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Urban Farmer Turns to Crowdfunding to Support Growing Business
A loan would take too long to help, and when someone suggested crowdfunding, the urban farmer saw how much further that small business support could go.
By Sean Evans | January 10, 2019 at 5:04 PM EST - Updated January 10 at 6:50 PM
SAVANNAH, GA (WTOC) - Just blocks from busy Pennsylvania Avenue and not far from the heart of downtown Savannah, there’s a business venture you might not know about, or think could be that close to downtown. In fact, it’s growing so much that its loyal customers and folks who support them are chipping in to help them grow.
“I am the owner and sole employee of Vertu Farm," said Chris Molander.
Molander started Vertu Farm on Savannah’s east side about three years ago after cultivating a passion for farming in high school and college.
“When an opportunity opened up out here at the old dairy farm, I just jumped on it," Molander said, as he picked some of his crops from the ground.
On two acres of leased land, Molander’s farm has grown to provide Savannah’s residents with local greens, on sale at the Forsyth Park Farmer’s Market, as well as at some area restaurants.
“I can’t say enough about our Farmer’s Market. There’s a lot of really dedicated people that come out every single week to support the farmers," Molander said.
About a month ago, Molander realized he had an immediate need for greenhouse space. A loan would take too long to help, and when someone suggested crowdfunding, the urban farmer saw how much further that small business support could go.
“It’s literally past everything that I could have thought would even possibly happen, and all the responses, individual responses, people coming out here to talk to me, they’re just interested in the farm. They want to see it, they want to know more about it, and it’s just awesome," Molander admitted.
With four days left, the Indiegogo campaign goal is more than 90-percent complete.
Funds raised will help this local business owner complete his own greenhouse space, and keep Vertu Farms producing homegrown greens for Savannahians to enjoy.
The Farmhouse Concept Combines Modular Homes With Vertical Farms
Precht – the architecture studio of Penda co-founder and Chris Precht and his wife Fei – has developed a concept for modular housing where residents would produce their own food in vertical farms
February 22, 2019
Precht – the architecture studio of Penda co-founder and Chris Precht and his wife Fei – has developed a concept for modular housing where residents would produce their own food in vertical farms.
Architects Fei and Chris Precht developed The Farmhouse as a way to reconnect people in cities with agriculture and help them live in a more sustainable way.
Precht designed The Farmhouse as populations around the world are increasingly becoming city dwellers who have lost touch with how their food is produced, while food transportation has an increasingly damaging effect on the environment.
The conceptual modular system would allow people to grow food in residential tower blocks to eat or share with their local community.
"I think we miss this physical and mental connection with nature and this project could be a catalyst to reconnect ourselves with the life-cycle of our environment," said Chris Precht.
Prefabricated A-frame housing modules made from cross-laminated timber (CLT) would be stacked to provide flexible living spaces.
CLT is more sustainable than other low-cost building materials such as concrete because it locks in the carbon absorbed by the trees that were grown to make it.
Each of the module's wall would be made of three layers. An inner layer, facing the home interior, would hold the electricity and pipes with the surface finishes.
A layer of structure and insulation would form the middle layer, and on the outside layer would hold all the gardening elements and a water supply.
Different modules would have different types of external systems, such as hydroponic units for growing without soil, waste management systems, or solar panels to harness sustainable electricity.
Single-family users would be able to build their own homes using as many modules as they chose, or taller housing blocks could be formed by arranging the A-frames into stacked duplexes.
Each duplex would have an open plan living and kitchen space on the ground floor, with tent-shaped bedrooms on the upper floors. On the outer edges of the tower residences could have balconies.
Growing gardens would be arranged so they are either private or communal, with the inverted gaps left between modules providing V-shaped buffer zones between apartments and giving the plants natural light and ventilation.
The smallest living configuration available is just nine square metres with a 2.5-square-metre balcony. Hypothetically, Precht said, the tower could be built as tall as a city would allow.
"The system doesn't limit the height of the tower, because it is adaptable to a different thickness of structure," Chris Precht told Dezeen.
"But national regulations can limit the use of wood. In some countries like Japan, Canada, Scandinavia, Austria, UK, you can construct 18 to 30 stories and building codes around the globe are adapting fast to the use of CLT."
An indoor food market would be located on the ground floor of the tower, along with a root cellar for storing food in winter and composting units for turning food waste back into growing material.
The Prechts were motivated to design The Farmhouse system by their own experience. Two years ago they relocated from central Beijing to the mountains of Austria, where they grow their own food.
"Our motivation for The Farmhouse is personal," said Fei Precht.
"We live and work now off the grid and try to be as self-sufficient as somehow possible. We grow most of the food ourselves and get the rest from neighbouring farmers," she continued.
"We have now a very different relation to food. We are aware that this lifestyle is not an option for everyone, so we try to develop projects, that brings food back to cities."
Working as Penda, Chris Precht worked on the design of a hypothetical CLT tower for Toronto with tree-covered balconies, and a concept for a house in Germany with an interlocking green roof.
Renderings courtesy of Precht.
Green Roof Ecology Students Design Projects For NYC Urban Rooftops
The fall 2018 Green Roof class projects were especially wide ranging and ambitious-and included two different green wall design proposals, a soil stormwater absorption experiment, a printed guide to common plants found on New York City green roofs, climate data analysis of microsensors installed on green roofs at both Brooklyn Grange and The New School, and a go-to all-purpose website about green roofs in the city.
Student green wall design for Vice Media headquarters in Brooklyn
FEBRUARY 22, 2019
For the last three years. Timon McPhearson, associate professor of urban ecology and director of the Urban Systems Lab, has been teaching a Green Roof Ecology class in which students collaborate to create civic engagement projects and conduct design and ecology research.
To conduct that research the class has partnered with Brooklyn Grange, the operator of the world’s two largest rooftop soil farms-and Vice Media headquarters in New York City. The class-which includes students from and Parsons School of Design and Eugene Lang College and is supported by Lang Civic Liberal Arts program —integrates design and urban ecology to innovate green roofs as spaces for improved social and environmental benefits. This course reflects The New School’s dedication to cross-disciplinary learning, design for social good, and real-world experiences. Among other benefits green roofs have vegetation that absorb storm water, provide insulation of buildings from heat, reduce noise and improve air quality.
The fall 2018 Green Roof class projects were especially wide ranging and ambitious-and included two different green wall design proposals, a soil stormwater absorption experiment, a printed guide to common plants found on New York City green roofs, climate data analysis of microsensors installed on green roofs at both Brooklyn Grange and The New School, and a go-to all-purpose website about green roofs in the city.
Architecture students Ross Myren and Antoine Antoine Vedel created one of those green wall design proposals as a site-specific design intervention for Vice headquarters in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn.
The duo dubbed their design the “gwaffle,” (Green Waffle) a waffle-shaped structure that they created after visiting the Vice rooftop, discussing with Brooklyn Grange, and studying the essential architecture and ecology issues necessary to build a design model.
“There was a big gap between the artificial controlled environment and the green roof and we wanted to blur the boundaries between those two spaces,” Vedel said. “We wanted to create social interaction in that space while providing environmental benefits and adding more vertical space. Its fluid and organic design brings continuity to the space, also while benefiting the environment.”
Vedel praised Vice as a great space because they already have green roof infrastructure. Although the Gwaffle was developed for Vice, he stressed that it is “a system whose dimensions and modules are adjustable to the customer’s wishes.”
www.greenroofsnyc.com, the website created by several Green Roof Ecology students, details the myriad benefits that green roofs have for city inhabits. The website also provides resources needed for an individual or organization planning to create its own green roof, including types of roof structure, labor commitments, and accessibility and FAQs on how to secure financing by the city.
“When we started the class the website, it was geared to the Vice rooftop and then we expanded it to all of New York City as a resource guide,” said Stephanie Kale, a student involved in the site’s creation. “It can benefit anybody who wants to improve air quality, increase energy efficiency and increase property value.”
McPhearson says that he envisions the website as a broader resource that is now being expanded as a media outlet of the NYC Green Roof Research Alliance.
Another class project was a design for an indirect green wall that would be made of stainless steel and created for the new Brooklyn Grange rooftop farm opening this summer in the Sunset Park section of Brooklyn. Students created a modular bench made of pinewood for the roof’s seating area.
“It was a great assignment,” said New School junior Jasmine Yee, one of the students who designed the indirect green wall. “I would love it if we could implement it.”
McPhearson says that every semester final class project output includes booklets, physical built prototypes, media materials and research reports and analyses.
“It’s exciting to see how this class continues to evolve as unique learning space that continues to expand beyond the university as a resource for design and ecological innovation the larger community of New York,” McPhearson said.
What Plantagon’s Bankruptcy Could Tell Us About the Future of Large-Scale Vertical Farming
Via a mix of agriculture, technology, and architecture, the company planned to build farms in office towers, underground parking garages, and on the facades of existing buildings
March 1, 2019
Following last week’s declaration of bankruptcy, Swedish urban agriculture company Plantagon has spoken publicly about what went wrong. In an interview with Swedish website AGFO, Plantagon’s vice president, Owe Pettersson, cited cash flow problems and indicated it had been difficult to attract enough capital to remain financially sustainable.
Its ambition alone made Stockholm-based Plantagon a company to watch in vertical farming, a space predicted to be worth $9.9 billion worldwide by 2025. Plantagon’s aim was to move food production into high-density cities on a large scale by integrating farms into existing city infrastructure. Via a mix of agriculture, technology, and architecture, the company planned to build farms in office towers, underground parking garages, and on the facades of existing buildings.
This rendering of its World Food Building “plantscraper” shows the sheer scale on which Plantagon was thinking:
As of this writing, the company had one facility already open for production, under the famous DN Skrapen tower in Stockholm. Plantagon also intended to roll out 10 more farming locations in the city by 2020, and has 55 approved international patents.
“This will be one of the most advanced food factories located in a city that we have today,” Pettersson said in an interview last year.
Business in real life, however, rarely happens as neatly as a well-executed rendering. Plantagon had raised $4.5 million SEK (a little less than $500,000 USD), but the company was, according to insiders, having trouble selling the produce it grew. Within two months of production starting on the DN Skrapen farm, the CEO left the company. “The company has a clear idea and view, but hasn’t been able to get it into business,” said Henrik Borjesson of Fylgia, the company handling the bankruptcy.
Pettersson said (translated from Swedish) in this most recent interview that outside financial issues, a project of this scale might be a little ahead of its time.
Vertical farming itself is a hot topic, if you go by what the headlines say. Companies large and small are bringing new visions for this indoor farming concept to market. In Europe, Agricool is growing fruit and just raised another round of funding. And German retailer METRO is experimenting with in-store farms via its Farmlab.One initiative.
In the U.S., Crop One Holdings raised $40 million last year to build “the world’s largest vertical farm. Boston, MA-based Freight Farms is architecting proprietary all-in-one farms in shipping containers. AeroFarms has a 70,000-square-foot facility backed by IKEA and Momofuku’s David Chang.
But as Princeton’s Paul P.G. Gauthier, who leads the Princeton Vertical Farming Project, suggested last year, there are dozens of failures out there that get far less attention than the mega success stories. We need to hear about those failures, to see the data behind them, in order to understand what went wrong and avoid making similar mistakes in future — whether those mistakes are in the operating of the farm or, as may be the case with Plantagon, in trying to scale too high too soon instead of starting with something smaller, like a shipping container. Only when we know the facts behind these stories does vertical farming have a chance on a scale as large as the one Plantagon envisioned.
Plantagon may indeed have been ahead of its time in terms of the size of its project, and the speed at which it wanted to get there. The gap between promising innovation and actually delivering on it is something that trips the tech industry up again and again. Plantagon’s past interviews have shown the company had plenty of optimism and vision for the future. What got mentioned less were the complications the vertical farm industry is still grappling with as it tries to scale — business models, energy consumption, the cost of not just building but running a facility that relies on software and machine-generated light to function.
The existing Stockholm farm’s future is currently unclear. Plantagon is currently looking for new owners. Where the company’s massive existing project stands in six months’ time will give us a good indication of whether moving large-scale farms into existing city spaces is a reality we should plan for, or if it’s time to pick up a new playbook and find a different way to spread the benefits of vertical farming.
Russia-Based iFarm Secures $1 million To Take Its Urban Farming Solutions To The Next Level
By Natalie Novick, February 12th, 2019.
Moscow-based iFarm Project has raised a $1 million round led by Gagarin Capital in support of their urban farming technologies. The iFarm Project’s fully automated vertical farms and year-round greenhouses enable fresh produce to be grown directly in the city, close to consumers.
iFarm distinguishes itself from other offerings on the market for both their hardware and software that facilitates the cultivation of different crops in entirely closed ecosystems. Rather than integrating existing products, iFarm has developed their own multi-layered horizontal shelf system alongside a digital database of parameters to enable a fully automated microclimate.
These “growing recipes” can be downloaded from the company’s central database, enabling anyone to grow crops without a comprehensive knowledge of agriculture. The iFarm system currently offers cultivation solutions for many different types of produce, among them basil, arugula, spinach, cilantro and strawberries. Alongside their current offerings, the company has plans to apply its technology to the floriculture industry in the near future.
iFarm’s vertical farming system can be scaled to build modular farms of nearly any size. A cloud-based management system optimizes conditions for each farm, letting crops grow successfully in any type of available space, including basements, building roofs or spare rooms.
In addition, their internal closed contour technology has been primarily designed to ensure a sterile growing environment. In fact, the company claims no pesticides are necessary inside their farm modules, and vegetables grown inside their farms do not need to be washed before consumption.
“The investments from this round will be used to develop technology and expand our team, including our engineering, construction and agro projects teams, as well as to pilot the technology on the European market,” explained Alexander Lyskovsky, iFarm founder and CEO. Lyskovsky is one of Russia’s most well-known serial entrepreneurs. He previously co-founded Alawar, one of the country’s largest game development companies, and Welltory, an app used worldwide that allows users to monitor stress levels.
The iFarm Project was established in 2017. Today, iFarm has a team of over 30 people and has built five vertical farms and urban greenhouses in Moscow and Novosibirsk. In 2019, the company plans to open an EU showroom and enter the international market.
Vegetables Are Being Grown Underneath London in a WWII Bunker
February 19, 2019
News Editor, LIVEKINDLY | New York City | Contactable via: kat@livekindly.co
There is a thriving subterranean farm powered by renewable energy in an old World War II bunker in South London, 108 feet below the pavement.
The farm is completely temperature-controlled, allowing for Growing Underground to hand-deliver fresh microgreens such as pea shoots, red amaranth, fennel, and mustard leaves to local restaurants and retailers year-round. Seeds are sown on upcycled carpet mats and grow with the help of pink LED lights and a hydroponic system that uses 70 percent less water than traditional farms.
Being based in London allows Growing Underground to reduce the need to import from farms miles away, helping local businesses reduce their carbon footprint.
Are Hydroponic Farms The Future?
Co-founder Richard Ballard believes that the company’s methods could help sustain the future of farming. He spoke on the subject at a TEDx Talk in Clapham last June and regularly co-hosts public tours of the underground farm.
Hydroponic farms are scalable, allowing for versatile use by businesses and institutions. In Bristol, Suncraft, a vegan restaurant from the team behind The Gallimaufry, serves fresh greens from the on-site hydroponic farm.
Last May, an elementary school in New Jersey began Princeton University’s Vertical Farming Project, where students from preschool through fifth grade get hands-on experience. The organic produce is then used for meals in the school’s cafeteria.
On a larger scale, Dubai is building the world’s largest hydroponic farm that will grow the equivalent of produce from 900 acres of farmland in a $40 million 130,000-square foot facility. It’s expected that the farm will be capable of producing 5.3 tons of leafy greens daily upon its completion later this year. The produce will be served on airlines and in airports throughout the city.
Las Vegas-based vertical farming company Oasis Biotech also aims to bring sustainable produce to a desert city. Based in an old industrial property, the hydroponic farm aims to grow one million pounds of produce annually that uses 90 percent less water than field crops.
Growing Underground’s greens are available at London retailers such as Whole Foods Market, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer, Ocado, and Planet Organic. Its vegetables are also served at restaurants throughout the city.
Year-Round Produce Cultivates Employment, Food access, And The Economy In Michigan
BRIAN ALLNUTT | FEBRUARY 19, 2019
Brandon Seng started his company Michigan Farm to Freezer when he was running a non-profit that managed school lunch programs in northern Michigan. He remembers one time when a 14-year-old student, after going through the lunch line, said he's never
"That's really when I got that gut punch to say we've got to do something bigger, we've got to do something different," Seng says. "And we started buying blueberries the next day."
Along with his business partner Mark Coe, Seng plans to freeze between 1.5 and 2 million pounds of Michigan fruits and vegetables this year with the underlying philosophy that "no one should be raised in this country without knowing what a blueberry tastes like."
He may have picked a good moment to do so. According to the Nielsen Company, frozen foods are surging in popularity after years of decline because customers appreciate the convenience as well as improvements in the products themselves.
Michigan Farm to Freezer is also capitalizing on consumer demand for locally grown produce, something that it shares with growers who are producing food either under lights or in greenhouses during the winter months, often using hydroponic technology. By either freezing crops at their freshest or delivering them straight from the greenhouse, these businesses are able to compete on quality with winter produce from Mexico, Florida, Arizona or California, which is often harvested under-ripe and spends days in transit.
Together, these developments could be big for Michigan growers who produce the second most diverse array of crops next to California, but were constricted by the short growing season.
"Across the country we're definitely seeing a huge increase in production of food crops in greenhouses as well as indoor vertical farms," says Roberto Lopez, a professor of horticulture at Michigan State University.
And customers are willing to pay more for products that are local and taste better. "The strawberries are really, really good compared to what we get from California and Florida," Lopez says.
Growers and consumers are also benefiting from recent advances in things like lighting technology as well as the development of cultivars specifically for hydroponic or greenhouse growing. "You can produce pretty much any crop," Lopez says, adding, "of course it comes down to the economics."
Mike Skinner of Oakland Urban Growers is in his second year of trying to figure out the calculus of what to grow and when to grow it on his own indoor farm in Waterford.
"I think it's getting the right product mix and the right customers," he says. "It's sort of like a dating game. You have to get the right people and get them in the right room."
Finding customers who want what he's growing when it's ready is key for ensuring a quality product. "The point is to be ready to harvest right at the peak point," he says.
So far, Oakland Urban Growers has had success selling to restaurants, wholesalers, and country clubs. They've also figured out that lettuce does best in winter, basil in summer, and that tomatoes are a year-round moneymaker as long as they have the heirloom varieties that are unavailable elsewhere. This knowledge has allowed them to grow over their first year and employ several people.
On the frozen food side, Seng is having success selling blueberries, tart cherries, and strawberries. He's also moving a lot of a root vegetable mix, which he suggests sautéing or roasting – rather than steaming – for flavor and texture, but also to retain nutrients.
Michigan Farm to Freezer is moving forward with a "kitted" line of products that includes oil and seasoning in the case of vegetables or pie fillings made with apples, blueberries or cherries. These offer some of the convenience that customers enjoy with meal delivery service, but sourced from local, Michigan farms.
The quality and innovation that Michigan Farm to Freezer offers has allowed them to grow rapidly over their first year in business. They now employ 12 people – many of them joining the workforce after incarceration – at their Detroit facility and are looking to sell $2 million worth of frozen produce this year, sourced from more than 40 growers.
One potential roadblock for this growing market, however, is the farm labor needed to harvest the crops that these companies are selling.
Seng says he's been following proposed changes to the H-2A visa program that allow farm workers to come to the United States. These changes could make it easier for employers to bring in farm workers from outside the country, a perennial issue for Michigan growers.
"It's a big issue in agriculture, not only in Michigan," Lopez says, "but across the country, especially in some of these greenhouses. It gets pretty hot in a tomato or a sweet pepper greenhouse."
He says that certain Michigan growers have tried employing local people to do this work, but, "they just couldn't. They would last a few days or an hour and then they would quit."
And yet, with climate change and water issues influencing winter growing in places like Arizona and California, Michigan has every incentive to find the labor and resources it needs to grow its own production, delivering nutritious hydroponic and frozen food in the process.
Furthermore, the market for Michigan grown crops extends well beyond the state's borders. "We're within a day's drive of more than 50 percent of the U.S. Population," Lopez says, "so that really helps."
This story is part of “Michigan Good Food Stories” a series that explores access, equity, and sustainability in Michigan’s thriving food economy. This work is made possible by Michigan Good Food and is supported by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
Read more in the series here.
Photos by Steve Koss.
Read more articles by Brian Allnutt.
Brian Allnutt is a Detroit-based writer and a co-owner of Detroit Farm and Garden.
Vertical Farming: Pick-Your-Own Fruit And Veg At Retail Parks?
Is there a business case for wide scale commercial vertical farming in the UK or will it remain a niche opportunity for high-end restaurants and retail? This is the challenge to be discussed by early adopters at the Agri-Tech East conference‘Bringing the outside in - Innovating for Controlled Environment Agriculture’ next month (19 March).
19/02/2019
Advances in technology, from more energy efficient LEDs to better sensors and advances in soilless cultivation, are enabling the expansion of novel farming methods, but how might controlled environment agriculture disrupt the value-chain? Agri-Tech East's 'Bringing the outside in' investigates.
Is there a business case for wide scale commercial vertical farming in the UK or will it remain a niche opportunity for high-end restaurants and retail?
This is the challenge to be discussed by early adopters at the Agri-Tech East conference‘Bringing the outside in - Innovating for Controlled Environment Agriculture’ next month (19 March). Advances in logistics and the falling cost of LED lighting may enable year-round growing of undercover produce in the UK, but will energy costs and technical issues delay scale-up and integration within the food supply chain?
“We do think there is the potential for indoor farming to be commercially viable and there are some immediate gains for growing crops such as leafy salads in high hygiene environments,” comments Lindsay Hargreaves, MD of Frederick Hiam, a farming and fresh produce business with farms in Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. “Growing indoors provides greater control of quality and quantity and fewer inputs of plant protection products.
“There is also the matter of growing crops closer to the point of consumption. Being able to grow more exotic crops in East Anglia close to distribution centres would reduce the food miles. Additionally, there are opportunities to grow crops for pharmaceuticals, cosmetics and vaccines within a controlled environment.”
There are many approaches to indoor cultivation, such as deep-water hydroponics, vertical soilless cultivation, and aeroponics, where exposed roots are sprayed with nutrients. All of these methods are to be discussed at the conference along with advances in monitoring and robotics.
However, despite the news that Sterling Suffolk, one of the UK’s most technically-advanced glasshouses, is set to produce millions of tomatoes starting in February 2019, the cost (£30M) and the technical challenges mean there are few commercial installations in the UK.
Also, it is proving difficult to demonstrate to retailers that controlled environment agriculture (CEA) can bring tangible benefits to their supply chain.
Kate Hofman, co-founder of GrowUp Urban Farms, which from 2015 to 2017 operated 'Unit 84', a commercial-scale aquaponic urban farm inside an industrial warehouse. The 8,200 square feet of growing space could produce enough for 200,000 salad bags and 4,000kg of fish each year. It sold directly into restaurants, through a New Covent Garden distributor and also through bricks and mortar supermarkets and Farmdrop, the online supermarket.
Kate comments: “A key learning over the last six years is that we can’t just focus on technology – we have to partner along the supply chain to create a business model that ultimately delivers commercial success for growers and retailers.
“One of the major challenges for CEA is to optimise operations to bring down the cost of production to match existing imported products. Our prototype urban farm showed that it was possible to use CEA commercially, and we were able to demonstrate the demand for the produce we could grow. This ranged from specialist micro-greens and cut herbs through to mixed baby leaf salad.
“We are now working on scaling up our business. This will involve relocating, so that our production is co-located with a renewable energy plant and working in partnership with more traditional farming businesses to integrate their experience and expertise.”
There are also technology challenges to be addressed when trying to meet the highly variable consumer demand for high quality, fresh produce.
G’s Fresh supplies baby leaf crops all year round, with much of the winter supply grown in Spain and Italy to ensure security of delivery. In summertime it produces a huge amount of outdoor salad crop, particularly lettuces and celery in the UK. Ben Barnes is investigating how controlled environment agriculture can increase the long-term viability and profitability of both of those parts of the business.
The organisation has a large standard greenhouse facility that is used to propagate seedlings for planting out into the field. It is running two projects: Smart Prop, which is looking at increasing the efficiency of the propagation facility to improve growth and make stronger plants so they transplant better back into the field. And Winter Grow, a pre-commercial trial, to see if it is feasible to produce baby leaf crops during the winter at an affordable price point.
Ben explains: “I'm going to be talking at the Agri-Tech East event about the commercial journey, in terms of the go and no-go decision-making process and what the key things are that we need to learn in order to be able to make those kind of investment decisions.
“One element of this is the development of ‘lighting recipes’ to enhance plant growth characteristics. We've got multi-spectrum LED lights, so we can turn up the different amounts of red, blue, green and white, and even far red light. These are fairly expensive, so once we have worked out what works best we can buy fixed spectrum lights, which are a tenth of the cost.
“You think LEDs are very efficient, but they still generate a heck of a lot of heat when you’ve got them turned up to full. It is more about keeping the space cool, and the plants obviously are transpirating so we've got dehumidifiers in there sucking the moisture out of the air.
“One of the biggest problems with the vertical farming concept is this interaction between moisture and temperature. You’ve got the two factors constantly fighting against each other and that ends up sucking up huge amounts of energy if you're not careful.”
Dr Belinda Clarke is director of Agri-Tech East, an independent membership organisation that is facilitating the growth of the agri-tech sector, comments that the commercial challenges need addressing along with the technical and agronomic aspects: “The promise of CEA is sustainable, intensive production but achieving that may require a different type of value chain.
“It could be that supermarkets of the future allow you to pick your own fruit and baby leaf instore, or we may see large-scale distribution of veg boxes, with produce grown indoors in optimum conditions or perhaps traditional growers would have more flexibility to grow a greater range of produce all year around with less waste.
“These ideas all have potential but also require significant capital investment and creative solutions for energy management. These are some of the themes we will discuss in the conference.”
'Bringing the outside In – Innovating for Controlled Environment Agriculture' taking place on 19 March from 10.00 – 16.00 at Rothamsted Research, Harpenden. It will look at the different growing systems, emerging technologies, the challenges of implementing a system and the logistics involved with integrating a controlled environment agriculture into the food value chain.
Agri-Tech East is an independent business-focused cluster organisation for the East of England. It is creating a global innovation hub, to improve the international competitiveness of plant and crop-based agriculture and catalyse economic growth.
South Africa To Construct Rooftop Gardens In Johannesburg
By njeringar Feb 14, 2019
South Africa is set to construct rooftop gardens up amid the skyline of Johannesburg in bid to increase commercial production of salads and vegetables in the country.
According to Future Farms, the company contracted for the project, The basis of the farms is an A-frame holding 600 plants, grown with nutrient film technique (NFT). The A-frames are supplemented by beds filled with a medium of coconut husk, perlite, vermiculite and probiotic for crops that need to be planted in greater density, like baby spinach, rocket or parsley.
It is estimated that each rooftop garden needs six such frames to produce a minimum of 3,600 plants during each month-long cycle. Due to the LED lighting panel redesigned by Future Farms to bring down costs, as well as the re circulation of water in a hydroponic system, the electricity and water bill for each rooftop garden will come to far below US $72 a month.
No automatic ventilation or fertigation will be needed for the gardens however, there will be an extra steel in the frame to cope with wind sheer up above the city.
“We started with blue and red light but we’ve moved away from that completely to full spectrum lights because we found out that with blue and red that the plants would grow but it was just missing something, it doesn’t round the plant off nicely,” said Jeremy Rich of Future Farms.
Future Farms work primarily on large-scale commercial hydroponic farms, based on their dual system approach using both containers and tunnels, done on a cost basis appropriate for the developing world and beyond. In the containers every aspect of the growing cycle is controlled, allowing a growth cycle from seed to a 250g head of lettuce within 28 days.
The community will be the largest shareholder in the farm, run by local entrepreneurs who have cut their teeth at the school farm, supplying produce to a large retailer.
On Rooftops And In Tunnels, City Farms Lead Food Revolution
Salad plants are already being grown in old bomb shelters but floating dairy farms and 16-storey food towers could be next
Growing Underground produces food 33 metres beneath Clapham High Street in a wartime bomb shelter. Photograph: Roca London Gallery
10 February 2019
Only the Northern line tube trains rumbling through tunnels overhead provide any clue that Growing Underground is not a standard farm.
The rows of fennel, purple radish and wasabi shoots could be in almost any polytunnel, but these plants are 100 feet below Clapham High Street and show that urban agriculture is, in some cases at least, not a fad.
The underground farm has occupied a section of the second world war air-raid shelters for nearly five years, and Richard Ballard, one of the founders, is planning to expand into the rest of the space later this year.
“The UK is the hardest market for growing salad,” he said. “We’ve got very low prices in the supermarket, so if we can make it work here we can make it work anywhere.”
The Growing Underground experience is being highlighted at two exhibitions this year: Roca London Gallery’s investigation into “agritecture”, London 2026, which opened on Saturday, and the V&A’s Food: Bigger Than the Plate in May, which will also showcase micro-farming methods such as Grocycle’s hanging mushroom bags.
Urban commercial farming – as opposed to Britain’s 330,000 allotments – is a regular topic of interest at places like the World Economic Forum in Davos, where policymakers consider whether the world’s food system, blamed for causing both obesity and malnutrition, can be fixed.
There are already plenty of urban farming projects around the world, particularly in the US, Japan and the Netherlands, ranging from aquaponics – urban fish and plant farms – to vertical farming, where plants are grown in stacked trays, a method Growing Underground also uses.
ReGen eco-villages would power and feed self-reliant families. Photograph: Roca London Gallery
“It’s definitely becoming an expanding industry,” Ballard said. “There’s several other businesses starting up in London in containers, smaller projects, and there are several around the country now, other vertical farms.”
Growing Underground supplies herb and salad mixes – pea shoots, garlic chives, coriander, rocket, red mustard, basil and parsley – to Marks & Spencer, Waitrose, Ocado, Whole Foods and Planet Organic, as well as restaurateurs including Michel Roux. Being in London creates an advantage, Ballard says, as they can harvest and deliver in an hour.
He reels off other advantages. Being underground means temperatures never go below 15C – surface greenhouses need to be heated. They can do more harvests: 60 crops a year, compared with about seven in a traditional farm or about 25 in a polytunnel. Electricity to power the lights is a major overhead, but the firm believes renewable energy will become cheaper.
Similar British ventures include the Jones Food Company in Lincolnshire, while in the US AeroFarms has several projects in New Jersey, and Edenworks in Brooklyn uses the nitrogen waste from the tilapia and striped bass in its aquaponic fish farm to feed its herb crop.
For Clare Brass of Department 22, a sustainability consultancy which curated the Roca London exhibition, projects like Growing Underground are vital pointers to the future.
“We are living in the most ridiculously wasteful system,” she said, citing research that shows about a third of the world’s food is lost. “We need to transition to a circular economy. Business and government are not going to do it. These are people who are innovating, and we need these people to show us the way.”
Some of the ideas presented include rooftop bee-keeping, an insect breeding farm for roundabouts in Stockholm, home food recycling in 24 hours, and a floating dairy farm in Rotterdam that is due to open later this year – a real-life interpretation of the children’s book The Cow Who Fell In the Canal.
Futuristic food tech companies may look like a great investment, but when venture capital runs out, many businesses fold. Paignton Zoo in Devon was one of the first to try vertical farming in 2009, using a system known as VertiCrop to grow leafy greens such as Swiss chard and pak choi for its monkeys. Five years later, the system was gone. The company behind it, Valcent, which later became Alterrus and set up rooftop greenhouses on carparks in Canada, went bankrupt in 2014.
“Vertical farming makes sense for microgreens,” Carolyn Steel, a London-based architect and author of Hungry City, said. Herbs are about 200 times as valuable per kilo as grains. “But why farm grain in a city when it can grow 20 miles away and spend three years in a grain store. Grain stores are one of the reasons cities emerged in the first place.”
For Steel, urban farming should be encouraged as an important reminder for city dwellers where their food comes from. “We have become very remote from our food,” she said, pointing out that London’s geography shows how it was built on its food supply. Grains came along the Thames to Bread Street, chicken entered from the east to Poultry, while beef went to Smithfield.
“Ultimately we need to pay more for food,” Steel said. “Ever since industrialisation we’ve been externalising the true cost of food, and now we’re seeing the true cost of that in terms of climate change, mass extinctions, water depletion, soil erosion and diet-related disease. Where does vertical farming sit in that?”
A hydroponics unit for the home provides water and light for plants. Photograph: Roca London Gallery
The NYC Agriculture Collective: Third Annual Fresh In February Event
The NYC Agriculture Collective would like to invite you as a fellow farmer to our third annual Fresh in February event, hosted by us and taking place on Thursday, February 28th, 2019 from 6:00-9:30 pm at Project Farmhouse
Where else can you find fresh, local produce in 12-degree weather? Luckily, New York is chock full of urban farms, like yours, that grow all year round. We'd like to showcase your farm in addition to the NYC Agriculture Collective to celebrate winter harvests for the third year in a row at Fresh in February and observe why New York strives to become another large agriculture economy, second to California!
Together, our diverse collection of urban farms, urban agriculture service companies and NYC-based agtech businesses invite investors, academia, chefs, and the general public to taste fresh local food as part of a unique food experience at Project Farmhouse in Union Square.
The evening will consist of an exclusive venue where local, year-round farmers will display how they are making agriculture possible in the wintertime in NYC. See the technology in action, meet the farmer and indulge on local produce.
Enjoy hyper-local and delicious snacks, as well as one of a kind specialty cocktails - delicately curated with our Collective's produce, and products from other fine local purveyors.
TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE HERE
We Need To Prioritize Urban Farming In City Planning
The new faces of farming — millennials, career changers, refugees — are all looking for opportunities, and many of them want to farm in urban places, next to their customers
January 31, 2019 By Mary Kimball
Last November, I stood on the stage of the Meeting of the Minds Summit in Sacramento, sandwiched between a panel led by energetic Stockton Mayor Michael Tubbs and his vision for economic prosperity, and a talk on the future of autonomous delivery vehicles. My talk? To encourage city planners, developers and urban architects to bring agriculture back to cities and urban spaces, and what this addition can do for the future of their communities’ resiliency, job creation, healthy citizens and carbon footprint.
Stay with me here. I know, agriculture is not “the new wave.” It’s not even close. I mean, we’re talking something that started about 10,000 years ago when eight of the Neolithic founder crops, like emmer wheat, hulled barley, lentils and chickpeas, were first cultivated. Fast forward to the late 1800s in the Sacramento Valley, when Yolo County was the largest producer of wheat in the entire United States.
The new faces of farming — millennials, career changers, refugees — are all looking for opportunities, and many of them want to farm in urban places, next to their customers.
Things have changed quite a bit since then. In 1900, 60 percent of the U.S. population consisted of farmers — so around 45 million — and most, if not all, lived and farmed in rural areas. Today, only 1.8 percent of our population is a farmer, or about 6 million. Today, we don’t just have fewer farmers than we did then (for a much larger population), we also have an age issue. The average age of the American farmer is just under 60. The only occupation with an older average age is truck drivers. A more critical statistic is the age distribution. For every farmer under the age of 25, there are five over the age of 75.
While you might not feel this threat every day, it’s very real — it’s a threat to our food supply and health, and to the resilience of our communities and nation. As former Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said, if left unchecked, this shortage of farmers and farmer succession could threaten our ability to produce the food we need.
What can you do about it? For one thing, recognize that your cities, towns and new developments not only have room for farming, but should welcome it with open arms. The new faces of farming — millennials, career changers, refugees — are all looking for opportunities, and many of them want to farm in urban places, next to their customers.
The City of West Sacramento did something about this need for new farmers. As city officials learned that the two largest obstacles to starting a farm are access to land and access to capital, they also realized they had one of these critical resources at their disposal — land. In 2014, my organization, the Center for Land-Based Learning, partnered with West Sacramento to begin the first urban farm on a site that was formerly a gas station and had sat an idle dumping ground for almost 20 years. Today that farm is flourishing — literally. A graduate of our California Farm Academy training program, Laurie Gates of Flourish Farm, is growing a half-acre of fresh flowers for u-picks, farmers markets and local farm stands.
Lake Washington Farm, a privately-owned site next to a fire station and across from Nugget Market, is another innovative West Sacramento example. Not only do the three farmers at this 3.5-acre site have an onsite farm stand, but they sell to Nugget and to local restaurants.
Just down the road from Lake Washington Farm sits the West Sacramento Housing Development Corporation farm site, formerly an under-utilized half-acre lawn in the middle of a low-income senior housing complex. Now it’s a thriving farm that provides acreage for three farmers who grow everything from fresh veggies sold to residents and neighbors, to the Sacramento area’s first Saffron crop. The farmers even take time to educate the students at the elementary school across the street.
These revitalized, formerly unused urban spaces are growing much-needed healthy food. All of these farms are in food deserts. Several of our farms grow food for school lunch programs in local districts. They completely change the look and feel of a neighborhood, inviting new development and businesses to connect and grow with them. These urban farms can be a critical carbon sink and have been prioritized in the newly released California 2020 Natural and Working Lands Climate Implementation Plan. They provide local markets and food access to people who haven’t had it in generations. Local businesses support these projects by bringing employees out for volunteer days and buying produce they then donate to food banks. These farms provide opportunities for people of all ages to learn about where their food comes from and how it’s grown.
So, what is holding you back from unleashing this economic and community building engine? Whether you’re a landowner, developer, city or regional planner, or elected official, I challenge you to do what you can to promote urban farming. You can tear down the fences surrounding vacant lots. Create citywide policies that encourage and even incentivize urban agriculture, and perhaps even more importantly, incentivize institutions like hospitals and schools to purchase locally grown food. Prioritize updating zoning policies that restrict or constrict urban farming. Seek out your local and regional beginning farmer training programs and ask them to join you. Stop saying, we can’t do that here, and instead take action to include urban agriculture in your city planning.
'Europe's Largest' Vertical Urban Farm Arises In Sweden
The Swedish initiative Grönska Stadsodling focuses on sustainable urban cultivation throughout the year using small surface areas. The crops are grown in a system with high/narrow cabinets that provide LED lighting and nutrients. The project began as a start-up by Petter Olsson, Robin Lee and Natalie de Brun Skantz. They are now opening their second growing location in Huddinge, near Stockholm. This will be one of the largest vertical urban farms in Europe.
Grönska grows and sells varieties of lettuce and cabbage. The new nursery farm in Huddinge has a capacity of 1.3 million plants per year. "We think that vertical cultivation is the future. At the moment, we import large amounts of food in Sweden and that's no longer desirable or feasible, considering the climate," says Natalie de Brun Skantz. Vertical cultivation requires less water and soil. Further, it allows farming in countries with a cold climate, throughout the year.
The company aims at expanding the number of products. For example, Grönska is already experimenting with strawberries, raspberries, peppers, cucumbers, tomatoes and edible flowers. In fiscal year 2017/18, which ended in April last year, Grönska had a turnover of 130,000 euros and an operating result of around 15,000 euros. By 2020, revenues are expected to reach 1.5 million euros. Grönska is a young company that has developed its own technology, instead of relying on external suppliers. This means that their operating costs remain relatively low.
In the future, Grönska wants to continue investing and expanding its activities to other cities in Sweden and even other countries. This could include the Netherlands, Japan and the US.
Source: www.breakit.se
Publication date : 2/5/2019
Franchise Farms: Champion or Disrupter of Grocery Stores?
Coauthor: Jonathan Hua
Over the past few years, we’ve seen e-commerce aggressively challenge brick and mortar stores across industries. Despite this market trend, the food and grocery industries still heavily rely on in-store experiences, led by big box chains such as Walmart, Target and Costco. This is attributed to the high perishability of produce, two-thirds of which are grown in California which requires an extensive supply chain and energy intensive refrigeration sections to constantly account for losses. In the United States and Canada, around 40 percent of wasted food is thrown out by consumers according to United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization.
But is it too far-fetched to imagine a world where next-gen farming solutions could one day replace brick and mortar grocery stores? As it turns out, with rising obesity rates, dwindling natural resources and a lackluster set of options for fresh produce, we may need to consider the efficacy of indoor agriculture solutions to help feed the world’s population sooner rather than later.
To put this concept into perspective, it makes sense to take look closer at one of the causes of the food production problem. Across mid-America, “small-box” retailers such as Dollar General have moved into communities deemed too small to be profitable by large retailers such as Walmart. This is only possible by carrying a limited stock of prepared foods; in fact, Dollar General is now feeding more people than grocery chains like Whole Foods! Dollar General has now become one of the fastest growing franchises in the United States, but has consequently caused these rural communities to see an increase in obesity, as few options for fresh produce remain.
To exacerbate this problem further, seasonal climates simply do not offer the consistent growing seasons needed to grow vegetables throughout the year due to long winters with harsh conditions. This situation may sound bleak, but we may already be well on our way to a viable long-term solution: indoor agriculture. This is a topic that hasn’t drawn as much attention as buzzwords such as “blockchain” or “automation”. However, the case can be made that indoor agriculture is, indeed, the most viable solution to the food production climate because of an ability to provide Controlled Environment Agriculture in a dynamic climate. According to Maximum Yield, indoor agriculture is a method of growing crops or plants, usually on a large scale, entirely indoors. The primary challenge of indoor farming is that many of these facilities require skilled engineers on staff to maintain these complex operations, and plant scientists to ensure the biological needs of the plants are met. Although the massive vertical farms of the world are cautious to not share information about their margins, it can only be assumed they are around 4–5% at best.
Without the agricultural, reduced energy rates, it is unlikely any of these facilities would be profitable at all with the exception of specialty crops. Many US companies have access to state-level agricultural energy pricing which can be as low as $.015 per KWH. Residential americans pay almost 90% higher rates or $0.12 per KWH. They are directly competing with farm gate pricing in order to maintain positive cash flow in a complex supply chain that must account for the margins of growers, processing/packaging facilities, and ultimately the retailers. The digital revolution has provided transparency by immediately tracking outbreaks of foodborne illnesses to the source. This will result in more costly outdoor growing operations, which will be required to be equipped with sensors to monitor environmental conditions and alert the growers when pathogen outbreaks occur. The implementation of sensors and computer controlled apparatuses is tantamount to a controlled environment farming operation.
Therefore, decentralized, indoor agriculture is the most viable solution to bring fresh produce to the masses! Perhaps the best opportunity for vertical agriculture would be a vertically integrated supply chain, as shown by the headlines made by SweetGreen recently.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution is defined by the combination of mechanical systems from the first industrial revolution, powered by electricity from the Second Industrial Revolution, given a rudimentary nervous system of digital sensors in the Third Industrial Revolution, and now a consolidation of complex tasks into a cohesive automation platform that historically required a dedicated team of experts. This is particularly advantageous for indoor agriculture companies that can now eliminate the largest risk factor of any growing operations, which is the human input itself.
The primary value proposition of indoor farming operations is clean produce that does not carry pesticide residues. Despite the benefits of eating clean food, these chemicals are very effective at killing pests. Indoor farmers are required to follow a disciplined pest management protocol with near clean room sanitation standards to prevent a single pest from breaching the operations. Robotics can now eliminate the exposure of the clean plants to the outside world and, more importantly, eliminate the knowledge of operating an indoor farm if coupled with a computer vision system to diagnose nutrient deficiencies or pH imbalances in real-time. Agriculture is now being democratized into a franchise business model.
This is happening now with computer vision companies such as IUNU offering a complete growing platform to provide constant monitoring of plant needs without an extensive background of indoor agriculture required. These machine learning algorithms will only become more efficient as they gather more data to refine the operational output. Another company, 80 Acres, has now secured funding to build what it claims to be the first fully autonomous, indoor farm. The future of agriculture will certainly be less human, and more like kiosk business models. Perhaps there will even be kiosk growing systems that emulate the Redbox business models which can be stationed at these Dollar General store locations or Sweet Green restaurants. History often repeats itself.
Source: Heliponix
Many species of produce will no longer be shipped in its final stage of growth, but instead as a zip file for food or a compostable seed pod like a keurig k cup from an automated production facility that contains all essential macro and micro nutrients with growing media for consistent yields. Our dependence on refrigeration at brick and mortar grocery stores will be greatly reduced by consuming produce directly from the source of a personal farm. They may even have the ability to learn from a user’s feedback to optimize the growing conditions to meet the their taste expectations. Keeping the plants alive until the moment of consumption will maximize the nutritional content and taste for the user which can only be assumed to increase fruit and vegetable consumption for residents across mid-America who were deemed too remote or sparsely populated to keep a constant supply of fresh produce on demand.
Generation Z and Alpha Farmers
The invention of the lightbulb made the need for oil (in the form of kerosene for lanterns) obsolete, but quickly met a new demand for gasoline in automobiles. The internet made paper mail obsolete through email, but revived the need for mail logistical services through e-commerce marketplaces more than ever. For all we know, people may re-adopt the agrarian lifestyles of our ancestors through these automated farming appliances at a consumer level in the new gig economy.
To engage the CoAuthors
What Is Hydroponics - And Is It The Future of Farming?
Hydroponics offers one particular advantage over traditional growing methods. Through careful manipulation and management of the growing environment, including the amount of water, the pH levels and the combination of specific nutrients plants can be encouraged to grow faster
No soil, no waste, no pesticides. So how does it work? Image: REUTERS/Edgar Su
05 Feb 2019
Sean Fleming Senior Writer, Formative Content
While industrialized farming techniques have meant a more plentiful supply of cheaper, fresher food – most notably in the developed world – they can also be a threat to the environment, promoting waste, putting too much strain on resources and causing pollution. That’s one of the findings of a report published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation at the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.
The report highlights the importance of cities in the production and consumption of food: “80% of all food is expected to be consumed in cities by 2050, they have to be central to this story. Today they often act as black holes, sucking in resources but wasting many of them – the final stop in the take-make-waste approach.”
From producer to retailer, vast volumes of food is wasted. Image: UNFAO
Partly, this is due to the need to transport food to urban areas. That’s a process that places great importance on producing a lot of food, then packing and shipping it across sometimes vast distances, before storing and finally selling it to people. From start to finish that requires resources to be deployed at every step of a long chain of events – fuel, people, land, buildings, the list goes on.
One response to this, which is beginning to take shape, is vertical farming. Forecasts from Research & Markets claim the vertical farming industry could be worth as much as $3 billion by 2024. Key to this approach, where food is grown in densely populated towns and cities where land is scarce, is the use of hydroponics.
The plants you don’t actually plant
Essentially, hydroponics is the process of growing plants without using soil, which might sound counterintuitive to anyone unfamiliar with the practice. The word itself is an amalgamation of two Greek words: hydro, meaning water and ponein, meaning to toil. Plants are rooted into a variety of compounds, including vermiculite, rockwool, or clay pellets – inert substances that won’t introduce any elements into the plant’s environment. Nutrient-enriched water then feeds the plant.
Hydroponics offers one particular advantage over traditional growing methods. Through careful manipulation and management of the growing environment, including the amount of water, the pH levels and the combination of specific nutrients plants can be encouraged to grow faster. Air and soil temperatures can also be carefully controlled, as can the prevalence of pests and diseases.
The net effect is an increased yield and improved use of resources. A less wasteful approach to resource consumption means reduced waste, preservation of water stocks and a diminished reliance on pesticides, fertilizers and other potentially harmful materials.
Have you read?
Our food system is no longer fit for the 21st century. Here are three ways to fix it
China has made a shocking food production discovery – electro culture
A holistic view of supply and demand
Around one-third of all the food produced each year ends up being wasted, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. That’s approximately 1.3 billion tonnes, which equates to a loss of almost $1 trillion.
The point in the value chain at which food tends to get wasted most differs between developed and developing countries. In developing countries, losses and waste tend to occur during the earlier stages of the food value chain. Reasons for that include constraints around farming, crop management and harvesting caused by a lack of finances and expertise. Improving the infrastructure and logistics of food in developing nations can help address many of these challenges.
Perhaps less surprisingly, in higher-income countries food is generally wasted later in the process. Often that is driven by consumer behaviour and retailers’ approach to in-store discounting practices; discounts that fail to attract purchases while food approaches the end of its “eat-by” period invariably lead to waste and loss. The situation is further hampered by ineffective strategies for taking unsold food and finding other destinations for it – such as, but not limited to, homeless shelters.
Consumers in rich countries waste almost as much (222 million tonnes) as the entire net food production of sub-Saharan Africa (230 million tonnes). Meanwhile, the UNFAO says the number of malnourished people is on the rise: in 2016, it stood at 804 million but the following year had grown to 821 million.
Written by
Sean Fleming, Senior Writer, Formative Content
The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.
Headline image taken by photographer Holly Challinor, Jones Food Company Ltd.
Green Roofs Absorb Rainwater, Grow Food
Voice of America
09 Feb 2019
WASHINGTON
Rainwater is essential for life.
It helps plants and food crops flourish, and it keeps grasslands green and lush.
But too much of it, especially in the city, can lead to flooding, causing sewers to overflow and carry pollutants and contaminants to nearby streams and waterways.
To combat the problem in urban areas of the country, a growing number of cities across the U.S. are initiating programs like rooftop gardens.
A labor of love
To help with that initiative in the nations capital, a team at the University of the District of Columbia has created a rooftop garden on campus with a wide variety of vegetation to help absorb excess rainwater and grow food at the same time.
Architect David Bell, who designed five green roofs on the campus, says hes excited about the project because it meant doing something more than just dealing with storm water management.
It took advantage of a resource above the city that you see all over where you have these flat roofs that arent doing anything and really made it into something that was about urban agriculture, he said.
Rainwater is distributed through an irrigation system and collected in cisterns for the rooftop garden. It is also used in other parts of the campus.
The result is a picturesque sea of green vegetation and patches of brightly colored plants and flowers that attract pollinating insects and other wild creatures.
Urban agriculture
In an urban environment, you dont have that many spaces to choose from, and so rooftops are just unutilized space, said Caitlin Arlotta, a graduate student in the schools Urban Agriculture program. So its a really good way to not have to restructure your city necessarily and be able to incorporate green roofs.
The project, she points out, is part of a research initiative to see which plants are best suited for rooftop environments, both for food as well as pollination. They include hibiscus, strawberries, tomatoes and sweet potatoes.
We have the same experiment running with tomatoes as we do with strawberries, so were doing variety trials and were trying to see which variety grows the best in a green roof setting, she said.
A community affair
She pointed out that plants grow in a variety of different systems on campus, not just on the rooftop.
We have a hydroponic experiment, aquaponics experiment, we have a couple of bucket experiments going on with partner rooftops, and then we also have our own farm experiments, Arlotta said. Within each of those growing systems, we want to be able to tell people which varieties of these crops grow the best.
A main goal of the program she explained, is to have food justice.
So bringing fresh food into cities where you wouldnt necessarily have that access, she said.
And that includes produce for immigrant members of the community as well.
In the U.S., it may not seem very common to use hibiscus leaves and sweet potato leaves as food, but in many places around the world it is, Arlotta said.
An excess of riches
Sandy Farber Bandier coordinates UDCs Master Gardener program, which seeks to enhance the ecological health and aesthetics of urban environments by training District of Columbia residents to become Master Gardeners.
She says shes been surprised by the gardens bountiful harvest.
We produced 4,250 pounds (about 1,928 kilos) of produce the first year and were able to disseminate that to people in need, she said.
Grateful recipients included a number of area food banks and charities.
Spreading the wealth
Another benefit, Bandier says, was being able to show D.C. residents and people beyond the nations capital what and how food can be grown on a rooftop.
Its a wonderful feeling, she said. This is the future for food. What we have established here at this college is the food hub concept: you grow it here, you prepare it in a commercial kitchen, you distribute through farmers markets, food trucks, and then you recycle, you recycle, you compost.
While D.C. is home to one of the largest numbers of green roofs in the country, not all of them are designed to grow food. Architect David Bell hopes that over time, that will change.
Id like to see this becoming more of the standard, where people design and build buildings with farming on the roof, with the ability to actually go up there and enjoy it and have a better connection to nature, but also to provide better fresh food to people in urban areas, he said.
Urban Agriculture Gives Paris Space To Breathe
In the last few decades, manmade surfaces have taken over green space, leading to urban heat islands and more pollution in the air. It’s left Paris, like many other big cities, with higher urban temperatures and a greater risk of flooding as rain can no longer be absorbed into the ground
8 February 2019 — Article by JLL Staff Reporter
Green walls, rooftop gardens and urban farms are aiming to bring nature back into central Paris as the city looks to improve its air quality and create a more sustainable future.
In the last few decades, man made surfaces have taken over green space, leading to urban heat islands and more pollution in the air. It’s left Paris, like many other big cities, with higher urban temperatures and a greater risk of flooding as rain can no longer be absorbed into the ground.
To counter these issues, local authorities are increasingly looking to incorporate more greenery into both old and new buildings as well as developing public parks and gardens.
“Within the framework of the “Objectif 100 hectares” plan signed in 2016, Paris decided to launch the new Parisculteurs initiative to encourage innovative initiatives to cover 100 hectares of buildings in vegetation by 2020, of which a third would be dedicated to urban agriculture,” says Virginie Houzé, research director at JLL.
“Schools, office blocks and residential buildings all got involved. By incorporating vegetation in buildings, particularly on roofs and facades, it has helped to bring natural spaces back to the city without the need for additional land. These allow for temperature regulation while purifying air and water and encouraging biodiversity.”
The new normal?
Growing numbers of buildings are joining the movement. Start-up Sous les Fraises has been creating urban farms across the city growing fruits and herbs while plans are afoot to transform four terraces on the Bastille Opera into a farm for fruit, vegetables and edible flowers.
Other projects, such as La Ferme de la Bourse, aim to create a hydroponic farm to grow produce that can be distributed to nearby residents, tying into the growing consumer appetite for locally sourced food. Elsewhere, Stream Building has a vertical hop garden to provide protection over the summer before the crop is harvested to brew beer on site.
“Today, consumers in developed countries are increasingly conscious of the quality of the food they eat, the use of pesticides and genetic modification as well as thinking of the distance that food must travel to reach their plates,” says Houzé.
“Urban agriculture therefore has a double impact. It both increases the amount of green space in a city, helping people retain a connection with nature while encouraging them to consumer local products and assuage some of the social and ecological concerns that people have.”
The idea is spreading beyond Paris: cities like Toulouse and Lyon are welcoming their own urban farms. And within the wider Paris metropolitan area, it’s helping to bring previously neglected spaces back into productive use. The Urban Agriculture in Morangis project in Essonne has converted 7,780 square metres of wasteland into an urban agriculture site alongside 3,670 square metres for residential development.
A step in the right direction
Even as urban farming becomes more popular, it remains a way to bring nature back into the city and improve the wellbeing of residents rather than revamp local food chains.
“We don’t have sufficient surfaces available in the Ile-de-France areas to grow enough food to feasibly feed people living in and around Paris so it still needs to be brought in from other areas,” says Houzé. “But it’s a nice touch for restaurants and hotels to offer home-grown produce on their menus.”
Not all projects are visible. “Hydroponics or aquaponics projects, for example, grow crops in enclosed spaces and sometimes deprived of natural light such as basements or car parks,” explains Houzé. “These help to meet local production expectations but do not address the issues of air pollution or urban heat that require a much broader approach.”
And while the steadily growing number of rooftop farms and living walls around the city won’t solve the urban heat island effect on their own, they are a step in the right direction at a time when many countries are upping their efforts to tackle global warming and reduce high levels of air pollution.
“More vegetation can only be a positive thing for Paris and the people who live here,” Houzé concludes. “However, it will take time and many more buildings to become visibly greener that environmental progress will
First Wheelchair Accessible Farm At Local Bronx Public School
By urbanagnews
February 8, 2019
Empire BlueCross BlueShield and Green Bronx Machine to Launch First Wheelchair Accessible Farm at Local Bronx Public School
Press Release – NEW YORK – Green Bronx Machine (GBM), a nationally recognized non-profit organization dedicated to helping students live happier and healthier lives, is partnering with Empire BlueCross BlueShield (Empire) to launch the first wheelchair accessible farm and teaching kitchen in America at P.S. 721x, a District 75 school in the Bronx dedicated to educating students living with disabilities.
“Our students and faculty are so excited and so grateful to Empire and Green Bronx Machine for this classroom makeover that inspires healthy living, healthy learning, and creates 21st century career and college readiness.”~ Frank Degennaro, Principal, P.S. 721x
On Wednesday, February 13th, GBM and Empire will host a ribbon-cutting event at the school to unveil the new, in-school farm. In addition to the wheelchair accessible farm and teaching kitchen, P.S. 721x teachers and students will receive GBMs fully integrated health and wellness curriculum, a GBM Mobile Classroom Kitchen—a fully portable “indoor food truck” complete with sink, refrigerator, convection oven and food warmer and a media studio where students can participate in video conferences with other schools and organizations, post updates to social media, live stream educational programming and older students can record practice interview sessions.
“Thanks to this partnership, we’ve been able to develop the first fully accessible piece of hydroponic technology that will create opportunities for untold Americans and farmers around the world. Empire and Green Bronx Machine are growing something greater – for all!”~ Chris Higgins, Founder & CEO, Hort Americas
GBM founder Stephen Ritz has built his program on the belief that healthy students drive healthy schools, which in turn drives healthy communities. To help educate students on the importance of proper nutrition, Stephen developed a fully integrated core curriculum that teaches students how to grow, eat and love their vegetables while also learning about math, science, and English in a fresh and engaging way.
“To see these future chefs and farmers smiling with glee as they cook and farm, three stories up in the middle of winter, makes me proud and excited to be a New York City public school teacher with District 75.” ~ Jeremy Kottkamp, Teacher, P.S. 721x
In addition to forever changing their eating habits and health, these students will be more prepared to enter the workforce in emerging fields that provide living wage opportunities while enhancing quality of life for all.
“Beyond happy healthy students, this partnership proves that every classroom in America can have an affordable, portable, professional, mobile classroom teaching kitchen that is accessible for all.”~ John Stephenson, Founder of Port-Equip/Stephenson Custom Case
Having first launched GBM’s National Health, Wellness and Learning Center in an underutilized 100+ year-old library at C.S. 55 in Claremont Village, students who have participated in this program have experienced health improvements that lower the risk of childhood obesity, diabetes and heart disease while also increasing their performance in school.
“We’re proud to partner with Empire and NYC DOE to create the first wheelchair accessible classroom farm and kitchen in America. Every child deserves a safe, healthy, nurturing environment and we’re so proud – this is Bronx innovation at its best!” ~ Stephen Ritz, Founder, Green Bronx Machine
If you are interested in attending the event, details are included below and interviews are available.
WHO:
Stephen Ritz, Green Bronx Machine
Victor Pupo, Empire
Frank Degennaro, Principal, P.S. 721x
WHEN:
Wednesday, February 13th at 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
WHERE:
P.S. 721x; Room 319
2697 Westchester Ave.
Bronx, NY 10461
Media Contacts:
James Freeman, Empire Communications
215.756.2495
James.freeman2@anthem.com
Stephen Ritz, Green Bronx Machine
917.873.6449
Stephen.ritz@greenbronxmachine.org
Republic Polytechnic Invests in Urban Farming With New Diploma, Lab
Republic Polytechnic (RP) is paving the way for the future of Singapore's high-tech urban farming.
Jan 11, 2019
On Wednesday (Jan 9), the poly launched the specialised diploma in urban agricultural technology - the first full-qualification diploma in the field.
At the launch, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Dr Koh Poh Koon, emphasised the importance of increasing the margin of safety for Singapore's food supply through agricultural technology.
Dr. Koh explained that since Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its food supply, it is crucial to leverage on technology to minimise challenges like disruptive weather conditions and optimise crops' growth cycles.
To overcome the challenges of unpredictable weather and land scarcity, the agricultural industry has turned to urban agriculture.
Commencing in June with an inaugural batch of 25 students, the part-time diploma in applied science gives students the option of signing up for the associated SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programme
The 900-hour course is ideal for students interested in a career in the industry and adult learners looking to upgrade their skills.
OPENING
Dr. Koh also witnessed the opening of RP's Agriculture Technology Laboratory and memorandum of understanding signing with Singapore Agro-Food Enterprises Federation.
The Agriculture Technology Laboratory is a new facility to support students in deepening their skills through hands-on training.
The lab will be equipped with indoor farming systems like vertical plane cultivation,conduit-based horizontal hydroponic nutrient film technique, tray-based horizontal hydroponic growing and substrate growing systems.
According to Mr Yeo Li Pheow, the principal of RP, the motivation behind the new course and lab stemmed from the pressing issue of food security due to Singapore's limited land area.
"In order for Singapore to be more self-sufficient and resilient, we need to increase the amount of food we produce locally and reduce our dependence on food imports," said Mr. Yeo.
Keep Calm And Carrot On: How Agritech Could Transform Farming In Singapore
What agritech entails, why investors are sitting up, and how it could transform farming in Singapore
January 19, 2019
KEEP CALM AND CARROT ON: How agritech could transform farming in Singapore.
BT ILLUSTRATION: SIMON ANG
THINK fast: which countries come to mind when you hear "agriculture"? China? Yes. Japan? Probably. Singapore? Not so much. The country has never had a large role to play in agriculture. Yet in the past two years, the authorities cannot seem to stop waxing lyrical about the potential of Singapore as an agrifood tech hub for the region, almost as if to say: There's so much we can do. Lettuce grow together.
But jokes asides, agritech is becoming serious business here. Just earlier this week, Enterprise Singapore (ESG) investment arm Seeds Capital appointed seven co-investment partners to pump more than S$90 million into Singapore agrifood tech startups. The last year also saw notable movements within the private sector as well. Catalist-listed Trendlines announced plans to open an innovation centre to develop agrifood technologies here, and wants to raise a US$40 million venture fund. Global agrifood tech accelerator network The Yield Lab rode into town too, basing their regional operations in Singapore.
And yet when it comes down to it, most of us in Singapore might go our whole lives never being in the presence of a crops farm or livestock. A single mysterious wild cow on Coney Island - which has since died - was novel and exciting enough to gather a religious following.
So what does Singapore have to do with agriculture technology, and why is the buzz getting louder? Here's why you should even carrot all.
Agritech refers to the use of technology in agriculture to improve yield, efficiency and sustainability. It is different from foodtech in that it involves innovation higher up the supply chain, and tends to be business-to-business instead of consumer-facing.
Categories of agritech include biotechnology, farm management, novel farm management systems, and supply chain technology or marketplaces. So it could mean doing research into vaccines for fish in sustainable and traceable indoor farming, or growing vegetables on the rooftops of shopping malls, or developing cutting-edge technology to monitor operations in a farm.
In Singapore, the topic of agritech has gained colour over the years because of push-pull factors. Globally, countries are facing challenges such as arable land scarcity, overfished oceans and resource constraints. Research has projected 37 per cent post-harvest losses in agricultural production by 2050 amid population growth and urban migration.
Though Singapore ranked top of the Global Food Security Index last year, more than 90 per cent of its food is imported, signalling heavy reliance on other countries. Innovation in food production has hence been touted as a possible solution to ensuring greater self-sustainability.
It is a nascent sector, but the interest in agritech has already yielded some startups in Singapore. Sustenir, for instance, has perfected the art of growing strawberries - a cold weather crop - indoors right here. In February last year, VertiVegies clinched a land parcel in Yio Chu Kang from the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) to build nine six-storey modular structures to grow vegetables.
Not all of these startups are food-producing ones. "Agriculture doesn't equate to farming," Howard Tang, CEO and co-founder of Smart Animal Husbandry Care (SmartAHC), tells The Business Times. SmartAHC uses wireless sensors and a smart system to analyse a pig's health and readiness to breed, through movements in vital measurements such as temperature and weight.
The company currently has customers in five of the top 10 pig farms in China, home to the largest market for pork. But things were not always smooth-sailing - being in tech didn't take the toil and patience intrinsic to agriculture out of the experience.
The early days of SmartAHC involved prolonged trips by the founders to China to study pig farms there (to get their hands dirty, they had to first get squeaky clean - humans are a major carrier of viruses, which is detrimental to pig farms).
Back in Singapore, the earliest version of the sensors had to be inserted into the heads of dead pigs, which would then be shaken hard to see whether the device could stay put. It was only after establishing a small office in China with live pigs nearby that the R&D time for the prototypes significantly reduced.
Mr Tang says one of the biggest challenges in operating an agritech startup in Singapore is lacking the resources to understand the industry. He laments that a lot of attention is being given to the technology itself.
"Agriculture needs to come first; it shouldn't be the technology coming first," says Mr Tang.
For Upgrown Farming Asia, its industry experience of more than five years is its biggest selling point. Upgrown has clients in Korea, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam, among others.
The company designs commercial indoor farms and greenhouses, providing their clients with system integration and agri-business consulting. Its products include a range of technology, from automation and climate control to data analytics and artificial intelligence, depending on the client's needs.
Founding director Lionel Wong tells BT: "The latest issue in urban farming, especially for new entrants, is how you sell your product. Marketing strategy is not so simple; farming is simpler."
For vertical farming projects, the cost of production can be quite high. Mr Wong recommends that indoor farms develop their own niche crop instead of competing with commodity suppliers. Players can also adapt a farm to the needs of a specific group of clients that are looking for an exclusive product.
Land of opportunities?
With Singapore increasingly gearing up towards agritech, a small number of foreign startups are beginning to turn their gaze towards the city in search of good fortune.
Isabelle Decitre is founder of Singapore-based Future Food Asia Platform, which helps startups connect with large corporations. She says the platform has seen 45 Singapore agrifood tech startups to date and about 230 across the Asia-Pacific in 2018. "Singapore is a place of highest repute to get funding from and conduct business transactions in, and this is definitely a big draw for startups," says Ms Decitre, who moved to Singapore from France in 2012 and established her agrifood tech venture capital firm ID Capital that year.
ID Capital is one of ESG's chosen co-investment partners. It invests in Series A rounds with ticket sizes ranging from US$2 million to US$5 million.
"If foodtech is the core focus, Singapore has also chosen two particular sectors in agritech: aquaculture and indoor farming. Both represent very high stakes for the country and there is still a lot of room for technology innovation," says Ms Decitre, echoing what Trendlines told BT back in November.
Examples of those dabbling in aquaculture are small-and-medium enterprise (SME) Apollo Aquaculture Group, and Japan and Singapore-based startup Umitron. SGX-listed Oceanus has also pumped significant capital into R&D for its abalone aquaculture operations.
At Indoor Ag-Con Asia this week, finalists in the running to bag S$50,000 from ESG and substrates and technical advice from Smithers Oasis included startups from Israel and the US.
Two startups BT spoke to had travelled from their headquarters overseas to set up booths at Indoor Ag-Con. One of them, a startup from Tokyo called Farmship, is on the hunt for a partner to bring its container-based vertical farm to Singapore. Farmship already has a joint venture with a local enterprise in Indonesia.
Amid the flurry of activity in the startup scene, corporates and investors are oiling their gears too. According to agrifood tech VC firm AgFunder, global agritech investments in 2017 grew 24 per cent year on year to US$4.2 billion.
Mainboard-listed paper mill firm Avarga said in June last year that it was acquiring a 23.08 per cent stake in urban farming tech solutions provider Archisen for up to US$1.5 million. A few months later, Vanda Global Capital, Shenzhen Dayshine Fund Management and Raffles Capital announced they are launching a US$1.5 billion Asia AgriTech Fund.
Temasek Holdings has made a few agritech investments as well, the most recent being its participation in a US$90 million round in New York-based Bowery Farming, a two-year-old startup that uses robotics to cultivate crops indoors.
Temasek Lifesciences Accelerator (TLA) CEO Peter Chia tells BT that the firm just obtained its fund manager's licence and set up The Life Sciences Innovation Fund (TLIF) to inject seed funding into startups.
TLA is a joint venture between Vertex Ventures and Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL). It supports agritech startups by providing specialised wet lab spaces such as growth chambers, greenhouses and urban aquaculture facilities.
While the capital currently floating around in the agrifood tech space is limited, investors are of the opinion that it will pick up.
The amount of funding available in Singapore for agrifood tech is not more than S$10 million, according to a ballpark estimate by Sirius Venture Capital founder Eugene Wong.
"However, because the government is keen on promoting this industry, I can envisage more incubators and early stage VCs coming to set up presence in Singapore," he says. "I think in the next two three years, there will be a tenfold jump in available funding."
For Openspace Ventures, the total addressable market size stemming from agrifood tech is a huge draw. Consultancy firm Frost and Sullivan said the global smart agriculture technology market generated revenue of US$4.5 billion in 2015 and will reach US$9 billion in 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 14.8 per cent.
Openspace Ventures is the only sector-agnostic co-investment partner of ESG, and is rather known for being an early backer of Gojek.
The firm has made some undisclosed investments in agritech overseas. Founding partner Hian Goh says tech has sewn itself into the fabric of society, so it is natural that sectors like healthcare and agriculture will see change.
"We're looking at a revolution," says Mr Goh. "We want to encourage more people to use these kinds of fundamental technologies that were born out of the mobile phone revolution to apply to agritech." An interesting agritech startup will have a fighting chance to become a very large business, he adds.
Seeding pains
Still, challenges remain in this budding sector. Like most startups, agritech suffers from a lack of skilled talent. But the problem is exacerbated by the estrangement of the sector with Singapore. How many spare a glance at agriculture and see an opportunity to start a business?
Mr Wong pointed out that up till recently, agrifood tech-related courses were geared towards training students to do lab work for large companies like Nestle and Unilever.
"You need to instill an entrepreneurial spirit," says Mr Wong. "Programmes mixed with entrepreneurial skills are the best; we need to replicate what we did with ICT and fintech."
For now, agritech startups rely heavily on partnerships for relevant experience. Archisen, the startup that Avarga invested in, works with local and overseas institutes for knowledge transfer and to identify and groom local talent.
And as it stands, Singapore's agriculture sector remains fairly fragmented.
Leo Wein is founder and managing director of Protenga, a Singapore startup that builds farming systems for black soldier flies in order to make insect-based feed for livestock, packed full of nutrients. He tells BT that when he first approached the authorities in 2016 regarding land to set up an R&D farm, he encountered some apprehension.
"They couldn't really grasp the idea that I wasn't farming produce, like vegetables," he says. "But insect-based feed is part of the ecosystem too; food waste is broken down by black soldier fly larvae, and the feed that we make enables farmers further downstream."
Protenga eventually established operations in Johor, while its headquarters remained here.
Singapore's understanding of agritech has matured since then, and Mr Wein is excited to establish a larger presence here.
But the ecosystem remains a work in progress.
Darren Ho, head of urban farm set-up Citizen Farm, says retailers in Singapore can be more open to communicating and working with local farmers instead of prioritising margins.
Citizen Farm currently sells its produce straight to consumers. In this vein, education about better food choices is something that resonates with many in the agritech sector.
Mr Wein, whose company also produces edible insect products for humans, can't agree more. "People tell me that eating insects is so wild. You know what is wild? It's going into the supermarket, picking up a bag of food, looking at the ingredients list, and still putting that in your body."
As the country attempts to charge ahead with agritech, the government has turned its attention to local heritage farms as well.
Singapore is home to a small community of farmers, some of who are in the Kranji countryside, a 45-minute drive from town.
The authorities have been pushing for tech adoption in these farms, awarding grants for R&D and including an "innovation" component in its review of land tenders.
But Chelsea Wan, a second-generation farmer who heads Jurong Frog Farm, says money is not the only big concern for these farmers. Tech adoption also touches on the issue of labour and maintenance of new technologies, which farmers need more support for.
That said, she is a believer that local farmers need to be creative too, in order to edge out the competition. Her farm has worked with startups DeNova Sciences and Collagreen to spin off frog collagen skincare products. Collagreen was co-founded by Ms Wan; it processes agricultural byproducts for more advanced applications.
"You also do have to think out of the box. I think that would be what the younger generation of these family-owned farms are looking at," she says. "So it's not only pertaining to infrastructure or using tech in operations. It's also being innovative in your product offering and really knowing what you're selling."