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Agriculture in Orange? An Indoor Farm Could Soon Be Approved
By Jared Kofsky
March 19, 2019
Aerial view of proposed development: 182 Hill Street, Orange. Image via Google Maps.
While agriculture might have once been a major industry in parts of Essex County, the streets of the county’s 22 municipalities tend to be lined with houses, apartments, stores, and office buildings today rather than farmland. At first glance, it might appear that farming is a thing of the past in the Garden State’s third largest county, but over the last few years, a different kind of agricultural business has started to boom in the Newark area.
Instead of the traditional outdoor farming that one might be used to seeing in sparsely populated corners of the state, the latest trend in the industry tends to be centered around locations that would previously never have been thought to be associated with agriculture. For instance, AeroFarms operates what has been described as the “world’s largest vertical farm” in Newark and owns additional indoor farms in the city, including a “research and development farm” in the middle of the downtown district. New York-based Radicle Farm also runs a smaller greenhouse in Newark’s North Ward.
Now, Orange could become the latest community to see indoor farming in action. A legal notice that was issued that month shows that a company called Intravision Greens NJ, Inc. is looking to begin hydroponic salad production at 182 Hill Street, which is located in an industrial area between Route 280 and the New Jersey Transit train tracks.
The firm is seeking approval from the city’s Zoning Board of Adjustment, including a use variance, in order to “permit the use of these premises for the growing and harvesting of salad foods for wholesale distribution to local food purveyors,” according to the notice.
The matter is scheduled to be heard by the board during its meeting on Monday, March 25, at 7:30 p.m. Intravision Greens NJ reportedly wants the board members to “recognize hydroponic salad production as equivalent to light manufacturing.”
It is not immediately clear who is behind Intravision Greens NJ. Property records indicate that the site is owned by an LLC that is registered out of the Illinois offices of the Timber Hill Group, but the website of Team Resources, Inc. mentions a seven-year 13,500-square-foot lease by a company called Intravision Greens USA. Last year, plans for a Canadian indoor farm by a firm known as Intravision Greens were revealed, but it is not known if there is a connection between the business north of the border and the proposed one in Orange.
Note to readers: The dates that applications are scheduled to be heard by the Orange Zoning Board of Adjustment and other commissions are subject to change.
WeWork Launches WeWork Food Labs, an Innovation Lab & Accelerator For the Future of Food
By Jennifer Marston -
March 14, 2019
Image via WeWork.
Affordable workspace is hard enough to come by in old New York when you’re an independent company on a shoestring budget. For independent food startups, it’s twice as difficult because it involves finding both office and kitchen space. Unless you have deep pockets and a good realtor, looking for either of makes getting your wisdom teeth removed sound fun.
To provide both and also foster young, innovative companies across the food chain, WeWork has launched WeWork Food Labs, an innovation hub for food companies that rolls physical workspace, programming, a startup accelerator, and a food industry community into one package. And, as the name suggests, it’s specifically aimed at startups across multiple areas of the food industry, from food robotics and AI to alternative proteins, new ingredients like CBD, kitchen appliances, and logistics — all areas WeWork suggests are areas ripe for disruption.
According to materials obtained by The Spoon, WeWork calls Food Labs “the first of its kind workspace and global platform dedicated to startups impacting the future of food.” The program is designed to help startups grow and at the same time tackle issues in the food industry that become more pressing each year: How do we feed a predicted 10 billion people worldwide by 2050? How do we do so while also lowering carbon emissions, cutting back the amount of land we use, and teaching consumers about chronic disease like diabetes and obesity?
Food Labs will use two different programs, or “tracks,” to work with companies looking to solve those issues (and others).
The first track is what WeWork refers to as its “continuous programming.” Pretty much any startup in the food industry is welcome to apply. WeWork will choose between 40 and 60 companies from the pool of applicants. Those companies then get get access to the WeWork Food Labs facility, which will be housed on the eighth and ninth floors of the WeWork offices at 511 W 25th St. in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood.
The space will look and function much like a regular WeWork space, with both open and private desk areas, conference rooms, phone booths, and other WeWork office fixtures. In addition, Food Labs will also house an R&D kitchen, a photo studio, showcase space for CPGs, a mock merchandising area, and a tasting table. The rooftop will hold space for urban agriculture along with other green spaces. Startups working out of Food Labs will also have the chance to use the space for events.
While space is the biggest benefit here, it should also be noted that participating companies will, by joining Food Labs, get access to The We Company’s 400,000-strong body of members, all of whom are potential new customers. WeWork noted that “Food Labs can create massive impact by powering sustainable, accessible, nutritious and delicious food solutions for The We Company’s global community.”
Those companies selected to be part of the track are encouraged to hang on to their membership for at least one year. Given the lack of space in New York City for food businesses, I doubt that will be an issue.
You can see a few renderings of the forthcoming space at the end of this post.
Food Labs’ second track is more of a traditional startup accelerator format: a shorter-term program that helps startups move from one specific stage of growth to another. As is the case with most accelerators, selection criteria is more rigid here, and WeWork will select between six and eight companies to participate in each cohort. Selected participants take part in a five-month program and get opportunities for grants, equity investment, and follow-on funding. They can also use the WeWork Food Labs space sans membership fee.
For the accelerator, WeWork has allocated $1 million to be shared across the selected companies.
WeWork getting into the food innovation game isn’t completely surprising news. The company has long been a champion of cutting edge startups, and the food and beverage industry is teeming with them right now. As well, WeWork has tried to be at the forefront of certain movements in the food industry, most notably by cutting meat from its menu and meal-reimbursement policy in July of 2018, citing environmental concerns as the chief reason for the move. And the company invested in foodtech earlier this year by backing (an undisclosed sum) surfer Laird Hamilton’s superfood startup, Laird Superfood.
WeWork hasn’t yet chosen participants for its accelerator. According to a press release sent out today, the company is currently taking applications. Food Labs Programming kicks off in Spring 2019; the flagship space in Chelsea will open in October 2019.
According to materials sent to The Spoon, the NYC Food Labs location will be the first of several. There aren’t specifics yet, but Denver and Seattle are on the list of potentials, as are places where food insecurity is an especially an especially urgent issue to fix. For those locations, WeWork has said it will work with organizations like The World Food Programme and “propel innovation” and make food “more accessible, nutritious and sustainable.” Right now, that list of cities includes: Mumbai, India; São Paulo, Brazil; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Barranquilla, Colombia; and Bangkok, Thailand.
Disclosure: The Spoon is a launch partner with WeWork Food Labs.
Read Mike’s Publisher’s Note here to learn more about why we’ve teamed up with WeWork and the editorial standards we’ve put in place for coverage of WeWork Labs companies moving forward.
NL: How Vertical Farms Make Safe Food More Accessible
Seven Steps To Heaven is a company from Eindhoven founded by Gertjan and Lianne Meeuwswhich, grows fresh produce in the high-tech vertical farm using LEDs instead of daylight in combination with temperature and evaporation control. The CEO of the company, Gertjan Meeuws, says that the biggest difference between traditional farming and vertical farming is that an indoor farm can operate where the consumers live – even in the centre of a big city. “Instead of having a long supply chain where the source of your fresh produce is the whole world, all the necessary vegetables come from one local farm. Indoor farming is the new supply chain,” says Meeuws.
Organic farming 2.0
“Vertical farming is not invented by the farmers,” the CEO of Seven Steps To Heaven says. “Usually traditional farmers work far away from the consumers and they have to focus on the yield on making a living most of all. Breeding companies are developing new varieties of vegetables with the emphasis on the resistance, high yield but not on the taste and nutrition. Indoor farming is also about yields and making a living just like traditional farming is, but in addition to those we also focus on growing safe, tasty, nutritious produce – as close to the market as possible.”
Meeuws believes that traditional farming and indoor farming can cooperate – it is not only the one or the other: “For instance, our company can grow young plants that can be planted in a greenhouse or in an open field and they are more vital than the plants grown in the traditional way. We can make young tomato plants that have extra energy, so when they leave our nursery, they still benefit from that energy during the first weeks after being planted in the greenhouse. That even allows the growers to use zero or hardly any pesticides because these plants are so strong. There are lots of ways in which our technology and know-how experience can support traditional farming and breeding.”
Quality, taste and nutritional levels
All the plants have photosynthesis – they take carbon dioxide from the air and produce oxygen and glucose. Meeuws explains that there are three levels of plant metabolism. On the first level the plants produce just enough sugars to merely stay alive, on the second level they produce enough glucose for maintenance and start growing, on the third level the plants make more sugar that they need for their growth and start producing secondary metabolites – they are better known as vitamins and antioxidants, which have enormous importance to our health and wellbeing. Secondary metabolites are important to the life of the plants just as well: plants use those substances for the protection against pests or for the attraction of insects involved in pollination. Meeuws says: “When the plants reach the third level of metabolism, they start giving something like a signal “Environment, don’t eat me!”
Making the plants reach the highest level of their metabolism that would fill them with vitamins is easier if the plants are grown in the controlled environment of an indoor farm than in the open field. In addition to this, a vertical farm operator doesn’t have to harvest the produce unripe for transportation reasons because the concept of an indoor farm involves local consuming. “Most of the fresh produce that we eat today is harvested way too early – the plants don’t reach their full potential, so they are not as tasty and as nutritious as they could have become,” says the co-founder of Seven Steps To Heaven.
Read the full story at innovationorigins.com
Publication date : 3/13/2019
Farm to Fork: Local Producers to Meet 30 Percent of Singapore’s Nutritional Needs by 2030
Home-based producers now meet less than 10 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs, and Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its food supply
Apollo Aquaculture Group's prototype vertical fish farm at Lim Chu Kang. TODAY file photo
07 MARCH, 2019
SINGAPORE — By 2030, homegrown produce could meet 30 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs, easing its reliance on imports and reducing its vulnerability to supply disruptions.
Home-based producers now meet less than 10 percent of Singapore’s nutritional needs, and Singapore imports more than 90 per cent of its food supply.
The “ambitious” target, announced by Environment and Water Resources Minister Masagos Zulkifli on Thursday (March 7), will also give enterprises and jobs here a lift.
The Health Promotion Board said that a “healthy plate” is made up of 50 per cent fruit and vegetables, 25 per cent protein such as chicken and 25 per cent staples such as brown rice.
The authorities said that local production has been increasing.
Read also
Last year, farms here supplied 24 per cent of the eggs, 13 per cent of leafy vegetables and 9 percent of the fish consumed in Singapore.
The Government hopes to achieve its 2030 vision in the following ways.
TAPPING TECHNOLOGY
Expand agri-food production in high-tech controlled environments, with farming becoming more akin to manufacturing, in order to ensure a consistent output. This is also a “predictable” avenue to deal with the effects of climate change and extreme weather, which can affect yields.
Bump up the productivity of land, use resources such as water and energy efficiently, and automate and integrate systems via robotics and sensors.
Through technology such as indoor multi-storey vegetable farms that use light-emitting-diode technology and recirculating aquaculture systems, production of vegetables and fish can increase by 10 to 15 times a hectare, compared with traditional farms.
The new Singapore Food Agency (SFA), to be formed next month, will help farmers build capabilities through technical support, research-and-development tie-ups and the transfer of technology.
To encourage sustainable farming, the agency will also help farmers adopt advanced systems such as curtain systems that shade crops and reduce the impact of high temperatures on crop growth.
Read also
EXPLOIT ALTERNATIVE SPACES
Explore more spaces to grow food in Singapore, including underused and alternative spaces such as vacant state buildings, rooftops and even the deep sea.
The former site of Henderson Secondary School along Henderson Road, for instance, will be turned into the country’s first integrated space — spanning 35,686sqm — comprising an urban farm, a childcare centre, nursing home and dialysis centre. It could be a test-bed for innovative food-growing technologies. A public tender for the urban farm will be awarded in May.
Deep-sea fish farming, which is highly productive, can also boost local production significantly. The SFA will work with agencies to open up more sites for this purpose. For example, Barramundi Asia — Singapore’s largest farm rearing barramundi (Asian sea bass) in large sea-cage enclosures — registers a yearly production of more than 400 tonnes. The farm occupies a 7.5ha space (10 football fields) off Semakau island.
Read also
GROOMING EXPERTS IN THE FIELD
A pipeline of Singaporean talent with a good grasp of urban food-production processes and business models is needed to expand and support Singapore’s agri-food ecosystem. They need multi-disciplinary expertise in the sciences, engineering, information and communications, robotics and energy, and waste and business management.
To meet demand, the authorities have been working with institutes of higher learning to develop courses, such as SkillsFuture Earn and Learn Programmes, that lead to diplomas in urban agricultural technology and aquaculture.
CHOOSE HOMEGROWN PRODUCE
Demand from consumers is key.
Homegrown produce is fresher as it arrives at retail outlets more quickly and is safe because it can be traced to its source easily, the Government said.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore, which will be dissolved when the SFA is formed, has rolled out initiatives to promote homegrown produce. It has organised SG Farmers’ Markets in the heartlands and tied up with supermarkets to hold fairs featuring such produce.
A Hydroponic Farm In A Refurbished Train Car Is Enriching The Denver Community
Another innovative urban farm is in Denver, this time fully centered around cultivating community. Metro Caring is partnering with Saint Joseph Hospital to bring a Freight Farm to the Mile High City, thanks to a donation from the Morgridge Foundation
Another innovative urban farm is in Denver, this time fully centered around cultivating community. Metro Caring is partnering with Saint Joseph Hospital to bring a Freight Farm to the Mile High City, thanks to a donation from the Morgridge Foundation. This hydroponic garden has the capacity to grow the equivalent of two acres on 10 gallons of water a day, all in a refurbished freight train car. While Freight Farms are now utilizing urban spaces across the country, having a farm inside an old train car is particularly fitting for Denver. It’s marrying two Colorado traditions: farming and railroads, as a consequence of the mining culture.
With The GrowHaus’ hydroponic and aquaponic gardens and Altius’ aeroponic farm, Denver is catching on to the innovative practices in urban farming that are sweeping the country. Metro Caring’s Freight Farm will expand the growing capacity of farms in the city to bring fresh greens and herbs to the tables of Denver residents. “One of the things that we’ve noticed,” said Teva Sienicki, CEO of Metro Caring, “is that most of Metro Caring’s participants – participants is the word we use for our clients – live a lot of times in rental housing, which doesn’t provide access to land to garden and grow their own food.”
READ: A Look Inside RiNo’s Rooftop Urban Farm
In addition to the new Freight Farm, Metro Caring has a few other garden spaces in the Five Points and Capitol Hill neighborhoods. Last year, the organization turned over the care of those gardens to their participants and their community, giving them control to choose what they wanted to grow and cook. “The gardens really came alive, we saw that our participants, volunteers and staff were gardening side by side,” Seinicki commented. For that reason, participants will also help make decisions in operating the Freight Farm.
“This is the freshest lettuce that you’ll find [in the area]”
The Freight Farm
Photo courtesy of Freight Farms
Though the freight car is small, hydroponic growing utilizes space more efficiently than a traditional soil far. In a contained space, farmers are able to provide the ideal conditions for growing – controlling the light, humidity, temperature, CO2 levels and many additional factors that affect growth. Because the plants are given exactly what they need to thrive, they are able to grow faster in their vertical towers than they could on land. In the span of about eight weeks, the Freight Farm will harvest two acres worth of greens – around 500 to 600 plants – packed with nutrients and fresh flavor.
Metro Caring’s chief gardener, Jess Harper, will oversee the farm’s operations. “It’s so fascinating that you can engineer it to have all of the things that your little plants need to grow and be nutrient-dense,” she commented. Harper will be with the plants from seed to harvest, ensuring that the freight car’s environment perfectly suits the plants in all stage of growth.
The process begins in the germination trays where seeds grow in a plug of peat moss. They sit under a set of lights that emulate day and night and are sprayed with water and nutrients until they sprout. Then the seedlings are moved to a pool-like container that floods from the bottom. This allows the roots to soak up water and other nutrients without disturbing the growth up top. After seedlings grow to about two inches, the gardeners will move the plants to the vertical towers that hang from the ceiling and allow water to flow down to the roots of each plant. Along the rows of towers also hang LED full-spectrum lights that are a concentrated form of everything plants need for photosynthesis.
Once the greens reach harvest size, Harper and a team of Metro Caring’s community will remove each plant – with roots attached – from the vertical towers. This lettuce will stay fresh for about two weeks with the root ball attached. Harper is excited to provide greens that will stay fresh three to five times longer than what you could buy in the grocery store. “This is the freshest lettuce that you’ll find [in the area],” she commented.
The Future of Urban Farming
Photo courtesy of Freight Farms on Facebook
The Freight Farms is incredible, not only because it grows fresh and nutrient-dense greens, but also because it is a sustainable method of farming compared to traditional customs. The container itself reduces waste by refurbishing a train car that was headed for the trash. Inside, the hydroponic system uses less water than a soil farm. Because the Freight Farm doesn’t use soil, none of the water is soaked up and unable to be utilized by the plants. The water that does evaporate into the air is removed by a dehumidifier and put back into the tank after being filtered.
The LED lights used to nourish the plants uses significantly less energy than standard grow lights. While the farm does take a lot of energy to run, Metro Caring and Saint Joseph Hospital are considering solar power in the future if they have the funding. The hydroponic system also requires very little space to function, so the Freight Farm takes a small amount of space – a few parking spots – compared to two acres of good farmland. All in all, hydroponic growing in a space with great technology to record data is a great alternative when growing in urban areas.
Metro Caring is clearly excited to be experimenting in this new age of urban growing. Sienicki commented that the Freight Farm “allows us to be a part of a growing movement in the food world around sustainable, urban, local agriculture.” But while Metro Caring’s is excited about giving their participants a chance to participate in the food movement, their partnership with Manual High School is equally as important. Students from the Career Readiness program will come to help out at the farm and learn the science behind hydroponic growing. Metro Caring’s work in teaching a future generation to rethink traditional farming and explore the opportunities in urban farming will be so important for the future of urban growing. In addition to their work on the farm, Manual students will work with a team at Saint Joseph Hospital to discuss the importance of healthy eating and nutrition. This work supports the great work Metro Caring does in teaching their participants about nutrition. As in all of Metro Caring’s work, the Freight Farm is centered around community and providing the resources necessary to help each member of the community thrive.
Nourishing The Community
Photo courtesy of Freight Farms
Giving participants a space to grow their own food is a big part of Metro Caring’s mission in fostering a community. “One of our core beliefs is to allow our participants and our community to co-create with us,” Sienicki commented.With over 40 languages represented by participants, there are so many people from different cultures and cuisines at Metro Caring. Part of Sienicki’s excitement in turning ownership of the garden spaces over to participants was allowing them to grow foods from their various heritages that they couldn’t find in the grocery stores.
In making this change, Sienicki also learned that some of Metro Caring’s participants had a background in farming and growing their own food. One woman, in particular, grew up helping her grandparents on their sharecropping farm. It wasn’t until she began gardening with Metro Caring that she was able to grow her own food again and has now been teaching her own granddaughter how to grow vegetables. “She was so excited to have access to land and to get her hands in the dirt again because she hadn’t been able to do that since she was a kid,” Sienicki explained.
This relationship is part of what inspired Metro Caring to take on a huge project like the Freight Farm. The project will provide more opportunities for participants to grow their own food and learn different farming practices. Once the farm has produced its first harvest, Metro Caring is thinking about selling to local restaurants or corner stores in neighborhoods with less access to fresh, healthy food. They are also considering teaching entrepreneurship skills and allowing participants to create a business out of their gardens. But as Harper pointed out, they are giving the control of those decisions to their participants. “It’s not up to me, it’s not up to Teva [Sienicki],” she explained. “It’s up to the community to decide this is what we need, and this is what we want.”
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Metro Caring’s Freight Farm is located at 819 Lafayette St., Denver. Contact Teva Sienicki or Jess Harper for more information about the growing process here .
How Urban Agriculture Can Improve Food Security in US Cities
…researchers have calculated that Cleveland, with a population of 400,000, has the potential to meet 100 percent of its urban dwellers’ fresh vegetable needs, 50 percent of their poultry and egg requirements and 100 percent of their demand for honey.
February 13, 2019 10.49pm AEDT
City Farm is a working sustainable farm that has operated in Chicago for over 30 years. Linda from Chicago/Wikimedia, CC BY
Author Miguel Altieri
Professor of Agroecology, University of California, Berkeley
Disclosure statement
Miguel Altieri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Partners University of California provides funding as a founding partner of The Conversation US.
During the partial federal shutdown in December 2018 and January 2019, news reports showed furloughed government workers standing in line for donated meals. These images were reminders that for an estimated one out of eight Americans, food insecurity is a near-term risk.
In California, where I teach, 80 percent of the population lives in cities. Feeding the cities of the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area, with a total population of some 7 million involves importing 2.5 to 3 million tons of food per day over an average distance of 500 to 1,000 miles.
This system requires enormous amounts of energy and generates significant greenhouse gas emissions. It also is extremely vulnerable to large-scale disruptions, such as major earthquakes.
And the food it delivers fails to reach 1 of every 8 people in the region who live under the poverty line – mostly senior citizens, children and minorities. Access to quality food is limited both by poverty and the fact that on average, California’s low-income communities have 32.7 percent fewer supermarkets than high-income areas within the same cities.
Many organizations see urban agriculture as a way to enhance food security. It also offers environmental, health and social benefits. Although the full potential of urban agriculture is still to be determined, based on my own research I believe that raising fresh fruits, vegetables and some animal products near consumers in urban areas can improve local food security and nutrition, especially for underserved communities.
The growth of urban agriculture
Urban farming has grown by more than 30 percent in the United States in the past 30 years. Although it has been estimated that urban agriculture can meet 15 to 20 percent of global food demand, it remains to be seen what level of food self-sufficiency it can realistically ensure for cities.
One recent survey found that 51 countries do not have enough urban area to meet a recommended nutritional target of 300 grams per person per day of fresh vegetables. Moreover, it estimated, urban agriculture would require 30 percent of the total urban area of those countries to meet global demand for vegetables. Land tenure issues and urban sprawl could make it hard to free up this much land for food production.
Other studies suggest that urban agriculture could help cities achieve self-sufficiency. For example, researchers have calculated that Cleveland, with a population of 400,000, has the potential to meet 100 percent of its urban dwellers’ fresh vegetable needs, 50 percent of their poultry and egg requirements and 100 percent of their demand for honey.
Can Oakland’s urban farmers learn from Cuba?
Although urban agriculture has promise, a small proportion of the food produced in cities is consumed by food-insecure, low-income communities. Many of the most vulnerable people have little access to land and lack the skills needed to design and tend productive gardens.
Cities such as Oakland, with neighborhoods that have been identified as “food deserts,” can lie within a half-hour drive of vast stretches of productive agricultural land. But very little of the twenty million tons of food produced annually within 100 miles of Oakland reaches poor people.
Paradoxically, Oakland has 1,200 acres of undeveloped open space – mostly public parcels of arable land – which, if used for urban agriculture, could produce 5 to 10 percent of the city’s vegetable needs. This potential yield could be dramatically enhanced if, for example, local urban farmers were trained to use well-tested agroecological methods that are widely applied in Cuba to cultivate diverse vegetables, roots, tubers and herbs in relatively small spaces.
In Cuba, over 300,000 urban farms and gardens produce about 50 percent of the island’s fresh produce supply, along with 39,000 tons of meat and 216 million eggs. Most Cuban urban farmers reach yields of 44 pounds (20 kilograms) per square meter per year.
An organic farm in Havana, Cuba, that produces outputs averaging 20 kilograms (44 pounds) per square meter per year without agrochemical inputs.Miguel Altieri, CC BY-ND
If trained Oakland farmers could achieve just half of Cuban yields, 1,200 acres of land would produce 40 million kilograms of vegetables – enough to provide 100 kilograms per year per person to more than 90 percent of Oakland residents.
To see whether this was possible, my research team at the University of California at Berkeley established a diversified garden slightly larger than 1,000 square feet. It contained a total of 492 plants belonging to 10 crop species, grown in a mixed polycultural design.
In a three-month period, we were able to produce yields that were close to our desired annual level by using practices that improved soil health and biological pest control. They included rotations with green manures that are plowed under to benefit the soil; heavy applications of compost; and synergistic combinations of crop plants in various intercropping arrangements known to reduce insect pests.
Research plots in Berkeley, Calif., testing agroecological management practices such as intercropping, mulching and green composting. Miguel Altieri, CC BY-ND
Overcoming barriers to urban agriculture
Achieving such yields in a test garden does not mean they are feasible for urban farmers in the Bay Area. Most urban farmers in California lack ecological horticultural skills. They do not always optimize crop density or diversity, and the University of California’s extension program lacks the capacity to provide agroecological training.
The biggest challenge is access to land. University of California researchers estimate that over 79 percent of the state’s urban farmers do not own the property that they farm. Another issue is that water is frequently unaffordable. Cities could address this by providing water at discount rates for urban farmers, with a requirement that they use efficient irrigation practices.
In the Bay Area and elsewhere, most obstacles to scaling up urban agriculture are political, not technical. In 2014 California enacted AB511, which set out mechanisms for cities to establish urban agriculture incentive zones, but did not address land access.
One solution would be for cities to make vacant and unused public land available for urban farming under low-fee multiyear leases. Or they could follow the example of Rosario, Argentina, where 1,800 residents practice horticulture on about 175 acres of land. Some of this land is private, but property owners receive tax breaks for making it available for agriculture.
In my view, the ideal strategy would be to pursue land reform similar to that practiced in Cuba, where the government provides 32 acres to each farmer, within a few miles around major cities to anyone interested in producing food. Between 10 and 20 percent of their harvest is donated to social service organizations such as schools, hospitals and senior centers.
Similarly, Bay Area urban farmers might be required to provide donate a share of their output to the region’s growing homeless population, and allowed to sell the rest. The government could help to establish a system that would enable gardeners to directly market their produce to the public.
Cities have limited ability to deal with food issues within their boundaries, and many problems associated with food systems require action at the national and international level. However, city governments, local universities and nongovernment organizations can do a lot to strengthen food systems, including creating agroecological training programs and policies for land and water access. The first step is increasing public awareness of how urban farming can benefit modern cities.
Nepal: AeroRoots Wants To Transform Nepal’s Agriculture By Farming In The Air
In 2017, Rana and Singh designed a system with over 150 plants and put it at Rana’s house. “At that point, we were in a hit and trial process. We didn’t know if our system would work,” shares Rana.
Linked by Michael Levenston
We want to be able to grow Himalayan herbs in the Terai and Terai vegetables in the Himalayas,” claims Rana.
By Shashwat Pant
Online Khabar
March 10, 2019
Excerpt:
In 2017, Rana and Singh designed a system with over 150 plants and put it at Rana’s house. “At that point, we were in a hit and trial process. We didn’t know if our system would work,” shares Rana.
Of the 150 plants they had planted, only one survived. But the survival of one plant was enough to give the two partners the boost to continue the project which they started as a dream.
“The one plant that survived gave us the confidence that we were heading on the right path. Had that plant not survived, I don’t think AeroRoots would have existed today,” shares Rana.
Since then AeroRoots has come a long way. Learning from their mistakes, they have till date created four systems, each upgraded and better than the other.
The co-founders also share that they not only want to create a pesticide-free tomorrow, they also aim to revolutionize agriculture in Nepal. The company through its system is paving way for a soilfree farm which ensures higher yield and less investment of resources including the workforce.
Read the complete article here.
iFarm's Urban Greenhouses Deliver Organic Revolution
IFarm continues to carve out more real estate in the agtech space following an investment from Gagarin Capital. The technology will allow automated vegetable production in cities.
The project has raised $1 million to develops modular automated farms. iFarm makes it possible to produce natural vegetables, salads, and berries year-round.
VC fund Gagarin Capital is the project’s leading investor. JSergey Ryzhikov, CEO of 1C-Bitrix, Russian Association of Franchising board member Sergey Ambrosov, Atlas clinics co-founder Artem Rudi, and the Uniscan Research company made investments as well.
The purpose is to develop an innovative technology to grow produce in a fully controlled automated environment. Farmers will be able to harvest natural salads, berries and vegetables the entire year, including off-seasons.
MEET THE LEAD INVESTOR
Venture capital firm Gagarin Capital Partners (GCP) invests in AI-based products and services. The firm has 20 years of experience in VC, PE, and M&A to facilitate portfolio companies in wide spectrum of vital activities.
Gagarin uses a hands-on approach in its ventures from corporate governance to mastering new markets. GCP is known for building and supporting a strong community of AI experts and top-in-class engineers. The firm’s exits include Facebook’s MSQRD and Google’s AIMatter.
ABOUT IFARM
iFarm was founded by entrepreneurs Alexander Lystovsky, Maxim Chizhov, and Konstantin Ulyanov in June 2017. Their goal is to create a single engineering platform for food cultivation. The company launched its first urban greenhouses and vertical farms in the same year.
iFarm creates a technology where it is possible to plant vertical farms on year-round greenhouses. Urban crop production is now possible thanks to easy-to-use plug-and-play modules.
The company has formed a team of over 30 professionals by the end of 2018. Experts in agriculture, IT, engineering and sales teamed up to build five greenhouses and vertical farms. The team then opened its own shop, and set up partnerships with restaurants and food retail.
Founder and CEO Alexander Lyskovsky said that “the investments from this round will be used to develop technology and expand our team, including our engineering, construction and agro projects teams.”
Lyskovsky came up with the idea after living in Paris for a month. “One day I started to ask sellers about the delivery system of these products to the city, I was interested in how it works. As it turned out, the customers regulate it themselves,” he said.
iFarm plans to enter the international market in 2019. They also plan to add further development of iFarm technology if funding will allow. Lyskovsky looks to pilot the technology on the European market as well.
HOW IFARM WORKS
Indoor farming makes production convenient. Empty warehouses, workshops, basements, roofs of buildings etc. can accommodate farming units.
Each farm is connected to a cloud-based management system. The system sets growing conditions as well as a unified network of sales distribution. Crops are all treated organically without the use of pesticides or preserving chemicals.
iFarm assures fresh produce as crops are delivered to sales outlets within an hour of harvest.
WHY IFARM?
Companies do not need to study agriculture to go into farming. All they have to do is take modules on seeds, fertilizers, and electronics. Plantations will then be optimized for an urban environment. The process also requires less electricity, water, and fertilizer.
Small and medium enterprises can now download growing recipes from a centralized database. Enterprises can grow foods as easy as a press of a button.
Swedish Vertical Farming Company Plantagon International Bankrupt
Another major vertical farming bankruptcy. This week, Plantagon International has been declared bankrupt. Cash flow problems turned out to be insurmountable for the Swedish company.
Agritechture
Plantagon International is headquartered in Stockholm and describes themselves as an Agritechture company. "Plantagon moves food and food production into the city by implementing technical solutions into existing city infrastructure", they explains on their website. "In practical terms, that means using existing assets and real estate with lower need for capital investments."
The company made it into the news regularly with their city and indoor farming concepts and plans - like the 'plantscraper' and office blocks containing 60-metre high urban farms. Last year, the first Plantagon farm was opened, partly owned by Plantagon International.
Cashflow
This week, Plantagon International was declared bankrupt. According to Henrik Borjesson with Fylgia, the company handling the bankruptcy, the issue - it might not be a surprise since the company is declared bankrupt - is money and the (lack of) cashflow. "Currently it is too early to make more comments on the case. Our focus is to get a clear view on the situation and to sell the products we have in the bankruptcy. There's no hard value assets involved - it's mainly patents and trademarks. The company has a clear idea and view, but hasn't been able to get it into business. Now, we're looking for someone who wants to pick up the ideas, patents and trademarks, and goes on with it."
Back in 2017 Plantagon announced its 40th approved patent - with 28 more to be pending. The patents filed within four patent families, all related to growing plants indoors.
Left: the building in which the Plantagon CityFarm Stockholm is located. Above right production in the Plantagon CityFarm Stockholm. Right below: one of the Plantagon concepts.
Stockholm farm
As said, last year the Plantagon City Farm in Stockholm started production. The company is an example of modern indoor farming, located under office tower DN Skrapan and equipped with over 244 vertical positioned, 2500 mm long LED-fixtures and re-using the heat harvested from the lamps in the building.
Plantagon International is a shareholder of the Stockholm farm. Money for this enterprise was also collected through a crowdfunding: last year over 420.000 euro was invested by 477 investors, both private as corporate, and according to the Fundedbyme-page, this resulted in 4.21% of the company's shares.
During the crowdfunding, the company declared plans to open 10 large-scale farms. "With Plantagon CityFarm, you can now buy local and sustainable vegetables. The first facility in Stockholm is fully-financed and begins its production under 2018's 1st quarter. Our target is to build 10 CityFarms in Stockholm by 2020", the crowdfunding website read.
Farm
Whereas the farm itself is unavailable for comments today, insiders report the company has had trouble selling the produce for the needed price. Within two months after production started, the CEO left the company.
The future of the Stockholm farm is currently unclear, as well as the situation of the international offices. On their website, Plantagon reports on Shanghai, Mumbai & Singapore offices.
Publication date : 2/22/2019
Author: Arlette Sijmonsma
© HortiDaily.com
Earth Notes: Urban Agriculture
Vertically stacked growing shelves, closely spaced plantings, and covered beds are helping farms fit in where space is often restricted.
By DIANE HOPE • FEB 13, 2019
In backyards and vacant lots, urban farming is on the rise in towns and cities across the Colorado Plateau. Vertically stacked growing shelves, closely spaced plantings, and covered beds are helping farms fit in where space is often restricted.
Roots Micro Farm
CREDIT MADELYN CHANCE
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Warehouse farming operations grow crops in sterile atmospheres that need costly nutrient inputs and energy for lighting. But small-scale urban farms offer lots of sustainable advantages.
These farms use natural sunlight and moisture, and make great use of local food waste, says Josh Chance. He and his wife Maddy established Roots Micro Farm on a neighborhood lot in downtown Flagstaff two and half years ago.
They mix organic waste from Northern Arizona University and local breweries with horse manure from nearby barns, creating deep fertile growing beds. Hoop houses let them extend the growing season from late April through December. They raise everything from kale to kohlrabi and tomatoes to edible flowers.
Such small urban farms can’t achieve the economies of scale that massive modern farming can – so their produce may cost a bit more than at large grocery chains. But, since they’re often located just a mile or two from consumers, local growers deliver fresh, healthy produce requiring little or no energy for transportation.
There are some extra benefits too--these farms provide pleasant green spaces within a city. And they can give young people the chance to see where food comes from, and how it’s grown. Some even provide training workshops for locals to learn - and trade - skills.
All in all, urban agriculture appears to be an idea ripe for the picking.
Race On To Make Urban Agriculture Viable, Durable
March 3, 2019
Countries and cities are coming up with ever more imaginative forms of urban agriculture. (AFP Relaxnews pic)
A key ingredient is the trend in ever more imaginative forms towards urban agriculture, a multi-faceted recipe already being poured over by some 800 million people globally, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The trend takes many forms – from collective market gardens in even the most run-down of urban districts to connected vertical farms using indoor farming techniques to meet spiralling food demand in areas largely bereft of arable land.
The FAO wants to see the trend prosper and become durable and sustainably embedded within public policy.
Yves Christol, of French cooperative In Vivo, has identified six models of the genre.
They include a key European variant, electronically managed without recourse to pesticide — or even soil or sunshine.
Green beans mean… Iceland
“That has allowed Iceland to become a major producer of green beans,” says Christol, thanks to geothermal heating.
Asian countries are also in on the act, not least Singapore, with the high density population city state bent on ensuring high-tech food autonomy.
Japan and China have sought to give new life to sites which once hosted electronics factories even if the strategy appears costly.
China has launched some urban farms even in areas where the soil has been polluted by heavy metals and would be too costly to clean up.
The US model, as cities including New York and Chicago seek to become sustainably hunger-proof, includes hydroponic gardens – effectively eschewing soil and using mineral nutrients in a water solvent, although profitability can prove elusive.
But scale is an issue and the concept will not be viable “so long as the price of the vegetables is not increased fourfold,” to cover energy costs, says Christol.
Strawberry containers forever
The cost of transporting food is something which particularly exercises entrepreneurs such as Guillaume Fourdinier, a founder of French start-up Agricool in Paris and Dubai.
His firm produces strawberries year round in shipping containers fitted out with LED lighting. Urban agriculture’s raison d’etre, he says, comprises fighting against “the ecological disaster of transport”.
“Today, with our containers, we are 120 times more productive per square metre than on open ground,” says Fourdinier.
“We produce in decentralised fashion and closer to customers,” he adds of strawberries sold marginally cheaper than their organic equivalent.
Paris has meanwhile come up with its own urban agriculture model, dubbed “Pariculteur,” a series of town hall-mandated projects designed to cover as much of the capital as possible with greenery via a rise in urban farming.
An initial 10 hectares (25 acres) for the project is set to grow to 30 hectares by next year.
Urban ecologist Swen Deral, who oversaw a pan-European urban agriculture project last year, says if the concept is to be financially viable in cities it has to go “beyond production”.
“Either they recycle, or else they create services linked to urban agriculture, educational activities, restaurants and the like,” he explains.
Researchers point to urban agriculture’s additional benefit of fighting against the effects of climate change as its proponents seek to reinvent urban existence.
Francois Mancebo, researcher at France’s Reims University, summed up the challenge in an article published by peer-review open access publisher MDPI and entitled “city gardening: managing durability and adapting to climate change thanks to urban agriculture.”
Mancebo says the concept must become an integral part of urban planning with local politicians underlining the need for active participation of city dwellers.
Indoor Agriculture May Hold The Future of Food
Paris has meanwhile come up with its own urban agriculture model, dubbed “Pariculteur,” a series of town hall-mandated projects designed to cover as much of the capital as possible with greenery via a rise in urban farming. An initial 10 hectares for the project is set to grow to 30 hectares by next year
Published: February 24, 2019 AFP
AeroFarms co-founder Marc Oshima. AeroFarms of Newark, New Jersey, is the largest vertical farm in the world.Image Credit: AFP
Paris: In a world faced with the conundrum of mountains of waste and obesity for some and dire shortages and malnutrition for others the future of food is a main dish on today’s global menu.
A key ingredient is the trend in ever more imaginative forms towards urban agriculture, a multi-faceted recipe already being poured over by some 800 million people globally, according to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation.
The trend takes many forms - from collective market gardens in even the most run-down of urban districts to connected vertical farms using indoor farming techniques to meet spiralling food demand in areas largely bereft of arable land.
Today, with our containers, we are 120 times more productive per square metre than on open ground.
- Guillaume Fourdin | Founder, Agricool
Yves Christol, of French cooperative In Vivo, has identified six models of the genre.
They include a key European variant, electronically managed without recourse to pesticide - or even soil or sunshine.
Green beans means ... Iceland
“That has allowed Iceland to become a major producer of green beans,” says Christol, thanks to geothermal heating.
Asian countries are also in on the act, not least Singapore, with the high density population city state bent on ensuring high-tech food autonomy.
Japan and China have sought to give new life to sites which once hosted electronics factories even if the strategy appears costly.
AeroFarms co-founder Marc Oshima. AeroFarms of Newark, New Jersey, is the largest vertical farm in the world.Image Credit: AFP
China has launched some urban farms even in areas where the soil has been polluted by heavy metals and would be too costly to clean up.
The US model, as cities including New York and Chicago seek to become sustainably hunger-proof, includes hydroponic gardens - effectively eschewing soil and using mineral nutrients in a water solvent, although profitability can prove elusive.
But scale is an issue and the concept will not be viable “so long as the price of the vegetables is not increased fourfold,” to cover energy costs, says Christol.
Strawberry containers for ever
The cost of transporting food is something which particularly exercises entrepreneurs such as Guillaume Fourdinier, a founder of French start-up Agricool in Paris and Dubai.
His firm produces strawberries year round in shipping containers fitted out with LED lighting. Urban agriculture’s raison d’etre, he says, comprises fighting against “the ecological disaster of transport”.
“Today, with our containers, we are 120 times more productive per square metre than on open ground,” says Fourdinier.
“We produce in decentralised fashion and closer to customers,” he adds of strawberries sold marginally cheaper than their organic equivalent.
Paris has meanwhile come up with its own urban agriculture model, dubbed “Pariculteur,” a series of town hall-mandated projects designed to cover as much of the capital as possible with greenery via a rise in urban farming.
An initial 10 hectares for the project is set to grow to 30 hectares by next year.
Urban ecologist Swen Deral, who oversaw a pan-European urban agriculture project last year, says if the concept is to be financially viable in cities it has to go “beyond production”.
“Either they recycle, or else they create services linked to urban agriculture, educational activities, restaurants and the like,” he explains.
Researchers point to urban agriculture’s additional benefit of fighting against the effects of climate change as its proponents seek to reinvent urban existence.
Francois Mancebo, researcher at France’s Reims University, summed up the challenge in an article published by peer-review open access publisher MDPI and entitled “city gardening: managing durability and adapting to climate change thanks to urban agriculture.”
Mancebo says the concept must become an integral part of urban planning with local politicians underlining the need for active participation of city dwellers.
Urban Farms Could be Incredibly Efficient—But Aren’t Yet
Casual farmers overwork, buy fertilizer, and use municipal water.
JOHN TIMMER - 12/28/2018, 3:45 AM
The green revolution that transformed modern agriculture has generally increased its scale. There's tremendous potential for efficiencies in the large-scale application of mechanization, fertilization, and pesticide use. But operating at that level requires large tracts of land, which means sources of food have grown increasingly distant from the people in urban centers who will ultimately eat most of it.
In some ways, hyper-local food is a counterculture movement, focused on growing herbs and vegetables in the same dense urban environments where they will be eaten. It trades the huge efficiencies of modern agriculture for large savings in transportation and storage costs. But is urban farming environmentally friendly?
According to researchers at Australia's University of New England, the answer is pretty complex. Within their somewhat limited group of gardeners, urban agriculture is far more productive for the amount of land used but isn't especially efficient with labor and materials use. But the materials issue could be solved, and the labor inefficiency may be a product of the fact that most urban farmers are hobbyists and are doing it for fun.
Urban ag
The researchers—Robert McDougalla, Paul Kristiansena, and Romina Rader—defined urban agriculture as taking place within a kilometer of a densely built environment. Working in the Sydney area, they were able to find 13 urban farmers who were willing to keep detailed logs of their activity for an entire year. Labor and materials costs were tracked, as was the value of the produce it helped create. The energetic costs of the materials and labor were also calculated in order to assess the sustainability of urban farming.
The plots cultivated by these farmers were quite small, with the median only a bit over 10 square meters. Yet they were extremely productive, with a mean of just under six kilograms of produce for each of those square meters. That's about twice as productive as a typical Australian vegetable farm, although the output range of the urban farms was huge—everything from slightly below large farm productivity to five times as productive.
For the vast majority of crops, however, the urban farms weren't especially effective. They required far more labor than traditional farms, and, as a result, the total value of the inputs into the crop exceeded the income from selling it. In other words, the urban farmers were losing money, at least by traditional accounting measures. And the farms weren't especially sustainable, with only about 10 percent of all the inputs coming from renewable resources. Again, labor was a major culprit, as it's not considered very renewable, and urban farming is very labor-intensive.
So that all sounds like a bit of a disaster, really. But as mentioned above, things quickly get complex. The urban farmers, as it turned out, bought compost and fertilizer and used the municipal water supply. Cities, as the authors note, produce large quantities of organic waste that could be used to make compost. While it would require additional labor and land space, it would be easy to make the care of the crops far more sustainable. Combined with the use of collected rainwater, these could get the percentage of renewable contributions up to roughly 40 percent.
Laborious
Then there's the issue of the time spent on labor. The urban farmers don't seem to be especially efficient compared to regular farm laborers, and by all indications they don't necessarily want to be. For many of them, it's more a hobby than career; they put in more labor because they enjoy it or find it relaxing. If you start reducing the labor costs to reflect this, things start changing dramatically. If only the material costs of urban farming are considered (meaning labor was set to $0), then the apparent efficiency improves dramatically.
Not surprisingly, ignoring labor costs also makes a big difference financially, with the profit-to-cost ratio going from a mean of 0.62 up to 2.8, indicating that these urban farms would generally be quite profitable.
Labor also makes a big difference in terms of energy use. As they're now operating, these urban farms aren't very different from rural farms, which means they're not sustainable. Shifting to local sources of materials, like rainwater and compost, would drop the energy use dramatically, shifting the farms into territory that's typically considered sustainable. Eliminating labor considerations on top of that would make urban agriculture among the most efficient means of growing vegetables presently studied.
There are two obvious caveats to this work: the small number of farms sampled and the fact that they were all in a single urban area. This sort of study will obviously need to be replicated in other locations before we can start generalizing about hyper-local produce. But the role of labor in this sort of analysis makes conclusions difficult to generalize. Is it reasonable to discount some fraction of the labor costs when people are doing the farming for pleasure? Do we start considering a tomato plant on a balcony part of an urban farm?
While many of the details are unclear, the overall conclusion seems solid: while urban farms aren't yet there in terms of sustainability and energy use, the potential for them to outpace their larger rural cousins is definitely there. But it will take an entire sustainable support infrastructure for them to truly arrive.
Urban Agriculture May Uproot Traditional Farms in World of Food Ethics
Even though urban farms are more sustainable, they may encourage gentrification
Photo by Gabriella Holm | The State Press
"Gentrification in cities is changing farming as we know it." Illustration published on Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019.
By Katelyn Reinhart | 02/28/19
Family-owned farms are decreasing as community gardens and urban agriculture find their footing in a world of food ethics.
In Arizona, it is not atypical to see farmland sold for urban development. Arcadia, a neighborhood located 10 miles from ASU's downtown Phoenix campus, was originally known for its citrus groves before the land was sold for development.
Similarly, the ASU Polytechnic campus hosts the Morrison School of Agribusiness, which was given its name to honor ASU alumni Marvin and June Morrison, who donated farmland to the school in 1998.
David King, an assistant professor in the School of Geographical Science and Urban Planning, said larger farms may be suffering from a shifting economy that relies less on citrus and more on housing.
“Agriculture is very resource intensive to grow here,” King said. “A lot of the agriculture that supported the economy in earlier stages just isn’t as critical to the economy now.”
He said that there are people in urban planning who see a future in urban agriculture, which is popular due to its sustainable appeal.
Kristen Osgood, a program manager for the Rob and Melani Walton Sustainability Solutions Service, said supporting local farmers could save travel time and quality in the foods people eat. She also said protecting farmers is extremely important as farmland is sold for housing development.
“We saw this happen in Mesa, where people were buying land next to a well-established feed-lot and then complained about the smell and tried to have it shut down — farmland isn’t something that grows back, once it’s gone, it’s gone, and that’s something we need to protect,” she said.
UN highlights role of farming in closing emissions gap http://bbc.in/174DJT8 #climate #agriculture
@ClimateNow As organic becomes more mainstream, the need for BigAgri, MonoCulture farms will decrease.
The priority must be the family farm
Osgood said that while farmers should be protected, growing food in a community garden setting could be valuable sustainably, physically and mentally as well.
Greg Peterson, owner of the Urban Farm in Phoenix, said his urban farm takes up a third of an acre and offers free webinar classes and other tools for users to educate themselves on sustainability topics.
“Something we think is important is growing food where we live,” Peterson said. “We have classes, tours and everything we grow here is grown organically.”
Peterson said that while there has been an increase in younger visitors, the most common visitors are baby boomers who want to know more about the way their food is grown.
Even though urban agriculture offers a more sustainable, local option for produce, it may bring gentrification.
Daoqin Tong, an associate professor in the School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning who has studied community gardens and urban agriculture said that in her work, said she saw that it was more difficult for community gardens to be successful in low-income areas.
“For a lot of community gardens, people will pay fees to keep it around,” Tong said. "A problem with that is, in the summer, it’s very hard to grow anything, so that money goes to an empty garden. For wealthier families, the pay just doesn’t seem like that much.”
She said lower income families often cannot dedicate the time to maintaining a garden if they are working multiple jobs to support themselves.
Danielle Vermeer, a junior majoring in sustainability and urban planning, said that community gardens and urban agriculture have unreached potential in providing for communities.
“I volunteered at the Tiger Mountain Foundation through ASU," Vermeer said. "What we did was work on an urban farm for people who were incarcerated and are trying to integrate back into the community. As much as I think it would be nice for people to use gardens as a food source, at the moment I do see gardening as more of a privilege.”
Reach the reporter at kreinha3@asu.edu and follow @ReinhartKatelyn on Twitter.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on Twitter.
John Lewis & Partners Announces Partnership With LuttUs Grow to Create ‘Mini-Farms’ Within Retail Stores
LETTUS GROW
John Lewis & Partners are partnering with British start-up company, LettUs Grow, to create 'mini farms' within their retail stores. This will highlight the importance of bringing sustainable food production to the farms of the future.
The 'mini farms' will be placed inside selected stores with the aim to reduce plastic waste and cut back on the unnecessary transport of food across the country. Using pioneering technology, fresh produce will be grown within its stores for consumers to purchase.
The news ties in perfectly with our Country Living #KeepBritainFarming campaign, as both John Lewis & Partners and LettUs Grow have spoken about how they hope the new initiative will bring some much-needed change to the "broken food system."
LETTUS GROW
"We’re thrilled to be working with John Lewis & Partners to investigate the use of urban agriculture within the retail experience. This represents a real opportunity to meaningfully reduce food miles, whilst engaging shoppers with the modern food system," explained Jack Farmer, co-founder and operational lead at LettUs Grow.
"WE CAN SET UP OUR INDOOR FARMS IN ANY ENVIRONMENT - FROM DESERTS TO DISASTER SITES.."
Charlie Guy, co-founder and managing director at LettUs Grow also commented on the partnership: "We can set up our indoor farms in any environment - from deserts to disaster sites. By siting them in supermarkets we can open up a dialogue with the public about how new technologies can be used to make big changes in our broken food system."
LETTUS GROW
Who is LettUs Grow?
The agri-tech company design irrigation and control technology for indoor farms. Using exciting new technology, they work on reconnecting crowded cities with the tradition of locally grown produce.
Passionate about local food, the Bristol-based start-up exists to reduce the waste and carbon footprint of fresh produce. They launched back in 2015 and are now building commercial aeroponic systems for growers around the UK.
The Green-Collar Revolution That’s Headed to Wilmington, Delaware
Vertical farming is coming to the city. (Courtesy photo)
By Holly Quinn / REPORTER
02-28-19
First, you need to understand the Opportunity Zone Program, which was enacted as part of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
It’s an economic development program where census tracts are designated as eligible for tax breaks for private investors through a program called Opportunity Funds. The goal is to help under-resourced communities become more economically stable by creating jobs for the people who live there — or, as the IRS puts it in its FAQ: “Opportunity Zones are designed to spur economic development by providing tax benefits to investors.”
Opportunity Zones are basically an incentive for people to invest in areas that need it — something that, historically, has led to gentrification and displacement of the under-resourced people who were theoretically meant to benefit. (See a map of Delaware’s zones here.)
That’s why Second Chances Farm, an LLC founded by entrepreneur and TEDxWilmington organizer Ajit George, is an interesting concept — one that combines farming, jobs for local returning citizens and ultimately entrepreneurship opportunities that require neither capital nor credit.
“We call them ‘green collar” jobs,” said George in an interview with Technical.ly. “Green because it’s organic, it’s pesticide free, and it’s herbicide free. And it’s about growing food locally. This is not a hobby, this not a corner garden in the summer, it’s about growing food year round, on a production scale.”
So, how did the concept of Opportunity Zones, urban farming and ex-offenders come together? It was the result of two very different 2016 TEDxWilmington talks — one about reentry and recidivism, the other about farming of the future.
Employees — virtually all of whom will be formerly incarcerated — will run the farms with a starting pay of $15 an hour. As the company grows, the plan is for employees to eventually acquire farms of their own and become business owners (or “compassionate capitalists,” as Second Chances Farm calls them).
In contrast to downstate’s traditional outdoor crops, Second Chances Farm will be an indoor, LED-lit, vertical hydroponic farm that will operate year-round; the first farm’s location is yet to be determined.
“There’s no soil, it’s all grown in continuously flowing water,” said George.
The drip system. (Courtesy image)
Vertical hydroponic farming has become increasingly popular over the last few years across the country — even Jeff Bezos has backed a hydroponic farming venture. Second Chances will likely be the first one in Delaware.
The for-profit venture is projected to have its first indoor farm up and running by the fall, pending a final clearance with the IRS. It’s already won a few awards and startup grants.
If placing a farm inside the city seems strange, consider the challenges the average ex-offender faces when trying to get to get a job — and how much easier it would be if $15-an-hour jobs were available right in the neighborhood.
In order to qualify to be placed in a job at Second Chance, inmates heading toward reentry will work with the behavior health and wellness program Dimensions during the final six months of their sentences.
“We are contracting with Dimensions and have an exclusive contract with the Delaware Department of Corrections,” said George. “Issues like anger management are beyond the scope of what we can do. They offer more social work, so it just made sense for us to work with them.”
Dimensions also has a transportation group that can help Second Chances Farm employees get to and from work, an issue for many looking for work after reentry, as drivers licenses are sometimes still suspended and getting car insurance can be a challenge.
The organic, hyperlocal vegetable crops will be sold to restaurants, organic farm stands and to cancer patients avoiding even the minimal amount of pesticides allowed in traditional organic mass farming.
“Delaware used to be known for three things — chicken, credit cards and cars,” said George. “What we’re really talking about is adding a new industry, which is organic hydroponic crops. And with that comes my notion, which is ‘compassionate capitalism,’ which is really providing opportunities for people.”
New City Map Shows Farm-Fresh Produce In Queens, New York
Fresh produce can sometimes be hard to find in many underserved New York City neighborhoods. That is why City Council Speaker Corey Johnson, the acting public advocate, created an interactive Farm-To-City Food map of the five boroughs, highlighting the importance of access to fresh and healthy food for all New Yorkers.
In Queens, the map shows 17 Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs), 20 farmers markets, 2 food boxes and 4 fresh pantry projects.
Source: qns.com
CSAs are partnerships between a farm and a community that allow neighbors to invest in the farm at the beginning of the growing season when farms need support the most, in exchange for weekly distribution of the farms’ produce from June to November. Food Box programs aggregate produce from participating farms and enable under-served communities to purchase a box of fresh, healthy, primarily regionally-grown produce.
Source: qns.com
BIGH, The Biggest Aquaponic Urban Farm in Europe!
BIGH, the biggest aquaponic urban farm in Europe!BIGH won the prize of the year for the people of Brussels in the “economy” category.
27.02.2019
In the heart of Brussels, 4 00m2 is to be used for urban agriculture divided between glasshouses, pisciculture and outside gardens under the roofs of Foodmet.
The universe of aquaponics according to the BIGH (Building Integrated GreenHouses) is quite a programme which links vegetal culture to fish farming and collecting the energy lost from the building.
2.000m2 of horticultural and fish farming greenhouses, 2.000m2 of productive vegetable gardens make up the largest urban farm under the roofs of Europe. An urban aquaponic farm which provides fish farming and the production of fruit, vegetables and herbs, 100% natural and without any chemical product added under one and the same roof !
For some years now, consumers have demanded more healthy food, local and traceable.
BIGH’s aim is to create a network of farms in the heart of the main European cities, making the places in town accessible, inspirational and innovative, so that the consumer will want to find tasty and local products of quality, while improving the environmental performances of their neighbourhood.
Different tours are designed for group, companies, professionals.
An incredible 1 hour tour of Ferme Abattoir including the outdoor garden, the greenhouse, and the fish farm, all with a fantastic view of Brussels is available in English, French, German and Dutch.
BIGH Website
Big Tex Urban Farms is Using Hydroponics to Achieve its Million Servings Mission
Big Tex Urban Farms is Using Hydroponics to Achieve its Million Servings Mission
Big Tex Urban Farms and Hort Americas have partnered together to install, test and demonstrate a variety of hydroponic production systems while at the same time providing Dallas community organizations with locally-grown produce.
What started as an outdoor gardening project by the State Fair of Texas to better serve the local South Dallas community has surpassed what fair officials ever imagined might be accomplished. Jason Hayes, who is the fair’s creative director, and Drew Demler, who is the fair’s director of horticulture, devised a plan to start an outdoor vegetable garden in unused parking space.
“Big Tex Urban Farms started with a small budget in 2016 using 100 mobile planter boxes to grow food outdoors,” Demler said. “During that first year we got some decent yields. The food that we harvested was donated to two local charitable organizations.
“Baylor Scott & White Health and Wellness Institute in Mill City, Texas, is our primary beneficiary. The institute hosts a farmers market for the community on Tuesday and Friday. One of the institute’s main objectives is to get people eating healthy, fresh vegetables. We donate vegetables, including lettuce, collard greens, Swiss chard, basil and chives, and they in turn give the produce away. This is in a community where there really aren’t many other good options for fresh produce.”
Another local beneficiary of the fresh produce grown by Demler and his staff is Cornerstone Baptist Church. The church feeds the homeless six days a week.
“The church is involved with feeding the people who need food more than anyone,” Demler said. “The church had been receiving donated produce that was declined by area grocery stores. The homeless weren’t receiving anything that would be considered fresh and they weren’t receiving any greens or lettuces at all. We have been able to change that. A lot of what we donate to the church are leafy greens.
“We harvest our produce fresh the morning that we donate it. We probably don’t go more than 4 miles from our facility to any one organization. This is about as local as they are going to get unless they are growing it themselves.”
Expanding into hydroponic production
Demler said growing and donating fresh vegetables gave him and his staff an opportunity to develop good relationships with the organizations they were assisting.
“These local organizations were very happy with what we were doing to assist them in their efforts to feed people in the community that really needed help,” Demler said. “We also received some good media coverage which helped generate more interest in what we were doing.”
Because of the positive response from the groups being helped and some good media coverage, the budget for Big Tex Urban Farms was increased considerably in 2017. This enabled Demler to expand outdoor production to 529 outdoor planters.
“Also before the fair started in late September we installed a 30- by 15-foot hydroponic deep water culture tank in one corner of our largest 7,200-square-foot greenhouse,” Demler said. “We also installed six 8-foot tall vertical tower gardens. This was our first venture into hydroponic growing.”
The greenhouse had been used to grow ornamental plants including palm trees and bougainvillea, and to overwinter hanging baskets. It was also used as a plant exhibit room during the fair. Demler worked with the staff at Hort Americas to design and install the hydroponic production systems.
Higher yields with hydroponics
The amount of produce that was harvested from the hydroponic systems immediately got Demler’s attention.
The installation of hydroponic production systems has enabled Big Tex Urban Farms to expand its distribution of produce to more community organizations in South Dallas.
Photos by Jessie Wood, State Fair of Texas staff photographer
“In the short amount of time that we had installed the systems and started growing, we were very impressed with the results,” he said. “Our total production indoors and outdoors in 2017 was around 2,800 pounds of produce. By the end of April 2018 we had exceeded what we produced for all of 2017. This was one of the main reasons that we decided to expand our hydroponic systems. It is such a better and more efficient way to grow.
“Another reason we expanded the hydroponic systems was the overwhelming positive response from the public during the 2017 fair. In 2018 we turned the greenhouse into an indoor growing exhibit. The public had access to the hydroponic systems all 24 days of the fair.”
Achieving the Million Servings Mission
In September 2018 the State Fair of Texas announced it was implementing a Million Servings Mission. The mission was the brainchild of Jason Hayes.
“The main purpose of the mission was to create awareness,” Demler said. “Jason thought the mission was a really good way to raise awareness about the issues facing the residents of South Dallas and what Big Tex Urban Farms is trying to accomplish. Once Big Tex Urban Farms started producing crops hydroponically we were able to greatly expand our distribution. Even in 2019 we have been able to expand even further our food distribution efforts with the addition of the hydroponic production systems we are now using. Working with Hort Americas has enabled us to further our reach in regards to producing more food and assisting additional organizations. One of mission’s points is to give us the impetus to continue to grow figuratively and literally with the produce that we are able to donate.”
To measure achievement of the Million Servings Mission Big Tex Urban Farms calculates all of the produce that it donates.
“I weigh the vegetables and then send the pounds per variety that we donate to Jason. He keeps a spreadsheet and using a formula created by USDA converts pounds of vegetables into servings. We can actually determine relatively accurately how many servings of vegetables we have produced since we geared up our hydroponic production in 2018 and now into 2019.”
Helping Big Tex Urban Farms to be successful
Much of the equipment that has been installed in the Big Tex Urban Farms greenhouse was previously used in Hort Americas’ demonstration and research greenhouse in Dallas.
“Hort Americas has changed its focus from having its own demonstration greenhouse to putting our energy and resources behind making Big Tex Urban Farms successful,” said Chris Higgins, general manager at Hort Americas. “Hort Americas is providing human resources and grower knowledge along with access to innovative technology. The biggest thing that we are doing is teaching the Big Tex Urban Farms employees how to grow hydroponically. Hort Americas is sending staff to the greenhouse weekly to provide oversight, perform actual tasks and to collect data.
“Right now the facility has been equipped with 75-80 percent of the equipment that is needed in order to grow the crops hydroponically that they want to grow. There will be additional equipment installed as the budget allows.”
Big Tex Urban Farms is using LEDs on a number of its hydroponically-grown crops, including lettuce, collards, kale and all seed propagation.
Demler said Big Tex Urban Farms has been receiving hands-on support from Hort Americas tech support staff.
“Matt White helped us build our first deep water culture tank,” Demler said. “Matt also designed all of our lighting systems. He has provided us with technical assistance as we have expanded our hydroponic production systems.
“Diedre Hughes visits us weekly. She helps us log data, organize projects and assists us with whatever we need. This kind of technical support has enabled us to advance our food production at a much faster rate and we are very grateful for it.”
A variety of hydroponic systems, equipment
Big Tex Urban Farms has installed a second larger deep water culture system. It has also added three rows of Dutch buckets that are being used to grow tomatoes and bell peppers.
“We’ve also added a nutrient film technique (NFT) system,” Demler said. “The NFT channels were donated by Hort Americas and I built a simple system based on a couple of designs that I had seen including ones that Hort Americas was using. We are in the process of adding a second larger NFT system, which is going to be bigger and more productive. This second system was being used by Hort Americas in its demo greenhouse.
“We want to see which crops grow best in the NFT system. We will definitely do more lettuce. We will probably grow some herbs. I’m planning to do more of the cut-and-come-again greens, including collards, kale and mustard greens. These are crops that community residents are very familiar with.”
When Big Tex Urban Farms began growing hydroponically it started with one stainless steel GrowRack system for vertical production. It has since added three additional GrowRacks.
“The first GrowRack we installed has always been used for plant propagation to start all our seedling plugs that are transplanted into our hydroponic production systems,” Demler said. “The additional GrowRacks have been used for finishing different crops. The racks are very versatile. Right now we are using them to finish heads of lettuce. We can also grow herbs in them. During the run of last year’s fair we used the racks to produce microgreens and we’re still growing a small amount of microgreens in them.”
Big Tex Urban Farms is using a variety of hydroponic production systems including deep water culture, Dutch buckets and nutrient film technique.
When Big Tex Urban Farms added its second deep water culture system it installed a Moleaer nanobubble generator to deliver a supplementary source of dissolved oxygen.
“The Moleaer generator made a big difference throughout the summer,” Demler said. “We didn’t start producing out of the second pond until the summer. We really needed a system to oxygenate the water during the warm summer temperatures. It made a huge difference in the crops. We were able to do a great comparison in plant growth with and without the Moleaer generator. Our first deep water culture system is oxygenated with a Venturi. It was very difficult for us to harvest a crop out of the first deep water system because the roots of the lettuce would bunch up at the surface of the pond because there is less oxygen in the water. With the Moleaer generator we were consistently able to harvest lettuce.
“This summer we are going to be able to get a really good comparison because we were able to install GE LED top lights over the second pond right before the start of last year’s fair. We are looking forward to seeing the difference in crop production because of the Moleaer generator and the new LEDs.”
Big Tex Urban Farms is currently using LEDs and is looking to add additional lights.
“We are primarily using GE LEDs,” Demler said. “We have a few different versions of the GE Arize LEDs and we really like them. We also have a few OSRAM LED lamps.
“We are also going to be adding some new lighting systems. We may install some high pressure sodium lamps so that we can do trial comparisons with the LEDs. Hort Americas is also looking at a new LED that is nearly a one-to-one LED comparison to a high pressure sodium lamp. If those become available we will probably add those over some of our hydroponic systems and maybe over our existing vine crops which like high light intensities.”
Big Tex Urban Farms has installed 30MHz sensors throughout its greenhouse to ensure it is providing the optimum production conditions for its hydroponic crops.
Demler said he and the Big Tex Urban Farms staff are still trying to figure out the best way to use the hydroponic systems that have been installed.
“I’ve tried to ramp up production on the crops that I know are going to be popular and I know I can get people to start eating like lettuce, collard greens and the bunching greens,” he said. “I love to try new crops. We did bok choy last year in one of the deep water ponds. I even had some peppers growing in the deep water culture. We’ve grown different varieties of kale. I have also been thinking about other crops that we can try in the NFT system. If we add additional production space I’d like to try broccoli and beans.
“Strawberries are on Chris’ list to try. That’s a crop that he has put a lot of time and effort into. If he feels that it could be a viable crop for us, we’ll try growing them. We would like to try growing small fruit too. If we could make that work that would really get people’s attention.”
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This article is property of Hort Americas and was written by David Kuack, a freelance technical writer in Fort Worth, TX.
How 300 Years of Urbanization and Farming Transformed the Planet
Three centuries ago, humans were intensely using just around 5 percent of the Earth’s land. Now, it’s almost half.
Humans are transforming the Earth through our carbon emissions. Arctic sea ice is shrinking, seas are rising, and the past four years have been the hottest since record-keeping began. But long before the first cars or coal plants, we were reshaping the planet’s ecosystems through humbler but no less dramatic means: pastures and plows.
Environmental scientist Erle Ellis has studied the impact of humanity on the Earth for decades, with a recent focus on categorizing and mapping how humans use the land—not just now, but in the past. And his team’s results show some startling changes. Three centuries ago, humans were intensely using just around 5 percent of the planet, with nearly half the world’s land effectively wild. Today, more than half of Earth’s land is occupied by agriculture or human settlements.
“Climate change is only recently becoming relevant,” said Ellis, a professor at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. “If it keeps going how it is, it will become the dominant shaper of ecology in the terrestrial realm, but right now the dominant shaper of ecology is land use.”
In contrast to the typical division of the world into ecological “biomes,” Ellis and his team at the Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology map what they call “anthromes,” or “anthropogenic biomes.” These show the intersection of ecology and human land use.
Using a range of sources, Ellis’s team mapped out that land use, dividing the planet into grids and categorizing each cell based on how many people lived there and how they impacted the land. The densest areas were cities and towns, followed by close-packed farming villages. Less populated areas were categorized by their dominant land use—crops, livestock pasture, or inhabited woodlands—while other areas were marked as largely uninhabited.
Below is an animation using a simplified version of Ellis’s data:
Even with only one snapshot per century, the animation makes some of the trends obvious. Large swaths of Russia and the United States become cropland over the 19th century, while livestock occupies increasing amounts of previously semi-wild land in Africa and Asia.
“Asia is pretty much the dominant transformed area, and transformed the earliest,” Ellis said. “Europe is also pretty dense ... The rest of the world has a different trajectory. Much slower, less dense.”
All of this is a mixture of estimates and approximations. One reason Ellis and his team only looked every hundred years and divided the world into cells that stretch for miles was to avoid giving a false impression of precision.
People ask Ellis, “‘What was my backyard like?’” he said. “Well, we don’t have any solid evidence … The further back in time you go, the more you have to consider [this], in a sense, educated guesswork.”
Even more recent data can have issues, based on political decisions that countries make about how to self-classify their land. Saudi Arabia, for example, reports “almost every part of their country as being rangeland” even though much of that arid land is seldom if ever grazed.
Humans shape even “seminatural” biomes
Significant portions of the world, both now and in the past, have been what Ellis’s team terms “seminatural.” These are areas—frequently forests—with low but real human habitation. This could reflect a large cell of the grid that has a farming village or two but mostly natural forests. But frequently, Ellis says, humans have taken a much bigger role in shaping seemingly natural wilderness than people think.
Take the “pristine myth”—the idea that the Americas before European colonization were dominated by pristine wilderness untouched by human hands. In fact, modern researchers believe that indigenous tribes had actively shaped their landscapes through agriculture and regular burning of American forests.
Because of this, the devastating spread of epidemics among indigenous populations after 1492 also had a huge impact on climate—and not just locally. Some scholars believe disease-ravaged peoples significantly cut back on their management of American forests, which meant far less carbon dioxide put into the atmosphere from fires and far more absorbed into newly grown forests. The combination could have played a significant role in the “Little Ice Age” that lowered global temperatures for several centuries between around 1500 and 1850 C.E.
This kind of active land management was done not just by sedentary populations, but by hunter-gatherers, too. This, Ellis says, is a shortcoming in the data.
“There’s no direct mapping of hunter-gatherers’ land use in these datasets. That’s something we’re trying to rectify now,” he said, noting that evidence suggests even non-agricultural people have major effects on the environment.
The data also shows the massive impact made by cities, the most dramatic way humans transform their environment. In 1700, a negligible portion of the Earth’s surface was covered by cities. Over the three centuries that followed, this boomed by around 40 times. Cities are still just half a percent of the planet’s land area, but they have had the most dramatic increase in impact of any of Ellis’s “anthromes.”
Densely populated farming villages—which often have similar concentrations of people per square mile as American suburbs—are also big, especially in the developing world. (Ellis’s team don’t map any urban areas in the Americas or Australia before 1900, and never apply the “villages” category to those continents, because those areas didn’t have “histories of intensive subsistence agriculture.”)
Huge portions of India and China are occupied by these kind of villages. So, too, were the hinterlands around major European cities before improvements in transportation enabled produce to be brought from farther away. Paris, for example, used to be surrounded by suburban “market gardens” which, historians André Jardin and André-Jean Tudesq note, could produce five or six harvests per year and had a “virtual monopoly of the Parisian market” for food until the second half of the 19th century.
How cities drive land-use changes
That kind of intensive agriculture to feed a demanding urban market is part of the huge impact that cities have on the use of land even well outside their boundaries. Those thousands or millions of urban dwellers aren’t producing their own food, and thus need more food produced elsewhere in order to eat.
Ellis describes two different ways that cities impact far-away anthromes through their demands for food—one of them devastating to natural ecosystems, the other surprisingly beneficial.
The first sees new land being put under the plow, as societies try to produce more food for a growing population. This is often low-productivity agriculture, reflecting the marginal quality of the farmland: If it was good for farming, it would have been farmed already. But later, as populations grow, comes an “intensification” process as technology increases the yields on low-productivity farmland.
Agricultural expansion has a massive impact on natural biomes, and has for millennia. But the second process, intensification, has the potential to restore some of the natural biomes that humans previously plowed under.
“Dense cities actually have the potential to help areas recover, because dense populations in cities often are basically pulling people out of the rural areas where they’re farming low-productivity land,” Ellis said. The increased production on good land means the marginal farmland is no longer needed.
Author Charles Mann described this process taking place in New York’s Hudson River Valley in his 2018 book, The Wizard and the Prophet. In the late 19th century, this region was dominated by “hardscrabble farms and pastures ringed by stone walls.” Now many of those “hardscrabble farms” are gone. Six counties in the lower Hudson Valley had around 350,000 people and 573,000 acres of timberland in 1875; today those same counties have more than 1 million people but three times as much forest.
“Many New England states have as many trees as they had in the days of Paul Revere,” Mann writes. “Nor was this growth restricted to North America: Europe’s forest resources increased by about 40 percent from 1970 to 2015, a time in which its population grew from 462 million to 743 million.”
But while this intensification of agriculture is allowing the return of nature in parts of developed countries, the first phase—expansion—is still playing out in the developing world. Erle’s maps show the expansion of crops and livestock into areas like Africa’s Sahel and South America’s Amazon rainforest over the past century.
“Land transformation is the big story of biosphere transformation so far,” Ellis said. “If you’re trying to understand how we produced the ecology we have now, it’s the story of land-use transformation.”
What’s next for Earth
So what will a future mapmaker show for the world’s land use in 2100? Ellis said he expects urbanization to continue, at least doubling the share of the planet’s land devoted to urban areas over the next century.
Similarly, he expects developed countries to see an intensification of agriculture that enables marginal land to be returned to the wild—a process already under way in newly developed countries like China. Poorer countries, on the other hand, may continue to convert marginal wild land into farmland.
“It’s only poor farmers without much investment that can make that work,” Ellis said. “When you’re investing large amounts of money in farm equipment and fertilizers, you don’t invest that in marginal land.”
Much depends, however, on political, economic, and technological changes that will unfold over the next 80 years. For example, Ellis said, the United States has recently seen “a huge shift from beef to chicken” in consumer demand. “That changes the kind of land that’s in demand, from grassland to production of maize and soy.”
Among the factors that could affect the future of Earth’s land use are political decisions in Brazil, where new President Jair Bolsonaro wants to open up more of the Amazon rainforest to agriculture, and technology, where a potential breakthrough in electrical generation such as fusion power could enable transformative changes such as vertical urban farming. Conservation efforts, or lack thereof, could also impact areas of intensive agriculture in developed countries.
“The future of the biosphere… depends partly on economics, partly on politics, but also partly on vision,” Ellis said. “It depends on what people’s values are.”