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Ford Motors Is Using Vertical Farming To Feed And Educate Detroit
Ford Motors Is Using Vertical Farming To Feed And Educate Detroit
November 30, 2018
On Wednesday, Ford Motors and Detroit’s Cass Community Social Services announced a new hydroponic container farm that will grow produce year-round and help to feed Detroit’s food-insecure areas.
The 40-foot shipping container was donated by the Ford’s philanthropic arm, the Ford Motor Company Fund. It’s the second part of a larger $250,000 grant from Cass Community Social Services received from the Ford Motor Farm project. In March of 2018, Ford and Cass unveiled the first part, a F-150 Ford pickup with a garden bed and glass cover that visits local schools.
This latest initiative, dubbed the Ford Freight Farm, will reportedly be used to grow lettuce and greens that will be used in Cass’s non-profit community kitchen, which serves up over 700,000 meals per year. The meals themselves go towards feeding Detroit’s homeless population.
Like other container farms, this one uses LED lighting and has a capacity equivalent to two acres of traditional farmland. That gives Ford and Cass the ability to grow up to 52 harvests per year. “This is urban gardening at its best because we can grow in every season of the year,” Cass Executive Director, Faith Fowler, said in the press release. “And it delivers fresh produce, farm-to-table in half an hour!”
Ford Motor Farm is housed at the Cass Community Social Services’ World Building in Detroit and operates without soil, sunlight, or pesticides. And in addition to providing food, it will also offer some part-time employment to adults with development disabilities.
The entire project was conceived by a group of Ford employees who, in 2017, participated in the company’s philanthropic leadership program called Thirty under 30. The group was tasked with improving Ford’s mobile food pantries
It also underscores a question I keep hearing in conversations with people: urban farming sounds great in theory, but is it a realistic solution to helping feed food-insecure populations? Or as one writer put it, Is urban farming only for rich hipsters?
That’s not to depreciate the good work done by startups like Square Roots, Freight Farms, and the dozens of others looking at new ways to farm more locally. Realistically, though, container farms have high operational costs, high labor costs and require funds to educate those who do the actual care for the plants (because at the end of the day, farming is a skill). Little wonder, then, that the leafy greens coming from these farms cost anywhere from $5 to $15 per bag.
Even so, there’s a rising need to make the benefits of urban farming accessible to a wider population. Backing from a company like Ford will be one approach we’re likely to see more of in the future.
France Agriculture: Here Rooftop Farms Give You Vodka And The Fish Grow Plants
December 05, 2018
By OLIVER MATHENGE @olivermathenge
Sous les fraises' Marie Dehaene explains their operations on the rooftop of Galeries Lafayette in Paris on November 26, 2018 / OLIVER MATHENGE
On a chilly Wednesday afternoon, our driver slows down and parks along Haussmann Boulevard in the 9th arrondissement of Paris.
As the door slides open, the warmth inside the van is replaced with some gashing cold air as we prepare to once again fight the freezing weather.
We are outside Galeries Lafayette, one of the many shopping malls in the City of Paris where according to our program; we would be meeting some urban farmers.
It is warm again inside the mall as we await our hosts as well as get our passports entered into the visitor's system.
What we do not know is that this warmth is short-lived as our elevator journey lands us on the roof of the mall.
Our tour is on the roof where temperatures have dropped to six degrees with darkness set to engulf the Paris skies within the hour.
Unlike other rooftops that we can see from here, this particular one has a lot of greenery and you can smell the various flavours of edible plants here.
Our host, 31-year old Marie Dehaene, kicks off the tour by asking us why a mall such as Galeries Lafayette has allowed her team to put up what looks like hanging plants on their roof.
We make several guesses before she explains that they approached the mall with the idea of putting up a rooftop farm as part of giving Paris some green spaces.
“In 2013, we worked together to design and think about how it would work because it was the first time in France that there was a commercial rooftop farm,” Marie says.
She added; “They were concerned about things like; Are you going to bring dirt into the department store? Are you going to flood the roof? Are you sure these things will not fly away? Real technical things.”
Marie is an agronomist engineer and a founding member of sous les fraises (under the strawberries) startup that has not only moved farming into the city but is greening the rooftops of Paris high rise buildings.
We learn that the start up has dressed Galeries Lafayette Haussmann, where we are standing, with a green roof that houses more than 150 varieties of edible plants.
On the more than 1,200 m² of this surface, they grow more than 18,000 plants, including strawberries, raspberries, edible flowers, aromatic plants, cabbage and even produce honey.
“Here for instance when we put the tomato plants they each give at least five kilos of tomatoes. This means five tonnes of tomatoes per year for just this garden,” Marie says adding that they have a total of 14 gardens.
She promises to take us to one of the other farms on Friday, a day before we finalise our France trip.
As we walk around the rooftop, Marie explains the use of the different plants that we can see and how they are grown without the use of too much soil.
She explains that they use sheep and hemp wool membrane, with a little soil, compost and water.
We do not see a lot of produce as the last harvest is done in October just before the cold season checks in which Marie and team use to plan for the next year.
Nonetheless, we get to learn about some of the plants we can see which they pick and sell to various restaurants around Paris.
"Most of these are used for salad dressing. Some of these we distil and make gin and vodka (which some members of our entourage got to taste later) with it," Marie says.
She adds; "We meet the distiller and agree on the recipe and then deliver the plants and three months we get the gin and vodka. The alcohol captures all the flavours."
Marie says that the projects are important to them because they have a low carbon footprint and create local jobs now having a workforce of 15 full-time employees.
"When we started, we were just three people," Marie says.
Galeries Lafayette Corporate Communication Officer Eva Perret told the Star that they allowed the project because of the unique opportunity it gives to empowering customers.
"For us, it is a first step towards talking to our customers about sustainable consumption," Perret said.
Before we leave, we sample some of the products that are produced from the plants grown on this rooftop farm as we agree on the Friday trip.
So on Friday afternoon, which is a bit warmer than the previous days, we set out to Farmhouse Aubervilliers nestled in the heart of the business park ICADE Porte de Paris.
While the plants are set up in a similar fashion as those we saw on the rooftop of Galeries Lafayette, here sous les fraises use techniques of urban agriculture Aquaponics - breeding fish in symbiosis with growing plants.
This particular farm accommodates some 6,000 fish, which are sold to various restaurants, and more than 8,000 plants.
"Here we grow fish basically because the fish poop feeds the plants that we have while the plants clean the water for the fishponds," Marie explains.
For irrigation, the farms use a closed robotic water circuit can feed all plants according to their needs and the weather by analyzing data via sensors on the plants.
Marie says that the system sends an SMS alert to them in case there is a problem.
Botanist And Agricultural Researcher - Rooftop Gardens Have Huge Potential As Food Source
November 23, 2018
MA Sobhan
Botanist and agricultural researcher MA Sobhan talks with New Age Staff Correspondent Sadiqur Rahman about rooftop gardening
Dhaka is among the most densely populated cities having thousands of buildings for habitation.
Residents can create well-planned garden in the rooftop, MA Sobhan says as he sees a huge opportunity to turn the rooftop gardens into earning sources for urban people.
Citing the Cuban experience, he says that Cuba has become the pioneer of urban horticulture, especially in rooftop and balcony gardening. At least 70 per cent fo the Cubans live in urban areas.
They not only can meet their daily demands of vegetables and fruits from their own gardens but also earn some extra by selling them.
‘Bangladesh’s weather is almost similar to that of Cuba. People here can make use of it by farming vegetables and fruits at their rooftop and balcony gardens throughout the year beside flower. This is a country of six seasons and varied crops can be grown in each season,’ Sobhan says.
Moreover, there are some vegetables like tomato, asparagus bean, okra, sour gourd, sweet gourd, bitter gourd, pointed gourd, pumpkin, cucumber, bottle gourd, and basil, pumpkin leaf, coriander, taro stem and stem amaranth which are now grown in all seasons.
The botanist says that vegetable and fruit farming on rooftop obviously can ensure nutritious foods for the growers.
At present, parents are worried about their children’s health that vegetables and fruits available in market may have been grown in pesticide-applied fields or coated with toxic preservative.
Sobhan believes that home-grown vegetables will be free of these unhealthy substances as organic farming is getting popular for the rooftop gardening.
He says, ‘I think, children of the urban families having rooftop gardens will be benefited in a different way. Besides taking vegetables and fruits, they can learn about the plants. They also have the opportunity to breathe very fresh air while playing near the plants’.
Sobhan has planted coconut, palm and banana trees on his rooftop. Although he knows that the trees in containers will be less productive, he planted them for his grandchildren so that they can learn about trees.
Sobhan says the green roof reduces temperature during summer and keeps the building warm in winter. It purifies the ambient by absorbing carbon dioxide as well as particulate matters and controls spread of diseases.
He thinks that the government should provide necessary policy directions with amendment of the national building policy to promote rooftop gardening in the city area.
He says that enthusiast people in Dhaka can collect samplings of vegetable and fruits from Bangladesh Agricultural Development Corporation outlets at Manik Mia Avenue, Gabtali, Siddique Bazar of Old Dhaka or other government-facilitated nurseries.
As a botanist, Sobhan served in Bangladesh Jute Research Institute. He is a hobbyist gardener. Wherever he got the chance, he did gardening. Although he retired from BJRI, Sobhan is still well-known at BJRI at Manik Mia Avenue as he created a garden there with more than 2,500 plants.
Father of three daughters, Sobhan is currently living at Mirpur with his wife and two families of his daughters. ‘Although the other members are not gardeners like me, they enjoy the garden much,’ he says.
Sometimes when he cannot manage time to look after the garden he visits it on a regular basis as the habit makes him feel better.
Sobhan is currently serving as president of http://beezbistar.org/, an organisation promoting conservation of local seeds as well as indigenous agricultural practices.
Shareholders Still Stuck With Worthless Greenhouse And Aquariums
In July the project went bankrupt, after which the curator tried to continue the vegetable cultivation and the fish breeding
Netherlands: The financial failure of The Hague's urban greenhouse
Urban farms may one day form an integral part of the future megalopolis, but it's clear the concept still needs some refinement. The experiment in The Hague, a 1200 m2 greenhouse on top of the building De Schilde, proves to be a financial failure as its backers stand to lose money even after the farm shut down.
"Assuming that the disposal costs of the greenhouse and the aquariums will be very high and with the uncertainty about their current condition, the value of the goods is very low and possibly even negative," says a recently released bankruptcy report about the project in the Hague.
In July the project went bankrupt, after which the curator tried to continue the vegetable cultivation and the fish breeding. The activities of Urban Farmers were losing them money from the start, as costs were high and revenue too low.However, no interested parties were found that wanted to continue the current activities.
The Fonds Ruimte en Economie Den Haag, shareholder of one third of the building, will take over the greenhouse and try to minimize financial losses. No more (public) activities will take place at the urban greenhouse.
Read the bankruptcy report here (in Dutch).
Publication date : 11/26/2018
Urban Farms are Becoming Budding Business Enterprises
Urban farms cropping up all over Richmond are more than backyard gardens on steroids.
Joe Jenkins, owner of Bow Tide Farms, harvests Arugula with Kate Lainhart at the farm in Richmond on Tuesday, Oct. 16, 2018.
By TAMMIE SMITH Richmond Times-Dispatch
Nov 18, 2018
Urban farms cropping up all over Richmond are more than backyard gardens on steroids.
Joe Jenkins and his wife, Whitney Maier, were growing more organic vegetables in raised beds in their backyard in North Richmond than they could eat, so he started taking some to his job at a restaurant to give to co-workers.
The chef there said the arugula was better than what he was getting from vendors and that he wanted to buy it from Jenkins.
Jenkins and business partner Josh Dziegiel operate Bow Tide Farms, which grows and sells arugula, mixed greens and other produce to about half a dozen Richmond restaurants.
At Shalom Farms’ new Westwood urban farm in North Richmond, mostly volunteers work there, including those that recently helped farm manager Katharine Wilson harvest sweet potatoes — produce that went to food access initiatives such as a healthy corner store project, mobile markets and local food banks.
After the harvest, the fields became a classroom as Wilson talked to a group of elementary school kids about the farm and had them help pull up rows and rows of leftover sweet potato vines to go into a compost pile.
***
The urban farming phenomenon is creating agricultural entrepreneurs — agripreneurs — who are passionate about growing healthy, tasty food locally using methods that are sustainable and that minimize impact on the environment.
The farms are a mix of commercial enterprises and charitable operations.
“It’s similar to many small businesses. The profits don’t start rolling in when you put up your nameplate,” said Sally Schwitters, executive director of local urban farm pioneer Tricycle — Urban Ag Culture.
She has seen a shift from urban farms created as feel-good enterprises to those focused on customers and buyers.
Tricycle — Urban Ag Culture, a nonprofit that started its first urban farm more than a decade ago in Church Hill, has updated its programs accordingly.
The organization is about to graduate its second class of urban agriculture fellows who have spent a year learning crop growth and management and farm business management. The training program is offered in partnership with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Bon Secours Richmond Health System.
“We have courses on how to develop your business plan, how to get a loan, marketing and promotion of your business. We’ve seen that shift,” Schwitters said.
“A lot of this is customer demand where it has moved from this romantic notion to what consumers truly want. Our restaurants, our small grocers, our large grocers all want to be able to source more locally produced food. We as consumers are demanding that,” she said.
Some past fellows have gone on to start commercial urban farms such as Creighton Farm LLC and Hazel Witch Farm, Schwitters said. Operators of both also are working other jobs as they build their businesses, she said.
***
Jenkins and Dziegiel are just finishing their first growing season at Bow Tide Farms at the corner of Brook Road and Wilmington Avenue in North Richmond.
From the start, their plan was to sell to restaurants instead of trying to hit all the farmers markets. Both still work full-time jobs in hospitality. They are self-taught farmers, learning from other farmers, books and videos, and Dziegiel interned at a farm in Canada in summer 2017, Jenkins said.
“Our business plan was basically to go in and say both Josh and I have been in the restaurant industry. We know a lot of the chefs. We saw the product that was out there, and we felt like that we could do something better,” Jenkins said.
They took samples to local restaurants and pitched their products, including arugula and salad mixes, to chefs.
Their clients include the three Tazza Kitchen locations; Mama Zu; SB’s Lakeside Love Shack; Julep’s, where Jenkins works; and Edo’s Squid, where Dziegiel works.
“At this point, we are doing a little better than breaking even with a little less than half a growing season,” Jenkins said in an interview in October.
“We didn’t have water until after June. We didn’t have power until after mid-August,” he said.
They are leasing the land that had been used for softball. It’s been just the two of them and one other person hired to come in one day a week to help with harvests, Jenkins said.
He said they have spent about $15,000 getting the farm up and running. Having the water lines installed cost about $8,000.
They bought a piece of equipment called a paperpot transplanter, which sells for about $2,800, to speed up planting. Using the machine, they can put 264 small plants into the ground in 15 to 20 minutes, work that would take the two of them 90 minutes if done completely manually.
They raised some of the startup funds through a crowdfunding campaign. Contributors got membership in the farm’s Community Supported Agriculture organization.
They sell their arugula for about $10 a pound, Jenkins said. Heirloom tomatoes were priced higher than cherry tomatoes. During a typical week, they processed between 180 and 220 pounds of greens, he said.
“There is a number that you can go through that everyone has,” Jenkins said. “There is a kind of set price across the board in Richmond. You can say this is the average of what everyone is paying. That’s kind of where we priced our things out. We tried to look at it as one of those beds is usually worth between $400 and $500. So once it’s completed its cycle, we want to see that it’s made $400 or $500.”
On a recent morning, Dziegiel delivered an order of arugula that has been harvested, washed and dried the day before to The Big Kitchen, a new concept in Scott’s Addition in which fully prepared meals are made, kept chilled and then packaged in containers that allow for a pop into the microwave or oven once at home.
***
Shalom Farms, a nonprofit with volunteers providing most of the farm labor, limits to 10 percent the amount of its produce to be used to earn income, said executive director Dominic Barrett.
Last year, the organization’s primary farm in Powhatan County grew over 220,000 pounds of produce, food that was distributed through the organization’s food access programs.
The group’s new Westwood site began farm production on about half of the 5 acres available. It’s probably the area’s largest urban farm, though because of its size and use of tractors, Barrett said they don’t call it an urban farm.
“We just call it a farm. It’s not that it’s not an urban farm. We think people typically think of smaller scale, more attentive growing, often raised beds [as urban farms]. What we are doing there resembles more traditional rural agriculture in many ways but just placed in a city setting,” Barrett said.
***
At Virginia State University, urban agriculture expert Leonard Githinji said part of a 12-week certificate program in urban agriculture that VSU offers focuses on how to make urban farm enterprises successful.
Participants get the benefits of research-proven methods. One project underway there now is comparing growth of 14 varieties of sweet potatoes.
“You learn how to grow stuff in the most optimal way, but then you need to have a market,” said Githinji, an assistant professor and extension specialist in sustainable and urban agriculture.
He has seen some interest in indoor hydroponics systems that don’t use soil, but the higher initial investment can be a deterrent.
“With those, you can get produce fairly quickly, in a couple of months, while people who are growing in the ground it may take longer because of preparation and depending on the season,” he said.
Githinji also said the urban agriculture movement is more than a fad.
“In my opinion, it’s here to stay for a couple of reasons. There is a high demand for produce, and now there is also this movement of people wanting to consume locally grown produce. The more they understand the benefits of locally grown produce, they have the demand to buy food grown within their neighborhoods,” he said.
“There are also people out there who want to have a small business to serve other people,” Githinji said.
More than 60 people have gone through the certificate course that meets from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on consecutive Saturdays. The next session starts in May.
To finish the programs, participants have to complete 80 hours interning with community farms or co-ops in order to receive certification. So far, 23 have completed the requirements to be certified, said Cynthia Martin, education support assistant for the cooperative extension program at Virginia State.
Martin said she knows of at least four participants who have started farms. Others have talked about family land they would like to farm.
“Their dream is to go back,” Martin said. “The passion is there, but the land has been sitting there with nobody doing anything.”
***
Challenges to the growth of urban farms include land-use policies and infrastructure, said Duron Chavis, community engagement coordinator for Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden. Chavis for years helped drive grass-roots efforts to establish community gardens in Richmond.
“The city has a great deal of vacant property, close to 1,000 or more vacant parcels that the city owns. The Maggie Walker Community Land Trust is working to identify parcels of land that cannot be turned into affordable housing that could be turned into urban ag enterprises,” said Chavis, who is on the board of the trust. Land toxicity can be an issue, as well.
“There are a lot of harsh chemicals that pollute urban land. That has to be mitigated before you can produce food,” Chavis said. “There have been conversations about indoor farms. None of them have gotten traction here in Richmond.”
***
Initiatives such as the Real Local RVA and businesses such as Ellwood Thompson’s Local Market and Little House Green Grocery are important to the survival of urban farms, experts say.
Real Local RVA’s members are small independent grocers, restaurants, farmers markets and others, and the organization emphasizes locally produced food. This year’s annual farm tour highlighted four Richmond-area urban farms — Tricycle Urban Ag, Bow Tide Farms, Community Food Collaborative and Lakeside’s Tiny Acre.
Little House Green Grocery on Bellevue Avenue in Richmond gets in produce almost daily from local farms, said store owner Erin Wright. It carries products from over 50 local vendors, including bakery products, prepared foods and home goods.
“There are so many reasons why urban farms are important,” Wright said. “The environmental impact. When we can buy directly from farms, we can reduce the amount of packaging and the amount of food miles that the food travels, making it more nutritious and more delicious. We can reduce waste because we are simply getting it fresher.”
Connections are made between consumers and producers who know each other, she added.
“We are able to talk directly to farmers and find out what is going on with them, what they are excited about and what their challenges are, and pass that along to the consumers as a real look at the impact of their purchasing power,” Wright said.
France: Agricool Raises 28 Million US Dollars For Urban Farming
With the announcement of a new funding round of $28 million, in addition to the $13 million previously raised, Agricool pursues its ambition to make pesticide-free fruits and vegetables accessible to all. Through its innovative concept, the company has paved the way for a new form of urban and technological agriculture, seeking to meet the ever-increasing demand for locally produced food and the expansion of local distribution networks.
The company has raised funds from new investors including Bpifrance Large Venture Fund, Danone Manifesto Ventures, Antoine Arnault via Marbeuf Capital, Solomon Hykes, and a dozen other business angels passionate about Agricool’s mission. The existing investors, which include daphni, XAnge, Henri Seydoux and Xavier Niel via Kima Ventures, have also participated in this new funding round.
Taking the lead in a booming market
According to UN reports, in 2030, 20% of products consumed worldwide will come from urban farming (compared to 5% today). In the past 3 years, Agricool’s teams have developed a technology to grow local, healthy fruits and vegetables more productively and within small and controlled spaces, known as “Cooltainers” (recycled shipping containers transformed into urban farms). Thanks to this new funding round, Agricool will be able to confirm its role in the development of this new type of agriculture, while positioning itself as a key player in the segment of vertical farming in France and worldwide. Agricool plans to multiply by a hundred its production by 2021, in Paris first, then internationally starting with Dubai, where a container has already been installed for several months in The Sustainable City.
The emergence of a new profession with the recruitment of 200 people
The deployment of these production modules will be made possible thanks to the recruitment of over 200 people in the Paris area and around the world, from now until 2021. This will result in the emergence of a new profession: the Cooltivator - an entrepreneur and urban farmer hybrid. These “market gardeners of the future” will play an important role in producing this new type of local, healthy food made accessible to all.
Cities of tomorrow
The challenge of urban farming and for Agricool is to help develop the production of food for a growing urban population who wants to eat quality products, while limiting the ecological impact of its consumption. Agricool strawberries are harvested when ripe, and the company claims they contain on average 20% more sugar and 30% more vitamin C than supermarket strawberries.
"Paris is dreaming of itself as an agricultural city", according to the ambition of the Paris City Council, and many metropolises like London, New York and Singapore share the same approach. "We are very excited about the idea of supporting urban farming towards massive development, and it will soon no longer be a luxury to eat exceptional fruits and vegetables in the city", stresses Guillaume Fourdinier, co-founder and CEO of Agricool.
For more information:
agricool.co
www.bpifrance.fr
www.danoneventures.com
www.daphni.com
www.XAnge.fr
Publication date : 12/4/2018
Freight Farm To Grow Vegetables For Detroit Homeless
Lettuce seedlings grow under grow lights in seedling troughs in a shipping container at Cass Community Social Services on Wednesday.(Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News)Buy Photo
Candice Williams, The Detroit News | . Nov. 28, 2018
A 40-foot shipping container transformed into a freight farm will be used to grow vegetables for 700,000 meals served by Cass Community Social Services each year to those in need.
The donation of the container from the Ford Motor Company Fund is part of a $250,000 grant Cass Community Social Services received through the Ford Motor Farm project.
With the use of a hydroponic system and LED lighting, the farm operates without pesticides, sunlight or soil. It also uses 90 percent less water than an outdoor garden.
“It means fresh produce all year round, which is really huge,” said Faith Fowler, executive director of Cass Community Social Services. “Homeless people have a number of issues that are exacerbated by junk food, poor nutrition. To be able to have fresh food every day. Salads and greens and herbs are good for them.”
Freight Farm assistant Charlotte Gale of Detroit inserts seeds into peat moss pods, where they start to grow, in a converted shipping container at Cass Community Social Services in Detroit. (Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News)
The first crop of vegetables will be ready to harvest in two to three weeks, said Kathy Peterson, the farm freight supervisor.
Currently, red leaf and butterhead lettuce plants are in various stages of growth inside the 7.5-ton shipping container stationed inside a garage space at Cass Community Social Services on Rosa Parks Boulevard. It only takes about five days for a lettuce seed to sprout and eventually be transferred to a plant wall where it will grow before it is harvested to eat.
“We have just started this endeavor, but I do know we can produce hundreds of thousands of produce a year,” Peterson said.
The project was the idea of a “Thirty under 30” team, Ford’s philanthropic leadership program, according to Jim Vella, president of the Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services. The group initially thought to create a farm in the bed of a Ford F-150, and that idea evolved into the idea of growing vegetables inside a shipping container.
Cass Community Social Services received earlier this year a Ford F-150 with a garden bed that uses to teach healthy eating habits at local schools. The Ford Mobile Farm runs during the spring and fall.
“It not only provides produce to the kids, but it also educates and teaches kids that maybe didn’t know that carrots came from the ground, that you can pull from the ground and eat fresh delicious food,” said Chris Craft, a member of the “Thirty under 30” team.
Lettuce grows in vertical grow columns. (Photo: Todd McInturf, The Detroit News)
“However, we realized that education was only one part of the solution and that we also needed to address systemic unemployment and also food deserts that had no availability of fresh produce.”
Craft said the team researched and found the concept of using recycled shipping containers as farms. Cass Community Social Services was selected for the grant.
Fowler said the nonprofit will also use the grant money to employ developmentally disabled adults at the freight farm.
“We anticipate hiring between three and five men and women working there as a job-training site and some potentially for long-term,” she said.
cwilliams@detroitnews.com
Twitter: @CWilliams_DN
Why Urban-Fringe Farming Is Vital For Food Resilience
November 29, 2018
When you pick up supplies at your local supermarket for tonight’s dinner, the produce will likely have come from many parts of Australia and from distant parts of the world. But some of the fresh produce may also have come from one of the highly productive foodbowls on the fringes of Australia’s state capitals.
The role that city fringe farmers play in feeding cities is sometimes overlooked in an era of sophisticated supply chains that enable food to be sourced from all over the world. But city foodbowls make a significant contribution to Australia’s fresh food supplies, and cities can do more to support them.
Areas outside Melbourne identified as ‘foodbowls’ for city-fringe farming. Foodprint Melbourne
Why being close to cities makes sense
Many cities now recognise the need to strengthen relationships with local farmers as a way to increase the resilience of their food supplies to climate change and make efficient use of scarce natural resources.
Retaining food production close to urban areas can reduce food shortages if transport routes into the city are cut off (for example, by a major storm or flood). Recycled water from city water treatment plants can also be used to grow food during a drought, and food waste can be processed into organic fertilisers for use on nearby farms.
Strengthening links between cities and farms on the fringe can improve farmer livelihoods and grow the local economy.
Farmers on the city fringe are caught in a tight “cost price squeeze” with very high land prices (and rates) and low farm-gate prices. Many are small-scale farmers who find it difficult to compete through economies of scale. But there are also advantages to being close to the city, such as the proximity to city markets and access to recycled water.
The Foodprint Melbourne project has just released an infographic that showcases the mutually beneficial relationships that can be developed between cities and the farmers on their fringes. These ideas were developed in workshops that brought Victorian stakeholders together from across sectors (farmers, industry, local government, state government and civil society) to explore how the viability of farming on Melbourne’s fringe could be strengthened.
How food can make its way from the city fringes to urban residents. Foodprint Melbourne
The infographic shows how strong links between cities and local farmers can create a two-way exchange. Farmers can capture a higher share of the food retail dollar by selling direct to local consumers (through farmers markets or community-supported agriculture) or local businesses (such as cafes and restaurants). City residents benefit from access to fresh, local produce and from opportunities to participate in agri-tourism activities on nearby farms (such as pick your own produce and farm-gate bike trails).
Food from Melbourne’s foodbowl can also be sold directly to local families, shops and restaurants in the city, in addition to being transported interstate and overseas via city airports. A new provenance brand could be introduced so consumers and businesses can easily recognise food from the area and support local farmers.
State and local governments could introduce food procurement standards so that government services, such as hospitals, prisons and “meals on wheels” programs, are encouraged to buy food from Victorian farmers. Government food procurement standards like these are already used in other countries, such as the United States and Canada.
Farmer incubators could be established to help new farmers access land and begin farming on the city fringe, mentored by experienced growers. Farmer-owned food-processing co-operatives could enable these growers to add value to their produce and take greater control of the food supply chain.
Governments are slowly starting to realise the importance of city fringe farming and providing greater protections. Foodprint Melbourne
How to encourage city fringe farms to thrive
Cities around the world now recognise the importance of actively strengthening links with farmers on the city fringe. The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation has released a “city region food system toolkit” that supports cities in building closer links with nearby farmers to improve farmer livelihoods, grow local economies and increase access to healthy, sustainable food.
A key step is to provide certainty about the future of farming areas close to cities by introducing laws that protect them for the long term. The city of Portland, Oregon, for instance, has created rural reserves that protect important farming areas for at least 50 years.
Measures to promote the viability of farming are equally important. In Ontario, the provincial government funds the Friends of the Greenbelt Foundation to promote farming, tourism and conservation in the agricultural area surrounding Toronto.
The links between cities and the farmers on their fringes have weakened as modern food supply chains have developed, but there is renewed interest among consumers in reconnecting with where their food comes from.
To improve access to locally grown food and increase the resilience of food systems to climate change, we need to build mutually supportive relationships between cities and the growers on their fringes, so that farms thrive as our cities grow.
This article is part of a series focusing on the politics of food – what we eat, how our views of food are changing and why it matters from a cultural and political standpoint.
Rachel Carey, Research Fellow, University of Melbourne; Jennifer Sheridan, Researcher in sustainable food systems, University of Melbourne; Kirsten Larsen, Manager, Food Systems Research and Partnerships, University of Melbourne.
This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Is Digging Down The Future of Vertical Farming?
Academics at the University of Nottingham have patented a new concept that would see food production in deep farms in cities. The ideas are being promoted by University of Nottingham academics Professor Saffa Riffat, Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences and President of the World Society of Sustainable Technologies, and Professor Yijun Yuan, Marie Curie Research Fellow.
Deep farming technology would allow crop production all year-round. Up to 10 crop cycles per year could be achieved compared to 1-2 cycles for conventional agriculture. Put another way, 1 indoor acre is equivalent to 4-6 outdoor acres or more, depending on the crop.
Example of a Deep Farm City
As Deep Farms could be located close to urban centres, CO2 emission due to transportation of crops would be reduced. This is particularly important as the proportion of people living in cities continues to rise. Over the last 20 years, the percentage of people who live in cities globally has increased from 20% to nearly 50%.
Cost-effective deep shafts for crop planting would be constructed using new drilling techniques. Existing coal mine shafts, mines and tunnels, many of which are now abandoned could also be used for crop production.
A variety of crops could be grown in the Deep Farms using hydroponic planters (plant roots fed with nutrient-rich water) or aeroponics (growing plants in an air or mist environment). LED units would enable photosynthesis in the absence of sunlight. Groundwater could be used directly or water could be condensed from ambient air in hot/humid desert climates. A major benefit of this approach is that crop production is largely unaffected by climatic or seasonal factors - one of the greatest limitations of conventional farming methods.
Automated Deep Farm concept
New vertical shafts could be created for Deep Farms and also redundant coal mine shafts could be used for crop production. In the UK, for example, there are over 150,000 redundant coal mine shafts.
Carbon dioxide is required for plant photosynthesis and Deep Farms are well suited for carbon capture from ambient air. The CO2 could be released to achieve the concentration levels required by plants.
Use of carbon capture systems has the added benefit of reducing CO2 concentration in the environment, as additional carbon is adsorbed in materials in the ground space. Advanced control systems including sensors and remote controls could be used to monitor crop production. Automated systems such as robots could be used for crop planting and harvesting. Electricity generated from renewable sources and off-peak power could be used to power the LED lighting for plant photosynthesis.
View from above of a Deep Farm
It is estimated that a small Deep Farm can produce 80 tonnes of food per annum. Some of the crops can be ready for harvesting within 2-3 weeks. The amount of energy it would require is equivalent to that consumed by 3 UK homes.
Deep Farms could be installed at various locations to create a ‘Deep Farming City’. This would facilitate the supply of a wide range of fresh crops to the local population.
For more information:
University of Nottingham
Professor Saffa Riffat
+44 115 748 4479
www.nottingham.ac.uk
Infarm Expands Its ‘In-Store Farming’ To Paris
Steve O'Hear@sohear / November 2018
infarm
Infarm, the Berlin-based startup that has developed vertical farming tech for grocery stores, restaurants and local distribution centres to bring fresh and artisan produce much closer to the consumer, is expanding to Paris.
Once again, the company is partnering with Metro in a move that will see Infarm’s “in-store farming” platform installed in the retailer’s flagship store in the French capital city later this month. The 80 metre square “vertical farm” will produce approximately 4 tonnes of premium quality herbs, leafy greens, and microgreens annually, and means that Metro will become completely self-sufficient in its herb production with its own in-store farm.
Founded in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli, and brothers Erez and Guy Galonska, Infarm has developed an “indoor vertical farming” system capable of growing anything from herbs, lettuce and other vegetables, and even fruit. It then places these modular farms in a variety of customer-facing city locations, such as grocery stores, restaurants, shopping malls, and schools, thus enabling the end-customer to actually pick the produce themselves.
The distributed system is designed to be infinitely scalable — you simply add more modules, space permitting — whilst the whole thing is cloud-based, meaning the farms can be monitored and controlled from Infarm’s central control centre. It’s data-driven: a combination of IoT, Big Data and cloud analytics akin to “Farming-as-a-Service”.
The idea isn’t just to produce fresher and better tasting produce and re-introduce forgotten or rare varieties, but to disrupt the supply chain as a whole, which remains inefficient and produces a lot of waste.
“Many before have tried to solve the deficiencies in the current supply chain, we wanted to redesign the entire chain from start to finish; Instead of building large-scale farms outside of the city, optimising on a specific yield and then distributing the produce, we decided it would be more effective to distribute the farms themselves and farm directly where people live and eat,” explains Erez Galonska, co-founder and CEO of Infarm, in a statement.
Meanwhile, the move into France follows $25 million in Series A funding raised by Infarm at the start of the year and is part of an expansion plan that has already seen one hundred farms powered by the Infarm platform launch. Other recent installations include Edeka locations in Düsseldorf, Frankfurt, Stuttgart, and Hannover. Further expansion into Zurich, Amsterdam, and London is said to be planned over the coming months.
“One thousand in-store farms are being rolled out in Germany alone,” adds Infarm’s Osnat Michaeli. “We are expanding to other European markets each and every day, partnering with leading supermarket chains and planning our North America expansion program for 2019. Recognising the requirements of our customers we have recently launched a new product; DC farm – a ‘Seed to Package’ production facility tailored to the needs of retail chains’ distribution centres. We’ve just installed our very first ‘DC farm’ in EDEKA’s distribution center”.
Farms In The City: How A Chinese Firm Uses Tech To Boost Yield
By Feng Yilei
2018-12-01
An appetite for clean, fresh greens is growing with the burgeoning population in Chinese cities and towns. But feeding the rising demand is a challenge, partly because of the country's massive shift from being an agrarian to urban economy.
In the next 15 years, over 200 million Chinese are expected to move from rural areas into urban and suburban environments. This will greatly reduce the labor force on China's arable lands, which some say calls for a revolution in farming methods in order to create sustainable food production.
Beijing COFCO wisdom farm. /COFCO Photo
In suburban Beijing, a number of plant factories built with innovative techniques have incorporated farming into urban growth.
Dr. Wei Lingling, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, said controlled environmental agriculture (CEA) aims to get the most output with the least resources at the highest efficiency. They use technology like artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) to precisely control production.
On a small plot of indoor space, plants are rooted on layered shelves vertically and bathe in light continuously during the day. Sensors linked to automatic irrigation and temperature control systems provide optimal conditions for growing.
Planned production means a higher yield resource-wise, space optimization, and labor savings. Dr. Wei believes CEA technologies will be more accurate in the future to better balance cultivation and the environment with less energy consumption.
“And in this closed production system, we circulate water and fertilizer to cut emissions, and improve sustainability of agriculture,” she added.
Plant factory using artificial light. /VCG Photo
While many believe this industrialized and intelligent way of farming will gradually replace extensive farming, which relies heavily on manual work and land usage for mass production, ordinary Chinese may have to accept difficulties in their daily lives during the process of moving on to the next stage.
For individual farmers that own the country's hundreds of millions of small plots, some have temporarily transferred their leaseholds to these high-tech farms and are adapting to their new roles.
Villager Wang Xiangang said that he got paid for both his land and working on the farm as an employee meaning he no longer worries about natural disasters and has time to learn about organic farming. He doesn't make as much as he used to, but it is stable.
And when conditions are ripe – will consumers be ready to pay a higher price for the products? Experts say the public will recognize the value of these crops as awareness of food safety and environmental stewardship rises. And once the demand rises, more players are expected to use tech-based food production, which will drive down prices.
Parisian Supermarket Becomes Self-Sufficient With indoor Herb-Farm
We've showed you before that the French like their veggies to be grown nearby. The French supermarket Metro has taken this even further and is now growing herbs in their own supermarket. Chives, basil, coriander, mint, dill and parsley are being grown at the moment in this Parisian Metro store. The products are offered to the hospitality clients.
More than 50 farms
The herb farm is created by Infarm, a German company that is operating more than 50 farms across Berlin in supermarket aisles, restaurant kitchens, and distribution warehouses. Infarm is headquartered in the German capital and was founded in 2013 by Osnat Michaeli and brothers Erez and Guy Galonska. Amongst other projects, they have integrated in-store farming into EDEKA and METRO locations, two of Germany’s largest food retailers, where it grows dozens of herbs and leafy greens.
The Parisian farm is the biggest one in a supermarket so far. "Many before have tried to solve the deficiencies in the current supply chain, we wanted to redesign the entire chain from start to finish", the company explains. "Instead of building large-scale farms outside of the city, optimising on a specific yield and then distributing the produce, we decided it would be more effective to distribute the farms themselves and farm directly where people live and eat," explains Erez Galonska, co-founder and CEO of Infarm, in a statement.
A single 2 sqm farm has an output of up to 1,200 plants per month. The 80 square metre “vertical farm” will produce approximately 4 tonnes of premium quality herbs, leafy greens, and microgreens annually, and that means Metro will become completely self-sufficient in its herb production with its own in-store farm.
Each farm is a controlled ecosystem with growing recipes that tailor light, temperature, pH, and nutrients to ensure the maximum natural expression of each plant. Each farm acts as a data pipeline, sending information on plant growth to the Infarm platform 24/7 allowing it to learn, adjust, and optimise.
Expansion
Infarm will launch operations in London, Copenhagen, and other German cities later this year and has set a goal to expand to 1,000 farms in Europe. Expansion to the US is on their list as well, especially after a $25M investment round earlier this year.
Publication date : 11/23/2018
Rooftop And Vertical Farms In Cities, The Most Advanced Projects Around The World
Some of the best rooftop and vertical farms in cities around the world. Where farm-to-table agriculture is becoming a key component of urban growth.
The phenomenon of urban farms took root after the Second World War to feed a population that was exhausted by years of poverty. In the last few years it has been growing exponentially, so much so that “locally sourced” no longer refers to products that come from the surrounding countryside, but in the very place where urban consumers live. The element of verticality was added to the equation, the opportunity and necessity to grow crops on rooftops and inside tall building allows for an efficient use of the limited space found in cities.
In some cases initiatives sprout from local communities, in others, prestigious architecture firms design innovative projects that use technology to incentivise local self-sufficiency from a nutritional standpoint as well as reduce the impact of urban demands on rural areas. Growing crops on terraces and rooftops is convenient not only because of greater solar exposure, but also because particulate matter tends to deposit at lower levels. Here are some of the most advanced rooftop and vertical farms from around the world.
The Sunqiao agricultural district in Shanghai
Whilst large-scale hydroponic cultivation systems and urban farms are still struggling to catch on in the United States, they represent a solution to the problem of a growing population and the consequent need to increase food production in China. Nearly 24 million people live in Shanghai alone and the business capital’s rapid economic growth is threatening an agricultural system that is more limited in scale compared to the Western model, just like in other Chinese metropolises.
Leggi anche: Urban forests, cities’ answer to climate change (and much more)
Sunqiao represents a new urban approach to agriculture pioneered by international architecture firm Sasaki. The objective is to show that urban agriculture can grow vertically, just like skyscrapers. The plan for this district (whose construction began at the end of 2017) focuses on integrating vertical farms and research. Over half (56 per cent) of the diet of Shanghai’s inhabitants consists of leaf vegetables, making hydroponic and aquaponic systems particularly appropriate to satisfy their needs. Spinach, lettuce, kale and watercress don’t require specific care, they grow quickly and weigh very little, making them a cheap and efficient option.
The Sunqiao district in Shanghai is a perfect example of the union between architecture and sustainability © Sasaki
The district features floating greenhouses, green walls and vertical facades for seed collection. This is an even more sustainable approach towards supporting the local food network, which perfectly fits the plan adopted by Shanghai that aims to safeguard food and farmers by taking control of local production and distribution whilst maintaining cultivations within the city.
Gotham Greens, in the United States
Gotham Greens is a New York-based farming company that has been supplying the inhabitants of New York and Chicago with fruits and vegetables grown without using pesticides and with an irrigation system based on reusing water. It manages various rooftop farms on a number buildings (some of which are decommissioned, like a former wood warehouse in Brooklyn). The company was the first to design a commercial hydroponic urban farm in the country.
Gotham Greens, a farming company that brings urban farming to Chicago and New York, grows crops on the roofs of buildings © Gotham Greens
The largest and most advanced greenhouse as well as the most productive rooftop farm were opened in Chicago in 2015. Gotham Greens’ model incentivises local production, therefore sustainable development, whilst also cutting transport costs and using renewable energy for production. The founder of Gotham Greens, Viraj Puri, was invited as a speaker the Seeds and Chips summit in Milan in 2017, one of the most important food innovation events in the world.
DakAkker, Rotterdam
DakAkker is the largest rooftop farm in Europe, in the centre of the Dutch city Rotterdam. It was created by Binder Groenprojecten in 2012 and the project was undertaken by ZUS society, in collaboration with the Rotterdam Environmental Centre. The building is fitted with a smartroof that works as a sensor with a water storage capacity that is superior to that of a typical rooftop garden, supplying all the water needed for growing crops.
DakAkker crops seen from above, together with the pedestrian bridge constructed thanks to a neighbourhood fundraiser and built to comfortably cross over the railway tracks © Ossip van Duivenbode
DakAkker is also an area used to experiment new vertical farming methods in the city, not only by growing fruits and vegetables, but also by safeguarding urban biodiversity thanks to the presence of a botanical garden where various aromatic herbs are grown. Furthermore, considering the great importance of bees to the ecosystem (approximately 30 per cent of food derives from the pollination carried out by these insects), six beehives are present on the rooftop.
UK: London's Underground Farm Opens Doors To The Public
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Ever wondered what’s going on beneath your feet under the streets of London? Well, now is your chance to enter another world by visiting Growing Underground. This urban farm is situated 33 meters underneath the streets of Clapham, London in a World War II air raid shelter.
For the first time ever and for a limited time, these tunnels will open to give you a tour of the depths of the underground farm, on November 27.
Urban Farming Growing in Popularity
The number of urban farms and farmers is increasing, with many making use of idle garden space.
Posted on September 14, 2018 by korea bizwire
More people are considering urban farming as a leisure pastime activity, as well as a way to harvest safer crops. (image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Sept. 14 (Korea Bizwire) — The number of urban farms and farmers is increasing, with many making use of idle garden space.
According to Gyeonggi Province and Gyeonggi Agricultural Research and Extension Services, there were 552,000 people engaged in farming over 3.2 square kilometers of land in cities at the end of 2017.
While farm size grew by 27.2 percent compared to three years ago, the number of farmers surged by 83.8 percent.
The majority of urban farming was done in community spaces, such as weekend farms, which accounted for 47.9 percent of urban farms. Farming in parks followed at 33.4 percent, and then school farms at 8.5 percent.
Other farms made up a smaller proportion, such as house gardens at 0.4 percent, tall building rooftops at 0.8 percent, and seniors centers at 5 percent.
Among urban farmers, 41.8 percent took part in community farms, while 20 percent raised crops in parks and 16.1 percent at school farms.
Urban agriculture is increasing in popularity, presumably because city dwellers are looking to harvest safer crops using their small patch of idle land. Some raise crops as part of a yearning for the rural lifestyle from where they come from, or to get a taste of a more pastoral life.
In addition, more people are considering urban farming as a leisure pastime activity. Some local communities want to use farming as a method for citizens to hang out and build friendships.
Central and local governments are also supporting urban agriculture.
Gyeonggi Province aims to list all patches of land in 31 cities and counties in the province that are eligible for farming. The provincial government will also inspect the management of such farms so that it can nurture urban agriculture in a more planned and systematic manner.
Gyeonggi Agricultural Research and Extension Services is developing programs to teach urban farmers about crops suitable for farming in cities as well as farming techniques.
The 7th Korean Urban Agriculture Expo is being held in Hwaseong between September 13 and 20, jointly hosted by Gyeonggi Province, Hwaseong City, the Rural Development Administration and the Korea Forest Service.
Joey Yoo (joeyyoo@koreabizwire.com)
An Urban Farm Tower In France
The Agro-main-ville Food-Farm Tower--is going to be the first of its kind in the entire country.
By DIAN ZHANG
Paris, France-based design firm ABF-lab has designed a highly productive urban farm building that blurs the lines between architecture and nature. Their recently unveiled project--the Agro-main-ville Food-Farm Tower--is going to be the first of its kind in the entire country.
The Food-Farm Tower is expected to break ground this year, and will be located in Romainville, an eastern suburb in Paris. The tower will span over 21,000 square feet, and will take an estimated cost of €3.4 million, or $3.78 million to build.
image via ABF-lab
To maximize agricultural productivity, the ABF-lab decided to eschew artificial light, and let the entire farm be fully immersed in the sun. By making the tower vertical, the designers were able to maximize plant exposure to sunlight, as well as situate the project on a limited plot of land in a dense area.
The Food-Farm Tower will contribute to the local environment by producing hyper-local food, cutting down carbon dioxide emissions, and improving air quality, and will also serve as a public garden for residents in the community,
Emerging as a first in France, a pilot and a conceptual reservoir will propose an infinity of scenarios to be developed with local associations and participate in radiation Romainville city. It will be one of the first neighborhoods to fully integrate the principles of urban agriculture as a catalyst for better living together.
Architects in the ABF-lab hope to raise awareness of urban agriculture with the innovative project, and inspire more people to make eco-friendly contributions.
image via ABF-lab
image via ABF-lab
Dian Zhang is a data journalist with Hanley Wood's data studio team.
Follow her on twitter @dianzhang_.
Introduction To Upside Down Gardening
Gardening, with the aim of providing your own food, has experienced a resurgence over the last few years.
More and more of us are looking for ways to reduce our food bills, decrease our carbon footprint, and eat healthier.
Those with gardens or access to an allotment find it easier to grow their own food, but what about those of us who live in apartments?
Apartment dwellers have much less space to work with and this obstacle stops many budding gardeners in their tracks.
That is why we were excited to learn about upside down gardening, it grants everyone the opportunity to grow their own vegetables regardless of available space.
Here’s what the experts at Fantastic Gardeners advise in order to get yourself up to speed with an upside-down garden.
Upside-down gardening - definition
Upside down gardening is growing plants in pots suspended from the ceiling.
This style of gardening started to gain popularity in 1998 when gardener Kathi Lael Morris showed that it is possible to grow tomatoes and peppers in hanging pots.
Many traditional gardeners viewed this style of gardening as a fad with little chance of being widely adopted.
Unsurprisingly, people with no garden space quickly realised the benefits of this method and how they were no longer excluded from being able to grow their own food.
What plants can you grow upside down?
Most plants can be grown upside down, but those which benefit the most include:
Tomatoes;
Peppers;
Eggplants;
Cucumbers;
Squash;
Beans;
Various herbs.
If you want to get the most out of your available space, you can consider planting herbs at the top of the hanging pots instead of planting them separately.
Benefits of upside down gardening
Upside down gardening presents benefits to those with gardens as well as those without, however, the advantages are more apparent in urban environments.
Pests – As the plants don’t come into contact with the ground there is a much, much smaller chance that they will be affected by pests such as aphids.
Space – This is the biggest benefit offered by upside down gardening, you don’t need a garden or a lot of space.
Rot/disease resistance – Another advantage of the plant not touching the ground is that the roots, stems, and fruit are less susceptible to rotting or contracting a disease.
Staking – Since the plants grow downwards you don’t need to stake them to optimise growth.
Weeding – Growing plants traditionally requires a lot of time and attention, most of which is taken up by the need to weed.
What you need to get started?
Upside-down gardening of tomato
Creating your personal hanging garden of Babylon does require some supplies and a little bit of work, but it will be worth it when you can eat hand grown produce.
What you need:
A strong hook
Strong string or metal wire
A 7.5cm (six inch) circle of foam or sponge
Lightweight soil or compost
A marker pen
A tray to catch water
A young plant
When you have collected your supplies simply follow the steps below:
1. Find the sunniest area of your home and mark the ceiling where the pots will be,
2. Install the hook,
3. Now turn your bucket upside down and draw a 5cm (2 inches) circle in the centre,
4. Using the knife, carefully cut around the circle to make a hole,
5. Turn the bucket back around and make three evenly spaced holes roughly 2.5cm (1 inch) down from the lip of the bucket,
6. Tie the string or metal wire through each hole to make three loops that are the same size,
7. Cut a 1.75cm (half an inch) hole in the middle of the sponge (or foam) then cut a line running from the hole to the outside,
8. Place the bucket on its side and carefully thread the roots through the hole in the bottom, make sure the plant is on the outside of the bucket,
9. Secure the plant by placing the sponge (or foam) around the base of the plant inside the bucket,
10. Have someone hold the bucket off of the ground and add soil until it is roughly half full,
11. Water until the soil is moist,
12. Add more soil until the bucket is roughly three quarters full,
13. Hang the bucket,
14. Place the water catcher beneath the bucket,
15. Water the plant again until the new soil is also moist.
The great thing about using buckets instead of large plant pots is that you can decorate the buckets.
Take this opportunity to release your inner artist and introduce some bright colours or funky designs to your home.
Decorating the buckets and creating a hanging kitchen garden is an enjoyable, learning activity for teaching children about where food comes from as well as how to care for plants.
Caring for an upside down garden
Looking after your new hanging garden is quite easy since you don’t have to worry about weeds or pests. All you need to do is:
Remove any dead or dying leaves;
Water the plants daily during hot, dry periods;
Water every other day during the rest of the year;
Harvest any ripe fruit and vegetables.
So there it is your guide on how to grow a hanging kitchen garden. With this style of urban gardening, you’ll be eating home-grown fruit and veg in no time, regardless of whether you have a garden or not.
This is a guest post provided by Fantastic Gardeners, a garden maintenance and landscaping company, based in London and Manchester, United Kingdom.
Rooftop Farming: Why Vertical Gardening is Blooming in Kampala
The urban farm is just one of many springing up in and around Kampala, a city of more than 1.5 million people, as residents find creative solutions to the challenges of urbanisation.
Nils Adler in Kampala
Wed 19 Sep 2018 05.28 BSTLast modified on Tue 16 Oct 2018 15.11 BST
When Martin Agaba realised his urban farm had run out of space, he decided the solution was not to expand outwards but upwards.
“We realised we had to use the roof,” he says. Of all the innovations that have galvanised people in his district in the Ugandan capital Kampala to grow their own food, these vertical box plantations remain his favourite.
Kwagala farm, located on half an acre of land, is the brainchild of Diana Nambatya, a professor in public health, who began growing vegetables to save money on food in 2010.
After receiving two cows as a dowry, she decided to use their dung to generate biogas for her home. Her burgeoning urban farm soon attracted the attention of the neighbours, and in 2012 she started training women at a small demonstration centre.
Growth spurt: a child carries a tray of plants in eggshell flowerpots. Photograph: Nils Adler
The urban farm is just one of many springing up in and around Kampala, a city of more than 1.5 million people, as residents find creative solutions to the challenges of urbanisation. Between 2002 and 2010, Uganda’s urban population grew by 5.6%. This process, Martin Agaba believes, is eroding young people’s interest in Uganda’s agricultural sector, which employs approximately 69% of the population.
Agaba trains children that live around Kwagala farm in how to grow strawberries, yams and spring onions. “We are motivating children to not rely just on boda bodas (motorcycle taxis – a popular form of informal employment) or TV but to do something creative every day.”
Brian Ndyaguma, an entrepreneur and restaurant owner, says: “Somehow the young generation deserted the way our parents’ generation did things, so if you are going to convince young people to jump into agriculture, it has to be made sexy – it has to be made appealing to them”.
It was Kwagala farm’s creative reuse of old tyres that first attracted visitors. Then, as they began to experiment with using other materials, such as disused drainpipes and milk cartons, some of the local children began to create their own designs. “Now the children do not copy what we do,” says Agaba. “They do their own thing.”
Harriet Nakabaale’s urban farm in the Kawaala district of Kampala is popular among locals who want to learn how to grow crops in their urban spaces. Photograph: Nils Adler
Harriet Nakabaale runs a small farm called Camp Green in the Kawaala area of Kampala. She collects the plastic bottles discarded by her neighbours. By cutting them, she can use them as flowerpots; by perforating them, they can become watering devices. Nothing goes to waste. Even the shells of the eggs produced by her chickens will be used to grow cress.
Kwagala farm has three cows which they feed with banana peel and corn, which is grown using hydroponics, a method of growing plants using a water-based solution instead of soil. Agaba and his colleagues collect the cow dung, which they use to produce fertiliser.
Despite the business potential, there are no plans to expand the farm. “We do not need more than three cows,” says Abaga. “We are teaching people to keep less but to do more with what they have.” An education programme at the farm has trained more than 700 women and young people in urban farming and how to make organic fertiliser and biofuel. Martin Agaba, who works at Kwagala urban farm, says: ‘We don’t keep more than three cows. We teach people to keep fewer and do more with what they have.’
Photograph: Nils Adler
Brian Ndyaguma relies on urban farms in Kampala for a large proportion of his restaurants’ vegetables, herbs and fruits. He sees a business opportunity not just for urban dwellers but rural farmers as well. “We still have a big advantage here in Uganda because we have good soil, so food is largely available. The challenge is the distribution.”
Congestion, lack of refrigerated trucks and long hot days in the markets can make it difficult for the food grown outside of the city to stay fresh. “Urban farming gives rural farmers with more space the opportunity to concentrate on perennial crops, like corn or cereal,” he says.
Agaba is an engineer and, like most of the people working on the farm, he has a day job, choosing to work at the farm as a pastime. Though he doesn’t sell much of what he grows, he still recognises there are financial benefits to his hobby. “Growing your own food makes you money by saving you money.”
Urban farms offer some respite from the hustle and bustle of Kampala. Photograph: Ivoha/Alamy
The Cutting-Edge Technology That Will Change Farming
Thousands of young collard greens are growing vigorously under a glow of pink-purple lamps in a scene that seems to have come from a sci-fi movie, or at least a NASA experiment.
WASHINGTON POST
NOVEMBER 6, 2018
Mike Zelkind, chief executive of 80 Acres Farms, grows produce with artificial-light made possible with new LED technology.
Mike Zelkind stands at one end of what was once a shipping container and opens the door to the future.
Thousands of young collard greens are growing vigorously under a glow of pink-purple lamps in a scene that seems to have come from a sci-fi movie, or at least a NASA experiment. But Zelkind is at the helm of an earthbound enterprise. He is chief executive of 80 Acres Farms, with a plant factory in an uptown Cincinnati neighborhood where warehouses sit cheek by jowl with detached houses.
Since plants emerged on Earth, they have relied on the light of the sun to feed and grow through the process of photosynthesis.
But Zelkind is part of a radical shift in agriculture - decades in the making - in which plants can be grown commercially without a single sunbeam. A number of technological advances have made this possible, but none more so than innovations in LED lighting.
“What is sunlight from a plant’s perspective?” Zelkind asks. “It’s a bunch of photons.”
Diode lights, which work by passing a current between semiconductors, have come a long way since they showed up in calculator displays in the 1970s. Compared with other forms of electrical illumination, light-emitting diodes use less energy, give off little heat and can be manipulated to optimize plant growth.
In agricultural applications, LED lights are used in ways that seem to border on alchemy, changing how plants grow, when they flower, how they taste and even their levels of vitamins and antioxidants. The lights can also prolong their shelf life.
“People haven’t begun to think about the real impact of what we are doing,” says Zelkind, who is using light recipes to grow, for example, two types of basil from the same plant: sweeter ones for the grocery store and more piquant versions for chefs.
For Zelkind, a former food company executive, his indoor farm and its leading-edge lighting change not just the way plants are grown but also the entire convoluted system of food production, pricing and distribution in the United States.
High-tech plant factories are sprouting across the United States and around the world. Entrepreneurs are drawn to the idea of disrupting the status quo, confronting climate change and playing with a suite of high-tech systems, not least the LED lights. Indoor farming, in sum, is cool.
It has its critics, however, who see it as an agricultural sideshow unlikely to fulfill promises of feeding a growing urbanized population.
Zelkind agrees that some of the expectations are unrealistic, but he offers an energetic pitch: He says his stacked shelves of crops are fresh, raised without pesticides and consumed locally within a day or two of harvest. They require a fraction of the land, water and fertilizers of greens raised in conventional agriculture. He doesn’t need varieties bred for disease resistance over flavor or plants genetically modified to handle the stresses of the field. And his harvest isn’t shipped across the country in refrigerated trucks from farms vulnerable to the effects of climate change.
“We think climate change is making it much more difficult for a lot of farms around the country, around the world,” he says, speaking from his office overlooking a demonstration kitchen for visiting chefs and others.
In addition to shaping the plants, LEDs allow speedy, year-round crop cycles. This permits Zelkind and his team of growers and technicians to produce 200,000 pounds of leafy greens, vine crops, herbs and microgreens annually in a 12,000-square-foot warehouse, an amount that would require 80 acres of farmland (hence the company’s name).
Zelkind says he can grow spinach, for example, in a quarter of the time it takes in a field and half the time in a greenhouse. Growing year-round, no matter the weather outside, he can produce 15 or more crops a year. “Then multiply that by the number of levels and you can see the productivity,” he said.
Zelkind and his business partner, 80 Acres President Tisha Livingston, acquired the abandoned warehouse, added two shipping containers and converted the interior into several growing zones with sophisticated environmental systems that constantly monitor and regulate temperature, humidity, air flow, carbon dioxide levels and crop health. Grown hydroponically, the plant roots are bathed in nutrient-rich water. The moisture and unused nutrients exhaled by the plants are recycled.
But it is the LED lighting that has changed the game. Conventional greenhouses have relied on high-pressure sodium lamps to supplement sunlight, but HPS lights can be ill-suited to solar-free farms because they consume far more power to produce the same light levels. They also throw off too much heat to place near young greens or another favored factory farm crop, microgreens. Greenhouses, still the bulk of enclosed environment agriculture, are moving to a combination of HPS and LED lighting for supplemental lighting, though analysts see a time when they are lit by LEDs alone.
In the past three years, Zelkind says, LED lighting costs have halved, and their efficacy, or light energy, has more than doubled.
Production in the Cincinnati location began in December 2016. In September, the company broke ground on the first phase of a major expansion 30 miles away in Hamilton, Ohio, that will eventually have three fully automated indoor farms totaling 150,000 square feet and a fourth for 30,000 square feet of vine crops in a converted factory. (The company also has indoor growing operations in Alabama, North Carolina and Arkansas, which acted as proving grounds for the technology.)
“We feel the time is right for us to make the leap because the lighting efficiency is there,” Livingston says.
The visible spectrum is measured in minuscule wavelengths, shifting at one end from violet-blue light through green to red at the other. For decades, scientists have known that photosynthesis is optimized within the red band, but plants also need blue lightwaves to prevent stretching and enhance leaf color.
A barely visible range beyond red, known as far red, promotes larger leaves, branching and flowering. With advances in LED technology, light recipes - determining the number of hours illuminated, the intensity of photons directed at plants and the mix of colors - can be finely tuned to each crop and even to each stage in a crop’s life.
Given the evolving nature of the technology and its enormous commercial potential, light manufacturers and universities, often in collaboration, are actively involved in research and development.
“We have a completely new era of research,” says Leo Marcelis, a horticulture professor at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Tweaking light recipes has allowed researchers to manipulate crops in a way never seen before. In the lab, chrysanthemums have been forced into bloom without the traditional practice of curtailing their daily exposure to daylight. This will allow growers to produce bigger plants in flower.
“It’s to do with playing around with the blue light at the right moment of the day,” Marcelis says. “Its internal clock is affected differently, so it doesn’t completely recognize it’s still day. There are so many amazing responses of the plant to the light.”
Lettuce, for example, likes as much as 18 hours of light per day, but basil prefers brighter light for 15 hours, says Celine Nicole, a researcher for Signify, formerly Philips Lighting. “Every plant has its own preference,” says Nicole, who conducts research at the company’s high-tech campus in Eindhoven, Netherlands. She has already tested 600 types of lettuce.
Although the permutations are still under study, the sun suddenly seems so analog. “The spectrum from sunlight isn’t necessarily the best or most desirable for plants,” says Erik Runkle, a plant scientist at Michigan State University. “I think we can produce a better plant” with LED lights, he says. “The question becomes: Can you do it in a way that is cost-effective considering the cost of plants indoors?”
The answer seems to be yes. LED light shipments to growers worldwide are expected to grow at an annual average rate of 32 percent until 2027, according to a market report by analysts with Navigant Research in Boulder, Colorado. Shipments of LED lights will overtake those of legacy lights starting next year, says Krystal Maxwell, who wrote the report with Courtney Marshall.
Most of the growth will be as supplemental lighting in greenhouses, but vertical farms are seen as an alternative production system that will develop alongside greenhouses, not displace them, Marcelis says.
Runkle estimates there are 40 or more vertical farms in the United States, and new ones are opening every year with the help of deep-pocketed investors. In some of the biggest deals, AeroFarms, headquartered in Newark, last year raised a reported $40 million. Plenty, a grower based in South San Francisco, raised $200 million in 2017 for a global network of vertical farms. (One of the backers is a venture capital firm created by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who also owns The Washington Post.)
Zelkind declined to reveal his capital costs, but for start-up entrepreneurs, LED-driven vertical farms can be one of the most lucrative forms of agriculture. “Based on manufacturers and growers I have talked to, that’s where the money is,” Marshall says.
Critics argue that a lot of the hype around indoor farming is unwarranted, saying it won’t fulfill promises of feeding an increasingly urbanized planet and reverse the environmental harm of industrialized agriculture, not least because most staples, such as corn, wheat and rice, cannot be grown viably indoors.
Also, to build enough indoor farms for millions, or billions, of people would be absurdly expensive.
Runkle says vertical farming “shouldn’t be considered as a way to solve most of our world’s food problems.” But it is a viable way of producing consistently high-quality, and high-value, greens and other plants year-round.
Zelkind says what he’s doing may be novel, but it’s just one component of how we feed ourselves in this century. “We shouldn’t overblow what we do. Eventually it’s going to become more important, but vertical farming alone isn’t the cure-all.”
He adds, however, that “there’s no reason today to ship leafy greens from California to Ohio.”
Livingston likens LED-raised food to the advent of smartphones. “Five years from now everyone is going to be living with indoor farming and wonder how we did without it,” she says.