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On Rooftops And In Tunnels, City Farms Lead Food Revolution
Salad plants are already being grown in old bomb shelters but floating dairy farms and 16-storey food towers could be next
Growing Underground produces food 33 metres beneath Clapham High Street in a wartime bomb shelter. Photograph: Roca London Gallery
10 February 2019
Only the Northern line tube trains rumbling through tunnels overhead provide any clue that Growing Underground is not a standard farm.
The rows of fennel, purple radish and wasabi shoots could be in almost any polytunnel, but these plants are 100 feet below Clapham High Street and show that urban agriculture is, in some cases at least, not a fad.
The underground farm has occupied a section of the second world war air-raid shelters for nearly five years, and Richard Ballard, one of the founders, is planning to expand into the rest of the space later this year.
“The UK is the hardest market for growing salad,” he said. “We’ve got very low prices in the supermarket, so if we can make it work here we can make it work anywhere.”
The Growing Underground experience is being highlighted at two exhibitions this year: Roca London Gallery’s investigation into “agritecture”, London 2026, which opened on Saturday, and the V&A’s Food: Bigger Than the Plate in May, which will also showcase micro-farming methods such as Grocycle’s hanging mushroom bags.
Urban commercial farming – as opposed to Britain’s 330,000 allotments – is a regular topic of interest at places like the World Economic Forum in Davos, where policymakers consider whether the world’s food system, blamed for causing both obesity and malnutrition, can be fixed.
There are already plenty of urban farming projects around the world, particularly in the US, Japan and the Netherlands, ranging from aquaponics – urban fish and plant farms – to vertical farming, where plants are grown in stacked trays, a method Growing Underground also uses.
ReGen eco-villages would power and feed self-reliant families. Photograph: Roca London Gallery
“It’s definitely becoming an expanding industry,” Ballard said. “There’s several other businesses starting up in London in containers, smaller projects, and there are several around the country now, other vertical farms.”
Growing Underground supplies herb and salad mixes – pea shoots, garlic chives, coriander, rocket, red mustard, basil and parsley – to Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Ocado, Whole Foods and Planet Organic, as well as restaurateurs including Michel Roux. Being in London creates an advantage, Ballard says, as they can harvest and deliver in an hour.
He reels off other advantages. Being underground means temperatures never go below 15C – surface greenhouses need to be heated. They can do more harvests: 60 crops a year, compared with about seven in a traditional farm or about 25 in a polytunnel. Electricity to power the lights is a major overhead, but the firm believes renewable energy will become cheaper.
Similar British ventures include the Jones Food Company in Lincolnshire, while in the US AeroFarms has several projects in New Jersey, and Edenworks in Brooklyn uses the nitrogen waste from the tilapia and striped bass in its aquaponic fish farm to feed its herb crop.
For Clare Brass of Department 22, a sustainability consultancy which curated the Roca London exhibition, projects like Growing Underground are vital pointers to the future.
“We are living in the most ridiculously wasteful system,” she said, citing research that shows about a third of the world’s food is lost. “We need to transition to a circular economy. Business and government are not going to do it. These are people who are innovating, and we need these people to show us the way.”
Some of the ideas presented include rooftop bee-keeping, an insect breeding farm for roundabouts in Stockholm, home food recycling in 24 hours, and a floating dairy farm in Rotterdam that is due to open later this year – a real-life interpretation of the children’s book The Cow Who Fell In the Canal.
Futuristic food tech companies may look like a great investment, but when venture capital runs out, many businesses fold. Paignton Zoo in Devon was one of the first to try vertical farming in 2009, using a system known as VertiCrop to grow leafy greens such as Swiss chard and pak choi for its monkeys. Five years later, the system was gone. The company behind it, Valcent, which later became Alterrus and set up rooftop greenhouses on carparks in Canada, went bankrupt in 2014.
“Vertical farming makes sense for microgreens,” Carolyn Steel, a London-based architect and author of Hungry City, said. Herbs are about 200 times as valuable per kilo as grains. “But why farm grain in a city when it can grow 20 miles away and spend three years in a grain store. Grain stores are one of the reasons cities emerged in the first place.”
For Steel, urban farming should be encouraged as an important reminder for city dwellers where their food comes from. “We have become very remote from our food,” she said, pointing out that London’s geography shows how it was built on its food supply. Grains came along the Thames to Bread Street, chicken entered from the east to Poultry, while beef went to Smithfield.
“Ultimately we need to pay more for food,” Steel said. “Ever since industrialisation we’ve been externalising the true cost of food, and now we’re seeing the true cost of that in terms of climate change, mass extinctions, water depletion, soil erosion and diet-related disease. Where does vertical farming sit in that?”
A hydroponics unit for the home provides water and light for plants. Photograph: Roca London Gallery
Urban Underground Farming
BY STAFF REPORTS ON DECEMBER 30, 2018 WORLD NEWS
SEATTLE — According to the U.N., the world population is more than seven billion and is expected to reach more than nine billion by 2050. With a vast majority of the population migrating to urban areas, cities are forced to expand. This puts a strain on rural land space and food production; urban underground farming is being seen as the solution.
Steven Dring, a co-founder of Growing Underground believes poor topsoil management and the percentage of freshwater used in industrial agriculture are compounding matters.
Dring feels that unless farmers start replenishing the soil’s nutrients, the lifespan of the world’s topsoil is only 80 to 120 years. Urban underground farming — a solution to the aforementioned problems — utilizes existing underground structures and hydroponics to yield large crops using minimal water.
Hydroponics and Urban Underground Farming
Hydroponic technology uses porous material in place of soil as well as low-energy LEDs instead of natural light. Plants can even sit in nutrient-rich waterbeds where the water is captured and recycled.
LEDs mimic photosynthesis, a process by which plants convert light of certain wavelengths into chemical energy that is stored for future use. The LED light’s low heat creates an ideal temperature for growth in the absence of sunlight.
Additionally, growing beds are stacked vertically to maximize the space of underground farms.
Underground Farming Around the World
Worldwide, growers are cultivating food beneath the soil. Underground farms already exist in England, France and Bolivia. Sweden and Wales have undergound farms that are in development.
England
A World War II air-raid shelter 100 feet below the streets of London was transformed into an urban underground farm by Growing Underground’s Steven Dring and his business partner Richard Ballard.
The farm provides two and a half acres of space for plant growth. Its depth regulates ambient temperature and its filters free the air of pests while hydroponics ensure the growth of crops.
This business model is more cost-effective than the U.K.’s traditional greenhouse farming. The only consistent expense is for the LEDs. Greenhouse farmers use two heat sources: natural light and LEDs due to short summers. They also use importation to keep a steady supply.
Dring believes his company is not replacing traditional farming and instead it’s just complementing it.
France
In Paris, the startup, Cycloponics, uses a once abandoned parking garage measuring 37,700-square-feet to grow crops. It is located beneath an affordable housing complex.
They use hydroponic farming to harvest microgreens and bricks of composted manure to grow mushrooms.
Cycloponics produces four and a half pounds of greens each month and even harvests chicory, which requires no natural light. The team produces 660 pounds of the crop each month via urban underground farming.
Sweden
Plantagon CityFarm is building an underground farm in an old newspaper archive underneath an office tower in Stockholm.
The company will not only grow food in vertical towers under LEDs but also heat the building. Instead of capturing the light’s heat and venting it out of the room, it will be sent into a heat storage system to heat offices.
It also plans to sell its food locally, which will eliminate shipping costs and pesticide use as well as reduce fossil fuel emissions.
The company’s innovative approach to urban underground farming is attracting Singapore and Malaysia; both of the countries have a shortage of farmable land.
Wales
Abandoned coal mines across Wales are being scouted as new sites for underground farms in the U.K. The country’s coal industry went down in the 1980s, leaving mine shafts and tunnels unoccupied. These coal mines are now being revived via urban underground farming.
The project is seen as a cost-effective way of supplying largescale crops for the growing global population. Advocates say these farms can yield up to ten times more food than regular farms.
Coal mine farms can grow plants in nutrient-rich water or suspend them in midair and mist them with water and nutrients. LEDs or fiber-optic technology can tunnel sunlight deep into the ground — both inexpensive methods — while the carbon-capture technology can take advantage of natural carbon dioxide.
If coal mines are to become underground farms, there will be technical, legal and financial hurdles to overcome before beginning construction. This project can generate income and minimize remediation costs. In fact, many hill farmers in Wales are living paycheck to paycheck, so the income from underground farming can benefit them greatly.
Bolivia
The idea of urban underground farming can be applied to an arid environment like Bolivia’s Andean Plateau. This area contends with frequent drought, frost, high winds and increasing temperatures.
Bolivian underground farms are known as Walipinis. Only their roofs are visible for they blend into the plateau’s arid landscape. Internally, bricks absorb the sun’s heat and act as conductors to create warm and humid conditions all through the year. These farms protect crops from nature’s elements and ensure food security for farmers’ families.
Walipinis help farmer and llama breeder, Gabriel Condo Apaza, improve his family’s diet and save money as they no longer have to purchase food from markets. Businessman, Michael Gemio, refurbished abandoned Walipinis and turned them into an eco-farm. He hires local families to develop the Walipini technology.
Walipinis require only a small amount of water to operate. Despite droughts and high temperatures, the existing small streams are able to supply the required amount of water.
Conclusion
Due to rapid urbanization, global cities face problems such as unemployment, an inability to meet growing food demands, poor health and pollution. Urban underground farming is the solution to these problems. As long as cities implement appropriate policies, underground farms can operate at an optimal level.
– Julianne Russo
Photo: Pixabay
Abandoned Mines Could Become The Farms of The Future
Academics are exploring the use of abandoned mines and other subterranean facilities in the UK and China as alternatives to traditional agricultural land.
December 22, 2018 | By John McKenna
Coal mines and inner-city tunnels could be transformed into farms to help feed the planet’s growing population.
Academics are exploring the use of abandoned mines and other subterranean facilities in the UK and China as alternatives to traditional agricultural land.
“There are millions of redundant coal mines and tunnels in the world which could be linked to new tunnels for crop production,” says Professor Saffa Riffat, Chair in Sustainable Energy at the University of Nottingham.
“In the UK there are over 1,500 redundant coal mines, and in China, there are over 12,000 abandoned coal mines (0.6 million m3), 7.2 billion m3 of tunnels and about one billion m3 of civic air defence tunnels.”
Farm demand
The United Nations predicts the world’s population will grow by 1 billion to reach 8.6 billion in 2030, and 9.7 billion by 2050.
This increase – coupled with an expanding global middle class that is demanding higher-quality food – will require a near doubling of current food production levels, which today still leave 815 million people chronically undernourished.
Instead of simply doubling the amount of agricultural land and all of the economic and environmental implications that would come with that, farmers and scientists are exploring new techniques for growing our food.
Riffat and his University of Nottingham colleagues are embarking on a two-to-three-year study of underground facilities in the UK and China.
They claim that a variety of crops could be grown in the subterranean farms using hydroponic planters, where plant roots are fed with nutrient-rich water. This water could be sourced from groundwater used directly or water that is condensed from ambient air.
Coloured LED units would enable photosynthesis in the absence of sunlight, while plants could breathe CO2 that has been captured from industrial emissions and stored underground.
Dome grown
Growing food inside in artificial conditions is nothing new: in Iceland, where winter can last for six months, crops have been produced in geothermal domes all year round for the past 20 years.
However, today hydroponics is being combined with digital technology to make indoor farming more efficient than ever before, leading some to call it the future of agriculture.
And in many cities – where the majority of the planet’s projected population growth will occur – vertical farms are appearing. These “skyscraper farms” are claimed to yield more than 32 times the level of crops per square metre as agricultural land.
However, Riffat warns that “vertical farming systems are expensive to manufacture and install, and require a large amount of water and energy for heating and cooling”.
“They are also vulnerable to extreme weather conditions, wars and terrorism,” he adds.
He argues that underground farms would be less exposed to many of these risks.
Such underground farms already exist: in London one company has converted old Second World War air raid shelters into a hydroponic farm that produces herbs and salads for London’s hotels, restaurants and supermarkets.
The article was published on the World Economic Forum’s website.
Photo credit: Daniel Mennerich on Foter.com / CC BY-NC-NDCopy
UK: London's Underground Farm Opens Doors To The Public
To View Video, Please Click Here
Ever wondered what’s going on beneath your feet under the streets of London? Well, now is your chance to enter another world by visiting Growing Underground. This urban farm is situated 33 meters underneath the streets of Clapham, London in a World War II air raid shelter.
For the first time ever and for a limited time, these tunnels will open to give you a tour of the depths of the underground farm, on November 27.
Underground, Smart Farm Takes Root In South Korea
Operators of this high-tech facility in South Korea say it is the world’s first indoor vertical farm built in a tunnel.
LED, rather than the sun, shines on vertically stacked layers.
BY JUNG-YOON KIM ASSOCIATED PRESS
Choi Jae Bin, head of NextOn, stands inside a high-tech farm in a former tunnel in South Korea. Associated Press/ Han Myung Oh
OKCHEON, South Korea — Behind a blue wall that seals a former highway tunnel stretches a massive indoor farm bathed in rose-tinted light.
Fruits and vegetables grow hydroponically – with no soil – in vertically stacked layers inside, illuminated by neon-pink LEDs instead of sunlight.
Operators of this high-tech facility in South Korea say it is the world’s first indoor vertical farm built in a tunnel. It’s also the largest such farm in the country and one of the biggest in the world, with a floor area of 25,000 square feet, nearly half the size of an American football field.
Indoor vertical farming is seen as a potential solution to the havoc wreaked on crops by the extreme weather linked to climate change and to shortages of land and workers in countries with aging populations.
The tunnel, about 120 miles south of Seoul, was built in 1970 for one of South Korea’s first major highways. Once a symbol of the country’s industrialization, it closed in 2002. An indoor farming company rented the tunnel from the government last year and transformed it into a “smart farm.”
Instead of the chirrups of cicadas, Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune” resonates in the tunnel in hopes of stimulating the crops’ healthy growth.
“We are playing classical music because vegetables also love listening to music like we do,” said Choi Jae Bin, head of NextOn, the company that runs the vertical farm.
Sixty types of fruits and vegetables grow in optimized conditions using NextOn’s own growth and harvest systems. Among them, 42 are certified as no-pesticide, no-herbicide and non-GMO products, said Dave Suh, NextOn’s chief technology officer.
He said the tunnel provides temperatures of 50 to 72 Fahrenheit, enabling the company to optimize growing conditions.
The company’s high-tech, indoor farm grows crops on vertically stacked styrofoam shelves under LEDs, above, safe from extreme weather. Associated Press/Han Myung Oh
High-tech smart farms used also in places like Dubai and Israel where growing conditions are challenging, can be a key to developing sustainable agriculture, experts said.
“Society is aging and urbanization is intensifying as our agricultural workforce is shrinking,” said Son Jung Eek, a professor of plant science at Seoul National University. Smart farming can make it easier to raise high-value crops that are sensitive to temperature and other conditions.
Only slightly more than 16 percent of South Korea’s land was devoted to farming in 2016, according to government statistics. The rural population has fallen by almost half over the past four decades, even as the overall population has grown nearly 40 percent.
The Agriculture Ministry announced earlier this year that it will invest in smart farm development nationwide, expanding their total area to 17,000 acres from the current 9,900 acres.
Turning a profit can be challenging for indoor vertical farms given the high cost of construction and infrastructure. NextOn cut construction costs in half by using the abandoned tunnel and developing its own LED lights and other technologies.
The proprietary technologies reduce water and energy use and the need for workers, cutting operation costs, Suh said. Sensors in each vertical layer measure variables such as temperature, humidity, light, carbon dioxide and micro-dust levels to maintain an optimized environment for each crop.
The crops will cost less than conventionally grown organic vegetables, Suh said.
The farm will supply vegetables to a major retailer and bakery chain, NextOn said.
Next up: More tiers of crops in the remaining two-thirds of the tunnel to grow high-value fruits and medicinal herbs.
Suh said the medicinal plant market is currently dominated by a few countries and regions.
“Our goal is to achieve disruptive innovation of this market by realizing stable mass production of such premium crops,” he said.
Heavenly Good From The Underworld
Heavenly Good From The Underworld
April 17, 2018, 16:25
Forget about organic farming. Now it is about urban urban cultivation. ICA Kvantum Liljeholmen peered in the crystal ball and was helped by Urban Oasis to introduce the country's first underground crops - completely without the help of soil.
In a mountain room under ICA Kvantum Liljeholmen, fruit grows, greens and green so it's cracking. No wonder, if you do not think that Urban Oasis's cultivation area is not only underground but because the frog beds also lack soil. However, the taste can not be mistaken; The products are just as tasty, crisp and healthy as they were grown with native Mother Nature. But in the long run, the difference can be huge for our planet.
Underground crops are, in short, a giant cliff straight into the future. For here, there is no talk of either eutrophication, climate impact or unnecessary imports. Today, 70 percent of all vegetables in Sweden are purchased from abroad. Soon that number can be a memory only. In Liljeholmen it moves on 50 square meters of small production of freshly harvested only 500 meters, straight into ICA Kvantum's fresh salad bar.
"We can grow almost anything here. With the technology in place, it is only the imagination that sets limits. "Break the seasons" we are talking about. Maybe we're just a small step from sun-dried tomatoes and crispy strawberries at Christmas, says ICA Kvantum Liljeholm's sales manager Joakim Haraldsson.
Urban Oasis's resource-efficient urban cultivation is the result of a quartet pilot project - consisting of two KTH students, an architect and a finance man - with the goal of forming a foodtech company for sustainable food production.
- By so-called hydroponic cultivation, cultivating in water without soil, we can produce nutritious and nutritious food in an exciting environment where agriculture and technology meet. We will be able to offer fresh, roasted vegetables all year round even in Sweden, "said Albert Payaro, CEO and one of the initiators behind Urban Oasis.
Ica Kvantum Liljeholmen has already taken great steps in pursuit of environmentally friendly farming practices. When the Urban Oasis underground plant will soon be utilized even more efficiently, the ambition is to produce nearly 5 tonnes of vegetables - a day.
It is enough to calm the hunger of thousands of salmon-hot ICA customers in Liljeholmen every day.
"ICA is basically an entrepreneurial company and it is therefore fun that we can support and collaborate with other exciting entrepreneurial companies and help them to market," concludes Joakim Haraldsson at ICA.
• Growing in water without soil gives great harvest on a small surface - year round. Nutrition reaches the roots via an aqueous solution under the boxes. As an air gap is left between the plant and water, oxygen is added all the time, which causes the crops to grow rapidly above the surface.
• What can I grow? Almost whatever for green. Spices like basil, coriander and parsley, lettuce and other leafy vegetables, of course, but also tomatoes, chili, eggplant.
• If you do not have daylight, the crops can get energy using small LED lights.
• Farming without soil is nothing new. It already did the ancient Egyptians 600 BC. in one of the world's seven wonders: Babylon's famous hanging gardens.
ICA's Entrepreneur Prize is awarded for the first time in 2018 and goes to people outside the ICA organization. The prize goes to two categories: the local hero of the year and the new star of the year, and a scholarship of 100,000 kronor each. The winner is appointed by a jumbo jury and an online poll that weighs as heavily as one of the jury's voices.
In addition to ICA's Entrepreneurial Award, Ica aims to provide 200 new, small local suppliers with the opportunity to sell their products directly to ICA stores by 2020.
published: April 17, 2018
Manhattan’s Only Underground Chef’s Farm Supplying Rare Herbs to NYC Restaurants
New York City’s farm-to-table scene just got even fresher. Farm.one is an underground vertical farm in the business of forward-thinking. With a little help from LED lighting and a climate controlled environment, it grows its produce year-round, one story below the hustle and bustle of Manhattan’s streets.
New York City’s farm-to-table scene just got even fresher. Farm.one is an underground vertical farm in the business of forward-thinking. With a little help from LED lighting and a climate controlled environment, it grows its produce year-round, one story below the hustle and bustle of Manhattan’s streets.
Located underneath the 2-Michelin star rated Atera, Farm.one has made a name for itself as a convenient alternative for restaurants that want produce that is not only hyperlocal but also delivered within hours of its harvest. Rob Laing, CEO of Farm.one, gave Untapped Cities an inside look at the rare micro-greens, herbs and edible flowers sought after by New York City’s most celebrated chefs.
After an April 2016 introduction inside the Institute of Culinary Education in downtown Manhattan, Farm.one expanded to its current space at 77 Worth Street in Tribeca. It currently uses hydroponic technology, growing its pesticide-free products in a water-based nutrient solution as opposed to soil. Although underground, the plants receive the perfect amount of sun year round, and are kept in an environment with optimal temperatures and humidity levels for growing.
This, combined with the ability to manipulate the light intensity and overall indoor environment, allows the farm to perform in a year-round capacity that is not restricted by outdoor conditions or season. In fact, venture capital funding for vertical farming saw a 653 percent increase from 2016 to 2017 alone, demonstrating that this innovative agricultural alternative has a promising future.
All that is produced at Farm.one is grown to order specifically for New York chefs, and delivered via bike and subway to restaurants in Manhattan and Brooklyn. This eliminates waste and food miles, meaning no emissions are created as the herb shipments are transported. In the age of sustainable farming as well as cognizant consumption, Farm.one also makes sure packages its product in reusable containers.
Everything from Bronze Fennel and Sweet Thai Basil to Epazote and Zaatar Marjoram is grown in the same underground space, demonstrating the breadth of Farm.one’s yield available to those on the buying end. Over time, the team at the farm hopes to build the widest selection of edible herbs and greens in the world.
Next, check out 10 Urban Farms in NYC and 10 of NYC’s Sustainability Initiatives.
The Underground Farm Delivering Rare Herbs to New York’s Top Chefs
The Underground Farm Delivering Rare Herbs to New York’s Top Chefs
Bespoke greens and flowers are grown-to-order in Manhattan.
FEBRUARY 14, 2018
Farm Manager Tom Rubino harvests marigolds at Farm.one. ALL PHOTOS: SARAH BLESENER
The sprouts and flowers are as recherché as they are delicious: nepitella, wood sorrel, papalo, micro cressida, afilia pea shoots. While diners may see garnish as little more than a sprig of green to fork aside, chefs see garnish in multiple dimensions—hue, flavor, texture, scent—and have exacting requirements in each. Meeting those requirements, which for millennia depended on the turn of the season or the whimsy of the weather, is now achieved in a Manhattan basement.
Farm.one is a blossoming underground vertical farm in the heart of Tribeca. Inside, farmers grow rare, bespoke, and chef-tailored micro-greens, herbs, and edible flowers for some of the most celebrated kitchens in New York. Several days a week, my job is to slalom through the city’s sidewalk traffic, turtle-backed with bags of the day’s harvest, and hand-deliver the morning’s pickings. (Consider this an official disclosure, although I am not an employee of the company.) Besides herbally gratifying chefs cloistered in the steam and aluminum of famous kitchens—and occasionally being gifted with the most delicious nibbles of my life—I’ve gotten a peek into what may well be the future of urban farming.
There are three clear perks of growing urban greens indoors: One, you can’t get much fresher than farm-to-fork in a few hours. Two, transportation emissions are no dirtier than the courier’s exhalations (Farm.one, at least, only delivers by bike, foot, or train). And three, by eluding meteorological vicissitude, growing to order is like strutting up and hand-sticking a dart right in the bullseye.
Preparing Red Veined Sorrel, a very popular micro known for its tart, bitter flavor and appearance.
Justin Chen, a sous chef at Jungsik, the two-Michelin star, Korean fusion joint, leans in to study the tangerine gem marigold stem pinched between his fingers. I ask what he looks for in Farm.one’s micro greens and flowers, which he occasionally sends back when they’re not “up to spec.” “Consistency,” he replies. In high-end dining, Chen adds, “There’s no room for error.” That’s why keeping tight control on the grow conditions at the farm is so critical.
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The tangerine gem marigold, a speck of a blossom no bigger than an iPhone home button, is for a petit four—that post-dessert, single-bite confectionary that seems to magically ablate from plate to memory in a single delicious swallow. Jungsik’s petit four looks fit for a centerpiece on a dollhouse dining table. The potted-plant-shaped bon-bon is made up of a dark chocolate shell lined with meyer-lemon caramel and ginger-and-white-chocolate ganache, and a tiny tangerine gem marigold flower sprouts out of the chocolate sable “soil.” If the flower were any bigger (the taste is subtle—like a sweetened tea with lemon) it would overpower the orchestral intricacy of the meyer lemon, caramel, and ginger chocolate. “The size,” Chen reiterates, “is what lets a chef correctly balance flavors [and] find visual symmetry in a dish.”
Red Veined Sorrel Seedlings being grown in Rock Wool Cubes.
One of the experts in charge of giving chefs the esculent tools to achieve such symmetry is farm manager Tom Rubino. Rubino walks the basement farms seven days a week, tweaking controls and sampling from the approximately 100 varieties of plants. His favorite is oxalis, a whale tail-shaped leaf that comes in beet purple or Irish green and has a puckering, citric flavor—something you seem to taste in your forehead as much as your mouth. “It tastes like grape skin,” Rubino says. “When I was a kid, I used to eat grape skins.”
The farm has between two and six levels of grow beds, and totals only about 1,500 square feet in three separate facilities. The plants either drop their roots directly in water, or into a grow medium—a coconut-husk concoction that gives the roots something to grip. Eliminating soil is just one of the ways to maximize and tightly control grow conditions. The farmers also tweak the pH of the water, adjust airflow and humidity, lock in the temperature, and toy with both the wattage and spectrum of the LED lights. They’re basically trying to outdo nature, not letting the plants “succumb to overcast skies,” Rubino tells me.
Shift Hand Manager Katherine Chester in the facility.
Like letting a dog off a leash in an open field, when you give a chef options, they tend to run with them. One chef wants only orange—not yellow or red—tangerine gems. Another wants clearly defined veins in the red-veined sorrel. Other demands include micro-cumin, Neon Rose Magic, Yarrow crowns, and nasturtiums with only purple rims.
On a December day, I watch Victor Amarilla admire those purple rims. But when he pops the little, lily-pad-looking leaf into his mouth, he frowns. “The flavor’s almost there,” he says. As the head chef at Le Turtle, the popular Chrystie Street French restaurant, he receives a twice-weekly delivery from Farm.one. To ensure the nasturtium pop enough, Rubino had to find the right seed for Le Turtle’s needs, and is now growing an exclusive small forest of nasturtium in one corner of the farm. The perfect nasturtium has a slight crunch, a slow, mouth-full wave of heat, and finishes with a flicker of pepper. When Amarilla gets a flavor he likes, he’s apt to pumps the air with his fists.
Petite Anise Hyssop Tops and Purple Oxalis Flowers from Farm.one placed on a dish.
Amarilla is not the only chef using farm.one to color his plates with edible whorls and frizz. One frozen day in late January, I watch chef Chris Owen, of the plant-based pizza restaurant Double Zero (part of the Matthew Kinney restaurant group), nibble on purslane, which he describes as a “juicy, cucumbery” wonder. He imagines aloud how it would taste on his chocolate cake. Little jade-looking purslane leaves inside sweet confections are the kinds of surprises that Owen likes to throw at Double Zero’s diners.
“Farm.one grabs things at the early stages of their lives, when they’re more interesting,” Owen tells me. He’s looking for red and pink flowers for his Valentine’s Day special—maybe some dianthus for his apple cider cheesecake. He also wants some acidic flavors, maybe some sorrel blossoms. As we chat, he sneaks me a bite from a tray of shiitake faux-bacon, which just came out of the wood-burning oven, and browses through a stack of farm.one samples encased in plastic clamshells.
Wood Sorrel Flowers are known for their bright yellow color and tart, slightly sweet flavor.
Double Zero’s aim is “to make vegan foods more accessible,” for which high-quality simplicity is critical, Owen explains. “Over-processing is a problem with veganism.” But be it vegan, classic French, fusion Korean, or omakase, pretty much whatever rare and delicious doodad or efflorescence you imagine can be grown in farm.one’s underground vertical fields.
“The first impression, and maybe 50 percent of the total experience in a restaurant is based on visuals,” Owen argues. Twice a week I deliver him a few dozen purple-and-yellow viola blossoms so he can make that first impression a kaleidoscopic one.
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How Smart Monitoring Is Helping An Urban Farm to Flourish
Growing Underground, which launched in 2015 and is located in former WW2 air-raid shelters, uses hydroponic systems to sustainably produce the pesticide-free crop. The tunnels are leased from Transport for London (TfL), which was happy to see them being put to work having laid dormant for 60 years.
Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2018-01-smart-urban-farm-flourish.html#jCp
How Smart Monitoring Is Helping An Urban Farm to Flourish
January 18, 2018, University of Cambridge
Microgreens and salad leaves. Credit: Growing Underground
An innovative and award-winning urban farming facility is creating energy-efficient growing conditions in tunnels 120ft below the busy streets of Clapham in London. Microgreens and salad leaves are thriving with the help of a smart monitoring programme that records temperature, humidity and CO2 levels.
Growing Underground, which launched in 2015 and is located in former WW2 air-raid shelters, uses hydroponic systems to sustainably produce the pesticide-free crop. The tunnels are leased from Transport for London (TfL), which was happy to see them being put to work having laid dormant for 60 years.
The aim of Growing Underground is to bring edible crop production to the heart of the city while minimising the carbon impact of food transportation. The verdant trays of fennel, garlic chives, pea shoots and coriander, among others, can be picked and on a plate in a restaurant within hours. The forward-thinking company, which sells its greens through Ocado and Marks & Spencer and aims to be carbon neutral, has just been awarded the BBC Future Food Award.
Cambridge Centre for Smart Infrastructure and Construction (CSIC) Co-Investigator Dr. Ruchi Choudhary, who leads the Energy Efficient Cities initiative (EECi) at the Department of Engineering, started working with Growing Underground in 2015, following an energy-optimising project completed for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. This retrofit study of the greenhouses at Kew saw the development of a simulation model that incorporated the heat and mass transfer associated with plant transpiration into the dynamic energy simulation of the greenhouse structures.
"The idea was to expand the energy-optimisation project into urban farming and the collaboration with Growing Underground provided the ideal environment," says Melanie Jans-Singh, an EECi Ph.D. student investigating the integration of urban farming to cities reusing wasted resources. Rebecca Ward, a Research Associate at the EECi, who developed the greenhouse energy simulation at Kew, is also part of the team working with Growing Underground.
In March last year a range of instrumentation, including wireless sensors and web cams that monitor temperature, humidity, CO2, air velocity and light, was installed in a section of the tunnel that is currently being used for growing crops. More sensors were added this summer to help to maintain a constant tunnel temperature of between 20-25C. "There are big spatial variations of temperature in the tunnel but everywhere needs to have the same conditions," explains Melanie, who has spent the past six months building and calibrating the sensors. "Most sensors need cables. Our sensors are wireless and are designed to cope with the humidity underground."
There are two tunnels on different levels – in total 65,000 square feet of burrows with the capacity to accommodate up to 8,000 people – and Growing Underground has plans to expand the business next year.
Urban farming is growing rapidly in Japan and South East Asia, where the facilities are referred to as plant factories which are located in dedicated new buildings. "While our focus is urban farming we are looking to repurpose spaces rather than using new buildings, and these could be tunnels or rooftops that are not currently being used," says Melanie.
Data collected from the instrumentation is informing the heat and mass transfer model of this unique 'tunnel greenhouse'. "Our monitoring is helping Growing Underground to optimise the yield while reducing energy consumption. If, for example, there is a doubt about how the plants are growing at a certain spot, I can refer to the measurement of air velocity so that we can identify the precise conditions. When the plants are growing better in one area than another, the instrumentation helps us to work out why."
Real-time monitoring means that conditions can be changed according to the analysed data. Ventilation is the chief energy consumer at the Growing Underground project and monitoring data has enabled adjustments that have cut consumption for ventilation without affecting yield.
The founders of the partially crowd-funded company, Richard Ballard, who discovered the tunnels when he was a film student scouting for locations, and Steven Dring, who has a background in logistics, are able to access the data 24/7. The analyzed data itself is of value; it creates a 'lifetime performance passport' which provides the asset owners, present, and future, with a rich source of information.
"We have been very lucky to partner with the University of Cambridge. Ruchi and her team have really helped us monitor and develop the space which will enable us to eventually get the optimum growing environment," says Richard. "They have provided us with monthly reports which have allowed us to make adjustments to improve temperature, humidity and air velocity, and now we are working together to improve CO2 levels through enrichment."
The collaboration between business and academia benefits all stakeholders. Growing Underground is providing the case study for further research and the academics are delivering data that will help the crops, and the company, to flourish.
In the longer term, the EECi team would like to create a how-to guide to adding a 'greenhouse' to a space not previously used for this purpose, identifying the conditions required to turn a space into a greenhouse. "We are using this case study to create a baseline simulation tool for integrating urban farming into unused urban space," says Melanie. "The second part of my Ph.D. will focus on finding optimal spaces in cities for urban farming. I will look at the whole of London and investigate other typologies of unused spaces within cities for the purpose of urban farming."
Additional aspects will be introduced to the simulation model with the purpose of optimising energy efficiency. "We will consider how we can integrate co-benefits between plants and buildings. When a building has heating there is a lot of waste heat produced. The waste heat (and perhaps also CO2) can be harnessed for a productive purpose." Melanie will also look at how urban farming could help to improve air quality, energy use and water use.
"Once we understand the synergies through our simulation model, any city can be considered in this way," says Melanie.
Rebecca, who built the energy-optimisation simulation model for Kew, is now applying her modeling talents to Growing Underground. The EECi team visits the Growing Underground tunnels once a month to check the instrumentation, report back to Richard and Steven and, occasionally, enjoy the fruits of their labour. "The fresh salad leaves and herbs really are good," says Melanie. "They're very tasty."
Explore further: Underground air-raid shelter feeding London restaurants
Provided by: University of Cambridge
Unused Tokyo Tunnel Gets New Life As Underground Veggie Farm
Conveyor manufacturer Itoh Denki and electronics maker Fujitsu have set up an automated underground vegetable farm in a disused utility tunnel in Chiba Prefecture, just east of the Japanese capital.
December 27, 2017 1:15 pm JST
Unused Tokyo Tunnel Gets New Life As Underground Veggie Farm
Stable temperatures cut electricity bills by two-thirds at automated plant
YASUTERU SHIMOMURA, Nikkei staff writer
It is hoped the fully automated underground farm in Chiba Prefecture will be able to produce 5,000 vegetables a day
CHIBA -- Tell anyone you think vegetables will soon be emerging from the ground on a conveyor belt and they will more than likely think you are mad. But that is exactly what will soon start happening in a Tokyo suburb.
Conveyor manufacturer Itoh Denki and electronics maker Fujitsu have set up an automated underground vegetable farm in a disused utility tunnel in Chiba Prefecture, just east of the Japanese capital.
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Urban farms, vertical farms, even space farms have all been touted as solutions to the world's food security challenges. All, however, come with hurdles in terms of cost, sustainability and space.
This new concept not only has the potential to produce vegetables at a fraction of the cost and energy consumption, but also need never even be seen.
Thanks to the stable year-round temperatures, the farm can operate using just one-third of the electricity of a conventional vegetable farm.
The hope is that, by 2020, the plant will be shipping 5,000 heads of lettuce and other produce a day.
The vegetables are grown into seedlings overground before being taken down to the facility on a conveyor belt. Once ready for shipment, they are brought back up, packed and shipped. Apart from the sowing and packing, every step of the process is automated.
Underground, the vegetables are grown in 2.4- by 1-meter cases under light-emitting diodes that spur growth and fed nutrients through tubes.
At a balmy 18-20 C all year, the facility has no need for costly air conditioning and temperatures can be controlled by fans.
Dubbed "Makuhari farm vechica," the facility occupies 4,000 sq. meters of space, 10 meters below ground. The two companies spent 100 million yen ($882,744) building the farm on space rented for 770 yen per square meter annually.
Underground Farm Pays Rent in Heat It Supplies to Building Above
12-08-17
Underground Farm Pays Rent in Heat It Supplies to Building Above
Vertical farms have been touted as a way to feed a rapidly urbanizing world population (I've waxed poetic about them myself.) Critics of the trending technology, however, contend that these energy-intensive hubs are too costly and perhaps impractical to maintain.
Sure, the naysayers have a point, but what if vertical farms did more than just feed mouths? In Stockholm, Sweden, the Plantagon CityFarm located in the basement of the iconic DN-Skrapan building in the Kungsholmen district has a whole other purpose besides nourishing the office workers on site—the farm also recycles its heat to warm the offices above.
The underground farm, which will start production early next year, stores the heat emitted by the LEDs used to grow veggies and then reuses that energy to heat the property. This stroke of genius allows the venture to pay nothing in rent.
"[The building owner] agreed to give us a free lease for three years, so we don't pay one single Swedish kroner for the room," Plantagon cofounder Hans Hassle told FastCompany. "This is the challenge, very often, for urban farmers: If you really want to grow things in the city, you have to find new business models that actually make the food not too expensive in the end."
FastCompany reported that the system will save the office building 700,000 kilowatt-hours of energy a year, roughly worth three times as much as the previous tenant of the space had paid in rent.
Notably, the office building and the farm will work together symbiotically. "The CityFarm under the DN-Skrapan will provide its surplus heat to the offices and in exchange [receive] CO2 from the people who work there," the developers said.
The farm is expected to produce 100 kilograms of fresh vegetables daily and, like many other indoor farming ventures, it recycles most of its water and does not need to use any herbicides or pesticides.
The Swedish company has a goal of opening a total of ten such facilities in the Stockholm area by 2020, and it has started a crowdfunding campaign for the planned expansion.
"The reason for a crowdfunding campaign is that we believe that people that care about the future of cities, food production and the health of our planet should be given the opportunity to be a part of the solution," said Owe Pettersson, CEO of Plantagon International. "To us, it is important to create and expand together, showing that we are a movement for healthy sustainable food. Together, we can make a difference for safe food production in cities—now and in the future."
Inside a Farm Hidden Under The Streets of Paris In An Abandoned Parking Garage
Inside a Farm Hidden Under The Streets of Paris In An Abandoned Parking Garage
December 7, 2017
A mushroom sprouts in Cycloponics' underground farm in Paris, France.Cycloponics/Facebook
Something is growing underneath La Chapelle, a neighborhood north of central Paris.
It's an underground farm by Cycloponics, a local indoor farming startup that harvests lettuce, herbs, and mushrooms in a space it calls la caverne (the cave).
The farm uses an agricultural technique called hydroponic farming, in which greens are grown under LEDs in nutrient-rich water without sunlight or soil.
Take a look inside.
Since late 2016, Cycloponics has grown vegetables in a 37,700-square-foot farm underneath the streets of Paris.
The 10-person team calls its farm "the cave." It's located beneath a 300-unit affordable housing complex. The space was formerly an abandoned parking garage.
Clusters of button, shiitake, and oyster mushrooms grow on bricks of composted manure.
The farm also harvests chicory (a root commonly used as coffee substitute in Europe), which doesn't require any sunlight to grow. The startup produces around 660 pounds of the crop each month.
LEDs adjusted to specific light spectrums help grow microgreens. They sit in beds of nutrient-rich water rather than soil.
The growing trays are stacked on top of each other. Each month, the team harvests 4.5 pounds of greens.
Cycloponics launched the farm with the goal of growing veggies year-round and closer to the city compared to traditional outdoor farms.
The team sells its produce at local farmers markets, restaurants, and independent grocery stores.
Eventually, the startup aims to expand and produce 54 tons of fruits and vegetables per year, according to Le Monde.
Cycloponics strives to be a "part of the renewal of the tomorrow’s cities by transforming unused urban space to produce amazing vegetables," according to the team.
Photos: Cycloponics/Facebook
Source: Cycloponics