital’s participants in the solicitation, which may, in some cases, be different than those of their stockholders generally, is set forth in the Registration Statement.
New Modular Scalable Indoor Vertical Farm Design
In addition to our 20,000 sq. ft. farm, we now offer a modular scalable farm system that can “start small and grow big” to meet increased demand
Green Sense Farms has been an early adopter and pioneer when it comes to indoor vertical farming. We built our first 20,000 sq. ft. indoor vertical farm in 2012 in Portage, IN. Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) has changed greatly since that first farm and so has our company. We started our journey focused on operating our indoor vegetable farm, selling lettuce, baby greens, herbs, and microgreens to grocery stores and produce companies in IN, IL, and MI. Since that time, we have leveraged our operating experience and evolved the company to provide contract research and farm design & build services on a global basis.
One of our recent innovations is the development of a modular scalable growing system using our proven grow technology. We found that our standard 20,000 sq. ft. farm can be cost-prohibitive in many parts of the world. We have also seen that many vertical farm companies “start big and grow small” making right-sizing a farm the key to being profitable.
In addition to our 20,000 sq. ft. farm, we now offer a modular scalable farm system that can “start small and grow big” to meet increased demand. After spending a year studying container farms to objectively understand their strengths and weakness, we came up with a better indoor grow design that includes:
• Touchless conveyance
• Improved IPM and automated sanitization
• Higher crop density and improved economics
• Can be operated with 2 employees plus a packing team
• Computer delivery of growing inputs and climate control with improved air circulation
• Can be housed in functionally obsolete industrial buildings with minimal tenant improvements.
Our modular scalable custom farms use shipping containers as a prefabricated low-cost structure to install the individual farm components. Components can be sold separately or as a system and include:
• Seeding line
• Germ / Nursery Room
• Grow Room
• Packing / Cooler
• Equipment Room, with CO2, fertigator, water treatment, water storage, and recirculation, HVAC, data collection, sensors, and automation controls.
It’s an honor and privileged to be part of CEA and watch it evolve from an idea into an industry. For more information on contract research or design and build services contact:
Robert Colangelo, Founding Farmer
VIDEOS: The Technologies Helping Move Agriculture Indoors
As more agriculture moves indoors, Israeli technologies are moving in with them to optimize lighting, watering, temperature, and other factors for an efficient and effective operation. Greenhouses and urban farm factories are expensive to set up but pay off in higher yield, quality, and market value, growing all through the seasons.
Greenhouses and urban farm factories are expensive to set up but pay off in higher yield, quality, and market value, growing all through the seasons.
A pick-yourself strawberry farm in China built inside an Azrom greenhouse. Photo courtesy of Azrom
Grain crops will always need large fields. But tomatoes, leafy greens, peppers, and strawberries are some of the many fruits and veggies that thrive indoors under precisely controlled conditions.
Though it costs more to raise produce in greenhouses or urban “farm factories,” the payoff is higher yield, quality, and market value. The plants can grow year-round with less fertilizer and pesticide.
As more agriculture moves indoors, Israeli technologies are moving in with them to optimize lighting, watering, temperature, and other factors for an efficient and effective operation.
Sarai Kemp, vice president of deal flow at Trendlines AgriFood. Photo: courtesy
“There is a growing trend for traditional greenhouse farming and indoor hydroponic and vertical farming for certain types of crops,” says Sarai Kemp, vice president of deal flow at Trendlines AgriFood based in Israel with branches in China and Singapore.
Kemp tells ISRAEL21c that most greenhouse-grown tomatoes go straight to consumers while most field-grown tomatoes go into items like ketchup.
“Growing indoors helps you produce more in a better environment than in open fields,” she says. “Farmers invest in technology for greenhouses because they can control the growing environment and sell the produce at a higher value.”
Kemp says a lot of indoor farming technology originated in Israel. “We have the experience, capability, and technology to provide monitoring solutions.”
Europe is the main market for Israeli indoor farming technology, and Kemp notes that a new market has opened closer to home.
“The United Arab Emirates is very interested in indoor farming because of the desert conditions that make it difficult to grow in open fields there.”
Let’s look at a few Israeli solutions for indoor farming.
Greenhouse experts
This 5.5-acre medical cannabis greenhouse complex in Greece is covered with f-CLEAN, a durable polymer offering exceptional light transmission and energy savings. Photo courtesy of Azrom
One of the oldest market leaders in the greenhouse farming business is Azrom, a family company that has specialized in designing, building, and installing fully customized greenhouse systems since 1979.
“That’s all we do,” says Zviki Porat, Azrom’s international marketing manager. “We started exporting in 1979 to Greece and since then we have done about 1,500 projects in more than 70 countries.”
In the old days, technology meant simple drip irrigation. Today, Azrom partners with Israeli research institutes and ag-tech companies to stay a step ahead of the greenhouse technologies curve.
“Now it’s a whole package of high-tech systems that lead to much higher yields and monitor processes better, including weather and topography, planning, designing, engineering, and remote controls,” says Porat.
Also in the early days, greenhouse crops were raised in the ground. Today, most farmers opt for hydroponics – growing in soil-free mediums.
“There are 10 kinds of platforms to choose from in hydroponics, so it’s much more complicated today to plan and price a greenhouse system,” says Porat.
Four kinds of crops growing under one greenhouse roof in Belarus. Photo courtesy of Azrom
“And every year more crops are being grown in greenhouses because land is in short supply. The main crops are vegetables, strawberries, ornamental flowers, and medical cannabis. But you can even grow watermelon, pineapple, and mango indoors where they stay warm and are exposed to fewer pests.”
In addition to Asia and Europe, Azrom has projects planned in Louisiana (US) and Dubai (UAE).
“Greenhouse growing requires a high investment. But you pollute less because you don’t spray as much, and you can collect and reuse water and even fertilizer,” Porat says. “So we have a lot to contribute to desert agriculture.”
Hydroponic greenhouse factories
A British-Israeli venture formed from a merger of two established companies about eight years ago, Growponics designs and builds automated hydroponic greenhouse factories in urban settings.
“You can grow vegetables all year round in greenhouses in many places, like in California’s Salinas Valley. But that is not where the population is,” says founder Lior Hessel.
Hessel says shipping costs today account for more than 80% of the landed cost of vegetables – that is, the total expense to get a product to its destination.
“Local greenhouse farming is expensive, but it pays off compared to shipping costs,” Hessel tells ISRAEL21c. “In the last 10 years, a new trend is local production with a lower landed price and lower carbon footprint.”
Still, for a massive greenhouse factory to be profitable, its steep capital and operating expenses must be offset by maximizing yield per square meter, Hessel explains.
“In Growponics we do this by using automation. The plants move on conveyers. We eliminate aisles, which normally take up 15 to 20% of greenhouse space; and we adjust the spacing between plants in different parts of the growth cycle. That alone can increase yield by more than 40% on top of the savings from eliminating aisles. It’s a gamechanger when you put them together.”
With funding in part from the Israel Innovation Authority, Growponics invests heavily in R&D in cooperation with institutes in Israel, the UK, and continental Europe.
One innovation is a data collection robot that supplements the data collection done by sensors in the greenhouses. Another is organic fertilizer produced via atmospheric nitrogen fixation, which uses bacteria to make nitrogen in the air available to plants. This technology won Growponics the European Union’s Seal of Excellence and €2.5 million in funding to implement it in Europe.
Growponics has three sites in Israel, accounting for more than 70% of domestic hydroponics.
“In Europe, we registered a new company in Greece to do more than $4 million in projects,” says Hessel, “and we are going to the UAE as part of an Israeli business delegation before the end of the year.”
Three years ago, Growponics established a two-acre greenhouse factory in Connecticut that sells its produce to New England supermarket chains. Further US expansion is planned with local partners as owner-operators to handle marketing and distribution.
Lighting and growing system
“Indoor growing demands scientific knowledge of what each plant needs and when,” says Daniel Levin, founder of Tel Aviv-headquartered Growor, whose indoor agriculture system can reduce overall costs up to 40 percent (up to 70% electricity saving alone) while increasing yield by about 30%.
The business started five years ago with a light-bulb idea, literally.
Pharma-grade cannabis thriving under Growor’s lighting system. Photo: courtesy
The smart LED light, which can manipulate outcomes such as tomato color and juiciness, was developed by Levin’s business partner Michael Naich, now CEO of Growor and its companion R&D company Group 1607 (so named because both their birthdays are on July 16).
But lighting alone wasn’t enough. Indoor farmers must control and monitor a variety of inputs such as water, nutrients, temperature, and humidity.
“Because we had so much data from our lighting system, we were able to develop a full dynamic protocol for any kind of indoor growing,” says Levin. “The protocols adapt to help each plant feel it is in the best conditions at any time and location.”
Energy-efficient LED lighting retains a starring role in the Growor system, which includes sensors, AI software, and a mobile app to manage cultivation remotely.
“We adjust the rest of the parameters to the light parameters because only light can manipulate the plant’s behavior drastically. More or less water, or more or less fertilizer, won’t change a tomato’s color.”
Growor has pilot projects in Israel, North America, Europe, and Asia for growing flowers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and pharma-grade cannabis. The latter crop, says Levin, is raised in clean rooms and must be reliably stable and consistent because “there’s no room for surprises.”
Robotic indoor harvesting
The higher yield in indoor agriculture requires more farmhands, and that’s a problem.
“One of most the urgent issues today is a labor shortage because most activities are done manually,” says MetoMotion CEO Adi Nir.
MetoMotion is developing a robotic system that automates labor-intensive greenhouse tasks and simultaneously gathers actionable data to improve yield and quality.
MetoMotion’s GRoW robot picks tomatoes and performs other labor-intensive tasks in greenhouses. Photo: courtesy
This portfolio company of The Trendlines Group has been testing its unique GRoW robotic tomato harvester in Israel and in The Netherlands in partnership with Bayer Crop Science.
“Since March we haven’t been able to travel from our offices in Yokne’am,” says Nir. “Our team there works with the robot and the software is operated mainly from here. This reduces the amount of staff needed at the greenhouse.
“You always need people too, but the robots work autonomously and from the office, you can see yield and yield forecast and other actionable data collected and transmitted to the cloud.”
The first commercial GRoW units will be shipped to a few farmers in Europe for evaluation in the next eight months.
“We are currently focused on tomatoes, but the platform can be adapted to different vegetables,” says Nir. GRoW also can be adapted to perform pruning, pollination, and de-leafing.
Wall to fork
As ISRAEL21c previously reported, “green walls” can provide insulation, air purification, and aesthetic landscaping to the interior or exterior of buildings.
They can also produce salad greens, mushrooms, and strawberries in an urban space-saving way.
However, vertical farming is still quite limited because to be profitable “you have to either grow more or save on costs of labor or resources such as electricity,” Sarai Kemp from Trendlines tells ISRAEL21c.
Among several Israeli vertical farming startups working to make this model viable are Verticanna and Vertical Field.
Verticanna, in the seed investment stage with two medical cannabis pilots running in Israel, aims to revolutionize vertical hydroponic growing systems for crops including, uniquely, citrus fruit.
Vertical Field of Ra’anana makes the Vertical Farm, a modular, moveable soil-based platform that can grow 200 types of organic, pesticide-free crops and requires no special training to operate.
The Vertical Farm can grow hundreds of types of crops indoors or outdoors at a supermarket, restaurant or another retail outlet. Photo courtesy of Vertical Field
Vertical Farm can be placed in a 20-foot or 40-foot standalone container equipped with advanced sensors that monitor, irrigate, and fertilize crops throughout every growth stage.
Vertical Farms are up and running at some Israeli supermarkets and at Farmers & Chefs restaurant in Poughkeepsie, NY, and at Evergreen Kosher Market in Monsey, NY. Expansion across other US cities is planned.
“We offer an easy-to-use real alternative to traditional agriculture,” CEO Guy Elitzur said. “Our urban farms give new meaning to the term ‘farm-to-table,’ because one can pick their own pesticide-free greens and herbs at supermarkets, restaurants, or other retail sites.”
The Israeli startup was cited by Silicon Review as one of “50 Innovative Companies to Watch in 2019” and named by World Smart City in 2019 as “Best Startup.”
Abigail Klein Leichman is a writer and associate editor at ISRAEL21c. Prior to moving to Israel in 2007, she was a specialty writer and copy editor at a major daily newspaper in New Jersey and has freelanced for a variety of newspapers and periodicals since 1984.