Welcome to iGrow News, Your Source for the World of Indoor Vertical Farming
Kimbal Musk — Elon's Brother — Is Running A Shipping-Container Farm Compound In New York City
Kimbal Musk — Elon's Brother — Is Running A Shipping-Container Farm Compound In New York City
Cofounder Tobias Peggs outside the Square Roots shipping container farms in Brooklyn, New York. Sarah Jacobs
Kimbal Musk, the brother of Tesla CEO Elon Musk, is trying to change the way we eat by creating what he calls a "real-food revolution."
For over a decade, Kimbal Musk has run two restaurant chains, The Kitchen and Next Door, which serve dishes strictly made with locally sourced meat and veggies. Since 2011, his nonprofit program has installed so-called Learning Gardens in over 300 schools to teach kids about agriculture.
Musk's latest food venture delves into the world of local urban farming.
In early November, he and fellow entrepreneur Tobias Peggs launched Square Roots, an urban-farming incubator program in Brooklyn, New York. The setup consists of 10 steel shipping-container farms where young entrepreneurs work to develop vertical-farming startups. Unlike traditional outdoor farms, vertical farms grow soil-free crops indoors and under LED lights.
On Tuesday, Square Roots opened applications for its second season, which will start in October and last 13 months.
"Graduates are uniquely positioned to embark on a lifetime of real food entrepreneurship — with the know-how to build a thriving, responsible business," Musk wrote on Medium. "The opportunities in front of them will be endless."
Six weeks into the first season, just after the entrepreneurs completed their first harvests, Business Insider got a tour of the farms. Take a look:
The Square Roots farms in Brooklyn sit between an old Pfizer factory and the apartment building where Jay-Z grew up. Sarah Jacobs
Everything grows inside 320-square-foot steel shipping containers. Each container can produce about 50,000 mini-heads of lettuce a year. Sarah Jacobs
The US Department of Agriculture gave the Square Roots entrepreneurs small loans to cover preliminary operating expenses. Other investors include Powerplant Ventures, GroundUp, Lightbank, and FoodTech Angels.
On four parallel walls, leafy greens and herbs sprout from soil-free growing beds filled with nutrient-rich water. Instead of sunlight, they rely on hanging blue and pink LED rope lights. Sarah Jacobs
About the size of the standard one-car garage, each shipping container can produce the same amount in crops as two acres of outdoor farmland.
Musk and Peggs chose Square Roots’ first class of 10 entrepreneurs from over 500 applications. Peggs said they represented the next generation of farmers — though not all had previous farming experience.
Sarah Jacobs
In early 2016, while Aliber was recovering from a concussion, he learned about urban farming from a podcast. He started researching it from his bed and found out about the Square Roots program.
Sarah Jacobs
Before Josh Aliber, 24, moved from Boston to Brooklyn to join Square Roots, he had never farmed. Now he's starting up a specialty herb business and running a vertical farm. Sarah Jacobs
His shipping container farm runs on 10 gallons of recycled water a day, which is less than an average shower's worth.
Sarah Jacobs
Aliber can monitor everything from the oxygen level to the humidity — which affects the plants' taste and texture — using the "computer panel" near the door and sensors in the growing beds. If he wants a tropical or northeastern climate, he can control that, too.
Sarah Jacobs
All of the Square Roots' farmers sold their first harvests at a local farmers market.
Aliber is selling his specialty herbs and basil primarily to upscale Italian and pizza restaurants in NYC.
Sarah Jacobs
All of the Square Roots' farmers sold their first harvests at a local farmers market.
Through the program, Aliber has had the opportunity to work with numerous mentors — Square Roots has 120 so far.
Sarah Jacobs
"Yes, I have the ability to make money," Aliber said, "But yes, I also have the ability to change the world."
Sarah Jacobs
Electra Jarvis, another 27-year-old farmer, usually comes to Square Roots three days a week. On Wednesdays, she spends four hours meticulously placing 800 seeds inside small troughs.
Mary Wetherill
Two weeks later, she transplants them to the walls. "We should be growing closer to us in cities," she said.
Mary Wetherill
Aliber, Jarvis, and the other eight entrepreneurs are not just learning how to grow plants, but also how to grow their businesses. A large part of the program is learning about branding and "how to tell our stories," Jarvis said.
In the late '90s, after the tech boom, the Musk brothers moved from South Africa to Silicon Valley. They invested in X.com, which later merged with PayPal and was acquired by eBay.
Sarah Jacobs
Kimbal Musk has known Peggs, who had worked for a decade on tech startups that eventually sold to Walmart and Adobe. Before Square Roots, they worked together at The Kitchen, where Peggs served as the "president of impact" and helped expand the chain to new cities.
When asked how his experience in tech translated to running a vertical-farming accelerator, Peggs said the two fields shared the same motivation. "You learn how to execute impossible dreams," he said. "This was all just a PowerPoint presentation six months ago."
Sarah Jacobs
Square Roots hopes to expand to 20 cities by 2020. "Today's consumer wants to know they are supporting companies that are doing something good for the world," Peggs said. "This not just a Brooklyn foodie trend."
Sarah Jacobs
The world's largest vertical farm, AeroFarms, launched last year in Newark, New Jersey. In late 2015, the urban-farming company Gotham Greens opened the world's largest rooftop farm in Chicago.
Vertical farms can grow crops all year, using significantly less water and space than outdoor farms.
Sarah Jacobs
Critics of vertical farms say that the LED lights drain a lot of electricity. Peggs said Square Roots was exploring how the farmers could switch to solar power in the future, since electricity is the program's biggest cost.
Sarah Jacobs
Square Roots' lights are on only in the evening and night, although other vertical farms run theirs 24/7.
Square Roots recently built offices inside the Pfizer factory. In its past life, the building produced ammonia, a chemical sprayed on plants that became vital to the industrial food system after World War I.
The building is populated by sustainable-food startups. "It's an act of poetic justice," Peggs said.
Sarah Jacobs
Urban Farming, Bolstered by Zoning Law Changes, Blossoms in NYC
Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint is one of several farms that has sprouted on rooftops around the city.(Credit: Annie Novak)
Urban Farming, Bolstered by Zoning Law Changes, Blossoms in NYC
By Ivan Pereira ivan.pereira@amny.com July 17, 2017
The seeds of New York’s rooftop farming industry, planted over the past decade, have yielded a harvest in recent years.
It has grown from a niche industry to a large-scale phenomenon, according to experts, thanks to a change in city regulations and a subsequent spur of investment.
And there’s potential for expansion in the years ahead, especially in Brooklyn and Queens.
“These large-scale greenhouses are advanced and expensive, but more and more consumers and businesses are supporting them,” said Nicole Baum, spokeswoman for Gotham Greens, a rooftop farm operator in Brooklyn.
The city changed its zoning laws in 2012 to allow rooftop greenhouses certain exemptions from limits on height and floor size on commercial and industrial properties. As a consequence, landlords have come to view them as a potential amenity and opportunity for profit.
“The landlords now see a way to use their space wisely,” said Annie Novak, a farmer who helped create the Eagle Street Rooftop Farm in Greenpoint in 2009. “Now there is a positive shift from the community who want to see these spaces.”
While the latest data on the number of urban farms comes from the U.S. Census — which said the city saw 11 new farms between 2007 and 2012 — agricultural experts point to a boom in the facilities on rooftops as evidence of the industry’s growth.
Sales from rooftop farms’ most common produce — collards, spinach, kale and other greens — have netted hundreds of thousands of dollars for farmers, with the average Brooklyn farm (on a rooftop or the ground) seeing $199,302 in sales in 2012, according to the Census.
For years, the biggest obstacle to rooftop farming was the cost.
An ideal space for a major harvest yield takes up 44,000 square feet, roughly an acre, according to an urban farming study released by Columbia University’s Earth Institute in 2013.
The space doesn’t come cheap; Brooklyn Grange’s 40,000-square-foot rooftop farm in Long Island City, for example, required $200,000 in startup capital in 2010.
After opening a successful 15,000-square-foot greenhouse on a rooftop in Greenpoint in 2011, Gotham Greens capitalized on the attention it was getting to grow its business.
“That was really a proof of concept,” Baum said of the initial facility.
The company reached various partnerships, including a deal with Whole Foods, that allowed it to build a 20,000-square-foot rooftop greenhouse on top of the Gowanus store in 2013.
Two years later, it opened a 60,000-square-foot facility on a Hollis, Queens, building and expanded to Chicago.
The city offers plenty of ready-made locations to allow for the industry’s further expansion, according to the Columbia University analysis.
It concluded that there were more than 5,701 private and public roofs in 2013 that, combined, were capable of holding 3,000 acres of rooftop farms. That’s nearly three and a half times the size of Central Park. Neighborhoods with the most rooftop space were Maspeth, Long Island City, Greenpoint and Sunset Park, according to the report.
Gabby Warshawer, the director of research for the real estate listing site CityRealty, said she’s hopeful building owners will use that potential as a selling point.
Deptford Has Its First Vertical Farm And It Could Hold The Key To Our Urban Future
Published by Bdaily Editor Billy Woodon 07 JUL 2017
Deptford Has Its First Vertical Farm And It Could Hold The Key To Our Urban Future
#London #Funding #Agriculture #Innovation #Technology
A new vertical farm has opened its doors in Deptford housed within a previously disused warehouse.
Tech startup Vertical Future has launched the new farm, which is both the company and Deptford’s first vertical farm, just months after the company was established and sealed a six-figure funding package from HSBC.
In what is the first of a number of planned farms operating under the MiniCrops brand, the farm has been developed as part of The Artworks’ new Creekside development and will provide the local community and businesses with sustainably grown fresh produce.
Vertical farms have really begun to take off in the last ten years, with installations popping up in urban areas across the world with many touting the technique as holding the key to our future food supply while at the same time delivering a number of environmental and health benefits.
Its proponents argue that the technology can deliver more produce than traditional farming or greenhouses, and use less water to boot.
Locating the farms in urban locations can also help to cut down on delivery miles thus reducing emissions and helping to combat poor air quality, while crops can be grown year round regardless of season or weather.
Founders of Vertical Future, Jamie and Marie-Alexandrine Burrows said in a statement that their planned network of London sites will do more than just provide crops and produce, but also provide community outreach and engagement projects to help tackle some of our most pressing urban problems.
They said: “We want to make cities a better place for our children, and our urban initiatives are long-term responses to the ongoing issues of urbanisation.
“All signs following our launch have been positive and launching MiniCrops is our first real milestone as a new business.
“We want to promote fast but sustainable growth that will make a real impact on our local communities around each site.”
Crops at Vertical Future’s first MiniCrops site in Deptford. / Image: Vertical Futures
As part of its outreach work, the startup recently launched its mobile health app which links users with health and social opportunities in London, and the business is also developing its own air pollution device.
The vision for its Deptford site also stretches to local events with plans to host regular educational talks about sustainable food for local schools and at risk groups from Lewisham and its surrounding boroughs.
Lucy Wynn, HSBC’s Area Director for South London, said: “We are delighted to be able to support Vertical Future with these exciting first steps into making our cities a healthier place to live.
“We are passionate about projects that benefit the local community and with our funding Jamie and Marie have been able to turn their ideas into a reality.”
Eindhoven Unveils Plans For A Solar-Powered City Block With Living Roofs And Urban Farms
Billed as a contemporary and hyper-modern development, Nieuw Bergen will add 29,000 square meters of new development to Eindhoven city center. The sharply angled and turf-covered roofs give the buildings their jagged and eye-catching silhouettes that are both modern in appearance and reference traditional pitched roofs. The 45-degree pitches optimize indoor access to natural light.
Eindhoven Unveils Plans For A Solar-Powered City Block With Living Roofs And Urban Farms
by Lucy Wang
The Dutch city of Eindhoven just selected MVRDV and SDK Vastgoed (VolkerWessels) to create Nieuw Bergen – a super green block of homes and businesses topped with living roofs and solar panels. Located in the inner city area around Deken van Someren Street, the project’s seven buildings will comprise 240 new homes, 1,700 square meters of commercial space, 270 square meters of urban farming, and underground parking.
Billed as a contemporary and hyper-modern development, Nieuw Bergen will add 29,000 square meters of new development to Eindhoven city center. The sharply angled and turf-covered roofs give the buildings their jagged and eye-catching silhouettes that are both modern in appearance and reference traditional pitched roofs. The 45-degree pitches optimize indoor access to natural light.
“Natural light plays a central role in Nieuw Bergen, as volumes follow a strict height limit and a design guideline that allows for the maximum amount of natural sunlight, views, intimacy and reduced visibility from street levels,” says Jacob van Rijs, co-founder of MVRDV. “Pocket parks also ensure a pleasant distribution of greenery throughout the neighborhood and create an intimate atmosphere for all.”
Related: The Sax: MVRDV unveils plans for a ‘vertical city’ in Rotterdam
Each of Nieuw Bergen’s structures is different but collectively form a family of buildings that complement the existing urban fabric. Gardens and greenhouses with lamella roof structures top several buildings. A natural materials palette consisting of stone, wood, and concrete softens the green-roofed development.
Common Roots, Porter Farms Deliver Produce To Medical Campus
Fresh, organic produce is delivered twice a week at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. (Buffalo News file photo)
Common Roots, Porter Farms Deliver Produce To Medical Campus
By Karen Robinson | Published 10:56 a.m. July 14, 2017 | Updated 12:07 p.m. July 14, 2017
Two local farms are bringing fresh, organic produce to the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus.
Common Roots Urban Farm on the East Side and Elba-based Porter Farm in Genesee County deliver to 60 Roswell Park Cancer Institute employees each week.
The community-supported agriculture program began this year. Customers pay an upfront fee for weekly delivery of locally grown produce during the growing season. The concept allows for early-season capital for the farmer and provides an easy and convenient way for customers to have regular access to local fruits and vegetables.
The program was put in place after a survey of Roswell employees demonstrated a strong interest in the program. Representatives from Roswell and the BNMC toured local farms and then invited them to meet with Roswell employees and sign up new customers. Initially, Common Roots was selected, but immediately reached capacity. The response has been more than expected, said Jonathan McNeice, BNMC director of healthy communities.
Porter Farm was added as a second farm to accommodate more customers. Common Roots delivers at Kaminsky Park on Mondays; Porter Farms delivers Thursdays to employees in the Roswell parking lot.
Farmers For Hire Turn Backyards Into Vegetable Patches
Farmers For Hire Turn Backyards Into Vegetable Patches
This undated photo provided by Green City Growers shows Fenway Farms, a large rooftop farm at Fenway Park maintained by Green City Growers in Boston. The farm produces more than 6,000 pounds of fruits and vegetables each season to be used in on-site restaurants and concessions.
(Maureen White / Garden Growers)
Katherine Roth | Associated Press
Jeanne Nolan grew up in an affluent suburb of Chicago. When it came time to apply for colleges, she shocked her family by opting to skip college and become an organic farmer. Then she brought her farming skills back to the suburbs and city, installing and tending vegetable gardens at clients' homes.
The Organic Gardener Ltd., the farmer-for-hire service she and her husband, Verd, started in the Chicago area in 2005, is one of many such services that have cropped up across the country. Some of these farmers have farming backgrounds, while others are landscapers who expanded their expertise, or entrepreneurs from a range of professional backgrounds who just love gardening and the outdoors.
This undated photo provided by Green City Growers shows Director of Horticulture Laura Feddersen teaching garden fundamentals to participants at the employee wellness garden at Hood Park in Charlestown, Mass. Green City Growers runs more than a dozen of these programs throughout the Northeast. (Maureen White / Garden Growers)
"If you want serious exercise, you turn to a professional trainer to help you do it right. This is like hiring a gardening coach. Some people say, 'Come over every other week for a year' so they can learn and do it themselves. And I also have a hundred clients whose gardens I've been tending for years who are not even trying to do it on their own, but simply love having it done," says Jeanne Nolan, author of "From the Ground Up: A Food Grower's Education in Life, Love, and the Movement That's Changing a Nation" (Spiegel and Grau, 2013).
Urban farming services cater to both homes and businesses that want home-grown produce but not the work involved in growing it. Clients include apartment complexes, grocery stories, schools, shopping malls, even ballparks.
"It turns out that having home-grown produce is something a lot of people really want," says Jessie Banhazl, founder and CEO of Green City Growers, in the Boston area. The company's Fenway Farms project involves planting and tending vegetable gardens atop Fenway Park, where produce is served to fans at baseball games, and a portion is donated to charity.
This 2016 photo provided by The Organic Gardener shows a rooftop garden in Chicago/
(The Organic Gardner)
This 2015 photo provided by The Organic Gardener shows a garden around a shed in Lake Forest, Ill. (Heather Blackmore / The Organic Gardner)
Many of her clients are trying to get more engaged in the growing process, she says: "There's something about seeing how food grows, at home, school or even at Fenway, and hopefully this influences dietary choices and has a positive environmental impact."
Dan Allen, CEO of Farmscape, with locations in Los Angeles and the San Francisco area, says farmers for hire have a more intimate relationship with clients than landscapers do. "There's something more personal about growing food," he says.
Hiring a farmer for your backyard isn't necessarily cheap, though (prices vary by region). The farmers admit that if saving money is your goal, it's probably cheaper to just shop organic at the grocery store. But they say the experience of growing your own produce, the learning opportunity for kids — and the bragging rights — make it worthwhile.
Another option: having a farm service visit every couple of weeks to teach growing techniques and offer tips.
"It's surprising how much food you can grow in a very small space. As urban farmers, we grow things vertically and on roofs. We know how to plant crops densely. Even in just a 4-by-4 (-foot) square planter, you can grow a lot of food," Nolan says.
Her company grows " pretty much anything you can imagine," she says. "Our most charismatic are tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. And our season runs from March through mid-December."
To provide enough produce for a family of four, Green City Growers recommends three 3-by-8-foot raised beds.
"Whether it's a median strip or a full backyard, or even containers on a balcony, a vegetable garden can happen almost anywhere," Banhazl says.
INTERVIEW: Architect Thomas Kosbau On The Exciting Future Of Sustainable Design In NYC
INTERVIEW: Architect Thomas Kosbau On The Exciting Future Of Sustainable Design In NYC
POSTED ON MON, JUNE 26, 2017BY EMILY NONKO
Since Thomas Kosbau began working for a New York consultancy firm running its sustainable development group, in 2008, much has changed in the city’s attitude toward green design. Kosbau has gone from “selling” the idea of LEED certification to building developers, to designing some of the most innovative sustainable projects in New York to meet demand. He founded his firm, ORE Design, in 2010. Soon after, he picked up two big commissions that went on to embody the firm’s priority toward projects that marry great design alongside sustainability. At one commission, the Dekalb Market, ORE transformed 86 salvaged shipping containers into an incubator farm, community kitchen, event space, community garden, 14 restaurants and 82 retail spaces. At another, Riverpark Farm, he worked with Riverpark restaurant owners Tom Colicchio, Sisha Ortuzar and Jeffrey Zurofsky to build a temporary farm at a stalled development site to provide their kitchen with fresh produce.
From there, ORE has tackled everything from the outdoor dining area at the popular Brooklyn restaurant Pok Pok to the combination of two Madison Avenue studios. Last November, ORE launched designs for miniature indoor growhouses at the Brooklyn headquarters of Square Roots, an urban farming accelerator.
ORE’s latest project—and the one Kosbau feels best embodies his design philosophy—is Farmhouse, a sustainably-designed, minimalist community venue and kitchen for the city organization GrowNYC. The Union Square building features a live indoor growing area, fully-functioning kitchen, and a design inspired by the traditional geometry of the American barn. Kosbau and GrowNYC have continued their partnership to design a massive Bronx agricultural distribution center for the organization, to be called FoodHub. When it opens, the building will employ the city’s first closed-loop, entirely organic energy system that utilizes self-purifying algae blooms generated by rainwater. The system, of course, was designed by Kosbau.
With 6sqft, Kosbau discusses how his early projects set the tone for ORE Design, what’s unique about sustainable work in New York City, and how designers have to step up to the plate to offer great design that also happens to be environmentally friendly.
So you came to New York from Oregon.
Thomas: Yes, born and raised in Portland, Oregon. When I moved to New York, it wasn’t at the forefront of my mind for what kind of designer I was. But I think inevitably it’s influenced a lot of my design work.
What factors led you to start a firm in 2010?
Thomas: A combination of many different elements, which has resulted in some of our best projects. Part of it was the recession. I worked five years for another architect as a sustainability consultant in real estate. After a year, the recession hit, and the firm came to a cataclysmic halt. It made me question what would come next, and I already started receiving queries from my network to pick up small projects. I gravitated toward design work, small residential projects, then a store.
But the real culminating event was that I submitted an entry for the IIDA green idea competition hosted in Korea, in 2010. My design was a replacement for asphalt—an ubiquitous material in the world. I put together a proposal for replacing the world’s asphalt with organically-grown sandstone, as way to offset numerous health concerns associated with it.
I won that competition around the same time I received two major commissions from relationships I started years before. One was the Dekalb Market, the shipping container market in Downtown Brooklyn, and the other was Riverpark Farm, the first portable rooftop farm in an urban environment. There, we used milk crates to create a temporary farm on a stalled building site. Both were products of the economic downturn—they were stalled building sites that needed activation for various reasons.
Dekalb Market, courtesy ORE Design
Tell me more about Riverpark Farm.
Thomas: It was a site located right next to Riverpark, the restaurant owned by Tom Colicchio. The team was pretty forward thinking about doing something with this empty land. So they reached out to GrowNYC to think of a solution for a farm that would potentially be moved within a year. GrowNYC tapped our shoulder to do that.
Riverpark, courtesy ORE Design
It seems like these early projects set a tone for your firm, and how it thinks about sustainability.
Thomas: I think the gene that was inside of me from Oregon—mostly from my mother, who founded a community gardening program in Portland—was dormant. But as soon as the need became a higher-level issue, and designers became tasked with thinking about these things, the influence ingrained in who I am came out. The environment revealed this direction and ultimate design brand.
What makes NYC an interesting or challenging place to experiment with sustainable design?
Thomas: You can debate whether this is the most urban place in the world; it’s certainly the most urban environment in the United States. It’s also one of the most concentrated and most interesting environments in terms of diversity. There are so many ideas from around the globe that find a home here and are placed in a small dense environment.
Land is so critically valuable, as well, so people consider it precious. To see food, community gardens, and urban agriculture become such a priority is a litmus for how important it is to the world. We’re seeing rapid urbanization across the globe, and there’s been an influx of residents to New York making the land more precious.
It’s an exciting environment. There are so many different factors on how to use land, what’s considered valuable in green design, and thinking about design that’s equally productive as it is attractive.
Since founding your firm, have you seen a rise in awareness in sustainable design?
Thomas: I have witnessed a shift in priorities. It’s more accepted as a norm to be sustainable, and less of a selling point. LEED was an early vehicle to sell sustainability—we really had to sell developers on how these features could bring a return of value, even if it’s just from a branding standpoint. LEED has become so ubiquitous that’s not the case anymore, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing. The real revolution is that it made material sustainability an absolute must for projects. LEED created a market for sustainable materials to outperform other materials in sales. That’s the real shift. It’s that the choice is easier, and sustainable materials have become as performative, in terms of longevity, have much less of a cost premium, and there’s more variety.
The next step is good design. Making green design interesting, without being tagged green design.
What projects of yours really embody that idea?
Thomas: Farmhouse was our first project to unify our core values with our design aesthetic. It’s our first embodiment of “this is who we are.” It has the nonprofit roots, as a community space with an educational component for GrowNYC. Then there’s the green technology with the hydroponic walls, and food production on site. We did research into recycled materials that solve design issues, evidenced in the acoustic panels we chose. That became our major design move—to use acoustic panels we had pre-manufactured in our geometry, and unite the space with one design feature. It’s not only aesthetic, it balances the acoustics of the space and it’s a placemaker.
Inside farmhouse, courtesy ORE Design
We also used solar tubes to bring natural light into the darkest spaces, and we sourced hardwood from a forest that was drowned in the 1960s. That feature is then awash in natural light.
Farmhouse, courtesy ADG – Amanda Gentile Photography
We didn’t pursue the LEED designation for Farmhouse, though it could easily be Gold if not higher. We offered the option for the client, but LEED is no longer an identifier as an interesting, sustainable space. We pushed the design to make it a unique space. That’s on the shoulder of designers now, we have to be better to make these spaces speak for themselves.
So what’s next for the firm?
Thomas: GrowNYC is working on a really cool project up in the Bronx, a regional food hub. GrowNYC supplies the food for the city’s green markets, and it’s a huge task. The president of GrowNYC and his staff feel they’ve mastered the logistics for moving food in small quantities, and want now build a larger distribution center for farm fresh produce they can bring into the Bronx to distribute to various programs. It would be tenfold of what they’re able to provide now. They’ve tapped us to look at how to make a highly-performative building, with offset carbon emissions and localized power production. We also designed an “anthropomorphic stomach” for the building—a “bio digester” that would take food waste to provide energy for the electricity and heat of the facility.
275 South rooftop forest, courtesy ORE Design
L&M Development also tapped us to create a roof amenity for one of their buildings [275 South, in the Lower East Side]. The building is a 1970s, poured-in-place concrete bunker. It has a huge, bearing capacity. We looked at what it would take to allow large groups on roof—we needed to put a certain amount of steel to get to that level. We also wanted to maximize the view, so we elevated the steel above the existing concrete parapet. With the bearing weight, and 40 inches of room from the new roof to the existing roof, we realized we could plant a forest up here. That’s what we decided to do. We’re planting 80 mature aspen trees, and conceptually carving into the forest floor so the benches are situated within the forest, and trees frame different views toward Brooklyn.
If it’s done in time it will be the location of my wedding in September. The client didn’t have a problem allowing me to do that because they knew it’d get done quickly.
RELATED:
Minnesota Looks To Expand Local Food Opportunities
Minnesota Looks To Expand Local Food Opportunities
From community gardening to developing more food distribution outlets, people in both urban and rural areas of Minnesota are expanding their involvement in the local food movement.
Minneapolis with the adjoining city of St. Paul form the Twin Cities, which is the 14th-largest metropolitan area in the United States. The cities’ metropolitan area has nearly 4 million residents.
Photo courtesy of Karl Hakanson, University of Minnesota Extension
Karl Hakanson, University of Minnesota Extension Educator for Hennepin County, of which Minneapolis is the county seat, said he has had to broaden his definition of agriculture since taking his current position in February 2014.
“Most of my career has been in conventional ag—regular farming,” Hakanson said. “I’ve had to broaden my definition to focus on food. I have been involved lately with the whole issue of food equity and the access to healthy, real food. That also involves having access to land. If people want to have community gardens or develop urban farming, just like people in rural areas, they have to have access to land, which is a big deal.”
Hakanson said the land for urban farming is expensive and hard to obtain and sometimes it’s not available even if people can afford to purchase it.
“Minneapolis has a launched a Homegrown Minneapolis website where interested parties can find available lots to lease for urban farming,” he said. “The problem is the lots may be available for a year or two. This can make it hard to have any kind of permanence. But it is getting better for people who are trying to find vacant lots to do urban gardening.”
Assisting With Urban AG Issues
Hakanson said within Minneapolis more people have gotten involved with community gardening which enables them to grow more of their own food.
“Some of these people may have gotten better at growing their own food that they consider marketing some of it,” he said. “The Homegrown Minneapolis Food Council began operating in 2012 as a resource for all of the activities involved with urban agriculture. The council deals with issues, statutes and regulations related to the city. It also offers various resources for businesses including starting a local food business and business financing. Council members include some urban farming businesses that are trying to succeed commercially including some CSAs (community-supported agriculture).”
Hakanson said the council is a good resource for all kinds of urban farming activities.
“The council was instrumental in allowing urban gardeners to tap into fire hydrants so water for gardening could be metered like it is for regular household usage,” he said. “The council also worked to have the regulations changed regarding people being able to sell their produce from leased city lots and to put up signs to advertise available produce. A recent change is that signs can now be up for 75 days.”
Finding Business Opportunities
Greg Schweser is associate director of local foods and sustainable agriculture for the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, a program that is part of the University of Minnesota Extension. Located in St. Paul, Schweser said the program he is involved with works with groups outside of the seven-county metro area.
Greg Schweser, associate director of local foods and sustainable agriculture for the Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, said the program he is involved with works in the areas of sustainable agriculture and local foods, clean energy, natural resources and tourism.
Photo courtesy of Karl Hakanson, University of Minnesota Extension
“We bring university resources to community groups, organizations and individuals who have great research ideas in sustainable development,” Schweser said. “We work in the areas of sustainable agriculture and local foods, clean energy, natural resources and tourism. An example of what we do is there may be a group of people who want to do a field trial with hoop houses to see what vegetables varieties grow best. They’ll apply to get a research grant through The Regional Partnerships and we will be able to assist them with a faculty horticulturist, students and extension personnel to get those research projects up and going. A lot of the work that I do involves obtaining grants and doing grant projects focused on local food and agricultural issues.”
Schweser said about 30-40 percent of the RSDP projects are food-related. Other projects are related to natural resources, clean energy and tourism.
“A lot of small scale growers work with our group,” he said. “The farther these growers are from the metro area the less likely they are to sell into that market. Unless growers have a large scale production system, it’s not going to be easy for them to market in the metro area. For that market, growers need to have a method of transportation and storage. There are some growers who specialize in one of two things and sell directly into the metro market.”
Many of the growers Schweser works with are producing and selling in their local communities. He said more than 50 percent of small specialty crop growers are women.
“Each of the rural producers has to have a variety of different marketing streams,” he said. “Most of them do, including CSAs, farmers markets, direct-to-wholesale to a local grocery store or food co-op or school food programs. These growers don’t want to be in a situation where a farmers market closes down and that is their only customer.”
Solving Marketing Challenges
Schweser said most rural growers have their own individual marketing plan.
“There are very few systems where growers can produce a crop and not have to worry about how to sell it once it’s ready to harvest,” he said. “They have to find a place for it and that can be work. That is one of the things that a lot of producers are worried about. How to sell their products for a price that they can stay in business. Once that is figured out more people will be able to get into this local food movement.”
Photo courtesy of Greg Schweser
Schweser said RSDP has been involved with several marketing projects.
“One project in Brainerd, Minn., enabled a farmer to set up a food hub that helps around 100 farmers market locally in area counties,” he said. “RSDP has done a number of farmers markets projects helping people set up their markets and determining what is the best type of products to offer, how to display the products and how much to sell their products for to make a profit. RSDP has also worked with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to develop local marketing labels.”
Schweser said RSDP is currently working with a group at Kansas State University on a project involving rural grocery stores.
“We are looking at how to deliver local foods into rural grocery stores in Minnesota,” he said. “We are trying to identify ways to handle the produce in a way that will make it last longer and look better. And then determine how to get more consumers into the stores to buy this kind of produce.”
For more: Karl Hakanson, University of Minnesota Extension, Hennepin County Environmental Services, (612) 596-1175; khakanso@umn.edu. Greg Schweser, University of Minnesota Extension, Regional Sustainable Development Partnerships, (612) 625-9706; schwe233@umn.edu.
David Kuack is a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, Texas; dkuack@gmail.com.
Launching Of Its Start-Up: Agricool Prepares Its Meeting With The Public
Launching Of Its Start-Up: Agricool Prepares Its Meeting With The Public
NICOLAS RAULINE Le 30/05 à 01:00
Strawberries that grow in Agricool containers require neither pesticides nor GMOs and consume 90% less water compared to a conventional crop. - Photo Tony Trichanh
A part of the future of agriculture is perhaps taking shape, at this moment, in the heart of an industrial zone in La Courneuve. It is there, in the suburbs of Paris, in Seine-Saint-Denis, that Agriculture has set up its quarters. It must be said that the start-up needed space to grow its strawberries . Since its creation less than two years ago, its young founders, neither farmers nor agronomists, but themselves sons of peasants, claim to want to revolutionize the sector with a new process. They recycled containers, arranged them for deployment of strawberry walls, separated from LED lighting walls. Temperature, humidity, light ... Everything is measured, controlled. With one goal: "get the best taste in the end". Subjective, The objective? "When we test 10,000 people, subjectivity no longer exists," says Guillaume Fourdinier, co-founder of Agricool. "In our approach, we wanted to eliminate all certainties. This is why we constantly test the sugar content, the vitamin content and so on. If tomorrow we realize that changing the culture temperature by one degree has a positive impact on taste and nutritional value, we will do it. Everything is possible. In containers you can even create shorter days! " We wanted to remove all certainties. This is why we constantly test the sugar content, the vitamin content and so on. If tomorrow we realize that changing the culture temperature by one degree has a positive impact on taste and nutritional value, we will do it. Everything is possible. In containers you can even create shorter days! " We wanted to remove all certainties. This is why we constantly test the sugar content, the vitamin content and so on. If tomorrow we realize that changing the culture temperature by one degree has a positive impact on taste and nutritional value, we will do it. Everything is possible. In containers you can even create shorter days! "
READ ALSO
For example, in the 1,500 square meters of warehouses and offices owned by Agricool in La Courneuve, developers, agronomists, workers who build containers, electrical engineers and plant physiologists are active. The strawberries are never far, measured, observed, tasted permanently ... "We were able to build a unique team," welcomes Guillaume Fourdinier. After the recent € 4 million fundraiser (led by Daphni), the workforce grew to thirty-three . And everything is done internally. Even the LEDs: no solution of the market was really adapted to strawberries, the young shoot decided to create his own. It also disposed of hives,
"Reasonable" Rates
The advantages of the developed technique are manifold. The start-up does not use GMOs or pesticides and consumes 90% less watercompared to a conventional crop, in particular because the water used to irrigate the plants is recovered under the vertical walls. And above all, Agricool wants to reduce the distance between the place of production and the place of consumption , to "twenty kilometers at the most" . "This is the paradox of" organic ", adds Guillaume Fourdinier. Since there are fewer production sites, we travel more kilometers to deliver, with all the consequences that may have on the environment. " The start-up do not short a label behind which it could,
After the R & D phase, Agricool is preparing to face the public. The first strawberries will go on sale in early July. Nearly 8,000 people are already registered . A wait that could put Agricool in a position of strength, but the young shoot wants to keep prices reasonable. "We are doing this so that we consume better and that quality is accessible to all," repeats the young entrepreneur. It therefore ensures that the price will, on average, be 15 to 20% lower than that of organic products .
7 Tons of Strawberries Per Year Per Container
At full throttle, the start-up estimates that it will be able to deliver 7 tons of strawberries per year and per container, ie 800 trays per week . "The market is huge," explains Guillaume Fourdinier. To produce 20% of all strawberries consumed by Parisians, we would need 600 containers. " To achieve one day, on this scale, Agricool wants to put its containers available to all those interested: companies, new" urban farmers "... After his first container to Bercy Park, removed from the start-up Has installed one on the site of Vente-privée in Saint-Denis . Another will follow at the entrance of Station F, the start-up campus created by Xavier Niel . "But it will be necessary to fill in a complete specifications , " says Guillaume Fourdinier. "Farmers" will need to be trained, and then engage, for example, to sell locally .
HELLO
Let's take off !
Agricool is a crazy bet : building the future of farming.
Since the launch in 2015, our team works day and night to get there.
Today we need you.
You who are 3000% behind our mission.
We prepared a video to present the project.
Take a look at it. Share it on your social networks.
It's time to introduce our mission to the world ! ️
We also took the opportunity to redo our website.
To discover it is here.
Local Urban Farmer Educates Community On How To Grow Produce Without Breaking The Bank
File photo. (Ben Smith/The Daily Iowan)
Jun 26, 2017 DI Editor
Local Urban Farmer Educates Community On How To Grow Produce Without Breaking The Bank
Iowa City community members learn about the business of urban farming.
By Autumn Diesburg | autumn-diesburg@uiowa.edu
With urban farming continuing to take hold in communities, would-be urban farmers are considering the logistics of owning and profiting from what seems to some to be an unorthodox business.
At a Practical Farmers of Iowa Field Day on June 24, members of the Iowa City community gathered to learn more about the business of urban farming. Hosted by urban farmer Jon Yagla and the Women Food and Agriculture Network program coordinator Wren Almitra, the program discussed the various facets of urban farming, including Yagla’s business plan and financing.
“Sometimes, it makes sense to grow greens and sell to restaurants,” Yagla said. “The [community-supported agriculture] worked for me.”
Yagla said his business plan relied on growing food as an extension of homesteading for community-supported agriculture, which Almitra said is a “member-based farm business.”
Members purchase either a full share for $750 or a half share for $375 in a farm, Yagla said. The program has a 30-week season lasting from the first week of May to the last week of November. Most members pay an upfront deposit in late winter or early spring, usually beginning in February or March. This allows farmers to pay for seeds and equipment in a time when, otherwise, they are producing no income, Yagla said. In return, full-share members receive a box of produce every week, and half-share members receive a box every other week.
Currently, Yagla said he has 30 members in his group, which is mostly a word-of-mouth endeavor. Potential members contact Yagla or other local community-agriculture groups, though the group does have social-media and Internet sites for outreach and promotion.
RELATED: ‘New age’ farmers grow local produce year-round
Yagla said in regards to financial planning, he recommends keeping both living and business expenses low, knowing and being a part of available markets, and having some experience with farming or homesteading. He also recommends scaling the size of community agriculture to the size of the budget.
Careful financial planning is key for Yagla, who said his only source of income is what he earns from his urban farm. In 2016, he grossed $15,000 with a net of $12,000.
“The [community-agriculture] size was based on what I thought my living expenses and my needs are and how much land I could manage,” he said. “I’m about as frugal as I can be.”
For those such as Debra Boekholder, a Practical Farmers of Iowa member and events assistant, the gains of urban farming are a good local food source.
“It is a solution to struggles with access to healthy foods,” she said. “You can grow food in town and provide it to your neighbors. You don’t have to go miles and miles.”
Still, others such as Abbie Shain, a graduate student in social work in St. Paul, Minnesota, have yet to be persuaded on the practicality of urban farms. Shain said after working on urban farms in St. Paul and Minneapolis, she would not consider starting one.
“It was not successful,” she said. “It was successful at growing vegetables but not sustaining farmers.”
Yagla, however, said owning an urban farm is profitable and a worthwhile community cause.
“The gain is that it’s meaningful work that reduces exploitation,” he said. “It’s a way for people to get food locally and honestly. I want to produce [a] local economy where goods are produced and shared among neighbors and friends.”
Please support award-winning college journalism and engagement. Click here to donate.
7 Ways Chicago Is Becoming the New Beacon of The Sustainable Food Movement
Chicago is undergoing a foodie revolution. From passing the nation’s largest soda tax to exploring new and intriguing options for local food, the Windy City is making leaps and bounds to become a beacon of sustainability.
7 Ways Chicago Is Becoming The New Beacon of The Sustainable Food Movement
JULY 5, 2017 by EMILY MONACO
Chicago is undergoing a foodie revolution. From passing the nation’s largest soda tax to exploring new and intriguing options for local food, the Windy City is making leaps and bounds to become a beacon of sustainability.
Don’t believe us? Here are seven fantastic initiatives the Windy City has undertaken to further the transition to great, sustainable food.
1. MightyVine Restores Damaged Farmland with Tomatoes
Just west of Chicago in the prairie town of Rochelle, IL, indoor tomato grower MightyVine has restored acres of farmland that had been damaged by a developer. The growers use Dutch technology comprising a special diffused glass and radiated heat to grow tomatoes 365 days a year. The super-local tomatoes are delivered to stores just a few hours away in Chicago as soon as they’ve been picked.
Sustainability is particularly important to MightyVine farmers, who have managed to provide a 90 percent water savings over field-grown tomatoes, not to mention reduced pesticide use as compared to most conventional growers.
2. Homestead on the Roof Gets Its Organic Produce Ultra-Locally
You can’t get more local than the organic produce grown on the 3,500-square-foot organic rooftop garden at Homestead on the Roof. Executive Chef Scott Shulman has his pick of herbs, chilies, tomatoes, peas, and more to concoct his versatile, seasonal menu, which is served on the 85-seat patio that sits right next to the rooftop garden, which also features two vertical hanging gardens, and dozens of planter boxes.
3. Daisies Keeps Local Produce in the Family
When Daisies opened last month, Chef Joe Frillman realized his dream of combining his passion for handmade pasta and locally sourced crops, almost all of which come from Frillman’s brother’s farm in nearby Prairie View, IL. But Frillman is taking the old trope of locally sourced ingredients to the next level, with the goal of rolling out an in-house fermentation program, too.
Daisies is also making strides in recycling cooking oil: used cooking oil is donated to be recycled for biodiesel, and the resulting profits are donated to charity.
4. Slow Food Chicago Highlights the Importance of Community Gardening
Member-supported non-profit Slow Food Chicago is one of the largest chapters of Slow Food USA, with more than 500 members. Its myriad projects include the preSERVE Garden, a project created in 2010 in cooperation with the North Lawndale Greening Committee, the Chicago Honey Co-Op, and NeighborSpace.
In 2013, the city lot harvested more than 430 pounds of food from 31 different crops, and the garden continues to grow today.
5. The Urban Canopy Attacks the Problem of Nutrition in Schools on the Local Level
Founded in 2011, the Urban Canopy comprises an indoor growing space and a two-acre community farm in the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago. But more than mere growers, the Canopy members see themselves as “educators and advocates for the urban food movement.”
Founder Alex Poltorak’s vision began while working with Chicago Public Schools as an Education Pioneer Fellow. After exploring how nutrition affects children in school, he was inspired to create the project to utilize idle urban spaces to attack this problem at the community level. Through volunteer availabilities, a Compost Club, and a CSA, the group endeavors to “make farming as easy as possible on as many unused spaces as possible.”
6. Chicago O’Hare Brings Gardening to the Gate
An unused mezzanine space of Chicago O’Hare Airport’s G terminal has been transformed into the world’s first “aeroponic” garden by Future Growing LLC. The garden, made up of a series of vertical PVC towers where herbs, greens, and tomatoes are grown, uses a mere five percent of the water normally used for farming.
The produce grown in the airport is used by local chefs, including Wolfgang Puck, who runs a restaurant in the airport.
7. Marty Travis Transforms Nutrient-Sapped Soil into Sustainable Farmland
Marty Travis is a seventh-generation Illinois farmer. As his farming community fell victim to Big Ag, Travis decided to do something about it. He created Spence Farm, a 160-acre beacon of biodiversity where he grows a variety of ancient grains and heirloom fruits and vegetables and raises heritage breed livestock, nearly all of which is sold locally to chefs in Chicago. His story of preserving the history and practice of small sustainable family farming in is told in the film Sustainable Food.
This Food Forest On A Barge In New York Floats The Idea of Fresh Food for Cities
This Food Forest On A Barge In New York Floats The Idea of Fresh Food for Cities
Swale brings free foraging to the concrete jungle
by Alessandra Potenza@ale_potenza Jul 12, 2017, 8:00am EDT
Photography by Amelia Holowaty Krales
Last week, I found myself on a 5,000-square-foot barge stuck in shallow water in the middle of the Bronx River. As a tugboat attempted to pull us out, its motor dredged up black sludge, trash, and God knows what else. The air stank of rotten eggs. As Cindy Adams always says, “Only in New York, kids!”
This wasn’t your typical barge, either. It’s an art project called Swale, which was created last year by artist Mary Mattingly as a way to grow produce in a public space. So it was a kind of floating garden filled with edible plants, including apple trees planted atop a 6-foot hill. Anyone can board the barge and pick fresh food for free. Being a barge, it can move, and so I tagged along on a trip from Brooklyn Bridge Park, where it was docked for two months, to Concrete Plant Park in the Bronx.
The idea behind Mattingly’s project is to bring foraging to the concrete jungle, where very little fresh produce is grown locally. Mostly, fresh fruits and vegetables are imported and thus expensive. There’s definitely a market for local food: New York City alone is estimated to have over $600 million worth of unmet annual demand for local food. Swale produces about 400 pounds of food per season, Mattingly says — not enough to satisfy even one person’s fruit and veggie intake in one year. So floating barges are unlikely to meet the local food demands on their own — you’d need an armada — but that’s not Swale’s goal. “We don’t see this as a solution,” says Lindsey Grothkopp, who handles external affairs for Swale. “As an art project, it’s here to just propose new models and new ideas.”
Swale is completely powered by solar panels, and it recycles its own water thanks to a system of pumps and sand filters. It also collects rainwater, and it can desalinate and purify the brackish river water if need be. The barge adds arable land in a dense urban area where land is scarce, and it can float from neighborhood to neighborhood — serving different communities from month to month. Last year, Swale was docked in the Bronx, on Governor’s Island, and then Brooklyn from May to October. (In the winter, it was stored upstate.)
The floating garden is also more accessible than community gardens and rooftop gardens, Mattingly says. On Swale, anyone can board the barge and pick whatever they want, from strawberries and blackberries to kale, lettuce, and chamomile. Most of the city dwellers who visit the floating food forest have never foraged before, says Brittany Gallahan, a college student at the University of Virginia, and Swale’s intern for the summer. They don’t even know where to start. “They’re a little starstruck,” says Gallahan. Whoever is volunteering on board shows them around the garden and gives them some herbs to try in a tea. “They come back with bags and forage,” Gallahan says.
There’s a reason people don’t know how to forage, though: New York City has about 30,000 acres of public parks, but foraging is strictly prohibited by the Parks Department. So most public land in the city can’t be used to grow food. Mattingly launched Swale as a “provocation,” she says: since the barge is floating on water, foraging is allowed there. And it might be working. She’s now partnering with the Parks Department to open the first ever edible garden in a public park in the Bronx, a few feet from where Swale is currently docked. She hopes that the Parks Department will also eventually take over Swale, and keep it docked in the Bronx permanently. That way, she could launch a second barge, doubling the city’s floating farmable area.
For that to happen, though, Mattingly needs money. Like any art project, the barge requires patrons, since it costs $5,000 a month to rent, plus $2,000 a month for insurance. Swale is docking for free, but the overall monthly budget, including rent, insurance, and paying the volunteers who give tours and classes, is about $10,000 a month, Mattingly says. Towing it from place to place costs extra. This year, the barge has been kept afloat mostly thanks to the Parks Department, which helps with rent and pays towing costs. Heineken USA's Strongbow Apple Ciders, which sponsors Swale, also helps with costs, but it’s unclear whether the sponsorship will continue next year — and where the money will come from. “We’re still figuring that out,” Grothkopp says.
For now, Swale is just an art project that is hoping to swing policymakers into growing more food in public spaces. It’s working here in New York City, and when I ask Mattingly if she thinks it could work in other cities in the US, she says yes. Barges could be tweaked to meet the demands of the city hosting them: New York has brackish water, so the garden needs a desalination system. In colder climates, the barge could host a greenhouse. But Boston, Detroit, or Chicago could host a barge only if a rich benefactor could be located to pay for it.
The water has drawbacks, too. After flawlessly floating up the East River — passing by housing projects, high rises, and iconic landmarks like the UN’s headquarters — the barge got stuck in the shallow, stinky waters of the Bronx River. I thought it was going to take hours before we could reach the pier, which was just about 70 feet away. The tugboat — square, skinny, and so tall it looked like a small wave could topple it — dragged the barge backward for a few minutes. Then, dredging up more black sludge, plastic bottles, and cans from the riverbed, it pushed the barge forward again, finally freeing it from the river’s bottom.
When we docked at Concrete Plant Park, the sun was beating down hard. But compared to the concrete pier, Swale’s blueberry bushes, sage, and apple trees provided an island of green. I tried a blackberry from the garden, as well as a bright orange daylily that Gallahan promised me was edible. (There was a little bug inside it, and I ate that, too.) The produce tasted fresh and sweet — if only it didn’t cost so much to grow.
Chicago Synagogue’s Urban Farm Thrives, Feeding Thousands
Chicago Synagogue’s Urban Farm Thrives, Feeding Thousands
July 11, 2017 CHICAGO Aimee Levitt
The farm at KAM Isaiah Israel Congregation in the Kenwood neighborhood of Chicago is very much an urban farm, with a bus line running past the side entrance, and tourists passing by to see Barack Obama’s former home across the street; so, the volunteer farmers do not feel obligated to wake up at the crack of dawn. Still, they prefer to work in the cool of a summer morning, so by 9:30 a.m. on a recent Sunday — farm day — the weekly harvest was well underway.
Half a dozen farmers crouched between the long rows of crops that run parallel to Hyde Park Boulevard, plucking large leaves of collards, kale and mustard, and small black raspberries and red serviceberries. In the synagogue vestibule, pungent with the smell of wild onions, another volunteer sorted the leafy greens and berries into boxes. The day’s yield would total about 50 pounds; later on in the season, when tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and eggplants are ripe, the volunteers anticipate a harvest five or six times that.
Robert Nevel stood on the front steps of the synagogue, directing traffic and assigning tasks. He wore a big straw hat and a soil thermometer around his neck, which appeared to be some sort of mark of authority: He started the project nine years ago and has led it ever since.
Aimee Levitt | Some of the fruits and vegetables harvested from the KAMII farm.
“What I still find surprising is to see this” — he pointed to the farm — “next to this”; with that he pointed to the synagogue building. “It surprises and pleases me.”
The KAMII farm now comprises two 50-yard-long plots of cultivated crops and two mostly self-sustaining “food forests” — fruit and nut trees, berry bushes and other perennials that can grow without anyone around to tend them — plus two more garden plots at a nearby church and elementary school. In the past nine years, it has produced 22,000 pounds of food, most of which it has donated to shelters and public housing projects in the neighborhood.
Nevel acknowledged that it’s not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it’s 22,000 pounds of fresh produce that would have otherwise had to have been transported hundreds of miles, costing extra time and money and incalculable damage to the environment. KAMII has a broad definition of the term “food justice”: here, it means not just providing healthy food for everyone in the community, but also helping to maintain environmental stability. KAMII farm manager Owen Needham, who previously worked at a not-for-profit urban farm in Columbus, Ohio, explained that although there are other houses of worship that run urban farms, none — at least that he’s aware of — have as large a program, which is why KAMII serves as model for other synagogues and churches across the country.
The project began in the winter of 2009, around the same time that Michelle Obama, inspired by a 1991 New York Times op-ed by Michael Pollan, announced her plan to revive the White House vegetable garden. The two events were not directly related, but Nevel had also read the Pollan article, and it fit in with ideas about buildings and environmentalism he’d been thinking about since architecture school. He joined in a committee meeting to discuss how to make the synagogue greener.
“Everyone was thinking that the inside of the house of worship was sacred while the outside was profane,” he recalled. “There were so many leftover spaces outside. I wanted everyone to think of those as significant and sacred also.”
At the time, those “leftover spaces” were covered with lawn. Nevel considered the lawn more environmentally friendly than asphalt, but less useful and energy efficient than a food-producing garden. With $700 in seed money from the synagogue’s social justice committee, he and a team of volunteers planted a modest plot in the shape of a Star of David. (“This is a very tidy neighborhood,” said Nevel, “and it was very figural.”) The first crop was rhubarb. Now there are 30 crops, and the project is funded entirely by grants and gifts. This includes operating costs, plus salaries for two staff members: the farm manager and a director of the farm school program that runs for six weeks every summer.
Aimee Levitt | The original Star of David-shaped plot at the KAMII garden.
The farm runs almost all year round, with the bulk of the work happening on Sundays. Seeds arrive every February from a supplier in Winslow, Maine, and the first planting is March 1. Until the weather gets warm, the plants incubate in a makeshift greenhouse that was once the rabbi’s study. The volunteers spend the spring preparing the beds, building trellises, turning over the soil, and installing the drip irrigation system. The first harvest usually comes in June, and the growing season continues until late October. It takes most of the month of November to dismantle the garden. Then it’s time to start planning the annual Food Justice and Sustainability Weekend, which takes place every Martin Luther King Day. And then the cycle begins again.
There are 28 core volunteers, though not all show up every Sunday. About half are KAMII congregants, while the rest come from the community. Being Jewish is not a requirement, but at least one of the volunteers, Aaron Levine, finds it a particular source of pride. “This is what we’re supposed to be doing,” he said, “feeding the community. To me, this is as Jewish as you can get.”
As soon as it began harvesting, the farm began the donation program, which it decided to limit to institutions within a mile radius of the synagogue. The circle contains portions of the Kenwood, Hyde Park, Woodlawn and Washington Park neighborhoods and pockets of both extreme wealth and extreme poverty. In eight years, said Nevel, they’ve never missed a week. “There’s an expectation from the recipients that every week they’ll be receiving fresh food on Sunday,” he explained. “If we don’t deliver, we’re reneging on an established relationship.”
On this particular Sunday, the volunteers prepared donations for the Kenneth Campbell Apartments, a public housing complex for senior citizens, and Door of Hope, a men’s shelter. Each institution would receive three large boxes of greens and six or eight small boxes of berries. Nevel was apologetic about making the deliveries by car; the two institutions were in completely different directions and it was just too difficult to carry 50 pounds of greens on foot. Plus, everything tastes better if you eat it within 90 minutes of harvesting.
Though the recipients are pleased to take whatever food KAMII is willing to provide, they have definite preferences, said Becky Callcott, the volunteer who was responsible for filling the boxes for delivery. “People like collards a lot,” she reported, “but it took a while to get them used to kale.”
At Door of Hope, Nevel spent some time in the kitchen chatting with Matthew Clock, the cook. They couldn’t remember how long they’d known each other, but guessed it was around seven or eight years. Clock grew up in a small town in Mississippi and lamented how many city people are unaware of where their food comes from. He was planning to cook up the kale for that night’s dinner; the collards were hardier and could last a few more days.
Once Nevel returned from making deliveries, he and the other volunteers ate a communal lunch inside the synagogue. Then they planned to work on the other satellite plots, at Reavis Elementary School and the Kenwood United Church of Christ. Later in the afternoon, they would visit a few of the community gardens in the neighborhood and glean the produce that hadn’t been harvested (the community gardeners signal that they’re okay with this by leaving a small white stone in a corner of their plot); they collect about 500 pounds of extra produce every year.
Though Nevel has been doing this every Sunday since the project began, and plans to continue for the foreseeable future, he still marvels over the process. “We start with a 10-pound box of seeds,” he said, “and ten months later, we have four or five thousand pounds of food. It’s a huge leap from soil, sun and water. At the end of the year, it’s really kind of amazing.”
Aimee Levitt reports regularly on Chicagoland for the Forward. Contact her at feedback@forward.com. Follow her on Twitter, @aimeelevitt.
Read more: http://forward.com/news/national/376753/chicago-synagogues-urban-farm-thrives-feeding-thousands/
Hydroponic Paradox: Saving Water With Water
Hydroponic Paradox: Saving Water With Water
June 6, 2017
by Mary Allen
The local food movement has deep roots in urban centers, but the juxtaposition of urbanites’ locavore enthusiasm with the shortage of arable land in cities raises the question: how local is local enough? In terms of geography, there is no consensus or regulation around what “local food” should be. Depending on your definition (or marketing strategy), the term could refer to anything from food produced in your own backyard to food produced 100 miles away or simply within the state.
Community gardens and urban farming are obvious—if partial—answers to this paradox. And while urban farming is nothing new, there’s no denying that in recent years, rooftops gardens, vertical farms, and the like have become increasingly seductive to enterprising young farmers. Consumers, the media, and even investors are climbing on board with new urban farming initiatives as 21st century innovation pushes the limits of how and where food is grown.
This hydroponically grown basil has never touched soil or seen sunlight. | Image Source: @plantnasty
Hydroponic farming, a system in which plants are grown without soil and are nourished instead by a mineral solution, has enjoyed a groundswell of entrepreneurial energy in particular. As hydroponics are well suited to indoor spaces and environments that would otherwise be unfit for plant life, city centers are primed for the proliferation these wunderkind farms.
From the sweeping Alexander Ranch greenhouse in California and Bowery’s warehouse farm in New Jersey, to the intimate indoor Farm.One nestled at the heart of the Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education and the shipping container farms of Square Roots in a parking lot in Brooklyn, hydroponic farms of all shapes and sizes are cropping up across the country. The hyperlocality they offer to city-dwellers means not only that the food travels fewer miles, thus reducing the transportation footprint, but that the produce can be harvested and delivered on the same day.
Baby kale and butterhead lettuce from the behemoths Gotham Greens and Bowery can be found in grocery stores. Square Roots farmers hand-deliver their greens to offices around New York City. Farm.One, which is a specialty grower of microgreens and garnishes, serves high-end chefs and restaurants from just a subway ride away. With greens being among the most perishable of produce, this rapid delivery is especially attractive from a food waste reduction standpoint. Hydroponics becomes a compelling alternative to soil-based urban farming practices in light of its unique sustainability solutions.
Namely, it is remarkably water efficient. Seventy percent of humans’ water usage is allocated to farming and animal agriculture. Nitrate-ladened fertilizer runoff from traditional agriculture is also one of the main causes of water pollution, catalyzing algae blooms that ultimately create dead zones in our rivers, lakes, and oceans. In hydroponics, water is continuously recycled, making these systems anywhere from 90 to 98 percent more water efficient than traditional farming while eliminating fertilizer runoff. Needless to say, this drastic improvement in water efficiency makes hydroponic farming especially interesting in places like California where water is in short supply.
Hydroponic farming can be tremendously space efficient, too. In an interview with the Natural Gourmet Institute, Gotham Greens’ Nicole Baum enthusiastically notes, “Our half acre rooftop farm on top of Whole Foods Market in Brooklyn actually produces that of a 10 acre soil based farm!” Even more impressively, Bowery asserts that it produces over one hundred times more food than a traditional farm on the same footprint of land.
Part of the reason that hydroponic farms are able to grow so much more is that the plants have continuous ideal growing conditions—just the right temperature, just the right light, with no hungry animal intruders and no winter. The clean, climate controlled environments also eliminate the need for pesticides and insecticides. For the odd pest that does wander in, farmers enlist beneficial insects, such as ladybugs, to keep the peace. Being pesticide-free is a point of pride for Farm.One, Square Roots, Gotham Greens, and Bowery alike, something Bowery refers to as “post-organic.”
Rock wool is made from spun fibers of molten rock. This is one medium that hydroponic farmers use in lieu of soil to germinate seeds. | Image Source: @plantnasty
And here we encounter the discomfort hydroponic farming engenders among the soil-loyalists in the good food movement. A central tenant of organic farming is to “feed the soil, not the plant.” With hydroponics, of course, there is no soil, just plants—and manufactured mineral solution. The long term viability of an entirely human-fabricated growing environment is a big question mark for many. So while the notion of “post-organic” produce may thrill the food tech enthusiasts, strong advocates of pre-agroindustrial sustainable farming practices balk at the idea of food grown in plastic containers with artificial light.
Despite its water-saving potential, indoor hydroponic farming poses its own sustainability risks. These operations rely on LEDs, which stay on approximately 18 hours per day. Does drastically reducing water usage and water pollution justify the carbon footprint of all that electricity? It’s a question that hydroponic farmers are already taking into consideration. Farm.One, for instance, purchases carbon offsets to help mitigate this environmental cost.
But then there’s the actual cost. For all its efficiencies, hydroponics is a capital intensive process in a highly competitive market. A small bag of greens from Square Roots is $5. As Square Roots Cofounder and CEO Tobias Peggs explained at the monthly open house, the heavier a plant is—the more biomass it has—the more costly it is to grow. At this point in the game, hydroponic growers are focusing on greens. Fruits, vegetables, and tuber roots are not quite financially viable. But as the technology continues to improve, the price points continue to drop.
According to Rob Laing, CEO and founder of Farm.One, the price of LEDs is roughly halving every four years. Farm.One keeps their profit margins viable by selling high-end microgreens and garnishes, but Laing is hopeful that, “in five years time people can use the techniques that we’re using and similar equipment to grow lettuce and kale underneath a bodega.” Peggs is even more sanguine: “We think, two years from now, we’ll be able to economically grow strawberries, tomatoes, and blueberries as well.”
Technology is not the only thing setting hydroponics on the fast track to improvement; robust data collection is supercharging production capacity. Modern hydroponic farms are outfitted with sensors to monitor the plants, water, air, and light, and the farmers are growing not just crops but databases of information about how different factors influence flavor and plant health.
Farm.One's Red Rubin Basil, Saltwort, Red Veined Sorrel & Stems | Image Source: @farm.one
With different light recipes and nutrients, farmers can adjust certain variables to bring out different flavors. Some farms are even using machine learning to integrate and deploy these learnings. It’s a prospect that is remarkable to some and off-putting to others. As Dan Barber said in a conversation with co-founder of Square Roots Kimbal Musk at the Food for Tomorrow conference, “When Kimbal says you can dial in the flavor and colors you want, I don’t know that I want that kind of power,” Barber said. “I’d rather have a region or environment express color and flavor.” Agree to disagree perhaps. New Yorkers might not be as enthused about the taste of the subway expressing itself in their salad greens.
So what role will hydroponics play in the future of food? “People on both sides of the issue tend to overstate how big hydroponic farming is going to be,” Laing told Food Future Co. “It’s part of the solution.” He reminds us that hydroponics works well for greens but not at all for crops like wheat or corn. It can’t replace pig farms (leave that to Memphis Meats). It can’t replace olive groves. What hydroponics can do, however, is expand the possibilities for local food in urban spaces. It has many promising implications for sustainable food production. It may even serve as a more viable on-ramp for the next generation of farmers. Who knows? At the rate technology and data are changing the world, we really may be able to buy a locally grown, freshly harvested strawberry in the dead of winter from the corner bodega.
Farmers For Hire Turn Backyards Into Vegetable Patches
Farmers For Hire Turn Backyards Into Vegetable Patches
By KATHERINE ROTH, ASSOCIATED PRESS | Jun 28, 2017, 3:11 PM ET
This 2016 photo provided by The Organic Gardener shows a rooftop garden in Chicago, Ill. (The Organic Gardener via AP)
Jeanne Nolan grew up in an affluent suburb of Chicago. When it came time to apply for colleges, she shocked her family by opting to skip college and become an organic farmer. Then she brought her farming skills back to the suburbs and city, installing and tending vegetable gardens at clients' homes.
The Organic Gardener Ltd., the farmer-for-hire service she and her husband, Verd, started in the Chicago area in 2005, is one of many such services that have cropped up across the country. Some of these farmers have farming backgrounds, while others are landscapers who expanded their expertise, or entrepreneurs from a range of professional backgrounds who just love gardening and the outdoors.
"If you want serious exercise, you turn to a professional trainer to help you do it right. This is like hiring a gardening coach. Some people say, 'Come over every other week for a year' so they can learn and do it themselves. And I also have a hundred clients whose gardens I've been tending for years who are not even trying to do it on their own, but simply love having it done," says Jeanne Nolan, author of "From the Ground Up: A Food Grower's Education in Life, Love, and the Movement That's Changing a Nation" (Spiegel and Grau, 2013).
Urban farming services cater to both homes and businesses that want home-grown produce but not the work involved in growing it. Clients include apartment complexes, grocery stories, schools, shopping malls, even ballparks.
"It turns out that having home-grown produce is something a lot of people really want," says Jessie Banhazl, founder and CEO of Green City Growers, in the Boston area. The company's Fenway Farms project involves planting and tending vegetable gardens atop Fenway Park, where produce is served to fans at baseball games, and a portion is donated to charity.
Many of her clients are trying to get more engaged in the growing process, she says: "There's something about seeing how food grows, at home, school or even at Fenway, and hopefully this influences dietary choices and has a positive environmental impact."
Dan Allen, CEO of Farmscape, with locations in Los Angeles and the San Francisco area, says farmers for hire have a more intimate relationship with clients than landscapers do. "There's something more personal about growing food," he says.
Hiring a farmer for your backyard isn't necessarily cheap, though (prices vary by region). The farmers admit that if saving money is your goal, it's probably cheaper to just shop organic at the grocery store. But they say the experience of growing your own produce, the learning opportunity for kids — and the bragging rights — make it worthwhile.
Another option: having a farm service visit every couple of weeks to teach growing techniques and offer tips.
"It's surprising how much food you can grow in a very small space. As urban farmers, we grow things vertically and on roofs. We know how to plant crops densely. Even in just a 4-by-4 (-foot) square planter, you can grow a lot of food," Nolan says.
Her company grows " pretty much anything you can imagine," she says. "Our most charismatic are tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. And our season runs from March through mid-December."
To provide enough produce for a family of four, Green City Growers recommends three 3-by-8-foot raised beds.
"Whether it's a median strip or a full backyard, or even containers on a balcony, a vegetable garden can happen almost anywhere," Banhazl says.
On Cleveland’s Largest Urban Farm, Refugees Gain Language and Job Skills
On Cleveland’s Largest Urban Farm, Refugees Gain Language and Job Skills
The Refugee Empowerment Agricultural Program expects to harvest 22,000 pounds of produce this year, while helping refugees find a community.
BY CHRIS HARDMAN | Faces & Visions, Urban Agriculture | 07.05.17
Across the Cuyahoga River from downtown Cleveland, men and women dressed in brightly colored clothing harvest vegetables from tidy rows of plantings. Multilingual conversations take place in Hindi, Nepali, Somali and English. With the Cleveland skyline as their backdrop, these refugee farmers nurture their connection to the land and to their new home.
In 2010, the Cleveland nonprofit The Refugee Response created The Refugee Empowerment Agricultural Program (REAP) to support resettled refugees in the Cleveland area through farming. During the year-long program, men and women from Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Burundi, Myanmar, and Somalia learn language and job skills as they work the six-acre Ohio City Farm—one of the largest urban farms in the nation.
This year, REAP expects to harvest 22,000 pounds of produce from the farm’s hoop houses and fields. The Refugee Response leases nearly five acres of the Ohio City Farm from the Cuyahoga Metropolitan Housing Authority.
Since Donald Trump took office in January, the United States has become a less friendly place for people born in other countries. But various community groups across the U.S. have long supported refugees—often through efforts focused on agriculture.
In addition to REAP in Cleveland, projects such as Plant It Forward in Houston, New Roots in San Diego, and the Refugee Urban Agriculture Initiative in Philadelphia have found that refugees and urban farming are a good fit, and despite the hostility at the federal level, they remain committed to their work.
“We did a survey, and 80 percent of people who were coming as refugees have some sort of agricultural background,” said Refugee Response Director of Agricultural Empowerment Margaret Fitzpatrick.
That makes a farm an ideal entry into the American work force. In addition, Fitzpatrick explained, people are coming from all kinds of backgrounds, often with a history of violence and trauma. Refugees find farm work comforting and therapeutic.
Lar Doe
REAP graduate Lar Doe has been working for REAP since 2012. Although he was born in Myanmar, Doe grew up in a refugee camp on the border of Myanmar and Thailand. After spending nearly 15 years there, he was granted permission to move to the U.S. in 2010. His first jobs were in Kentucky and Iowa, but then he accepted an invitation from the Refugee Response to relocate to Cleveland. He was one of REAP’s first refugee employees.
“It is a diverse city. You can find many different people from different countries,” he said. “I feel like the local people here understand about the world.”
Language and Work Skills
Cleveland has a long history of welcoming refugees; since 1983, 17,000 displaced peoplehave settled in the city. To better serve Cleveland’s increasing population of refugees, 16 organizations pooled their resources to form the Refugee Services Collaborative of Greater Cleveland in 2011. Collaborative members come from county refugee-resettlement agencies, area school systems, healthcare providers, and community and faith-based organizations.
REAP’s current cohort includes 10 refugees from Congo, South Sudan, and Myanmar.
As part of the program, trainees spend 28 hours each week on the farm and 12 hours in the classroom learning English as a Second Language. Farm work includes planting, seeding, harvesting, packing and delivery. For their farm and classroom time, they earn $9 an hour.
“The farm provides a step into employment in an area where people are comfortable (farming) with a skill set that people already have (farming),” Fitzpatrick said. Graduates of the program have gone on to work in the food service industry or been hired to work for REAP itself.
REAP also teaches participants about U.S. workplace culture. “The idea of being to work on time, calling a manager if you are sick, time sheet—those are things we take for granted being U.S. citizens, but these are skills that are not necessarily taught before they arrive,” Fitzpatrick said.
Doe talks about the differences in workplace culture: “[At home,] if you work and you get tired, you can rest, and if you feel OK, you can go back to work,” he said. “I always suggest to new refugees that they have to be patient, because the way that they work in their home country might be totally different than here.”
Integrating into the Community
Located on the west side of the city, next to public housing and across the street from the city’s oldest farmers’ market, the farm is ideally positioned to help integrate refugees into the diverse fabric of American life.
“I’m very fortunate to have this job here, because this is an opportunity that I can get involved to the community and also learn more about the people and culture,” Doe said.
Refugees have the opportunity to practice English with visitors touring the farm, with Americans volunteering on the farm, with REAP staff, with members of REAP’s 60-person CSA, and with customers at the weekly farm stand.
Before coming to Cleveland, Doe worked at a meat packing plant. “The job I used to work before, it was hard to get involved in the country,” he said. “You only go to work and come back. You may never feel like it is your home.”
The community aspect of the program also appeals to Lachuman Nopeney, a 52-year-old refugee from Bhutan who spent 20 years in a refugee camp in Nepal and came to the U.S. in 2009 with no work experience and few English skills.
He worked at a restaurant in Milwaukee, where talking wasn’t encouraged. After going through REAP in 2016, however, he was hired by The Refugee Response to work on the farm.
“I’m happy,” he said with a broad smile. With the help of Refugee Response staff and other refugees, he is learning English. He likes his job of “working, joking, talking.”
“It’s more than a job,” said Refugee Response Executive Director Patrick Kearns. “The people in the program become like family to each other.”
According to Fitzpatrick, Cleveland is a diverse city that celebrates different cultures. As a result, The Refugee Response has formed solid partnerships with area restaurants including Great Lakes Brewing Company, Urban Farmer, and The Flying Fig. In addition to buying produce, these and other local restaurants hold fundraising events, host dinners on the farm, and even employ REAP graduates. As one of the founders of the Ohio City Farm, the Great Lakes Brewing has a special interest in REAP and currently pays REAP to grow vegetables, herbs, and hops on the restaurant’s one-acre parcel of the Ohio City Farm.
“We’re very fortunate to be surrounded by a lot of local food restaurants here in Cleveland,” Fitzpatrick said.
Lar Doe says he is proud of his job. “I want to do something for the community,” he explains. As a refugee and a relatively newcomer to the country, his options to help build community may be limited. “English is the big issue for me. This [farm] is about the only thing we can do to make the city proud.”
Photos courtesy of The Refugee Response.
Hydroponic Farm Puts Down Roots In Springfield's Gasoline Alley
The indoor farm, located in a section of the city known as Gasoline Alley because of the huge fuel storage tanks that dot the landscape, is one of several businesses operating out of a quirky set of buildings owned and managed by entrepreneur Joseph Sibilia.
Hydroponic Farm Puts Down Roots In Springfield's Gasoline Alley
Updated on July 5, 2017 at 7:34 AMPosted on July 5, 2017 at 7:33 AM
Gallery: Urban Artisan Farm
BY CAROLYN ROBBINS | crobbins163@gmail.com
Special to The Republican | SPRINGFIELD
Call it an island in a food desert.
That's how former chef Tony Renzulli and business partner Jack Wysocki think of their new business, Urban Artisan Farm, which uses hydroponic technology to produce 100 heads of lettuce a week in a greenhouse complex at 250 Albany St.
The indoor farm, located in a section of the city known as Gasoline Alley because of the huge fuel storage tanks that dot the landscape, is one of several businesses operating out of a quirky set of buildings owned and managed by entrepreneur Joseph Sibilia.
It may seem an unlikely spot for a hydroponic farm. But for Renzulli, whose vision is to bring fresh produce to low-income neighborhoods year-round, it's perfect. There aren't many places in the Armory-Liberty Street neighborhood where residents have easy access to fresh vegetables, he said.
Eventually, Renzulli hopes to expand the hydroponic concept to abandoned structures throughout the city with the goal of providing fresh produce and jobs to residents of low-income neighborhoods.
Wellspring Harvest breaks ground for greenhouse
The 2-acre facility means that the old Chapman Valve site in Indian Orchard is being reused.
For now, Renzulli and Wysocki are content to bring the farm's weekly yield of fresh greens to local farmer's markets, including a downtown location. They offer red and green Bibb lettuce and microgreens, which are immature but edible leaves.
They are currently building new structures at Gasoline Alley to expandtheir growing capacity. They also plan to add the cultivation of cucumbers and tomatoes to their year-round operation.
Wellspring Harvest Breaks Ground For Greenhouse In Springfield
By fall, between five and nine currently unemployed people will be working in a new hydroponic greenhouse growing salad greens for major local institutions like Baystate Medical Center, the public schools and Big Y supermarket.
Wellspring Harvest Breaks Ground For Greenhouse In Springfield
Updated on June 8, 2017 at 4:33 PMPosted on June 8, 2017 at 4:20 PM
Gallery: Wellspring Cooperative Corporation to build commercial greenhouse in Springfield
BY JIM KINNEY | jkinney@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD -- By fall, between five and nine currently unemployed people will be working in a new hydroponic greenhouse growing salad greens for major local institutions like Baystate Medical Center, the public schools and Big Y supermarket.
That's the plan from Wellspring Harvest, which broke ground Thursday at the former Chapman Valve site at 121 Pinevale St. in Indian Orchard.
"This will be a great place to go grow food. This will be a great place to grow people," said greenhouse manager and grower Stephen Hilyard.
Wellspring Harvest plans to grow at Indian Orchard greenhouse in Springfield by fall
The 2-acre project continues the process of putting the old factory property back to productive use, said Kevin Kennedy, city chief development officer.
Once one of the country's largest manufacturers of valves and fire hydrants, Chapman Valve had nearly 3,500 employees in the 1940s. The company supplied valves to the Manhattan Project, which built the first atomic bomb, and later machined uranium rods into slugs for reactor fuel at Brookhaven National Laboratory. In 1949, Chapman may have also conducted rolling operations on uranium metal.
Chapman Valve closed in 1986 when there were fewer than 100 employees.
An April 2005 federal study revealed that "significant" radioactive contamination remained at the plant at Pineville and Goodwin streets in Indian Orchard through the early 1990s.
Wellspring buying part of Chapman site for greenhouse
Wellspring is raising $900,000 for the project and has an event planned for investors Sept. 7.
Parts of the factory site, once 54 acres in size, were contaminated with radioactive waste that has since been cleaned up. Another part of the campus on Goodwin Street is the site of a 12-acre, 2.3-megawatt solar facility constructed by Western Massachusetts Electric Co., featuring 8,200 solar panels.
"I think it's amazing that we have been able to redevelop this site with 'green' uses," Kennedy said.
Palais des Congrès de Montréal Wins Prestigious International Innovation Award For Its Urban Agriculture Lab
"We have an immense rooftop surface right in the heart of the city, and we knew that by working with environmental experts, we could make a positive contribution by repurposing this vast space. Scientists, engineers, crop farmers, bee farmers, managers and a host of other specialists worked together with the Palais' building management team to make this project happen, which we believe will inspire other property owners to do the same," mentioned Chrystine Loriaux, the Palais des congrès Director of Marketing and Communications.
Palais des Congrès de Montréal Wins Prestigious International Innovation Award For Its Urban Agriculture Lab
The Urban Agriculture Lab of the Palais des congrès de Montréal (CNW Group/Palais des congrès de Montréal)
MONTRÉAL, July 5, 2017 /CNW Telbec/ - The Palais des congrès de Montréal was presented with the prestigious AIPC Innovation Award on July 4, 2017 at the AIPC International Association of Convention Centres Annual Conference in Sydney, Australia. The Palais was recognized for its Urban Agriculture Lab and its innovations in sustainable development. The Lab was among the 16 convention centre entries shortlisted for the award. "We are proud of the sustainability leadership role we play within the industry through our tangible actions. By opening the Urban Agriculture Lab in tandem with partners like the Laboratoire sur l'agriculture urbaine (AU/LAB) and Ligne Verte, the Palais is fostering experimentation with new rooftop urban farming technologies and practices, and in the process, is also reducing heat islands in the city's downtown core," declared Raymond Larivée, President and CEO of the Palais des congrès de Montréal.
The AIPC Innovation Award recognizes excellence in convention centre management by showcasing initiatives that represent innovation, namely through the development of a new, more creative or more effective approach to any aspect of convention centre management, operations or marketing. The Palais des congrès was the Overall Innovation Award Winner as selected by the committee, while the Cairns Convention Center was the Innovation Award Delegates' Choice – it won for a promotional item made from steel recovered from their old roof.
Raymond Larivée (right), President and CEO of the Palais des congrès de Montréal, at the July 4 AIPC Annual Awards Dinner, in Sydney, Australia. (CNW Group/Palais des congrès de Montréal)
"We have an immense rooftop surface right in the heart of the city, and we knew that by working with environmental experts, we could make a positive contribution by repurposing this vast space. Scientists, engineers, crop farmers, bee farmers, managers and a host of other specialists worked together with the Palais' building management team to make this project happen, which we believe will inspire other property owners to do the same," mentioned Chrystine Loriaux, the Palais des congrès Director of Marketing and Communications.
According to Eric Duchemin, AU/LAB's Scientific Director: "Partnering with the Palais des congrès on the Laboratory initiative will make it possible to broaden our knowledge of the challenges and constraints associated with rooftop farming, but it will also serve to build rooftop farms, in Montréal and abroad." The project is part of CRETAU, a network created in collaboration with the Québec Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, which focuses on urban farming research and expertise, and the transfer of urban farming best practices.
In 2016, the Palais des congrès de Montréal became the main showcase in Québec for experimenting with and advocating for urban farming technologies and techniques, when it opened its Urban Agriculture Lab jointly with AU/LAB, an organization associated with the faculty of science and institute of environmental studies at Université du Québec à Montréal. The Urban Agriculture Lab includes:
- Culti-VERT, a technological showcase for green roofs and container gardening;
- Three pollinating beehives; and
- VERTical, an urban agriculture project driven by new vertical farming technology that is based on free-standing structures equipped with experimental wall tarps.
The various components of the Palais Urban Agriculture Lab are primarily tasked with:
- Helping reduce urban heat islands and improving air quality in the Montréal downtown area;
- Encouraging the real estate industry and property owners to adopt concrete steps toward greening their rooftops;
- Promoting Montréal's reputation as a world-class city firmly committed to fostering urban sustainability; and
- Enabling convention participants and the Maison du Père homeless shelter to benefit from the crops grown, with the help of Capital Catering, the Palais' exclusive caterer.
About the AIPC
The International Association of Convention Centres (AIPC) represents convention and exhibition centre professionals and managers worldwide. In addition to recognizing convention centre management excellence, the AIPC also provides resources and programs that foster striving for the highest industry standards through research, networking and education.
About the Laboratoire sur l'agriculture urbaine
The Laboratoire sur l'agriculture urbaine (AU/LAB) is a centre for urban agriculture research, training, innovation and activities designed to serve the community and act as a rallying hub for organizations and individuals devoted to urban farming. A non-profit, AU/LAB is also a national and international discussion and action forum for issues related to urbanism and food. With its extensive expertise, AU/LAB fosters emerging ideas, initiatives and businesses focused on the production, processing, distribution and marketing of urban agriculture. AU/LAB is actively involved in the development of urban food systems, viable urbanism and circular economies in cities.
About the Palais des congrès de Montréal
Recipient of the highest quality standards certification in the industry and shortlisted for the World's Best Congress Centreaward (AIPC), the Palais des congrès de Montréal attracts and hosts conventions, exhibitions, conferences, meetings and other events. It generates major tourism revenues and intellectual wealth for Montréal and Québec, while also contributing to the international reputation of Montréal, the top host city in North America for international events. congresmtl.com
SOURCE Palais des congrès de Montréal
For further information: Source: Chrystine Loriaux, Fellow Adm.A., B.A.A., Director, Marketing and Communications, Palais des congrès de Montréal, Phone: 514 871-3104 ; For information: Amélie Asselin, Advisor, Communications and Public Affairs, Palais des congrès de Montréal, amelie.asselin@congresmtl.com, Phone: 514 871-5897
NatureFresh™ Farms Mobile Greenhouse Impacting Purchasing Decisions
NatureFresh™ Farms Mobile Greenhouse Impacting Purchasing Decisions
Leamington, ON (July 5th, 2017) – The heat of the summer is settling in across the Midwest though this has not deterred NatureFresh™ Farms’ mobile greenhouse tour from missing a beat. Already nearly 50 events completed since mid-April, consumers continue to flock to #GreenInTheCity events to learn more about how greenhouse vegetables are grown.
“The mobile greenhouse has not only been a conversation starter but a difference maker in how we connect with our customers”, said Ray Wowryk, Director of Business Development.
The mobile Greenhouse Education Center (GEC) is a 38’ custom-built unit that is an exact snapshot of how NatureFresh™ Farms grows its vegetables in state of the art high tech greenhouses in Leamington, ON & Delta, OH. Equipped with fruit bearing plants and complimented by a live Bumblebee Eco-System, the GEC serves as an education resource to inform consumers about how greenhouse vegetables are grown.
“We care about the future of fresh and all that it entails; we need to collectively increase fresh produce consumption. NatureFresh™ can help do that with the GEC and by getting front and center with consumers, we share our story to help inform them of the value of greenhouse vegetables. Knowing who grows what you buy is important, understanding how its grown is just as important if not more”, commented Wowryk.
Supporting the GEC this summer are 5 college students who serve as NatureFresh™ Brand Ambassadors at each event. The team is responsible for event day operations and interacting with retail partners to ensure their customers have the best possible experience. With varied backgrounds ranging from agri-business to environmental science to marketing to biology, the team provides unique perspectives of the value of greenhouse grown vegetables.
“We are able to immediately impact consumers purchasing decisions at store level with the knowledge we share about how we grow greenhouse vegetables”, said Cole Burkholder, GEC Team Member & 3rd year Environmental Science Major from Ohio State University. Agriculture is nothing new to Burkholder whose family operates a farming operation of more than 500 acres of row crops in central Ohio. “The look on people’s faces when we explain the greenhouse growing process and they see the live plants with real fruit, it’s priceless, you kind of see that ‘a-ha’ moment in their eyes. We’ve even had customers show us their shopping carts when leaving to show us the tomatoes or bell peppers they have purchased because of our conversation. It’s a pretty good feeling!” commented Burkholder.
Now in it’s 3rd year, the #GreenInTheCity Tour has completed more than 200 events to date across eastern North America connecting with consumers at retail stores, summer camps, schools, and community fairs. The 2017 tour will continue on through early November wrapping up at the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair in Toronto, ON November 12th.
To learn more about NatureFresh™ Farms and the #GreenInTheCity Tour, visit naturefresh.ca/GEC.
-30-
About NatureFresh Farms™ -
NatureFresh Farms™ has grown to become one of the largest independent, vertically integrated greenhouse vegetable growers in North America. Growing in Leamington, ON and Delta, OH, NatureFresh™ Farms prides itself on exceptional flavor & quality. Family owned NatureFresh Farms™ ships Non-GMO greenhouse grown produce year-round to key retailers throughout North America.
SOURCE: Chris Veillon | chris@naturefresh.ca
Director of Marketing | NatureFresh™ Farms