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Orlando-Based, Seed2Source Corporation Joins The Villages® to Operate One of Florida’s Largest Agriculture Production Farms & Medical Culinary Programs
Orlando-Based, Seed2Source Corporation Joins The Villages® to Operate One of Florida’s Largest Agriculture Production Farms & Medical Culinary Programs
Orlando, FL (May 30, 2018) -
Orlando-based, agriculture and wellness company, Seed2SourceTM Corporation, recently entered into a strategic partnership with The Villages® to bring, The Villages GrownTM —a future multi-acre produce production operation that includes technologically-advanced greenhouses, an outdoor farm, processing center, and retail market, supported by medical culinary wellness programs. This multi-phased project will be one of the local food system operations of its kind in the state of Florida. The operation will yield approximately 2 million pounds of produce beginning the first year and will focus on nutrient-dense food offerings with a food- as-medicine approach to health and wellness.
‘The Villages Grown, Together with Seed2SourceTM’, will be located in The Villages community and will ensure that the approximately 120,000+ residents achieve optimal health through hyper-local food access and educational wellness programs.
The Villages Grown will be supported through dining services, commercial businesses, corporations, retailers and the medical community.
Phase I of this project features a controlled environment greenhouse operation utilizing advanced growing technologies within a collective of proprietary methodologies; an outdoor field-grown farm with sustainable production methods; a full-scale processing center that includes wholesale access for chefs; and a mobile farmers market.
Up to 60 different culinary crop varieties with food-as-medicine specific benefits will be grown and distributed from this location. The farm operation will be one of the most technologically and sustainably-driven approaches currently in Florida. Jennifer Waxman-Loyd, a familiar name in the agriculture world and co-founder of Seed2Source Corporation, says, “It’s an exciting time in agriculture. The Villages Grown has the opportunity to benefit hundreds of thousands of people—from consumers, to farmers, to local and corporate businesses. I honestly think this effort could prove to be the largest healthy local food system built around a targeted demographic in a single master planned community.”
This initiative will eventually support and assist both the existing Seed2Source and The Villages farm networks by aggregating local farmers and aspiring artisans, thus providing a way for them to participate in this health-driven organization. These forward-thinking approaches are set to empower not only The Villages community, but also serve and inspire others. Future amenities could include a retail market, culinary commercial and demonstration kitchens, food-as-medicine programs, and farm-2-table dining experiences.
The Villages Grown project could ultimately benefit all of Central Florida due to the high volume of consistently grown, local, quality produce provided from this operation. Product will be distributed to the Central Florida Medical Community, institutions, corporations, food service providers, restaurant holding groups, resorts, select retail grocers, as well as consumers.
Over the past decade, Seed2Source Corporation, a division of Sustainable Synergy Inc., has been dedicated to creating a healthy Central Food Local Food System by bridging food with commercial development; aggregating & distributing local food to organizations; and creating healthy workplaces through a Food-as-Medicine approach supported by Education. The company offers consulting services such as agricultural business planning, capital and grant funding, Go-to-Market strategies, advanced growing methodologies and the distribution of premium local food products. Seed2Source works with various companies including The Villages, Higgins Ag, Compass Group, Chartwells, Stetson University, Florida Polytech University, Rollins College, Sodexo, University of Florida's Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), Long & Scott Farms, Lake Meadow Naturals, Orlando Utilities Commission, Green Works Orlando, Orange County Health Department, among others.
Urban Agriculture Could Transform Baltimore's Blighted Neighborhoods
Urban Agriculture Could Transform Baltimore's Blighted Neighborhoods
May 30, 2018 - Brent Flickinger
A new zoning code that went into effect last summer allows urban agriculture and farm stands (after a required zoning board hearing) in all of Baltimore’s residential areas. So now that spring is here, it’s time to get planting.
As a community planner, I know that a thriving neighborhood needs a variety of resources and opportunities. Urban agriculture offers numerous benefits besides the obvious one of providing fresh, locally grown food. It can bring jobs, income and community building — things that are especially needed in Baltimore’s stressed neighborhoods suffering from vacant properties, loss of jobs, substance abuse and crime.
Urban farming is a growing enterprise. Today, there are more than 100 community and school gardens in Baltimore, as well as more than 20 urban farms and several organizations working to support urban producers. The 12 member sites of the Farm Alliance of Baltimore and more than a dozen other farms are growing and selling fresh fruits and vegetables. Farm Alliance members share a website and pool resources to sell their goods at locations around town. Consumers are clamoring for locally grown products. Restaurants often tout these products on their menus. The demand is there. Can community farms meet it?
Baltimore’s latest sustainability plan draft (baltimoresustainability.org) includes a chapter on urban agriculture with recommendations such as creating paths to ownership of land and ensuring that opportunities and supports are made available, specifically to residents who may face high barriers to participate in urban agriculture.
Urban farming requires four skills and activities that can produce income for residents: production, processing, distribution and marketing. At first, these might not all be full-time or high-paying jobs, but they provide opportunities for learning skills to help people move up the ladder. Further, urban farms convert underused buildings and vacant land for productive use in neighborhoods where abandoned properties — historically seen as barren places — can serve as a focus of new economic activity.
Successful examples abound. The Black Church Food Security Network supports growing food on church-owned properties. Another local example is the highly successful “hoop house” greenhouse project at Civic Works in Clifton Park, now operating for eight years. Such hoop houses are popular all over the world; in England, 90 percent of strawberries are grown in these, and use of toxic pesticides and herbicides is avoided. Further, the recent outbreak of E. Coli in lettuce grown in Arizona ought to provide further motivation to get fresh, clean, local food.
Neighborhood-based agriculture builds community spirit and self-confidence as people work together in positive relationships to do the work of farming. In addition, worker co-ops and entrepreneurship lead to more money circulating in the neighborhoods and, for some, healthier eating and less dependence on a job elsewhere.
While organic food, increasingly popular, is traditionally grown in urban gardens and farms, there are “cash crops” with high profit margins that can be cultivated as well. For example, decorative flowers, ginger and comfrey are very profitable. Lavender produces oils used to make candles and soaps. Sedum, a flowering plant easy to maintain, is used on energy-saving “green roofs” and can yield thousands of dollars in profits. As a land use planner, I see opportunities for neighborhoods to use a system of vacant properties to grow a range of products.
There are other opportunities. Bees are necessary for pollination, so beekeeping and harvesting honey could become a business for some. Composting is necessary for building the soil, and composting projects are being created to meet that need. The Baltimore Orchard Project is assisting groups in growing and maintaining fruit trees. Blue Water Baltimore and the Parks and People Foundation lead workshops for those wanting to learn the skills needed for the various kinds of agriculture that are cropping up (literally!) throughout the city.
We don’t need to wait for outsiders to improve things in our neighborhoods. Urban agriculture empowers us to meet these needs through a diversity of locations, occupations, products, and community building.
Let’s seize the initiative to create new opportunities for health and wealth using the latest technology and techniques to produce goods and services in local communities, develop a new base of economic activity, restore neighborhoods and expand hope and pride in our city and region.
Brent Flickinger is a community planner and planning supervisor in the Baltimore City Department of Planning. He can be reached at brenton.flickinger@baltimorecity.gov.
Water of Plenty: Meet The Trio Practicing Soilless Farming in Delhi
Water of Plenty: Meet The Trio Practicing Soilless Farming in Delhi
Triton Foodworks aims to change the face of urban farming through hydroponics
BY SAYAN CHAKRABORTY Forbes India Staff
May 28, 2018
Two of Triton Foodworks’ five co-founders quit after a brush with Delhi’s municipal authorities, but Deepak Kukreja (sitting), Ullas Samrat (left) and Dhruv Khanna (right) decided to stay put
Image: Madhu Kapparath
When Ullas Samrat and Dhruv Khanna spoke after a long hiatus in the summer of 2014, they had a lot to share. The childhood friends had drifted apart when Khanna relocated to Singapore for a master’s degree in 2013, while Samrat stayed back in Delhi to work in his family’s lighting business.
On that call, they mostly spoke about where their lives were headed. Samrat was figuring out a way to keep his mother, who suffered from a lung disorder, away from Delhi’s air pollution. His plan to shift his mother to a farmhouse on the outskirts was struck down by doctors—pesticides, soil and dust at the farms would do her no good. This got him thinking about farming without soil. Khanna, stationed in Singapore, was building his own startup, one that aspired to make TVs smart.
A few minutes into the conversation, both figured they wanted to do something more “meaningful and impactful in life”. Working on a sustainable farming module could be a good starting point, the friends agreed.
“When I told Dhruv about soilless farming, he called me back in three days and said there are a few startups in Singapore [like Comcrop] doing the same. Dhruv said he would be visiting India in a couple of months and if we could figure out a pilot by then, he could work on his startup from Delhi and relocate,” says Samrat, 28, in a phone interview.
Khanna, also 28, did return in September. By then, the duo had sold their dream to three others—Devanshu Shivnani, Deepak Kukreja and Vaibhav Batra. In October they set up Triton Foodworks and started out by growing strawberries hydroponically—without the use of soil, in a nutrient-rich medium using water as a solvent—on a plot in Delhi’s Sainik Farms, where Samrat’s family owned some land. The yield was heartening—eight tonnes, which fetched them a profit of about ₹3.5 lakh.
The five founders, all in their twenties, were elated as the dream to create something impactful had started to take wing. Hydroponics was the way forward for sustainable agriculture, they concluded. First, hydroponics requires 60-80 percent less water than conventional farming. Second, one can practise high-density cultivation with hydroponics. Third, since there is no soil involved, there is no scope of lacerating the soil with pesticides and other chemicals.
Explains Kukreja, 39, “In soil cultivation, plant spacing has to be maintained because the plants compete for minerals, but here, since we feed the plants with precision, it gives us the scope to increase plant density. We can also grow vertically for small and compact plants like strawberries, lettuces and herbs.”
He adds, “In conventional farming, we have to do crop rotation to avoid soil erosion and avoid problems like nematodes and pests, but hydroponics gives us the advantage to cultivate a certain crop throughout the year.”
In hydroponics, since there is no soil involved, the farmer is free to cultivate the same crop repeatedly
However, the company’s wings were soon clipped by the Municipal Corporation of Delhi, which razed a greenhouse structure they were starting to put up. “In Sainik Farms, construction of new houses and digging borewells for residential use is not permitted due to an ongoing case, but there is no restriction for agricultural activities,” says Khanna, adding that they were asked for bribes.
“When we refused, the Municipal Corporation of Delhi demolished the greenhouse without giving any notice. When we complained to the local MLA, a few days later a junior engineer from MCD came to apologise and told us he thought we were building a house.”
The team was shaken to the core, the immediate fallout of the corporation’s action being Batra’s exit. Next, Shivnani chose to take a break and pursue an MBA. Meanwhile, an institutional investor who had evinced interest in the firm also withheld investment. The flight, in effect, was grounded even before it could take off.
“More money had to be pumped in and we were all very tense. Everyone had this awkward conversation at home where we asked for more money and our parents were not convinced this time. They had already given us money to kick-start the operations,” recalls Samrat of the tumultuous days.
However, Samrat, Kukreja and Khanna decided to stay put. The plan was to take up hydroponics consultancy work for about a year or two, make enough revenue and plough it back into their firm to continue with R&D—the firm had set up two research and production facilities in Rohini in Delhi and Wada near Mumbai. Between January 2016 and mid-2017, the company executed about five projects in Delhi, Karnataka, and Maharashtra —which fetched them about ₹1 crore in revenue—simultaneously working on the research facilities.
The idea was to develop indigenous hydroponics techniques as well as reduce the cost of operations, which could skyrocket to about ₹2 crore for an acre of land. By the end of 2017, Triton Foodworks had devised a way to reduce the cost of setting up a greenhouse hydroponics unit to about ₹1.25 crore.
“The idea was to source as much raw material as possible from local vendors, design the systems ourselves and get them made by local manufacturers,” says Khanna. Adds Kukreja of some of their innovations, “Instead of plastic moulds to hold the crops, which cost about ₹25 lakh for an acre, we use styrofoam, which is not only cheaper but also keeps the temperature low. The cost comes down to ₹15 lakh.” The team has also developed a high-pressure fogger, which sprays smaller water droplets compared to conventional fogging systems.
Late last year, the company stopped consultancy work and turned its attention to developing their own farms. To consolidate operations, it shut down their research facilities and took up a five-acre plot in Manesar, where it grows different varieties of tomato, strawberries, lettuce, eggplants, and pepper among other plants. The plan is to stock the produce in retail outlets in Delhi under the ChopChop brand as well as sell directly to hotels and restaurants. The current fiscal is expected to fetch the firm ₹1 crore in revenue.
“There has been a lot of exposure around food and food experimentation has become big in urban markets. Also, the eating out market has grown and exposed a lot of urban centres to new tastes and ingredients, which have found their way into people’s kitchens. Hence, this category is finding significant retail shelf in outlets, which makes startups in this space interesting,” says Ankur Bisen, senior vice-president at retail consultancy firm Technopak Advisors.
The greenfield opportunity in hydroponics has also attracted businesses such as Letcetra Agritech, BitMantis Innovations, Junga FreshnGreen and Future Farms.
The trio of Triton is in no mood to let go of the opportunity.
Seed Supply Company Targets Growing Urban Farming Market
Seed Supply Company Targets Growing Urban Farming Market
June 18, 2018
East-West Seed prototype hydroponic unit for urban farming. -- ANNA GABRIELA A. MOGATO
VEGETABLE and flower seed producer and supplier East-West Seed Co. is planning to expand its portfolio by offering vertical farming solutions such as hydroponic units and smaller greenhouses to urban dwellers.
East-West Seed Co. Agricultural Engineer Pedro F. Dayag III, who designed the hydroponic unit prototypes, said that the company decided to target prospective urban farmers due to strong interest.
“We’re still more concentrated on farmers in the provinces. We rarely entertain urban. Now, since our technology has achieved scale, we will bring it to urban [farming],” he added.
“[For urban farming], we are trying to educate those who eat vegetables that they can also do it on their own. It doesn’t really have to come from big farms. It also has a lot of benefits — aside from eating vegetables, you know how it’s planted. It’s also therapeutic [to grow your own vegetables].”
Mr. Dayag said that while hydroponic units are not yet available for mass production, the company will accommodate individual orders.
“If there’s an inquiry and someone wants it made then we can probably accommodate because is what we are really selling here is the greenhouse [for urban farming]. Greenhouses have a repeat-buy but this one (hydroponic unit) is only a one-time buy,” he added.
East-West Seed Co. got into the business of manufacturing and installing greenhouses almost 10 years ago at the request of farmers who buy seeds from the company. Mr. Dayag said that while greenhouses can be customized, these usually come in two sizes, 3.5 meters by 18 meters and 6 meters by 24 meters.
If built and installed in Manila, the greenhouse can cost to about P50,000 to P55,000. This does not, however, include the hydroponics units inside.
The company last month exhibited a hydroponic unit which can cost around P6,000 to P8,000, which includes the aquarium pump to circulate a solution outsourced from the University of the Philippines-Los Baños. At a height of about four feet, the unit can accommodate around 72 receptacles for growing vegetables.
“I was thinking of a design [for hydroponics] that can be used in condominiums with its own lighting and aquarium pump,” Mr. Dayag said.
“All the end-user has to do [is] to choose what to plant — it can be lettuce, kangkong (water spinach), pechay (bok choy). And on the first week, they plant only on the first layer, and add another layer on the second week so that they won’t run out of vegetables. For a single person, that’s a lot.”
Field marketing representative Cusrome Loi S. Adaro said that aside from hydroponics, the company is also offer repurposed pallets for gardening.
“We had that idea because we had so many pallets in the office that remained unused. We also had another project, the “seed in the city,” where we conducted urban farming seminars to get ideas like that,” he added.
“It is now possible that the land needed for farming not be that big; that’s why we thought of projects such as container gardening. That it our focus right now but [rural] farmers are really still our main market.” — Anna Gabriela A. Mogato
Entrepreneur Eyes High-Tech Farm on RIDC Property
Entrepreneur Eyes High-Tech Farm on RIDC Property
By Jason Togyer | Posted in: News
Entrepreneur Juan Lacey is hoping some day to grow some of these same vegetables using aquaponics technology in McKeesport. (Photo special to Tube City Almanac)
Urban farming in the Mon Valley isn't anything new --- but local businessman Juan Lacey isn't proposing an ordinary garden.
Lacey says he can grow produce and raise fish for 12 months out of the year at the RIDC Industrial Center of McKeesport using a technology called "aquaponics."
And if he can line up the financing --- if McKeesport is designated as an "opportunity zone" by the federal government --- Lacey says such a farm could be employing 16 or more people, producing fresh vegetables and fish for sale in supermarkets and use by restaurants within four to six months.
"Four acres can support 16 growing systems," Lacey says. "Each one of those creates 93,000 heads of lettuce per year, which is approximately 1.6 million heads of lettuce. That's a lot of product coming out."
James Rakocy, a retired researcher at the University of the Virgin Islands who is considered one of the fathers of aquaponics, says Lacey's goal isn't unattainable.
"Aquaponics is technically sound if the best technology is used," Rakocy tells Tube City Almanac, by email from his home in Thailand. "With good planning and smart decisions, an aquaponic operation in McKeesport can succeed and become an asset to the community."
Aquaponics is the science of raising plants in water in an environment that also includes fish or other aquatic life. In a properly designed system, the plants and the aquatic life help support one another --- waste matter from the fish is recycled into fertilizer that helps the plants grow, which also keeps the water clean.
According to some sources, Chinese farmers were developing above-ground rice paddies as early as the 13th century. But modern aquaponics stems from Rakocy's research at Auburn University in Alabama and 30 years of experiments he conducted in agriculture at the University of the Virgin Islands, beginning in 1980.
The technology appealed to the university because of the lack of abundant freshwater and land in the Virgin Islands. It was later commercialized by Rakocy and a business partner and fellow researcher, Wilson Lennard of RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia.
Lacey isn't a farmer or a scientist. He's an MBA who owns a Pittsburgh cleaning companythat specializes in environmentally friendly techniques. But he has experience buying and selling produce for Sam's Club, so he says he knows what kinds of problems retailers have with their supply chains for fruits and vegetables.
He first learned about aquaponics when he moved to the Pittsburgh area nine years ago, Lacey says. A group of Pittsburgh's North Side was trying to encourage someone to experiment with aquaponics, he says.
Their effort didn't succeed --- in part because nearby residents were concerned that the operation would create unwanted smells. But after nine years of talking to people who have tried aquaponics, and looking at technology available from several companies, including Wisconsin's Nelson & Pade, Lacey is convinced that the time is right for aquaponic farming in the Mon Valley.
"This is a proven system," Lacey says. "It is not new technology. And to be honest, my goal is not just to build an operation for growing. My goal is to build an industry here."
Lacey is looking to start on a site next to PurePenn's new medical marijuana cultivating facility.
Rather than selling directly to retail supermarkets, he says, an aquaponic farming operation might supply other businesses with raw ingredients for use in their products.
"One of my goals is to be able to attract start-up businesses to McKeesport that can take some of the product and do things with it, rather than just sell it in raw form," Lacey says.
(Above: Courtesy James Rakocy at The Aquaponics Doctors website)
Aquaponic systems work best for leafy green crops, Rakocy says, such as lettuce "and particularly herbs. An aquaponic operation could be large enough to supply supermarket chains in your area with these crops.
But aquaponic operations are not economical for crops such as tomatoes, cucumbers and bell peppers, Rakocy cautions. In addition, he says, aquaponic farming is capital-intensive and works on very thin profit margins.
"Most commercial operations today are relatively small in size, to allow direct sales to high-end niche markets such as farmers' markets and 'white tablecloth' restaurants," Rakocy says. "A single-owner/operator model with a few part-time employees is a popular size to capture these niche markets and high prices."
Scaling up an aquaponics operations requires a very high volume, Rakocy says, and the output must be sold to wholesale distributors. Intermediate-sized operations may find it "more difficult to achieve profitability," he says.
Lacey believes that a McKeesport-based aquaponics farm would sell at least some of its output to supermarkets. Even if its overhead was higher than that of conventional farms in the southern United States, Mexico or South America, he says, the costs of transporting the produce would be lower.
And, Lacey says, supermarkets and restaurants have been shaken by incidents where contaminated produce made their customers ill. An aquaponic farm such as his would be able to track a head of lettuce, for instance, almost from seed to table.
"When you go to a grocery store right now, you pick up a head of lettuce, there's no code on it that says where it was grown or how it was treated," Lacey says. "When there's a recall, companies go through an inordinate amount of back tracking."
The ability to control the entire supply chain, he says, means a well-run aquaponics operation will be as much of an information technology company as it is a farm.
At least half of the effort going into a new aquaponics operation, Rakocy says, "must be devoted to business planning and marketing studies."
"Entrepreneurs often assume their product will fly off the shelves --- or more precisely the growing beds and fish tanks --- and that they will get the price they want," he says. "It's not that easy."
The important thing, Rakocy says, is that an entrepreneur such as Lacey has to stay focused on the correct goal.
"The goal of an aquaponics operation is not to grow fish and cultivate vegetables," he says. "The goal is to sell fish and vegetables and make money."
Lacey is estimating that he will need to raise about $2 million to get started --- and that, he says, depends on the federal government approving the designation of McKeesport's waterfront as an "opportunity zone."
Included in the federal tax bill passed in late 2017 was a provision allowing states to request that certain census tracts in distressed communities be declared "opportunity zones."
People or companies who invest in businesses in these "opportunity zones" get preferential tax treatment from the IRS, including the ability to defer taxes until 2027 on gains that they reinvest into a opportunity zone.
The goal, according to the IRS and the U.S. Treasury Department, is to stimulate investment in distressed communities. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf and the state Department of Community and Economic Development have recommended that parts of McKeesport and Glassport, all of Clairton and Duquesne, and much of North Versailles Twp. be declared "opportunity zones." (See map, below.)
The IRS has yet to rule on the recommendation.
In the meantime, Lacey's dream of an aquaponics operation in McKeesport --- potentially feeding other businesses --- hangs in the balance.
Most of the operations he's looked at, he says, have run by charities as non-profit operations, but he doesn't want to go that route.
Right now, Lacey says, the closest aquaponics operation to Pittsburgh that he's identified is in northern West Virginia. If what he's calling "Mon Valley Aquaponics" opens, Lacey believes it would be one of the first in Pennsylvania.
"We're waiting on pins and needs for the U.S. Department of the Treasury to adopt Pennsylvania's request," he says.
Originally published June 11, 2018.
A Microgreens Farm Grows In Asbury Park, New Jersey
A Microgreens Farm Grows In Asbury Park, New Jersey
At Good Feeling Farms, brothers Joe and Chris Chiappetta pursue the latest innovation in agriculture.
By Andrea Clurfeld | | June 11, 2018
On the other side of the tap room at Asbury Park Brewery, in a high-ceilinged industrial space with not a whiff of barnyard in the air, you’ll find a pair of brothers cultivating a thoroughly modern farm.
It’s soilless, it’s vertical, it’s pesticide-, herbicides, fungicide- and insecticide-free, and its state-of-the-art LED technology lights the way to continual growth of microgreens ranging from arugula and spicy mustard to red Russian kale and amaranth.
The 2,500-square-foot space is called Good Feeling Farms, and it’s where Joe and Chris Chiappetta work to supply distributors who in turn bring their nutrient-rich, flavor-intense microgreens to top restaurants in the region.
Lights give seedlings their start at Good Feeling Farms.
“Every week, we sell about 70 to 75 pounds of microgreens,” Joe says. “Our model is that we sell to distributors only.” Distributors include New Jersey-based Cuttler Produce, Driscoll Foods, AgriExotica, J. Ambrogi and FarmArt, for example—and every week they start afresh with new crops of microgreens.
Joe and Chris Chiappetta
The brothers, who grew up in Basking Ridge, started farming in a basement in Belvidere, in the historic Apollo House, which was a station on the Underground Railroad.
The move from Warren County to Asbury Park allowed them not only to expand into an economically viable enterprise but be part of the kind of community in need of an employment-providing farm.
Joe Chiappetta inside the dark germination room.
“We want to be in a depressed urban area,” Chris says, “to work with (partners) like Kula,” an Asbury Park urban farm with a cafe and training program that engages local residents and trains them for employment in the hospitality industries. “We want to hire people who go through the Kula program.”
“’Cause that works,” interjects Paul Chiappetta, father of Chris and Joe.
Paul continues: “These two guys grabbed a dream and ran with it. It’s not fancy AeroFarms (a massive urban farm in Newark) here; it’s boot-strapped.”
Joe nods. “We still have the ability to have an impact, to make a difference,” he says. “We can give back.”
Meanwhile, they farm: Their process starts with sanitization, cleaning and sterilizing everything that’s part of growing microgreens. Onto a layer of burlap go the seeds, which then are sprayed with water and transferred to a germination room. There’s no light, just high humidity, and high temperatures.
“That can be tricky in the winter,” says Paul, smiling.
After two days of germination, Chris and Joe move their itty-bitty greens to “grow chambers,” where they mature within days into full-fledged microgreens. Then the process begins again—every week, 52 weeks a year.
Chris Chiappetta fills a clamshell container with microgreens.
The Chiappettas continually look ahead; their idea is to bring Good Feeling Farms to many urban areas in New Jersey, to spread around not only the nutritional value of their microgreens but to teach and to provide employment.
That’ll take a bit of change in the mindset of banks, since “there is no such thing as traditional financing for farms,” Joe says.
“We own the equity in the farm,” Chris adds, “but banks are so risk-averse” when it comes to agriculture.
The brothers will not be deterred. Tastes of their microgreens inspire confidence in their vision: Micro-arugula is intensely peppery and the freshness is peerless; it’s crisp, ready to top pizza, stuff into tacos or sandwiches, use in an omelet or frittata, or toss with salads and set atop stir-fries.
Pop Paul notes: “These microgreens last two weeks—at least!—in the fridge.”
Good Feeling Farms is located on the far side of the Asbury Park Brewery, 810 Sewall Avenue in Asbury Park, but its entrance is at 811 Monroe Avenue. It is not open to the general public. The best way to experience Good Feeling Farms’ microgreens is to ask your favorite restaurant or market to acquire them through one of the distributors noted above. For information, call 908-528-3882, email GoodFeelingFarms@gmail.com, or visit www.GoodFeelingFarms.com.
Edible Routes Launches Its New And Innovative ‘Farmlets’ Program
Edible Routes Launches Its New And Innovative ‘Farmlets’ Program
New Delhi based urban farming consultancy Edible Routes recently launched its new and innovative ‘Farmlets’ program. The program permits people from Delhi/NCR to rent their own little plot of land (‘farmlet’) in order to grow greens, vegetables, fruits and herbs for their own kitchens. Edible Routes will fully manage and run each farmlet and deliver produce twice a month to renters’ homes. The site for the Sultanpur Farmlet Project is conveniently located 20kms from Gurgaon and 40kms from New Delhi. The program is another step towards creating an ecology of safe and healthy eating in the Delhi/NCR area.
People interested in renting a farmlet can sign up for a 6-month subscription which costs Rs 29,992. This fee includes a 2,400sqft plot of land, all farming inputs, and twice-monthly delivery of produce. Edible Routes will provide the design of beds, irrigation system, seeds, maintenance, planting plans, composting system, harvesting and delivery to all subscribers. Although the design of each farmlet will be pre-decided, planting will be carried out in consultation with clients. After the summer, once the weather is cooler, monthly events and activities are also planned to facilitate the creation of this community of ‘farmletters’.
Like ‘allotments’ in the UK or ‘kleinfarms’ in Germany, farmlets aims to give its renters the chance to grow their own food and re-establish a connection to nature severed by modern life. This will be a community of city folk who can spend a leisurely Sunday with their families, working on their plots, enjoying the outdoors, and exchanging notes with fellow urban farmers. Farmletters will finally know the answer to where, how and by whom their food is being grown. They will also understand the seasonality of vegetables and fruits, the difficulty of growing edibles and, through this, hopefully develop a sense of empathy for the Indian farmer. Overall, Edible Routes hopes that the program will create a community of conscious urban farmers who put their energies into revitalizing Indian agriculture.
GET IN TOUCH:
Contact: 9599806387 or 9811071751
Email: letsfarm@edibleroutes.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cityfarmlets
Urban Growth: Meet The City Farmers Looking To Use Vacant Land And Abandoned Buildings To Transform Scotland's Food Landscape
Urban Growth: Meet The City Farmers Looking To Use Vacant Land And Abandoned Buildings To Transform Scotland's Food Landscape
May 26, 2018 Karin Goodwin
A GROUP of local food producers is aiming to transform Scotland's cities, and overhaul the country's food landscape, by creating urban farms on vacant land and in empty buildings.
Their vision for the city includes market gardens selling unusual and high-end vegetables, based in vacant plots in deprived areas, and vertical growing projects in which salad and veg can be produced commercially, or fish farmed, in stacked “towers” in abandoned warehouses.
Last week, campaigning growers' collective Propagate launched a new report – Roots to Market – calling on local authorities to help urban farm projects by making suitable vacant land more readily available under the Community Empowerment Act.
Report authors Abi Mordin and Kristina Nitsolova claim there is potential for more small-scale urban farmers to supply local businesses such as shops, cafes, and restaurants, bringing environmental, social and economic benefits.
Projects in development or already underway in Glasgow include market gardens, vertical growing of micro-greens (nutrient-rich shoots used as side salad in some restaurants) and indoor aquaponics in which fish are farmed alongside vegetables growing in water without soil. The plants are fed by the waste products from the fish and in turn, purify the water while the fish grow to an edible size. Other would-be market gardeners are looking to supply eggs, honey, and fruit on a commercial scale, or create herbal teas, jams or pickles from market garden ingredients.
Glasgow city council is broadly supportive of plans. Work in Dundee, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, where several projects are in progress, is also being supported locally.
Abi Mordin, Propagate director, said: “We need to fix our food culture in Scotland. The Roots to Market report is a big step towards creating a sustainable local food economy in Glasgow. We've talked to lots of people in every part of the chain and we've laid out some clear steps for all of us to take. We have a lot of vacant land in cities like Glasgow and we are aiming to identify where there might be potential for growing.”
Propagate's report called for the council to undertake contamination studies and create a searchable database to be used by potential market gardeners. The organization is also supporting the establishment of the Glasgow Growers Association, which will take on leases from the council on behalf of small businesses.
Dr. Roy Neilson, a scientist at Dundee's James Hutton Institute, said there was “real potential” for urban growers to supply city cafes and other businesses. “Scale could be achieved through the adoption of vertical growing facilities, an innovative solution to growing food with a minimal footprint,” he added. "Local growing also provides provenance and reduces food miles and so has environmental benefits. Urban growers have the potential to complement, though not directly replace, existing food supply chains for mainstream consumers.”
Pete Ritchie, director of Nourish, an NGO campaigning on food justice in Scotland, said creating short supply chains – such as local growers selling to small businesses – had many benefits. Money stays in the local economy, food is fresher and both city growers and their customers felt more connected to the land.
“Sustainable food is vital to our city’s health, environment, and the local economy, as well as improving our resilience,” he said. “The issue is that there is still a skills gap – someone who knows what they are doing can get 10 times more out of the land than someone who doesn't.”
He said a grassroots approach was needed to teach everyone how to grow food, but he would also like to see a college of urban agriculture. “It would look to the best projects in the world for inspiration,” he added. “It should have a hi-tech vertical growing unit – ideally that would be powered off renewable energy. Maybe we could have a turbine in the Clyde? It's about thinking creatively.”
Roseanna Cunningham, Cabinet Secretary for Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform – who earlier this week visited Locavore, a Glasgow-based social enterprise growing veg on its city-based market garden plots and selling local produce in its new ethical “supermarket”– said: “Our programme for government sets out a firm commitment to promote and develop demand for locally sourced and produced food and drink.
"Under the Community Empowerment Act, local authorities are also required to prepare food growing strategies which include the identification of land suitable for allotment sites and community growing, and how they intend to increase provision where required.”
A hidden market garden
ON the bustling Tollcross Road in Glasgow's east end it would be easy to miss the alleyway that leads to Max Johston and Andy McGovern's new market garden. It's on the site of Parkhead Housing Association's community garden, which is recent years has become overgrown and rundown.
The deal is that Johnson and McGovern get to use half of the plot for their new venture in return for help in restoring the rest for the community and running sessions for volunteers. It's clear there's plenty of potential for it to be transformed. Though covered with weeds, herb-like mint pokes through along with flowering strawberry plants and oodles of rhubarb.
The left-hand side of the space, used by for commercial growing, is much more orderly, though it's still early days. Johnson shows me the neat rows of salad, with which he has contracts to provide for two Glasgow cafes – there's oak leaf lettuce and lollo rosso, rocket and peppery red mustard. They are also growing herbs, which could be dried to make teas, as well as beetroot, carrots and spinach. It's a carefully thought through offering, which he feels confident will allow them to make a basic living.
There is also an important belief system at play here. “As a commercial grower the major thing is to produce food in an environmentally sound way that isn't stripping the soils and polluting the water,” he says. “We want to do that locally so it's super-fresh and packed with nutrition. It's also about culturing shifting people's perceptions of food so they become used to local, healthy food being an easily available, a staple thing in their diet.”
Longer-term the pair, who grew-up in the east end, are hoping to lease a bigger space that will allow them to scale- up and are delighted to working as part of the newly formed Glasgow Growers Association – they claim working with others ensures efficiency. They believe there's real potential to transform neglected parts of Glasgow. “People see vacant land around here as waste land that no-one wants,” he says. “What better way to turn it around than to create great big beautiful gardens producing food?”
Nurturing plants – and people – in Springburn
ARRIVING at the tired brick building on the edge of the Tesco car park in Springburn, you don't expect to see anything growing. But pull back the bolt on the plywood gate and you enter another world. Here there is chard, spinach, kale, courgettes, French and broad beans in some of the 65 large beds tended by volunteers at Saheliya, a specialist mental health and support organization for black, minority ethnic, refugee and migrant women and girls.
Once this land was abandoned, overgrown. Now there are herbs – sage, rosemary, chives – as well as onions and garlic. There are fruit trees – Fiesta and Katie apple varieties – blackberry bushes and strawberry plants flowering. The produce in this urban haven is international too – there are sweet potatoes and Amaranth green leaves, an iron and magnesium-rich vegetable commonly used in many African countries.
Gently bedding up tiny kale plants is 67-year-old Henriette Koubakouenda, who has been volunteering here since it was established three years ago. Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo where she headed up the country's fisheries programme, she has lived in Glasgow with her two grown-up sons for 16 years, working with the community and running African women's organization Karibu.
A lot has been achieved here already. This all-women growing team are supplying to a local African shop and selling other vegs to staff and service users here. There are plans also to expand their reach supplying more shops or running a veg stall. Money raised can go back into the service – a kilo of sweet potatoes will pay for daily bus fares for two more volunteers. The aspiration is to sell 300 kilos of veg a fortnight this summer.
But it's more than a garden – it's providing therapy as well as food. “Women using the service come here with all sorts of problems,” says Koubakouenda. "In the garden, we can share experiences as we work, but we also talk about vegetables ... we try to talk about good things. It's like medicine. If someone needs to cry, we let them but then we comfort them. We are here to nurture the plants and to nurture the women."
Staff and volunteers are also serious about the potential to make it economically viable and are investigating ground source heat pump technology for their polytunnels to expand the growing season. Koubakouenda is also applying for funding to set up an aquaponics system, allowing them to grow indoors all year round. Plants will be grown in water, stacked in towers, and fed by the waste produced from fish kept in tanks. The system is cheap, efficient and does away with time-consuming washing and harvesting.
"When I started reading about it I thought, yes, we can do it. We can transform Scotland," she beams. "I wanted to inspire other women. If I can do this so can they."
Box out: city projects across Scotland
Edinburgh: Edinburgh City Council has been working on the Edible Edinburgh project for several years and aims to create “a thriving food economy with greater diversity in local food production and distribution” and make better use of available land suitable for food growing.
Dundee: An increasing number of innovative food growing projects are now happening in Dundee with the backing of the James Hutton Institute. In one, the institute teamed up with Lochee Community Gardeners to take over unused council space and produce fruit for local jam-making on a commercial scale.
Aberdeen: Last September, Aberdeen City Council launched its plans to become a Sustainable Food City along with a new food growing initiative which included £145,000 of funding for a food-growing programme targeting the areas in need of regeneration.
Kennett, Pennsylvania Area Could Be Home To Future Indoor Agriculture Center, Presenter Says
Kennett, Pennsylvania Area Could Be Home To Future Indoor Agriculture Center, Presenter Says
06/12/2018 12:03 PM ● Published by Richard Gaw
By Richard L. Gaw | Staff Writer
In a presentation before the Kennett Township Board of Supervisors on June 6, Dr. Eric W. Stein, the chief executive officer of the Barisol Consulting Group and an associate professor of business at Penn State – Great Valley, encapsulated the findings of a recently-completed feasibility report that supports making the Kennett Square area a prime candidate to be the home of a worldwide center of excellence for the study and implementation of indoor agriculture, a method of growing crops and plants entirely indoors through the use of hydroponics and artificial light.
During a 40-minute synopsis of his 200-page report, Stein discussed world trends in indoor agriculture; the feasibility of creating indoor farms, both worldwide, across the nation and regionally; their economic impact on global trends in population; and the steps needed to be taken in order to create a center for excellence in southern Chester County.
The study stems from Kennett Township's early research in indoor agriculture, begun two years ago, that explored how growing produce indoors could be leveraged against its existing indoor growing industry, as a way to position the area as a national – and potentially world-wide – hub for Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA).
“One of the things we noted was the similarity that indoor agriculture has to adapt to the mushroom industry,” said Michael Guttman, director of the township's Sustainable Development Committee and a member of the township's Indoor Agriculture Committee. “We began to think about how these two industries might come together, and particularly, how we might be able to diversify the economic base of the community, by leveraging the natural advantages we have of already being a center for the distribution and production of indoor produce.”
Guttman said that he met Stein about a year ago, and discovered that he was also studying the economic viability of indoor agriculture, which ultimately led to appointing Stein to write the feasibility study.
Combining the mushroom industry in Chester County with the idea of developing indoor agriculture is a natural partnership, Stein said.
“We saw the biggest synergies between the biggest form of indoor agriculture in the world, and what now has become a burgeoning industry in the growing of leafy greens, which are being grown indoors,” he said.
Exploring the concept of making the Kennett Square area a world leader in indoor agriculture takes a backseat to using the method to feed a growing world population. Increasingly, the future of food production, Stein said, hangs in the balance of being able to solve current and anticipated problems, chief among them finding a way to feed the 9 billion people who are expected to live on the Earth by 2050.
Stein also pointed to the impact that climate disruptions such as droughts and flooding has on growing seasons, as well as the ever-increasing dilemma of getting access to land, energy, and water – all of which have become increasingly fragile to environmental factors.
“We need to be more efficient and sustainable,” Stein said. “We need to maximize the use of existing space. Production can be localized in urban and peri-urban areas, and we can start to grow food with less water and no pesticides. Technology is making it possible for us to do that more effectively.”
The advantages of indoor agricultural growing centers, Stein said, are many: They use no pesticides and only 10 percent of the water that is used in conventional farming; it is resilient to climate change; its presence is stable and it can offer premium pricing, comparable to organic produce; it allows for the use of organic seeds; it prevents ecological damage, such as nitrogen discharge that is found in conventional growing practices; and more plants can be grown per foot indoors than on open-field farms.
While the chief costs of indoor agriculture is seen in lighting, HVAC labor, indoor vertical farming can yield as much as 100 times the profits than can be made from produce grown on a traditional outdoor farm. The vertical growing concept has already drawn major interest and funding, Stein said.
“Over one-half of a billion dollars has been invested in this industry in the last seven years,” he said. “A lot of folks with a lot of capital behind them are putting money into his industry. It's not just a blip or an oddball thing.”
Stein said that establishing Kennett Square as a home for a center of excellence is a “potent way to bring knowledge together” that can be used for research, infrastructure technology, establishing partnerships with universities; linking with the engineering, manufacturing and computer science industries; creating opportunities for leadership and advocacy; exploring market analysis and studying methods of improving business operations.
The Kennett Square area, Stein said, is in the right place at the right time.
“The infrastructure of cold storage, packaging, and distribution of the mushroom industry is already here and steeped in the culture of the region, as well as an extensive network of roads and rail, with close proximity to urban centers and airports,” he said.
“The concept of the center of excellence hinges on the idea of bringing minds and knowledge together to accelerate growth in the field. Although there are several centers of excellence in agriculture, there is no one particular center for excellence for indoor agriculture. Hence, there is an opportunity here for us. We see this as an excellent opportunity for the industry, and for the region to brand itself as the center for this kind of knowledge.”
The feasibility study included 35 hours of interviews with local stakeholders whose ideas will be crucial to the potential center of excellence project; visits and presentations at several indoor agricultural conferences; speaking with mushroom growers and agricultural professors at nearby colleges; and distributing an online survey that gathered more opinions about establishing the Kennett Square area as a center of indoor agriculture.
Stein will also make the presentation to the Kennett Borough Council and the New Garden Township Board of Supervisors, municipalities who, along with Kennett Township, have also lent their support to the feasibility study.
To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email rgaw@chestercounty.com.
Hydroponic Company Eyes North Hartford, Connecticut Land For Multimillion-Dollar Development
Hydroponic Company Eyes North Hartford, Connecticut Land For Multimillion-Dollar Development
Crews are working to dismantle the former Philbrick, Booth & Spencer warehouse and storage facility on Homestead Avenue to clear the way for new development. Crop One Holdings, which specializes in hydroponics farming, is in talks with city leaders to build on the properties. (Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant)
A California company is in talks with Hartford leaders to build a hydroponic farming facility along a desolate stretch of Homestead Avenue.
Crop One Holdings, a San Jose-based corporation, would invest more than $16 million in the project – $6 million in the structure and $10.5 million toward equipment, according to documents filed with the city. It plans to grow produce indoors, “substituting 320-square-foot growing units for up to 19 acres of farmland.” Hydroponics is the practice of growing plants in a water-based, nutrient dense solution.
Crop One would pay the city $250,000 for three properties along Homestead that combined make up a 3.5-acre area. Hartford recently got a $2 million grant to demolish blighted structures on the land. Crews began to dismantle the buildings this month, and work is expected to conclude by the end of the summer.
Mayor Luke Bronin has asked the city council to approve an agreement for Crop One that would free the company from paying real estate taxes for the first five years and reduce the amount of taxes in the following four years. It would also bring down the amount of personal property taxes the company would pay in the first five years (by 70 percent in the first two years, 50 percent in the third and fourth year and 30 percent in the fifth year).
The demolition of several blighted structures is underway along Homestead Avenue. Work is expected to be completed by the end of the summer. (Mark Mirko/Hartford Courant)
“Crop One will put back in productive use approximately 3.5 acres of blighted property, create 75 new jobs and make locally sourced fresh produce available to Hartford and surrounding communities,” Bronin wrote in a letter to the council.
He did not elaborate on the types of jobs, but said that the company has agreed to hire Hartford residents for “at least 25 percent of its direct labor workforce.”
Crop One owns a farm in Millis, Mass., and has several more in the pipeline, city officials said. Company leaders could not be reached for comment Friday.
The swath along Homestead Avenue is part of a federally designated “Promise Zone” that gets priority consideration for funding. It is also a state-designated “Opportunity Zone.” The status, created in the GOP federal tax legislation, rewards private investment in low-income neighborhoods.
The properties have been home to several tenants over the years, including the former warehouse and storage facility for Philbrick, Booth & Spencer, a steel-forging manufacturer.
“This is a triple win for Hartford – a green tech company bringing jobs to North Hartford and development to a site that’s been blighted for years,” Bronin said through a spokesman. “This would be the first real job creation in decades on the Homestead Avenue corridor.”
The city council is scheduled to meet Tuesday. Members said the proposal will be sent to a committee for review.
Embracing ‘Citified’ Agriculture Means Rethinking Land Use Priorities, Says U of A Researcher
May 18, 2018
Embracing ‘Citified’ Agriculture Means Rethinking Land Use Priorities, Says U of A Researcher
Although beneficial, urban agriculture only scratches the surface of how cities need to be rethought.
Michael Granzow says projects like community gardens in cities are beneficial, but they need to be part of longer-term planning that also looks at issues like land use, housing and income inequality. (Photo: Supplied)
By BEV BETKOWSKI
Community gardens, the feel-good darlings of the growing season, are great for raising awareness about sustainability—but they’re just scratching the surface of a much larger harvest, according to a University of Alberta researcher.
They and other ag-based initiatives bring a bounty of benefits to cities by drawing people together, creating common spaces, boosting biodiversity, adding to local food production and in some cases, like the U of A’s Green and Gold Garden, raising money for good causes. But while those benefits should be celebrated, there are bigger-picture questions to consider, said Michael Granzow, who is studying the issue for a Ph.D. in sociology through the Faculty of Arts.
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“To deal with problems like food insecurity and address underlying issues, we need to also consider factors like income inequality and availability of affordable housing,” he said.
Although projects like community gardens and vertical farming—where produce is grown stacked in layers—are great, we have to be careful not to overstate their ability to feed cities, he believes.
“We need to ask some hard questions about land use and to question the development priorities that continue to shape Edmonton and many other North American cities". Michael Granzow
The idea of citified agriculture is still budding for many cities in Canada, but Edmonton, Granzow noted, was one of the first to include food as an urban question, first in its 2008 municipal development plan and then in 2012 by launching fresh, a food and urban agriculture strategy that included creating a food council. And though that’s a good start, concrete policies are still lacking, he believes.
“The city has moved in the right direction. Fresh is an ambitious policy, but some of the language is vague and it includes few hard targets. There’s still uncertainty about what urban agriculture will look like in the city 20 or 30 years from now,” he said.
Ultimately, cities like Edmonton need to address political questions about food access and the environment, he said.
“It’s important we think about how urban agriculture projects are working in a larger context and how they’re actually addressing social, environmental and food-related concerns, as opposed to how we assume they’re doing this.
“There’s a need to specifically define what urban agriculture is and how it might differ from one urban context to another.”
That means governments need to decide whether and how they’ll make room for related issues like entrepreneurial food ventures and how that will be reflected in land-use policy, Granzow said.
“It’s easy to support the idea of using vacant lots for community gardens, but that ultimately is a temporary use until the lot is developed. We also need to think about these projects on a long-term basis.”
Adding to that theory is a recent U of A report revealing that prime farmland surrounding Edmonton is being eaten up for residential and industrial use instead of being preserved for crops, Granzow noted. “Beyond focusing on backyard bees and hens, policy around urban agriculture has to consider ways to slow urban sprawl.”
Though he’s still developing his findings, it’s clear that some difficult decisions come with embracing large-scale urban agriculture.
“If we’re going to think about it as part of a response to environmental concerns or food insecurity, it’s going to require some major changes. We need to ask some hard questions about land use, and to question the development priorities that continue to shape Edmonton and many other North American cities.”
It’s an exciting opportunity, he added. “It raises awareness about the importance of local food and helps us rethink our reliance on a food system dependent on an unsustainable model of industrialized agriculture.”
Meanwhile, city-driven projects, including vacant lots for gardens, beekeeping and backyard hens, along with other community gardens such as the U of A-based Prairie Urban Farm, where Granzow volunteers and serves as an adviser, are important to what is a much larger movement in reimagining what a city is and what it could be, he believes.
“They all contribute to challenging a sanitized view of the city as separate from processes of food production.”
Citified agriculture also brings a whole new urban planning element to the table, Granzow noted.
“It’s a new way to think about the idea of the city and its relationship to the environment. You start to see the city differently through this lens and ask new kinds of questions. What can we grow here? Is there enough sunlight? Where’s the best soil? How can we capture and distribute water?
“Urban agriculture isn’t going to be the answer to all of our problems, but it’s a space of hope—a small but crucial part of a larger move towards ecologically and socially inspired models of urbanism.”
Growth Company: AeroFarms Is Attracting Attention, Expanding Its Farming Locations — And, Maybe, Changing The World
Growth Company: AeroFarms Is Attracting Attention, Expanding Its Farming Locations — And, Maybe, Changing The World
By Meg Fry
Newark | Jun 11, 2018
AeroFarms’ vertical farming methods help it produce nearly 2 million pounds of leafy greens annually in its Newark facility. Photo by AeroFarms
AeroFarms received notoriety around the state and the country in 2015, when it opened up the largest indoor vertical farming company in the world in Newark.
Since then, the ability to produce nearly 2 million pounds of leafy greens annually in its 70,000-square-foot “farm” in the Ironbound section of the city has drawn worldwide attention from wellness and nutrition officials, who are looking for a next-generation way to solve global nutrition issues.
So, what’s next? Plenty. And, although AeroFarms may be setting its sights further than Newark, it’s all still happening in the Garden State.
First up is the $1 million Seeding Solutions grant AeroFarms received from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research to work with universities, including Rutgers University in New Brunswick, on research that would improve crop production and plant nutrition worldwide.
Then there is the planned opening of AeroFarms’ 10th indoor farm, expected to be one of the largest in the nation, in Camden.
“This is an incredibly important project and initiative for us, and we are especially proud to be partnering with the New Jersey Economic Development Authority in creating new jobs and opportunities in the state of New Jersey, as well as addressing the issue of food deserts,” Marc Oshima, co-founder and chief marketing officer of AeroFarms, said.
“Furthermore, AeroFarms’ initiatives with the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, Rutgers University, and Cornell University are giving us the world-class ability to understand and optimize plants better than anyone, so we can draw upon those lessons to help the broader industry outside of indoor vertical farming.”
It’s all part of the mission and growth statement co-founder and CEO David Rosenberg established from the beginning.
“Our mission is to build farms in cities all over the world so that everyone has access to fresh, safe, great tasting food, 365 days per year,” Rosenberg said.
That is no easy task — especially for a company dedicated to doing more with less.
The $1 million Seeding Solutions project, according to AeroFarms, aims to improve crop production and plant nutrition by exploring relationships between optimized plants, the phytochemicals they produce, and the taste and texture of the specialty crops grown.
The Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, a nonprofit organization established under the 2014 Farm Bill in Washington, D.C., hopes the research conducted in conjunction with Rutgers and Cornell will result in improved commercial production of leafy green varieties overall.
“New Jersey is the Garden State,” Rosenberg said. “We are open-minded to partnering with others in the farming industry to learn and share best practices and technical explorations.”
Oshima said he hopes the program also helps AeroFarms move its business model forward.
“The resulting research will provide us with opportunities to identify new plants we have not yet grown,” he said. “It also will set the stage for future collaborations with universities regarding educational curricula and work opportunities as a nice way to build a pipeline of future farm leaders.”
As Oshima put it, AeroFarms is in its “second round” of what he expects will be “a nine-round game,” referring to the timeline of the project.
That’s about where AeroFarms is with Camden, too.
Last year, the EDA awarded AeroFarms $11.14 million in tax incentives over 10 years to build one of the nation’s largest indoor farms in Camden, according to the agency.
The company has three years to act on the Grow New Jersey Assistance Program Grant, which encourages businesses to locate or relocate in distressed municipalities and make capital improvements to the properties they occupy.
In this way, Rosenberg said, AeroFarms plans to expand both domestically and internationally by building farms on major distribution routes and near population centers, with farms currently in development in multiple U.S. states and on four continents.
Starting with the anticipated 78,000-square-foot farm in Camden, Oshima said.
“We see the opportunity to extend the work that we are doing here to that community in order to have a similar impact,” he said. “Just like we have in Newark, we expect to keep creating jobs and better access to healthier, local foods.”
The two initiatives are new — but they fall in line with the vision Rosenberg and Oshima set forth when they founded the company in 2004 in Ithaca, New York.
When Rosenberg, then the founder of a clean nanotechnology company; Oshima, then a marketer with companies such as Toys R Us and L’Oreal; and Ed Harwood, then an agricultural professor at Cornell University, set out to build AeroFarms in 2004, Rosenberg said they asked themselves just one question.
“We asked what our vision, our values, and our principles were,” he said. “How did they interact with our desire to do good for the environment and society while maintaining profitability for our shareholders?”
There were, after all, numerous pressing issues to address.
For example, we’ll need more than 50 percent more food by 2050, Rosenberg said.
That challenge is made even more difficult by the fact that Earth is dying, Lisa Newman, chief operating officer at AeroFarms, said.
“Over the last 40 years, Earth has lost nearly a third of its arable land primarily due to soil erosion and pollution through pesticides,” she said. “Soil erosion is now occurring 100 times faster than it can form.”
It is a problem we caused, she added.
Nearly 70 percent of humanity’s fresh water supply currently is used for agriculture, while nearly 70 percent of fresh water contamination comes from agriculture.
Furthermore, humanity’s overuse of pesticides has decreased beneficial microorganisms in the soil and has allowed bad ones to thrive, leading to toxic runoff, algal blooms, and oceanic dead zones.
“Meanwhile, more than 75 percent of our greens are lost before they even hit our kitchen tables,” Newman said. “Nearly 50 percent already is lost at the field; nearly 10 percent can’t survive the cross-country road trip from California and Arizona; nearly 15 percent is lost at the store; and then, when we are able to get it in our fridge, more than 40 percent of consumers throw out what they cannot eat in time.”
So, Rosenberg, Oshima, and Harwood decided to create a technology- and data-driven farming company that not only would address the macro-tensions within agriculture but also would grow fresh, safe and nutritious food indoors using an aeroponic system that integrates biology, mechanics, operations, construction and more.
“We looked at what it took to grow plants outside and replicated it inside while bringing costs down to be comparable with the field,” Rosenberg said.
Creating the ability to grow nearly 400 varieties of leafy greens and herbs without sunlight or soil in completely controlled indoor environments was and continues to be a massive undertaking that requires expertise and partnerships with multiple industries, Rosenberg added.
“As the world leader in this space, we are the first to see problems and the first to have to solve them,” Rosenberg said. “Therefore, we must hire in-house and partner with various skill sets.
AeroFarms
“For example, our meaningful partnership with Dell now allows us to develop how our data is managed, where it is stored and how it is utilized, whether immediately by food safety and operations, in an hour by sales and marketing, or in a day by finance,” Rosenberg said.
AeroFarm’s fully-connected farms, complete with more than 130,000 data points that monitor and help create specific light, water and air recipes for each plant, also give the company the ability to automate everything from seeding, harvesting and packing to controlling environmental factors such as humidity and temperature.
The use of LED lights also gives the greens exactly the spectrum, intensity and frequency they need for perfect photosynthesis, Newman said, resulting in better color, flavor, texture, size, shape, and nutrition.
“Since plants cannot run from their environment, they must adapt,” she said. “Therefore, we can optimize and enrich the environment to obtain the right nutrients and flavors of each plant.”
The plants are grown atop a reusable cloth medium developed from post-consumer recycled plastic, such as 350 discarded water bottles, and treated via a closed-loop water circulation system.
“This allows the roots to grow down and suspend in the air as the patented aeroponic growing system mists nutrition into their structure,” Newman said.
In this way, Rosenberg said, the plants’ roots receive oxygen while the leaves receive carbon dioxide, resulting in healthier oxygenation throughout the plant.
It also means that AeroFarms has zero need for pesticides, fungicides or herbicides, he added.
“Nearly 80 percent of people, when asked why they buy organic, will say that they don’t want chemicals used on their food,” Rosenberg said. “But what they don’t realize is that organic food, especially leafy greens, still can use organic pesticides.
“Why is it that when the label says that it has been triple-washed, we don’t stop to think about why that is needed?”
Dream Greens, AeroFarms’ retail brand, are ready to eat without washing and are currently sold into the food service industry and consumers at ShopRite, FreshDirect, Whole Foods and Seabra Foods in New Jersey and New York for nearly $3.99 each.
“The consumer appreciates that freshness often equals higher nutritional density, better taste, and less spoilage,” Rosenberg said.
The nutritional benefits, as well as the environmental and economic benefits in the communities in which AeroFarms works and sells, are exactly what attracted attention — and dollars — from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research and the EDA.
Oshima said this research represents the biggest potential for the company do the greatest good.
“The program was formally announced last fall and kicked off at the end of last year,” he said. “We are, I would say, in the second round of a nine-round game when it comes to that program.
“We plan to publish and make accessible our research so that agriculture can improve overall.”
Conversation Starter
Reach AeroFarms at aerofarms.com or 973-242-2495.
Venture Funding Supports Urban Farming Start-Up
Venture Funding Supports Urban Farming Start-Up
23 May 2018 Yorkshire Business
Growing Better, a Leeds-based social enterprise that provides urban farming for better mental health, has secured up to £10,000 in AD:VENTURE start-up and growth grants.
The business was founded by Rob Moores in 2016 and initially used polytunnels to grow baby leaf salads leaves and herbs.
When it was decided that this model would not provide a commercially sustainable year-round supply to local restaurants and food outlets, crowdfunding was secured for an indoor hydroponic vertical farm.
Growing Better received advice, guidance and support through the AD:VENTURE programme to put in place a plan that would focus on future growth.
Since the funding was awarded, the company has taken on a new full-time member of staff, expanded its offering to provide growing kits for consumers and has also extended its engagement with schools.
Rob Moores said: "Accessing practical support from AD:VENTURE allowed us to build up our business plan and in turn to consider other options. We realised that we had the potential, with funding support, to commit to appointing three new members to the team over 2018.This in turn would allow us to support more people and to grow the business using the contributions made by AD:VENTURE as cash flow.
"Knowing that we have a business model in place that we could scale up was great. As well as working with an increasing number of people that have mental health illnesses, we have also started to supply several restaurants, which in turn gives us the funds to put back into the business."
Bill To Boost Urban Agriculture In Illinois Heads To Rauner’s Desk
Bill To Boost Urban Agriculture In Illinois Heads To Rauner’s Desk
Alex Ruppenthal | May 29, 2018
(Linda from Chicago / Creative Commons)
Legislation that could help break up food desserts in Chicago and other cities across the state passed the Illinois Senate last week and now awaits the signature of Gov. Bruce Rauner.
The bill would allow local governments to provide incentives such as reduced water rates and utility fees and property tax abatements for farmers in “urban agriculture zones” established at the municipal or county level.
After passing the Illinois House by a vote of 86-22 in April, the bill passed the state Senate on May 23 by a unanimous 55-0 vote, sending it to Rauner’s desk for final approval.
“[The legislation] will help open doors for urban farmers to supply healthy foods, grow valuable jobs and revitalize land in communities needing extra support,” said Rodger Cooley, executive director of the Chicago Food Policy Action Council, in a statement. The nonprofit aims to increase access to healthy foods in underserved Chicago neighborhoods.
Introduced last year by state Rep. Sonya Harper, D-Chicago, House Bill 3418 would apply to organizations or individuals who grow produce or other agricultural products, raise or process livestock or poultry or sell a minimum of 75 percent locally grown food.
According to the bill, sales tax from agriculture products would be deposited into an urban agriculture zone fund, and monies collected in the fund would be specified for a county, municipality or school district.
Harper has previously said that the money could be used in a variety of ways, such as for educational programs focused on nutrition or to support businesses and farms.
The legislation has received support from both environmental advocates and groups focused on increasing access to healthy foods in urban areas.
“This bill will make farm dreams a reality for many urban growers,” said Liz Moran Stelk, executive director of the Illinois Stewardship Alliance, which advocates for local food and farms, in a statement. "It levels the playing field for producers across the state to access and afford land."
A separate piece of legislation introduced by Harper and passed into law last year requires Illinois to track food deserts, or areas lacking fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods.
Contact Alex Ruppenthal: @arupp | aruppenthal@wttw.com | (773) 509-5623
Indoor Farms: The solution To Memphis' Abandoned Buildings?
One St. Louis investor has proposed a solution to abandoned buildings in Memphis. Carter Williams said many of Memphis' abandoned buildings, especially the larger ones, can be turned into indoor farms.
Indoor Farms: The solution To Memphis' Abandoned Buildings?
May 22, 2018
By WMCActionNews5.com Staff
By Brandon Richard
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
One St. Louis investor has proposed a solution to abandoned buildings in Memphis.
Carter Williams said many of Memphis' abandoned buildings, especially the larger ones, can be turned into indoor farms.
"You can produce enough food for more than 2.5 million people year round," Williams said.
For now, Williams is just floating the idea.
"Maybe they'd be inside malls, maybe not. But that's something for local developers to figure out," he said.
Williams said indoor farms could provide healthier choices for a city once named the fattest and unhealthiest in America.
"So people get fresh lettuce, fresh leafy greens, fresh spinach year round," he said.
While the idea sounds appealing to many people on the surface--some folks at the Cooper-Young Farmers Market question if it's the best option.
"It's workable. It can be done, but I don't know from a cost-benefit standpoint if it's really viable," Memphian Katie Felts said.
Felts wants to know more about how the food in those indoor farms would be grown.
"I don't know about the product, the indoor product. You know, is it really coming from the soil?" Felts asked.
While not everyone is sold on his idea, Williams recently brought 200 scientists, farmers, entrepreneurs and investors to the Bluff City for an agriculture technology conference he co-founded.
He said he did that because he believes Memphis is destined to be the hub of farming innovation--with or without those abandoned buildings.
Copyright 2018 WMC Action News 5. All rights reserved.
Veteran Tesla Engineer Leaving For Greener Pastures: AgTech Startup Plenty
Nick Kalayjian, a high-ranking Tesla engineer who joined in its shambolic early days before Elon Musk was CEO and has worked on all its products from the Roadster through the Model 3, is joining Plenty, an ag-tech startup backed by SoftBank and Jeff Bezos that hired another top Tesla veteran last year.
JUN 7, 2018 The Little Black Book of Billionaire Secrets
Veteran Tesla Engineer Leaving For Greener Pastures: AgTech Startup Plenty
Plenty
Long-time Tesla engineer Nick Kalayjian is leaving the carmaker after nearly 12 years to help design highly efficient vertical farms for San Francisco startup Plenty.
Nick Kalayjian, a high-ranking Tesla engineer who joined in its shambolic early days before Elon Musk was CEO and has worked on all its products from the Roadster through the Model 3, is joining Plenty, an ag-tech startup backed by SoftBank and Jeff Bezos that hired another top Tesla veteran last year.
A vice president of engineering reporting to Doug Field, Tesla’s engineering chief who’s currently on leave, Kalayjian becomes San Francisco-based Plenty’s senior vice president of engineering this month. He's not leaving Tesla because of dissatisfaction or friction, but a desire to tackle another big societal challenge after working to advance clean vehicles and energy for nearly 12 years, he told Forbes.
“The mission of Plenty is potentially bigger than the electrification of transportation or the grid,” he said. “The energy consumed, the impact on the environment of farming all over the world is massive, and it's a problem that needs a kind of engineering focus Tesla applies to vehicles. I think there's a lot of opportunity to have a big impact.”
Plenty
Nick Kalayjian, a Tesla vice president of engineering, is switching gears to design Plenty's indoor, vertical farms.
The company he joined in 2006 has evolved from a shoestring operation that avoided death in 2008 into a leader in electric vehicles with a $54 billion market cap and over 37,000 employees worldwide. Yet Tesla has struggled to fulfill Musk’s long-held promise of mass-producing vehicles average carbuyers can afford, namely $35,000 Model 3s. And regardless of his motivation, Kalayjian is one of many notable exits this year. They include Matthew Schwall, an engineer working with federal investigators reviewing an Autopilot-related crash who joined Alphabet’s Waymo; the departure of Chief Accounting Officer Eric Branderiz and vice president of finance Susan Repo; Autopilot chief Jim Keller who joined Intel ; and former global sales and service chief Jon McNeill, who took a job at Lyft in February.
Still, Tesla shares jumped 9.7% on June 6 after Musk told attendees at the company’s annual shareholder meeting that Model 3 output would hit a goal of 5,000-units/week by the end of the first half and that $35,000 versions of the car could be built in volume in early 2019. An emotional Musk was also visibly relieved that proposals to remove him as Tesla chairman and oust three board members failed to win shareholder support.
Kalayjian will find familiar faces at his new company, which has more than a dozen former Tesla staff, including Kurt Kelty, who until last year was a core member of its battery tech team and essential to Tesla’s partnership with Japan’s Panasonic. Kelty joined Plenty in October as senior vice president of operations and market development.
"Productizing" Farms
Co-founded by CEO Matt Barnard, Plenty is a unicorn in the fast-developing indoor agriculture space, luring Silicon Valley talent and capital to create high-yield vertical farms that use a fraction of the energy and water needed for field-grown crops. SoftBank Vision Fund was lead investor in Plenty’s $200 million Series B round in 2017, pushing total funding to $226 million. The company has started generating revenue from its South San Francisco farm and adds a commercial growing operation in Seattle this year. It will then expand across the U.S. and into international markets.
Kalayjian is a Stanford University-trained engineer, who also has a degree in physics and multiple patents for work done both at Tesla and Apple, his previous employer. So why does a company planning high-yield indoor farms that grow affordable produce close to where it will be sold and consumed need someone with cutting-edge engineering chops?
“We're ‘productizing’ farms,” Barnard said in an interview. “These are very dense, highly resource-efficient farms. It's a very complex engineering problem.”
Plenty
Plenty co-founder and CEO Matt Barnard says the company needs cutting-edge engineering to create its high-tech "productized" indoor farms.
“It's super important for us to have a production system to grow food at prices that fit into everyone's budget,” he said. “Few people in the world that have led engineering development and productization processes that move as fast for systems that are as dense and complex as what Nick and his teams at Tesla have done.”
From the outside, Plenty farms look like warehouses or big box stores, and range in size from 100,000 square feet to 250,000 square feet, or the equivalent of 2.3 to more than 5 acres. Inside, plants grow sideways on vertical columns between 7 feet and 20 feet high.
With precise use of water, nutrients, temperature control and light, its farms "can grow anywhere from a couple hundred acres to 1,000 acres of conventional field production on a volume basis over the course of a year," Barnard said. And they do that using 1% of the water a traditional farm would. Growing close to where the crops are consumed also cuts shipping costs, fuel use and carbon exhaust.
Like at Tesla, the initial focus will be on higher-end products: organic produce priced in line with the field grown variety. But Plenty aspires to build farms to feed parts of the world that currently have to import produce because of climate and local growing conditions that aren't optimal.
"When I joined Tesla it was the appeal to really cause a revolution in the transportation industry," said Kelty, who worked on its battery team from March 2006 until last August. A doezen years later, with most major global automakers planning to electrify their model lines, "that revolution is happening," he said.
Plenty "is very similar to the early days at Tesla, where we're going to revolutionize the agriculture industry. And it's an industry that's bigger than the EV industry," Kelty said. "The impact on people is going to be much greater. The impact we can have on impoverished areas, especially in Africa, is just huge.
Plenty
Plenty's indoor farms, set up inside warehouse-like buildings take up just a few acres but can produce the volume of a conventional farm growing on hundreds of acres of land, while using just a fraction of the water.
The (secret) Recipe For The Perfect Strawberry 🍓
The (secret) Recipe For The Perfect Strawberry 🍓
Our mission has been simple: make excellent fruits and vegetables grown without pesticides accessible to everyone. But what does “excellent” mean? For us, it’s two things: flavor, yes, but also and most importantly nutritional value. This second point is what we’re going to talk about in this series of articles. Our way of growing upends how things used to be done, so it’s time to look at the nutritional value of the fruits we’re growing. As a biology expert at Agricool, I took to my keyboard to let you know everything we do here.
- #1 — The (secret) recipe for the perfect strawberry 🍓
- #2 — No need for whipped cream, our berries are sweet as is! 🍧
- #3 — Inside our berries? A shot of vitamins! 💪
Looks like me, Pierre-François (but you can call me PF) !
Hello, science! 🔎
From the very beginning, we’ve been recording the nutritional value of our strawberries. How? By conducting analyses in our own superlab and with the help of external, specialized labs.
These analyses let us study every aspect very closely. One thing is sure — everything went under the microscope. Next, we compared our results to both national and international standards (and you can find that data directly thanks to the internet):
- The French national agency for food safety (ANSES), the key reference in France 🇫🇷
- The US Department of Agriculture (USDA), the key reference for everyone in the world 🌎
- The French technical body for fruits and vegetables (CTIFL), the key farming reference in France 🇫🇷
Thanks to this approach, we can have a global and objective view on the nutritional value of not only our strawberries but also all those that are available today (different varieties, different ways of growing, different regions…).
The nutritional value of a strawberry 🌿
Before getting into the heart of the matter, there’s one very important detail: the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables changes not only thanks to certain options (variety, growing technique, storage, analytical method, etc.) but also during the course of the growing process itself.
→ The sugar example
The sugar level is typically quite low at the beginning of a harvest, when the strawberries are large and numerous. As time goes on, the number and size of the fruits diminish, and the sugar level increases. Why? It’s a dilution effect. In other words, a strawberry plant in ideal conditions will produce a certain maximum amount of sugar each day. Thus if there are fewer fruits on the plant, they will have higher sugar levels (and vice versa).
Strawberry connoisseurs, read this! 👇
You love super sweet strawberries? There are some growers in Japan who use the dilution effect to produce very large, very sweet berries. How? During the growing process, they cut away most of the flowers. This way, they get only 1 or 2 berries per plant (as opposed to 25–30 normally!). All of the sugars produced by the plant are thus concentrated in these fruits known as “Sugar bombs”. These are very rare strawberries, with prices that are usually around €30 per 250 grams (€120 per kilo!).
Taking this kind of change into account, it’s not rare to find a nutritional value that doubles between two different samples, particularly if they come from different varieties and different growers. This is why the ANSES reports on upper and lower limits rather than simple averages that aren’t necessarily very pertinent outside of a certain context. Repeated nutritional analyses (which we do!) are still the best way to estimate the qualities found in a certain crop of fruits. And just like with all data, the reliability of any analysis is proportional to the number of samples analyzed.
Close-up on a strawberry
So those are the methods; let’s see the results.
The nutritional value of a fruit is judged using several criteria:
- The most famous: sugar and vitamins
- The lesser-known: antioxidants, fatty acids and minerals
To know the nutritional value of a fruit, there are 2 options: trust your taste buds and/or look at the nutritional values. The latter depend directly on its composition. You might know it already, but fruits are principally composed of water and sugars. The other 3 components are minerals, proteins and lipids. Other elements (vitamins and antioxidants) are present as well, but in very small quantities (measured in milli- and micrograms for 100 grams of fruit) that aren’t visible on the graphs below.
Measuring Energy Values 🔍
Now we need to quantify the various elements that make up a strawberry, which can be measured in either joules or calories. We can also measure the energy provided to the body when one consumes the fruit.
A little catching-up 🏃
To function normally, the body consumes calories. For an adult between 18–55 years of age whose body-mass index (= weight/height²) is 22 and who partakes in an average amount of physical activity per day, the average recommended calorie intake is 2100 kcal for a woman and 2600 kcal for a man.
Examples
- While reading this article, your brain is consuming roughly 1.5 calories per minute
- A person who weighs 70kg and who runs 10km in an hour consumes roughly 720 calories
Back to the strawberry
The caloric value of a strawberry is, on average, 32 kcal per 100g. A large strawberry weighs 50g. It supplies the energy needed for 10 minutes of walking or 5 minutes of biking.
And just for comparison’s sake, the caloric value of 100g of spaghetti is 158 kcal.
And the Agricool strawberry?
The caloric value of our berries is slightly higher than average, at between 40–50 kcal/100g. In other words, the energy value of our fruits is a bit higher than the norms recorded by ANSES. This is explained by the higher sugar content of our strawberries. Essentially, most of the caloric value of a strawberry comes from its sugars. We’ll get into that in more detail in the next article.
Comparative analysis of strawberry composition
There’s one other point to note: our strawberries contain relatively little water. That explains their firm, fleshy texture. Their fats and proteins are standard, as are the minerals. And the sugar level is a bit higher than average, which gives them that little something extra.
And it seems like this last part (sugar!) is the most important for many people. If you want to learn more about that aspect, keep an eye out for my second article next week.
What will it cover? Well, among other things, the Brix index, the glycemic effect, and a detailed analysis of different strawberry varieties (including our own).
Bowery Farming Is Growing Crops In Warehouses To Create Food Like Customized Kale
Bowery Farming Is Growing Crops In Warehouses To Create Food Like Customized Kale
Lora Kolodny | Magdalena Petrova
May 24, 2018
- Bowery Farming is using robotics and software to raise crops in warehouses outside of big cities.
- Jose Andres, Carla Hall, and David Barber are among the star chefs who have invested in Bowery's indoor farming venture.
- The U.N. projects that by 2050, food production will need to increase by about 60 percent to feed the growing global population.
A start-up called Bowery Farming is putting an urban twist on agriculture, raising leafy greens and herbs in a high-tech warehouse a few miles outside of New York City, and celebrity chefs are starting to invest.
Using a mix of software, cameras, lights, and robotics, Bowery can control precisely how plants grow. CEO and co-founder Irving Fain says chefs love the company's systems because they allow Bowery to make customized ingredients for them, giving kale a softer leaf or arugula a more peppery taste, for example.
According to Fain, 1 square foot within one of these indoor farms is 100 times more productive than 1 square foot of arable land.
CNBC took a look inside of the company's first farm in New Jersey with investor and celebrity chef Carla Hall, who is the Emmy-winning co-host of "The Chew" on ABC. "I visited the farm and tasted the food," she said. "It moved from a concept and an idea that is sustainable to deliciousness."
SOURCE: Magdalena Petrova CNBC
Today, the company grows and sells its own brand of baby kale, butterhead lettuce, arugula, mixed kales and basil. Some are available in and around New York including at Whole Foods markets, and restaurants Craft and Temple. Both are run by Tom Colicchio, also an investor.
Fain thinks of Bowery's food as "post-organic."
"We grow with no pesticides, herbicides or insecticides, no agrochemicals at all," he said. "And we're able to grow 365 days a year, independent of weather."
SOURCE: Magdalena Petrova CNBC
Bowery isn't alone in its mission to feed the world without using as much water, energy or chemicals, to raise crops. Other indoor farming innovators like Plenty, AeroFarms and Freight Farms have also attracted venture capital.
Especially because the planet has lost a third of its arable land in the past 40 years, Fain said he welcomes all players in sustainable agriculture. The U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization projects that by 2050, food production will need to increase by about 60 percent to feed the growing global population.
SOURCE: Magdalena Petrova CNBC
Bowery has raised $27.5 million in venture funding to build its indoor farms across the U.S. and to sell produce grown there to select restaurants and groceries.
Investors in Bowery include Alphabet's venture arm GV, General Catalyst, GGV and First Round Capital. But the company more recently attracted funding from a long list of culinary icons including Hall, Colicchio and Jose Andres.
Bronx Teens Create Hydroponic Farm To Grow 25,000 Pounds of Produce A Year
Bronx Teens Create Hydroponic Farm To Grow 25,000 Pounds of Produce A Year
The farm can grow various types of lettuce, Swiss chard, bok choy, tomatoes, and cucumbers along with herbs.
Students Saul Morel, left, and Jasmely Torres examine butterhead lettuce at the DeWitt Clinton Campus' hydroponic farm. Photo Credit: Linda Rosier
By Lisa L. Colangelolisa.colangelo@amny.com @lisalcolangelo
June 4, 2018
No soil? No problem.
A group of Bronx teens helped create a 1,300-square-foot hydroponic farm designed to grow 25,000 pounds of produce a year in one of the city’s toughest “food deserts.”
The project is designed to teach students about sustainable agriculture, advocacy and nutrition while building their science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills.
“Watching the students blossom and change through the program even in this short period of time is really impressive,” said Katherine Soll, CEO and director of Teens for Food Justice, a nonprofit that helped students build the indoor farm with a $127,000 grant from the Green Mountain Energy Sun Club, as well as other donors. “They have really grasped all the concepts of the farm, how the systems work and how it is different from growing in soil.”
Hydroponic farms use water and a nutrient solution to grow food. The farm was built inside a former lab at the DeWitt Clinton Campus, located off the Mosholu Parkway, between October and January, Soll said.
A celebration Saturday marked the end of the farm’s first year and signaled its ability to go into full production mode.
The goal is to grow enough food to use in the school’s cafeteria, distribute to food pantries and sell at a low cost to the community.
The farm can produce various types of lettuce, Swiss chard, bok choy, tomatoes and cucumbers along with herbs as such basil, thyme, oregano and cilantro.
Metropolis Farms' CEO Jack Griffin Is Either The Farmer of The Future or Fantastic Fraud
Metropolis Farms' CEO Jack Griffin Is Either The Farmer of The Future or Fantastic Fraud
JUNE 4, 2018
by Sam Wood, Staff Writer @samwoodiii | samwood@phillynews.com
Jack Griffin says he can still revolutionize agriculture and build the urban farm of the future.
But first, Griffin needs to survive a war with many of the folks he has worked with. His backers are suing him for fraud, accusing him of diverting over $1 million to his personal accounts. They’ve also outed him as an ex-felon and are publicly calling him a “career criminal” and a “con artist.”
Metropolis Farms, his massive indoor garden spot in South Philadelphia, was locked last month after Griffin fell $16,000 behind on rent and utilities. Experts say his crop projections were never realistic while records show he has exaggerated his educational credentials.
And he has a battle ahead facing accusations made last week that he stole $380,000 from a New Jersey school for autistic children.
Griffin, 56, said he’s “the victim of a plot to steal his patented technology.” He said his investors and his former partner, a one-time illegal marijuana grower, are trying to force him out of the business so they can take it for themselves.
TIM TAI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The entrance to Metropolis Farms is pictured in South Philadelphia on Thursday, May 31, 2018. The indoor farm startup, created by Jack Griffin, is now in receivership.
“If you notice, three-quarters of the suit trashes me,” he told The Inquirer last week. “The Lindbergh kidnapping was probably my fault.”
Griffin said the school for autistic children didn’t have a building ready for the vertical farm that he promised to construct for them. When it came time to deliver, “we got some of the work done. We just ran out of cash.” He said he intends to make good on his debt.
The future was once bright for Griffin.
Four years ago, he set out to build a revolutionary urban farm “in Rocky Balboa‘s neighborhood.”
Metropolis Farms was an agricultural fantasyland tucked inside a former factory off Delaware Avenue. Sweet basil, Tuscan kale, and strawberries grew at Metropolis stacked high on racks. Griffin called his patented system “the only indoor farming technology that can grow everything.” He cultivated sunflowers and wasabi just because he could. The kale would be converted into jet fuel, he told WHYY in 2016, “because I don’t think fracking is a good idea.”
Investors and politicians had confidence in the burly, red-headed Griffin, who professed to be a former Wall Street merchant banker. His Hedonic pocket paradise — which he touted as an innovative tech startup with ancient roots stretching back to the Gardens of Babylon— dazzled futurists, reporters, and dozens of middle-class investors who sank hundreds of thousands of dollars into the venture.
He claimed fantastic yields for his crops. Inside a 100,000-square-foot warehouse, Griffin said he could grow as much as a dirt farmer could with 660 acres with 98 percent less water. His system consumed 40 percent less electricity than vertical farming competitors.
Griffin was hailed as a visionary for his plan to transform Philadelphia “into the world’s first vertical farming city.” He delivered a well-received 2016 TEDx Talk in Wilmington where he said he could put an end to food deserts and bring “green-collar” jobs to blighted neighborhoods. He said he was building similar indoor farms in “New York City, Washington D.C., Baltimore, San Francisco [and] Toronto.”
There were dozens of news stories in print, TV, and online. He was heralded on the March 2017 cover of Produce Grower magazine as “the Man of Tomorrow.” He was feted by Philadelphia City Council and lauded by the city controller. He delivered a keynote speech last year at Indoor Ag Con at the Academy of Fine Arts. He testified before Congress where he successfully argued that urban farmers should be granted agricultural subsidies.
Griffin’s charismatic spiel wowed nearly everyone. But experts had their doubts.
“It didn’t ring right with me,” said Eric W. Stein, an associate professor of Management Science and Information Systems at Penn State Great Valley. Stein specializes in the economics of high-tech indoor farms. He took a tour of Griffin’s facility.
TIM TAI / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
The building housing Metropolis Farms is pictured in South Philadelphia on Thursday, May 31, 2018. The indoor farm startup, created by Jack Griffin, is now in receivership. TIM TAI / Staff Photographer
“His economics didn’t add up. And the strawberries would have wilted under his lights. His patents wouldn’t be worth anything,” said Stein, who operates a small R&D indoor vertical farm of his own. “I used to read the articles about him and I’d get so angry. This was not reality.”
Stein wasn’t the only critic to throw shade on Metropolis, and its parent company Second Story LLC.
“There were so many exaggerated claims,” said Henry Gordon-Smith, founder of Agritecture Consulting, a Brooklyn-based firm that focuses on indoor farming projects. “Anybody who had some familiarity with the industry would have recognized that. He’s not a farmer, he’s a hype artist.”
Griffin said others were not qualified to judge his system. “We may disagree. That doesn’t make me a fraud or a charlatan,” he said. “The only leading expert on my technology is me.”
The history of hyperbole didn’t start with Metropolis’ farming yields.
Griffin presented himself to the world as a former Wall Street banker. He was not. He once claimed to have a degree from the University of Pennsylvania. He did not.
“I was a bad man, and I made a massive amount of mistakes, but I corrected them and worked my ass off to get where I am today,” Griffin said, insisting that he did not take money from Metropolis. “This is the most honest thing I’ve done in my entire life. ”
Some of his education came during a two-year stint in the federal penitentiary at Fort Dix.
A former real estate agent in Pennsylvania before the state stripped him of his license, Griffin finagled his way into a California startup called Vaportech. In 2006, as the company prepared for a merger, Vaportech’s finance officer discovered $1.4 million missing. Prosecutors charged Griffin with embezzlement. The money had gone to pay for a massive home, a Ferrari F355, a $60,000 ring, steroids and human growth hormone, Baroni suits, and fine wine, they said. In 2007, Griffin pleaded guilty to tax evasion.
At Fort Dix, Griffin met economic forecaster Martin A. Armstrong, creator of “the Economic Confidence Model,” who was serving 11 years on fraud and contempt of court charges. Griffin said Armstrong taught him the most important aspects of business and economics.
After serving his sentence, Griffin worked with a former securities attorney he also had met in prison. “We did compliance. We never raised money. I’d rate the private placements,” Griffin said. One of the securities offerings involved indoor farming. After a falling out with the attorney, Griffin decided he’d give it a try. “You can’t get a job when you’re a felon, you have to create your own career.”
JONATHAN TAKIFF / FILE
In this December 2017 photograph, Jack Griffin shows a reporter a strawberry grown at Metropolis Farms in South Philadelphia. Metropolis was shuttered in mid-May.
One business lesson Griffin may have missed: Always deliver on a contract.
On June 1, officials for the REED Foundation for Autism, which operates the REED Academy for 39 autistic children in northern New Jersey, told the Inquirer that Griffin “appears to have stolen $380,000 of state grants.”
The Academy contracted with Griffin in 2016 to build a vertical farm that would create jobs for young adults with autism. It was to be the centerpiece of a $1.5 million state-funded project that partnered REED with a Phillips Charter School and Ramapo College of New Jersey.
Griffin delivered a few pieces of equipment and an HVAC unit to REED’s site in Hackensack, but the vertical farm remains unbuilt.
“Jack Griffin’s actions are unconscionable,” said REED’s CEO Jill Nadison in a statement. “We just want to be made whole so that our young adults have the opportunities that were promised.”
Griffin said that he intends to make good on the REED contract. “I’m going to find a way to make that work, whatever it takes. I’m honor-bound to do it.”
He said he’s willing to settle with his investors and partner. They have offered to drop their lawsuit if he walks away from Metropolis and gives them his patents. He’s mulling it over. “They want to make me unemployable,” Griffin said. “But the world is big enough for more than one farmer.
“They’re trying to keep me from growing something else. But I’ll be back. They can’t lock my mind up.”