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Future Farms: Agritech Innovations To Feed A Changing Planet
Hydroponic and vertical farming systems have long been touted as a solution to the problem of land use by agriculture, since much of the arable land is already taken and 31% of total global rice, wheat, and maize production in eastern Asia and northwest Europe has already plateaued.
April 3rd, 2019 by The Beam
The future of agriculture will be directly impacted by two of humanity’s biggest menaces on the horizon: population growth and climate change. With more mouths to feed and less planet to feed them on, and increasingly alarming predictions of environmental shifts, innovators working in crop agriculture have to figure out how to grow more food, faster, with fewer resources, by developing new technologies to scale up the planet’s food production mechanisms sustainably.
With 815 million people on the planet suffering from hunger and 1 in 3 malnourished already, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has set sustainable development goals to eliminate world hunger by 2030. Adding at least 2 billion more people to feed by 2050, the FAO has estimated food production will have to increase by 70%.
To achieve these goals, agritech must overcome food production plateaus in areas that are being farmed to their maximum capacity, and ensure that these areas will continue to yield more food year over year without endangering future generations’ access to non-renewable resources. Balancing the need for technological innovation to increase food production at all costs to stop hunger in the next 12 years, while managing the conservation of the natural resources essential to modern agriculture is no small task: sustainable agriculture is already at odds with the status quo. New technologies must address the ways industrial agriculture currently uses land, water, fertilizers, pesticides, and energy resources.
On top of this challenge, the future is not yet evenly distributed. As high-tech innovations sweep Europe and North America, projects in China, India, and Africa are supporting the 500 million family farms that feed 80% of the planet. If all 570 million farms on the planet are able to operate at the efficiency levels demonstrated by these technological trends, agriculture in 2050 will look very different from today.
Growing trend: precision farming
Precision farming combines information science with agricultural engineering, harvesting massive amounts of data from the farming process. Utilizing technological advances like advanced sensors, machine learning, and artificial intelligence for data processing, precision farming helps monitor big picture environmental factors like weather patterns, water distribution, and soil chemistry, as well as tiny measurements like nutrient deficiencies in individual plants. Called the next “digital revolution” for agriculture, precision farming has already been shown to increase crop yields while reducing fertilizer and pesticide use, which decreases the pollution of groundwater and depletion of non-renewable resources like phosphorus.
GPS may not seem like a radical new technology, but its integration into John Deere tractors in 2001 allowed data to be collected on their location with precision down to a few centimeters. This innovation alone reduced fuel costs for tractors by as much as 40% in some cases by keeping them from covering redundant areas or missing a spot.
Using precision farming tech like driverless tractors tilling only specific land areas and quadcopters collecting data on soil chemistry, water content, nutrients, and growth, Dutch farmers, the world’s top exporters of potatoes and onions, and the second largest exporter of vegetables in overall value, are able to more than double the amount of potato yield per acre compared to the global average and reduce dependence on water by 90%.
For this trend to sweep the globe and be available to the 144 million farmers in Asia, basic digital literacy is the first step. While many of these populations now have access to smartphones, very few are using them for farming. Once these farmers are connected to digital infrastructures and can use these technologies to enable data-driven decision making, they too will be able to join the digital green revolution.
Precision farming agritech startups to watch:
Taranis, an aerial imaging company that provides farms in Argentina, Brazil, Russia, Ukraine and the United States with data to identify potential crop issues.
Tule Technologies, which focuses on irrigation and water use data.
Pynco, an agricultural data analytics platform available for over 160 countries that sends alerts directly to the farmers’ smartphones.
Hacking biology to feed the planet
Biotechnology that modifies the genetic code of crops to make them more nutritious, grow more quickly, and resist diseases and pests are the backbone of modern multinational industrial agriculture. Many anti-GMO lobbyists and farmers believe that tampering with the genetic code of food products is too risky to try at scale, but to grow food under the conditions that global warming will bring, scientists are hastening work on mutations that will help make crops more resistant to drought, heat, cold, and salt.
CRISPR, the gene-editing bacteria that has been making headlines for its potential use in the human genome, is one of the biotechnologies that scientists are using to make crops grow more plentifully by allowing more efficient photosynthesis, as in the C4 Rice Project, or to encourage nitrogen fixing in crops that don’t naturally pull nitrogen from the air, which would mean less fertilizer used, and less fertilizer runoff polluting groundwater.
Agritech is also turning to nature to find solutions to problems that are currently being solved synthetically with fertilizers and pesticides. As one example, Seattle’s Adaptive Symbiotic Technologies has created non-toxic and non-pathogenic microbes that grow alongside plants and help them be more nutrient efficient, tolerate environmental stress, and yield more produce. In high stress growing seasons field tested across the globe, these microbes have increased crop yields by 10–50%. Koppert Biological Systems, founded in the Netherlands, also uses solutions found in nature by providing the natural predators and micro-organisms that can eliminate pests and diseases. Farmers using Koppert’s bees instead of artificial pollination have reported a 20–30% increase in yields and fruit weight, another reason that saving the world’s bee populations is essential to sustainable agriculture.
Biotechnologies have reached the developing world in the form of innovations like Golden Rice, a genetically modified strain of rice that contains vitamin A. According to a paper by Dr. R. B. Singh, the Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization in the Asia-Pacific region, 180 million children in developing countries suffer from deficiency in vitamin A, resulting in 2 million deaths annually. With the FAO behind the development and distribution of Golden Rice and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supporting similar biotechnology projects like breeding bananas that provide higher levels of iron in sub-Saharan Africa, genetically modified crops will be a major technological trend in ending world hunger and providing for the population of 2050.
Three biotech startups to watch:
Trace Genomics, called the “23andMe for farms,” which does rapid microbiome testing for pathogens.
Symbiota, an open-source content management system for biodiversity data.
Clear Labs, a genetic sequencing startup built to look out for food-borne illnesses and pathogens on the molecular level.
Farms in the city
The CEO of Iron Ox, a hydroponic farm that is managed by precision farming techniques and automation, argues that “If farms are to survive, we need to think about them as tech companies.” What makes Iron Ox unique from other hydroponic operations is the amount of automation it uses, having developed a 1,000-lb robot arm that is finely tuned to harvest the 26,000 leafy green plants and herbs in its California facility. The robot, nicknamed Angus, also has an array of Lidar sensors that allow it to identify diseases, pests, and abnormalities plant by plant, and picks them up by grasping specially designed pots that don’t damage the veg. Through all of these innovations, Iron Ox has managed to boast production of 30% more produce than traditional farms.
Hydroponic and vertical farming systems have long been touted as a solution to the problem of land use by agriculture, since much of the arable land is already taken and 31% of total global rice, wheat, and maize production in eastern Asia and northwest Europe has already plateaued. While these extant farms are nudged by other technologies to increase yield and use less resources, indoor farms in urban areas are expanding the potential area that can be used to grow crops.
Since hydroponic systems are soil-less, isolated from environmental stress, pests, and diseases, and commonly use drip irrigation techniques, they avoid a lot of the problems faced by outdoor farms in conserving resources, but their many obstacle is energy. Running LED lights for indoor farms 24 hours per day is not sustainable, even for Iron Ox: it plans to expand into traditional greenhouses supplemented by LEDs. Some indoor and vertical farmers are already looking to solve the energy and light problem: Growing Underground, a UK operation set up in World War II bomb shelters, uses LED lights that only emit at spectrum ranges optimal for photosynthesis, and there are several companies including Valoya, Heliospectra, and even Philips, that are specifically developing longer-lasting and more energy-efficient LEDs for indoor agriculture. Another solution, pioneered by the Sky Greens vertical farming system in Singapore, uses a hydraulic system that consumes the equivalent of one lightbulb’s energy to rotate troughs of produce up and down 9-meter tall towers to take turns basking in sunlight.
Today, 54% of the world’s population lives in urban areas, and this number is predicted to rise to 66% by 2050. With the potential effects that global warming will have on the efforts of traditional agriculture, it’s a safe bet for vertical farms to develop in urban areas alongside advances in agritech for outdoor farms. Vertical farms can integrate many of technological innovations developed for traditional farms to produce as much food as possible, while isolating crops from pests and diseases, conserving non-renewable resources by closely controlling inputs and outputs, and minimizing transportation costs to put food on the table for booming urban populations.
Urban farming startups could be coming to a city near you:
Freight Farms, creators of the Leafy Green Machine™, a complete hydroponic system built into a 40-ft. shipping container.
AeroFarms, which has converted a 69,000-foot former steel mill into a facility to breed 1.5 million pounds of produce annually.
Edenworks, which has developed an aquaponic ecosystem for New York City’s rooftops.
If the predictions of experts on the climate and population for the next 10–25 years are correct, technological innovators in industrial agriculture have their work cut out for them. These future trends of farms moving into cities, biotechnology making food more nutritious and faster-growing, and precision farming incorporating big data with agricultural science will help tackle one of humanity’s greatest challenges yet, eliminating hunger while conserving the natural resources of the planet for future generations.
Key stats:
815 million: the number of people on the planet who suffer from hunger, 1 in 3 from malnourishment
70%: the amount global food production must increase to meet population growth demands by 2050
2/3: the fraction of the world population estimated to live in water-stressed countries by 2025
By Jonny Tiernan
This series of articles has been prepared with the support of our partner Viessmann, which has celebrated 100 years of its company in 2017 and is actively involved in positively shaping the next 100 years.
BGC, Bafi Shows Developers What To Do With Your Available Open Spaces
By: Amor Maclang
April 3, 2019
Ralph Becker of Urban Greens
MANILA-based Agri-Tech and urban farming company Urban Greens, (Urban Greens Hydroponics Systems Inc.) is announcing a project tie-up with the Bonifacio Arts Foundation Inc. (Bafi) under the direction of the head curator of The Mind Museum, who oversees all things art- and science-related in BGC.
The project is based on the creation of a prototype hydroponic setup within the premises of The Mind Museum science museum, to show off futuristic farming techniques like hydroponics to grow clean and healthy greens right in the heart of the city space.
Fresh, affordable produce in our cities is often difficult to find. Supermarkets and local markets are still dependent on vegetables grown with traditional farming methods and transported from distant farms.
Filipinos battle with rising food prices, inconsistent quality produce, and limited supply. This will prove unsustainable as the Philippine population is projected to increase from 106 million (in 2018) to 142 million by 2045—about two thirds of which will live in urban areas.
A growing movement of urban farming is providing methods towards more sustainable agriculture practices. Integrating hydroponic farms into our present and future urban spaces is one way to secure access to cleaner and fresher grown produce.
Environment-friendly farming
Urban Greens, a farming company founded in 2016, advocates hydroponic farming as a means to unlocking the ability of anyone, including urban dwellers, to grow their own food more efficiently. Hydroponic farming or hydroponics is when plants are grown without soil. Instead, the plant roots absorb the nutrients it needs from nutrient-rich water.
Compared to traditional farming that is resource-intensive and utilizes chemical inputs, hydroponics uses 90 percent less water and does not use chemical weed or pest-control products. This is critical as the world’s resources of clean water, fossil fuels and arable soil is finite. Decades of intensive agriculture production has also damaged different environments. What is often forgotten is that the health of the planet impacts the health of the people. Finding alternative systems, such as growing food in our own communities, enables our lands and resources to recover for the use of future generations.
Climate-resilient communities and farming systems
Developing climate-resilient communities must be prioritized as the Philippines ranks fifth among the countries most affected to extreme weather events from 1998 to 2017. Scientists have projected that temperatures will continue to increase until the end of the century resulted to extended droughts or intense rainfall, sea-level rise and stronger typhoons. The urban landscape creates opportunities for more protected and controlled farms from the changing climate.
Even with limited space, an urban farmer can choose to stack hydroponic systems or to plant “vertically” to maximize available space both indoors and outdoors. Options that improve the availability and accessibility of quality produce at consistent prices. Vegetables and herbs could be easily grown and harvested indoors, such as offices, restaurants and homes. One could also tend to the plants in an outdoor setting, such as under-utilized rooftops, terraces or backyards.
Urban Greens works with individuals and organizations to find the types of hydroponic system that would address their needs. The company strives to build systems that can be easily used, maintained and refitted using local materials.
Promoting healthier lifestyles and well-being
The proximity of one’s food to the place of work and inhabit encourages individuals to reconnect with nature and what they eat. Freshly picked vegetables are more nutritious and retain improved aroma and flavor. These are often lost when vegetables are packaged and transported through traffic-laden routes.
More hydroponically grown vegetables may help improve the eating habits of Filipinos. In urban areas where convenience is preferred, studies show that the total of local household food expenditures for food away from home has gradually increased from 11.5 percent in 2000 to 17.5 percent in 2012.
The per-capita consumption of Filipino households of vegetables only averages 22.4 kilograms per year. This pales in comparison to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) recommended level consumption of 146 to 182 kg/yr. Higher intake of fresh greens reduce the risks of major chronic diseases and avert nutritional deficiencies.
Settling roots within communities
Establishing hydroponic farms and community gardens make cities more sustainable, providing both green public spaces and access to quality nutrition. In such environment, creative synergy is able to flourish and partnerships can begin to cultivate among residents, farmers, local businesses, academe and local leaders.
As of 2018, Urban Greens has been building a prototype farm in collaboration with the Bafi. Based on its modular and scalable nature, it has the potential to be developed on a much bigger scale supplying produce to establishments and residents within Bonifacio Global City and neighboring communities. Other projects of the company include a partnership with a major real estate developer.
Urban Greens envisions that hydroponic urban farming will evolve the Philippine vegetable food scene and provide a sustainable addition to our communities.
If you want to know more about how to grow your own vegetables and become an urban farmer, Urban Greens also offers to a Hydroponics 101 Workshops for individuals and companies.
Hydroponics is the process of growing plants without soil. As only water is used, there is no need for pesticides, fertilizers or fungicides and much less water than conventional farming is used. Not needing soil or land-space makes it perfect for the urban setting.
In addition, as those greens are grown amid a highly urbanized area surrounded by numerous restaurants and condo units, this project demonstrates how to provide the vegetables and herbs needed by those establishments and dramatically reduce the time and energy used in transportation – resulting in cheaper, fresher and tastier greens. The system itself will always be connected to Internet of Things devices, monitoring the overall status and sending the data to their cloud servers, as to optimize the growing conditions for the plants. This highly modular and scalable prototype system can serve as a potential template for a much bigger urban farm setup.
Apart from the project with The Mind Museum, Urban Greens has secured a strategic partnership with one of the major Philippine property developers who has invested an undisclosed sum into the hydroponics company. The main objective of the investment is to revolutionize the hydroponics and precrafted structures business and the vision is to reinvent the farming system, and fabrication, supply and installation of technology of modular buildings, homes, event spaces and other structures making the Urban Greens the biggest vertical farm in the Philippines, and eventually in the global market. Once established, it will not only solve high cost, and inconsistent quality and supply of fresh produce, but also expand its business in branding, marketing, licensing, management, design and supply.
Urban Greens is the regional representative of the international Association for Vertical Farming and the only member in the Philippines.
Urban Greens is a 2-year-old start-up founded by former tech/ corporate biz dev, turned hydroponic enthusiast Filipino-German Ralph Becker with a big vision for accessible and high-end hydroponically grown food for big scale businesses as well as home usage.
How Does A Virginia Herb Company Grow? By Moving Nature Indoors
The company, which lies two hours west of Washington, is disrupting agriculture from the bottom up, just as Amazon/Whole Foods, Instacart, FreshDirect and others are changing the way people buy groceries from the top down
Tim Heydon, chief executive of Shenandoah Growers, at an indoor grow room with trays of microgreens. The Harrisonburg, Va., company is one of the largest producers of organic herbs in the United States. (Norm Shafer/For The Washington Post)
By Thomas Heath
Part of the genius of investing is recognizing a great business that others miss. Warren Buffett has the knack. He invested in newspapers such as The Washington Post and the Buffalo News in the 1970s, when he saw the potential for local monopolies that can raise advertising prices. Buffett saw the brand dominance of Coca-Cola and invested in the beverage giant when it stumbled in the late 1980s.
Tim Heydon is no Warren Buffett. But he had his one golden insight when he and his business school team from James Madison University tackled a project called Shenandoah Growers in the 1990s.
Heydon saw a $1 million Virginia farm growing herbs — as demand for fresh organic produce was exploding. He saw a location that was a 10-minute drive from Interstate 81, allowing access to markets up and down the East Coast.
Heydon and his team didn’t miss the one-acre greenhouse on the property, either. They grasped a chance to control the growing cycle. That would enable them to increase crop yields and profits by bringing everything indoors.
Two decades on, Shenandoah Growers of Harrisonburg, Va., has blossomed into a business with an expected $120 million in revenue this year. It serves 23,000 stores across the country, including 16 of the 20 largest food retailers. I see its “That’s Tasty” brand in my neighborhood Whole Foods. (I recently kept a bag of its basil alive for weeks in glass of water in my kitchen.)
Heydon and his 1,200 employees have captured 35 percent of the retail fresh organic herb market. And they want more.
The company, which lies two hours west of Washington, is disrupting agriculture from the bottom up, just as Amazon/Whole Foods, Instacart, FreshDirect and others are changing the way people buy groceries from the top down. (Amazon’s founder and chief executive, Jeffrey P. Bezos, owns The Washington Post.)
“This is the future,” Heydon says, standing in a football-field-size greenhouse amid thousands of trays of young basil, mint, cilantro and dill. “We are not changing nature — just bringing the growing indoors and optimizing the conditions. We are increasing the metabolism so we can grow more organic produce at a faster rate.”
The Harrisonburg campus is one of its 11 indoor growing facilities across the United States, including Hawaii. Ninety-five company trucks delivered 13 million pounds of Shenandoah’s herbs to stores in 2018. Labor and delivery to stores are the company’s largest expenses.
A big test is coming. The company is spending tens of millions to double the amount of produce it grows indoors, from 40 percent of its production currently to 80 percent by 2021. The move should allow Shenandoah to place growing facilities closer to customer distribution centers, cutting the delivery costs.
The payoff could be worth it. Taking agriculture indoors raises the yield from 60 percent on crops planted to 90 percent. Profit margins, which the company was reluctant to detail, rise by 25 percent when crops are grown indoors, compared with in the field.
Demand for fresh produce is soaring, as Americans pay more attention to diet. Heydon said the company expects its investment in expanding his indoor production to pay for itself within three years.
The food grown in the Shenandoah Valley will be in the produce section in less than a month’s time.
Shenandoah investors have put $62 million in the company in the past several years, including food and agriculture technology investors such as S2G Ventures, XPV Water Partners, Advantage Capital Partners and D.C.-based Middleland Capital and Arborview Capital.
This is no Civil War-era farming community, which was decimated by Union Gen. Philip Sheridan. Some of the heated, LED-lighted rooms at the Harrisonburg facility, which measures six acres, are right out of a science fiction film. Heydon pointed to one pile of “bricks” made of coconut cores from Sri Lanka. The bricks are a key ingredient in the company’s proprietary soil blend.
The company’s secret sauce that gives it a competitive advantage includes its patented overhead lighting, its hub-and-spoke next-day delivery system and packaging that keeps products fresher longer.
Heydon took me to one room and mysteriously asked me not to take photos or ask too many questions. It involved two large tanks whose mixture helps water and soil accelerate the growing cycle. (I could almost hear Rod Serling’s “Twilight Zone” voice in the background.)
“We have a bigger mission,” Heydon says, “to keep optimizing commercial amounts of product on a small footprint. We are removing the variability of rain from the equation, which makes the cycle far more efficient. Otherwise, we let nature do its thing.”
Heydon, 50, grew up in New Jersey and graduated from West Virginia University. He received an MBA from James Madison in 1998. He tasted business early, while working at his father’s concrete company.
“I didn’t want to just have a job,” he says, describing his desire to attend a business school with an entrepreneurship track. “I love creating.”
Like many business schools, James Madison was pairing its students with local companies to get out of the classroom and into real-life business situations.
Heydon and his student group chose Shenandoah, a sleepy agriculture company that began in 1990. One of the founders had passed away, and the company needed direction.
“The co-founder’s death had taken a lot out of their sales, and they wanted help,” Heydon says. “I didn’t know anything about the business, but I had a passion to develop a company and teams.”
Heydon came along at the right time. It was the late 1990s, and he was mindful of the growing market for nutritious food: “Supermarkets were starting to put full, fresh herbs on the shelves. Healthy eating was going mainstream. Whole Foods was blossoming,” he says.
He became a sweat equity partner, which means he was given a share of the business in return for his work on the job. He said the company had a strong employee base, with a good work ethic, but lacked a strategy.
Heydon would supply the vision. He saw the potential for the Route 81 corridor, which had access to supermarket warehouses from North Carolina to Baltimore.
He attributes the growth to a strong management team and to key angel investors who shared his vision that there was traction in fresh produce. The angels connected Shenandoah to Ulf Jonsson, a European horticultural entrepreneur who played a key role in the company’s success as an indoor grower.
“We really took off after we launched our first certified organic indoor facility in 2008,” Heydon says. Another key move was buying a West Coast competitor in 2016, which opened California and put That’s Tasty in all 50 states.
Heydon said his smartest move has been hiring good people and putting them around him. The management team was so strong that when Heydon took time off to care for his terminally ill younger sister, the company didn’t miss a beat.
The investors, including the original two owners or their survivors, eventually cashed out when the company was recapitalized.
Heydon said he still owns a stake in the company but he would not tell me how much. I asked him whether he had become rich from his success, and he said no, “not yet, anyway. Maybe someday.”
Like Warren Buffett, he’s a long-term investor.
Rooftop Farming to Help Meet Demand For Fresh Produce
The implementation of urban gardens on building rooftops could help boost the production of agricultural crops and ensure the food security of cities.
Urban agriculture on rooftops is an optimal and feasible solution to produce healthy, fresh and sustainable food in the face of increasing demand for these products in cities, according to a study by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB).
According to this research, carried out within the framework of the FertileCity project, the implementation of urban gardens on building rooftops would allow the production of agricultural foods and help guarantee the food sovereignty of cities, which are increasingly populated. ICTA researchers estimate that by 2050, 66% of the world's population will reside in cities and the demand for food will increase by 30%.
In this context, urban agriculture is not only a more sustainable food production system, but also leads to improvements in air quality and temperatures, reduces the environmental impact of freight transport and helps support local economies.
On the rooftops
The fertilecity project, which also counts with the participation of researchers from the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), has analyzed the implementation of urban agriculture on the roofs of buildings with the aim of taking advantage of these empty spaces through the installation of greenhouses.
The study highlights that one of the factors that limit the development of urban agriculture is the fear that air pollution in cities could have an impact on the healthiness of cultivated agricultural foods.
The results show that the vegetables produced both in the ICTA-UAB greenhouse (located on the UAB campus next to the AP-7) and in other orchards located in areas with high traffic density in Barcelona are not contaminated with heavy metals, and that the levels of nickel, arsenic, cadmium and lead are well below the legal limits.
The study analyzed the production of soilless vegetables using perlite as a substrate and providing the plant with the necessary nutrients, together with irrigation water from the rain. The contamination with heavy metals through the substrate was also ruled out.
Source: efeagro.com
Publication date: 4/5/2019
Urban Leaf x Farm.One
Urban Leaf is excited to announce our new collaboration with Farm.One, a vertical farming company that grows hundreds of specialty crops right here in New York City. Using hydroponics and LED lighting, Farm.One grows hard-to-find produce such as purple basil and marigold flowers for top end chefs around the city.
Like us, Farm.One believes in the importance of fresh and local food, using innovative techniques to grow food indoors in urban settings, and using practices that benefit the health of the planet.
We’re thrilled to share that starting this month, we will be working with Farm.One to provide a gift to everyone who visits the Farm.One site in TriBeCa. Through this collaboration, we hope to help more people discover the magic and ease of urban farming by giving them a chance to experience it at home.
Of course, you don’t have to wait to visit Farm.One to try some of the exotic flavors that top chefs use in their own dishes. You can grow some of these rare plants in your own indoor garden today. All you need is one of our kits, a dark glass bottle, and a sunny windowsill to get started. Or alternatively if you’re in New York save 10% on any Farm.One tour with code ‘URBANLEAF’.
Can Indoor Farming Fulfill The Dream Of Opportunity Zones?
Opportunity zones and indoor farms are both new frontiers for investment, and one company is seeking to combine them.
Zale Tabakman has developed a concept for an indoor farm that grows greens, herbs and vegetables using modular construction, called Local Grown Salads. One LGS farm would be 15K SF and fabricated off-site almost entirely — even the HVAC system, often one of the costliest elements of construction. All the site needs is for the walls, floor and ceiling to be sealed and the water and power to be connected to the grid.
“It’s like installing a giant washing machine into a building,” Tabakman, who is based in Ontario, Canada, told Bisnow.
Tabakman estimates that without any delays, an LGS unit can be installed in two weeks, with its first harvest possible in 30 days, and each subsequent one 30 days after. Each plant produced will be certified organic, non-GMO and kosher (in order for greens to be kosher, they must never come into contact with insects). Each farm is estimated to cost $2.2M, require 15 to 20 workers and start producing income after 150 days.
Several companies have already introduced urban farming, particularly near some of the most in-demand urban markets such as New York and San Francisco. But whereas many of those farms are in sizable, purpose-built new industrial buildings, LGS has a much smaller capital requirement and can take space in older warehouses that are otherwise obsolete for any industrial use.
Because each LGS unit only requires a 15K SF pad with 14-foot clearance heights, Tabakman believes it is actually better suited to older warehouses than newer buildings with higher ceilings, saying “all that extra space would be wasted.” The model is, in a way, ideally suited as an opportunity zone investment. To that end, Tabakman is working to launch a qualified opportunity fund called I95 OZF, focusing on the Northeast corridor, from Richmond, Virginia, up to Boston, where space is at a premium and the most dense population in the country has sky-high food needs.
Many of the opportunity zones in cities like Baltimore and Philadelphia that are in need of investment would consider fresh, local produce to be a godsend. Baltimore in particular is rolling out the welcome mat for opportunity zone investment.
“In community development, there is a lot of concern about food deserts, so something like [an urban farm] could meet community improvement needs,” Ballard Spahr Tax Credits Team Leader Molly Bryson said. “So [if a city had] any parameters about meeting goals of the program, that would potentially be within the spirit of the law.” Those areas also often contain functionally obsolete industrial buildings for which an urban farm could easily meet the significant improvement threshold required under the opportunity zone regulations, according to CBRE Philadelphia Senior Research Analyst Lisa DeNight.
Bowery Farming Bowery Farming, Kearny, N.J.
“[Philadelphia] is one of the oldest industrial stocks in the country, so its buildings are definitely on a smaller scale than other industrial hubs, even on the East Coast,” DeNight said.
“Baltimore is probably very similar.” Because the regulations are otherwise so open-ended, many cities are eager to welcome businesses like LGS with open arms. “We talk to a lot of cities and economic development corporations, and what we’re seeing is that they want stuff to happen in opportunity zones that will help the people that live there, that will generate economic activity, create jobs and fulfill the purpose of the zones,” Tabakman said. “A new condo building, cities aren’t very excited by that. They want businesses, with jobs and permanent economic activity.”
Though he has not signed deals for any locations, Tabakman said that his business’ proper launch is not delayed by any lack of enthusiasm. “One national investor told me, ‘Once you get past the first step, we’d like to [help you] be in 30 cities,’” Tabakman said. Taking that leap remains the biggest obstacle to any opportunity zone investment at this point in time. Investing in an operating business is much more of a gray area than a pure real estate deal, and Tabakman is upfront about the amount of help he would need to truly get LGS off the ground. “The kind of model we have in mind is [for] multiple buildings, and we do not have the skill for that,” Tabakman said.
“We’re looking for someone to come in who has a lot of warehouses and brings us in as a tenant, with someone else coming in [to provide] money.”
Google Maps
Tabakman said that he has talked to institutional investors, private equity sources and cities with public investment funds, and few are willing to take the risk as of yet. The combination of normal startup risks and the unsettled nature of opportunity zone investing may be too much to overcome as of yet. For example, LGS' business model requires that it sell to a distributor, grocery or restaurant chain of a big enough size, rather than to individuals. "An issue is if you use a distribution center outside the zone, or if you sell to customers outside of the zone, that’s still a gray area,”
Bryson said. The exact structure of I95 OZF will be determined by its initial investors, but Tabakman envisions some combination of property management-savvy real estate owners and private equity firms. Either way, he trusts that his model will produce sustainable returns that both satisfy local community groups and investment targets. “We’re attracting investors who either own [old industrial] buildings or are looking to own those buildings by putting opportunity zone funds in there, holding for 10 years and pursuing exit strategies,” Tabakman said. “My hope would be to buy the building for the farm after 10 years, but if after 10 years, gentrification happens, they may want to kick out the farm and redevelop the building or something like that.”
While many investors wait on final clarifications to deploy their capital, a significant number of institutions are seeking opportunities for their social impact funds. Tabakman told Bisnow that social impact investors are among the most interested parties with whom he has spoken, but he has been cautious with his dealmaking because he is hyper-aware of the public damage a failed deal can do to a company touting its social benefits.
“The impact investment market is huge, but there are people who just say they’re impact investors and don’t have standards, and others that have lots of restrictions,” Tabakman said. Nailing down a potential investor at this moment is highly difficult because of the uncertainty surrounding rules of opportunity zone investing.
The most recent hearing for regulation was Feb. 14, and the IRS and Treasury Department have yet to set a firm timeline for any further guidance or a final hearing. Though Tabakman is confident that his business fulfills the spirit of the opportunity zone legislation, he is acutely aware of the herd mentality of investors. “It’s just a matter of when, not if," Tabakman said. "The only challenge is risk tolerance for the people we’re dealing with.
The opportunity zone [legislation] is kick-starting everything; I’m getting three or four calls a day."
Fresh Produce Needs Even More SXSW Representation
It’s good that produce industry leaders participating in the Center for Growing Talent’s Executive Leadership Experience were here to hear, first hand, how one panel — in a massive ballroom simulcast online – basically threw Salinas, CA, and the fresh produce industry, under the bus
Panelists (from left) Matt Barnard of Plenty, Daphne Miller, MD, Chef Dominique Crenn and author Mark Bittman talked about localizing food to restore human health at SXSW in Austin.
March 14, 2019
AUSTIN, TX—As someone who has lived in the Austin area full time for nearly two decades, I’ve treated the annual South by Southwest conference with a local’s disdain and avoidance.
The traffic. The crowds. The people.
But I can’t avoid it anymore. Produce must be part of the conversation. I can’t imagine how representatives from the Produce Marketing Association felt the first time they went to the event and listened to what people have to say about our industry.
It’s not that we don’t hear criticism and misinformation about the produce industry – often, from a lot of different viewpoints – but it must be incredibly frustrating to hear it from a conference that’s all about the global discussion of the future of … pretty much everything.
It’s good that produce industry leaders participating in the Center for Growing Talent’s Executive Leadership Experience were here to hear, first hand, how one panel — in a massive ballroom simulcast online – basically threw Salinas, CA, and the fresh produce industry, under the bus.
The session, “Localizing Food to Restore Human Health,” dragged “industrial” agriculture in favor of vertical farms and growing in urban gardens on vacant land.
Matt Barnard, co-founder and CEO of Plenty, a San Francisco-based vertical farming operation, said he talked with “one of the largest growers in the Salinas Valley of California,” about the business:
“He said to me that we can’t imagine a world where demand drives supply. We don’t have the option. We have data from consumers that tells us we shouldn’t even be growing iceberg lettuce, and yet it is the largest cash crop in fruits and vegetables in the United States of America because it’s a tank in the field. It withstands whatever the environment throws at it…it has no flavor, no nutrition and that’s the thing that gives us certainty in an uncertain production environment.”
Barnard said the grower told him the data shows “people like things like radicchio and arugula,” but that growers can’t produce it because it’s too difficult in the field.
The problem with this?
It’s not sure whether the argument is right or wrong – whether iceberg really is the biggest cash crop in the U.S., or whether consumers would rather have radicchio (something I highly doubt, personally), it’s that this guy is telling the whole produce story, on the international stage.
I was glad to see that PMA put together a panel on how we need to do more to increase consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. It’s a start, but there’s so much more opportunity, even beyond what happens here in Austin at SXSW.
We all need to push our way out of our comfortable produce community and join the broader discussions where they are happening.
Tagged analysis, produce marketing association, produce with pamela
Pamela Riemenschneider is the Retail Editor for Blue Book Services.
These London Vegetables Can Survive A Bomb Blast
Richard Ballard and Steven Dring have been growing vegetables and micro-herbs that can survive a bomb blast.
That’s because these two urban farmer-founders have been using a Second World War air-raid shelter as their first controlled environment agriculture site for their London-based agtech startup Growing Underground.
The pair first rented this space from Transport for London back in March 2015. For the last few months, they have been offering “Founder Tours” of their hydroponics-grown produce to a curious mix of scientists, reporters, agri-tourists, investors, politicians, environmentalists, film scouts and celebrity chefs eager to graze on sprigs of wasabi or pea-shoots..
Dring wastes little time in setting the scene: “Five-inch steel plate on the roof, designed to take a direct hit from a 500-pound German bomb,” he explains tersely. “The walls are 6 feet thick in places. Double helix staircases. Lift shaft down the center. Goes down 130 feet. By the time you get downstairs, you’ve got 70,000 square feet of space.”
What was all this space doing disused in the heart of South London?
AgFunderNews freelance reporter Richard at Growing Underground
It’s one of many historical quirks relating to the world’s first underground passenger railway, known to Londoners as the Tube. The interior looks like vaulted Tube tunnels. Which is because this was one of eight bomb shelters, designed to hold up to 8,000 people each, that were built to be converted, in peacetime, to a second and faster Northern Line. The aim was to reduce crowds and commuter times. Yet in post-war Britain, these eight shelters were never linked up (a perhaps irritating fact for today’s rush hour commuters on the Northern Line.) Instead, it was used for static purposes throughout the Cold War, including government document storage, before falling into disuse.
The elevator trundles downwards. By farm level, you still hear the sounds of the Northern Line; its trains rumbling along two storeys above.
Test Tube For the Future of Farming
Dring then throws on a white doctor’s coat over his tweed jacket. He dons a blue hairnet and a pair of wellington boots before washing his hands. It is as though he were about to step into an operating theater. Working down here is about science and the future of farming far more than historical posterity when it comes down to it, he says as we step inside the farm.
The tunnels glow pink, with layers of hydroponic vegetable beds growing under the Finnish firm Valoya’s wide spectrum LED growing lights. Scientists from the University of Cambridge, led by Dr Ruchi Choudhary, have set up sensors to track and analyse growth rates under variable conditions.
“We have been monitoring environmental conditions for the past three years, to identify optimal growing conditions, while minimising resource use,” says Melanie Jans-Singh, a member of the research team.
The data generated are bound for the Alan Turing Institute for data crunching.
The founders expect the findings from these data will help the Growing Underground team to simulate conditions in a widening variety of underground conditions with a broadening range of herbs and vegetables.
“We know the environmental recipe for about 100 products. We’ve grown micro-herbs, baby leaf salads, pea shoots. We’re starting trials on whole head lettuce,” says Dring. According to company estimates, circa 700 kg of fresh produce is delivered per week currently. This is projected to rise to over 4200 kg at full capacity across a mix of products.
To meet and ultimately surpass these targets, the founders say plans are now afoot to expand into the remaining space at their Clapham site in South London. (Much of it is still empty and sublet occasionally for movie sets.) But they are planning to expand to at least three other underground sites nationally. “There are tens of millions of square meters of underground space that we have been offered in the UK, and out of that we have identified the relevant sites,” he says.
What about logistics? Aside from being closer to market, Dring, who has a background in logistics, has already brokered partnerships with major UK retailers, including Marks and Spencer, Waitrose, Ocado, farm-to-consumer eGrocer Farm Drop, Planet Organic, and specific high-end restaurants who they supply via New Covent Garden, a fresh produce hub. “We are projected to penetrate that to a level that would require us to have four farms in the UK.”
Soil degradation, population growth, further automation and climate change will all play into the hands of underground farming globally, the founders claim, offering year-round and locally sourced fresh produce with low energy inputs.
In the UK context, one groundbreaking study by PWC from 2014 estimated that up to 95% of UK supermarket Asda’s fresh produce supply chain is at risk from climate change. Already, hotter, less predictable seasons have disrupted supplies of strawberries and lettuces in the UK in recent years. Underground, seasonal temperature fluctuations are largely taken out of the equation, meaning there could be many other climate-adapting countries where subterranean farming may fill a niche in the not too distant future. “The conversations we’re having include China, the Middle East, India, South Korea, the United States. We’re at that point of making sure we are taking advantage of global opportunities,” says Dring, declining to comment more specifically on vague references to joint ventures in the offing.
Funding in an Age of Plenty
So far, Growing Underground, with its team of twenty-two, has raised £2.7 million through crowdfunding platform Crowdcube, and a slice of corporate investment from G’s Global, a large scale vegetable producer and distributor.
Recent funding rounds for similar-minded companies provide cause for hope for this team and their focus on indoor controlled environment farming. In 2017, indoor vertical farming company Plenty managed to raise $200 million of Series B funding, led by Softbank’s Vision Fund. Similarly, in December 2018, Bowery Farming, the New York-based indoor farming group, secured a $90 million Series B round, led by Google’s venture arm GV.
Plenty and Bowery grow produce in vertically-stacked warehouses. Cambridge researcher Jans-Singh says the Growing Underground case study is a slightly different proposition. “By being underground,” she writes, “the boundary temperatures of the greenhouse are more stable year-round, thus reducing the need for heating and cooling, and the farm can function without heating in winter, by simply reusing the waste heat of the lighting.”
Even so, could the breakthroughs of companies like Plenty and Bowery be misleading beacons of hope from across the Atlantic? After all, the London scene is another fundraising environment. If London’s political and media scene are anything to go by, things are looking up. Growing Underground has received warm words of support from politicians like London Mayor Sadiq Khan and his predecessor Boris Johnson. They’ve even secured high profile advice from celebrity chef Michel Roux Jr, an early convert. But as they open their Series A funding round soon, it still remains to be seen if their political and media sparkle translates into investors venturing underground with similar conviction that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Nevertheless, funding or no funding, Dring reckons his firm is in hot pursuit of his deeper-pocketed American rivals: “We’ve taken a different approach to our peers in the US. We’ve proven the profitability of the model, developed then tested the technology, optimised the farm through data capture and analysis, stressed the logistics, built a solid customer base, and now it’s time to rapidly scale”.
Image: Martin Cervenansky
Farm Refreshed: UrbanKisaan
MARCH 19, 2019
Urban Kisaan seeks to revolutionise the concept of urban gardens with hydroponic farming methods
A chance meeting with a scientist led this accounts person to set up UrbanKisaan, a startup involved with farming. Vihari Kanukollu a Certified Management Accountant (CMA) who met Sairam, a scientist at a spiritual retreat, broached the topic of farming and water scarcity and concerns about the future of farming in a water-scarce world.
“Dr Sairam invited me to his home. I accepted the offer. There I was spellbound and surprised at the same time when Sairam showed me his little experiment — a vertical hydroponic garden set up in his balcony that was thriving and had been providing him with a healthy yield for many months. Though I am a commerce graduate, I also closely looked at the food crisis we will be facing in the years to come and thinking what do we do. Social causes are close to my heart so I wasn’t ready to give up,” says Vihari.
Together with Sairam, a biotechnology scientist, and Srinivas Chaganti who has done Masters in Computer Science Vihari gave birth to UrbanKisaan. This two-year-old startup has emerged among the top 100 social entrepreneurs in India as per Action For India (AFI) forum; it is one of the top 8 startups to be featured by Discovery India for its documentary series Planet Healers to be aired on March 29.
Their farm in Mahbubnagar, about 80 kilometres from the city, doubles up UrbanKisaan’s research area. The leased out land gives a peek into the future of farming the world over. “Especially because it conserves water,” adds Vihari.
Soil free but nutrient-rich Vihari vouches their startup grows pesticide-free produce in a vertical hydroponic environment. Hydroponics is a method of growing terrestrial plants without soil, by using mineral nutrient solutions in water. Though the farms grow plants in water, they use 95% less water. UrbanKisaan manages everything from the seeds to its proprietary, “farm-controlling software system and also empowers people to grow their own safe, fresh and high-quality food,” shares Vihari.
What spurred Urbankissan
Sairam developed the nutrient solution for their start up. “As you all know Hydroponic farming is a soil-less farming technique that replaces soil with nutrient solution; so it can be used to grow crops indoors. With timely nutrition and light, these plants do not need pesticides. Hydroponic farms are ideal for the urban environment and can give city dwellers access to fresh produce every day right from their own kitchen or rooftop,” explains Vihari. You can grow almost anything — vegetables and berries, greens, herbs, cauliflower as well as peppers — provided you have the right potting techniques and nutrient mix.
Ensuring food safety UrbanKisaan is different from other Hydroponic farms in the way that they are developing this farming technique for urban homes that have less space. “Before getting down to start the farm and research center, we used Dr Sairam’s hydroponic home set up as the prototype and sold home kits to raise the money. Our home kits sell between ₹ 15000 to ₹ 50000, depending on how big a vertical hydroponic garden you want,” says Vihari.
At the farm, my attention goes to the over-grown plants. Have they been over-fed I asked, “No they are seed-bearing plants we grow for seed saving for our nursery,” says Vihari.
If you are still sceptical, “Come see our farm that double up as a store, in Jubilee Hills,” smiles Vihari.
Their store in Jubilee Hills opens in the first week of April.
Bowery Greens Available On Peapod, AmazonFresh
March 28, 2019
( file photo )
Fresh greens from Bowery Farming, New York, N.Y., are now available throughout the greater New York area from Peapod and will be offered on AmazonFresh in mid-April.
The two online grocery service partners will make Bowery’s produce available for delivery across all five of New York City’s boroughs, north to Scarsdale in Westchester County, east to Deer Park, Long Island, and throughout northern and central New Jersey for the first time, said company spokeswoman Emily Drago.
Bowery Farming grows hydroponic salad greens in vertical indoor farms. The company launched in 2017 with a plan to build indoor farms near or in cities nationwide. The first two farms in Kearny, N.J., supply restaurants and retailers in the tri-state area.
Related articles:
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New York’s Bowery launches hydroponic indoor farm
Crop One Holdings CEO endorses digital distributive agriculture
Eating Local Just Got Easier For Some North American Cities
There are many benefits to eating local food—reduced carbon emissions from transport, more nutritious products picked closer to ripening, supporting local economies—but for a lot of people, local isn’t an option. There are many food swamps and food deserts throughout the United States that are in part a result of limited access to healthy, local food.
Much of the time, food racks up quite a few miles on the foodometer before it reaches our plates. But the organizations Square Roots and Gordon Food Service are partnering to help bring locally-grown food to customers across North America year-round.
Founded in 2016, Square Roots has developed scalable urban farming technology to achieve their mission of bringing local, real food to people in cities to empower the next generation of leaders in urban agriculture. Gordon Food Service is one of the leading food service providers with distribution operations spanning North America, along with 175 retail locations. This partnership will help enable Square Roots to develop new indoor farms near Gordon Food Service distribution centers and retail stores, which will make an assortment of high-quality, local produce available to Gordon Food Service customers.
“Customers want an assortment of fresh, locally grown food all year round. We are on a path to do that at scale with Square Roots and are excited to be the first in the industry to offer this unique solution to our customers,” said Rich Wolowski, CEO of Gordon Food Service.
Square Roots will not only bring their high-tech farming platform to the collaboration—including their transparency timeline—but they will implement their Next-Gen Farmer Training Program in the new locations. This program trains young people to become future food leaders and includes education in plant science, food entrepreneurship, community engagement, and of course growing food.
With this partnership, eating local will get a bit easier for the many cities that will soon have a Square Roots campus, helping people reduce their carbon footprint while supporting the next generation of urban farmers.
Featured Image Courtesy of Square Roots
Video: Underground Farming Could Transform The Way Your Coriander, Watercress And Rocket Is Grown
March 22, 2019
KEY POINTS
In London one farm is using LED technology and hydroponic systems to produce greens 33-meters below the surface.
Growing Underground has been collaborating with the University of Cambridge’s Energy Efficient Cities Initiative to analyze a range of data from its facility.
While we may associate farming with sunshine, fresh air and pretty patches of land, innovation and technology are beginning to change where food is grown.
In London, for instance, one farm is using LED technology and hydroponic systems to produce greens 33-meters below the surface. The company, aptly named Growing Underground, says its process uses 70 percent less water than a traditional, “open-field farming.”
Hydroponics, as the Royal Horticultural Society puts it, relates to “the science of growing plants without using soil, by feeding them on mineral nutrient salts dissolved in water.”
With a focus on reducing food miles, Growing Underground says its produce – which includes mustard leaves, pea shoots and coriander – can be delivered within four hours of picking and packaging.
For several years now, Growing Underground has been collaborating with the University of Cambridge’s Energy Efficient Cities Initiative to analyze a range of data.
“We automatically log temperature and humidity but also manually record crop growth,” Melanie Jans-Singh, a PhD student at Cambridge, told CNBC’s Sustainable Energy.
“We try to analyze all these relationships between energy, crop growth and environmental conditions in order to be able to grow plants as best as possible with a minimal amount of energy,” Jans-Singh added.
The utilization of underused areas of urban space – Growing Underground’s site is located in a former air raid shelter – is set to play an increasingly important role in the way people grow crops.
“The Growing Underground farm is a very good example where a derelict space has been put to good use,” Ruchi Choudhary, reader in architectural engineering at Cambridge, told CNBC.
This idea, Choudhary explained, could be pushed further by tapping into environments that were rich in waste heat and carbon dioxide, such as hospitals and school buildings.
Rhode Island Governor Raimondo And Providence Mayor Elorza Welcome Gotham Greens To Providence, R.I.
From lamps to leaves: leading indoor agriculture company expands to New England with 110,000 square foot high-tech greenhouse facility at historic GE Providence Base Works site
NEWS PROVIDED BY Gotham Greens
March 28, 2019
PROVIDENCE, R.I and BROOKLYN, N.Y., March 28, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Link to additional Gotham Greens media resources
Pictured is a rendering of Gotham Greens' forthcoming 110,000 square foot high-tech greenhouse farm. Located on the banks of Providence’s Woonasquatucket River, the project will create approximately 60 permanent and 100 construction jobs.
On the banks of Providence's Woonasquatucket River, Rhode Island Governor Gina M. Raimondo, Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, Rhode Island Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor, and community leaders joined Viraj Puri, co-founder and CEO of Gotham Greens, to officially announce and preview construction progress on the company's 110,000 square foot state-of-the-art greenhouse farm that will create approximately 60 permanent and 100 construction jobs. The facility is slated to open in early fall 2019 and will operate year-round to supply residents, restaurants, and foodservice customers of Providence and the greater New England region with 10 million heads annually of delicious farm-fresh lettuce and leafy greens grown with minimal environmental impact to preserve our natural resources.
Located at 555 Harris Avenue, the site, which had been vacant for two decades, was once home to Providence Base Works—a bustling General Electric facility that employed hundreds of workers to manufacture lamp bases. "Gotham Greens is a shining example of the type of innovative, sustainable, and community-minded businesses we envision will help to reinvigorate the Woonasquatucket River Corridor," said Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza. "By supplying fresh, healthy produce and well-paying jobs for Providence residents, Gotham Greens will serve as a driver of economic growth in the capital city while generating a creative source of energy that will help better connect the neighborhoods along the River." "We are excited by the tremendous progress Gotham Greens has made on this project, as well as the potential this project holds for Rhode Island," said Rhode Island Commerce Secretary Stefan Pryor. "Beyond the creation of jobs in its construction and ongoing operations, this project will further strengthen the state's already strong food sector, a vitally important industry in Rhode Island."
The $12.5 million project is a collaborative community effort, bringing in diverse stakeholders from local and state government agencies including the Office of the Governor, Rhode Island Commerce Corporation, Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council, Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM), the Office of Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, Providence Redevelopment Agency (PRA), Providence Office of Economic Opportunity, as well as many other City of Providence staff and community members. Gotham Greens has deeded a portion of its property to the City and is collaborating with the PRA in order to create a publicly accessible bike path along the Woonasquatucket River that will connect riverbank communities to downtown Providence. Gotham Greens will partner with community organizations to increase access to healthy foods and support wellness and nutrition education, ag-tech research, and environmental education programs across the region.
In support of this project, the Rhode Island Commerce Corporation has committed up to $2.3 million in tax credits, payable over a 10-year period contingent on actual job creation. In addition, DEM has awarded $250,000 as part of their Brownfield Remediation and Economic Development 2016 Green Economy Bond program, and the Providence Department of Economic Opportunity has committed $200,000 for job creation and training.
Using advanced growing methods that include recirculating hydroponics, big data-driven climate control intelligence, and renewable energy, the facility is expected to produce approximately 30 times the yield of conventional agriculture per acre, while using 90 percent less water. "Gotham Greens is an exciting, innovative company, and I'm thrilled to welcome them to Rhode Island," said Governor Gina M. Raimondo. "Rhode Island's green economy is growing, and we're emerging as a national leader in sustainability. Gotham Greens' commitment to reducing their environmental impact makes them a perfect fit for our state."
With this project, Gotham Greens is continuing its rapid growth of building high-tech indoor greenhouse farms across the U.S. Since its pioneering greenhouse launch in 2011, Gotham Greens has grown from a single urban rooftop greenhouse in Brooklyn to a multi-state indoor farming leader and one of the largest hydroponic leafy greens producers in North America. Gotham Greens currently operates more than 180,000 square feet of greenhouse in New York and Chicago and has an additional 500,000 square feet of development underway across five U.S. states, including previously announced projects in Chicago, Ill. and Baltimore, Md.
"We are thrilled to partner with the City of Providence and State of Rhode Island on this project," remarked Gotham Greens Co-Founder and CEO Viraj Puri. "Providence is the perfect location for us, strategically located at the gateway to New England, the city has a rich legacy of manufacturing, world-class institutes of higher education, and a thriving local food culture. Geographically, New England is farthest from the West Coast, where the majority of leafy greens distributed across the U.S. today are grown. Once we're operational, Gotham Greens will be able to supply this region's supermarket retailers and foodservice operators with a consistent and reliable supply of fresh produce grown right here in New England year-round. Furthermore, using our proprietary indoor growing methods, we can implement rigorous health, safety, and traceability measures—from seed to harvest—that far exceed those of conventional commodity agribusiness to ensure that we are growing the highest quality, safest products on the market today."
About Gotham Greens
Gotham Greens is a global pioneer in urban greenhouse agriculture and a leading consumer brand of premium-quality local produce and fresh food products. The company grows its produce using ecologically sustainable methods in technologically sophisticated, climate-controlled, urban greenhouses. Gotham Greens provides its diverse retail, restaurant, and foodservice customers with a local, reliable, year-round supply of salad greens, herbs, and fresh food products grown under the highest standards of food safety and environmental sustainability. The company operates more than 180,000 square feet of greenhouse across five facilities in New York and Chicago and currently has 500,000 square feet of greenhouse under development in five U.S. states. Gotham Greens was founded in 2009 in Brooklyn, New York, and currently employs over 160 full-time team members and is growing.
For more information, visit www.gothamgreens.com
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Video: Australian Gardener Harvests Over 400 Kilos of Food From Her Gardens
The garden is maintained with approximately half a day each week, though this is unevenly distributed throughout the season. Surplus is preserved using bottling, drying, freezing and fermenting to supply the kitchen during the leaner months
Kat Lavers describes her approach to gardening, including vertical and biointensive growing, and how important it is – and possible! – for city dwellers to be food resilient in the face of natural, financial and social crises.
Happen Films
Feb 22, 2019
(Must see film. Mike)
Excerpt:
In response to space constraints, Kat trades homegrown persimmons for an annual supply of pumpkins, and buys a bag of potatoes every year. Almost all other herbs, veg and fruit are grown onsite. Gifting and swapping with family and friends adds extra variety to the diet. The garden emphasizes highly productive, resilient fruit trees and perennial vegetables like wild rocket, perennial leeks and bunching onions that thrive with minimal maintenance.
In 2018 the site recorded 428 kg of fresh produce, a figure which the household believes could ultimately grow to around 500kg when the full design is implemented. About half this produce is from the 20m² kitchen garden (30m² including paths).
The garden is maintained with approximately half a day each week, though this is unevenly distributed throughout the season. Surplus is preserved using bottling, drying, freezing and fermenting to supply the kitchen during the leaner months.
A covey of Japanese quails provides the household with eggs and occasional meat. The small aviary has trigger feeders and waterers for easy maintenance, as well as a deep litter floor of thick wood chips and autumn leaves that eventually breaks down into compost for the kitchen garden.
Read the complete article here.
Video: London Farm Experiments With Growing Underground
By CBS
March 19, 2019
LONDON (CBS) Farmers in London are taking their crops from tunnels to tables. The underground technique is changing the way city consumers get their greens.
One-hundred below London's busy streets there are rows of green farmland like you've never seen before.
''Leafy greens are possible, microgreens, heads of lettuce,' said Richard Ballard, the founder of Growing Underground.
The project relies on a World War II air raid shelter to hold its tasty harvest. The first of its kind, this farm provides an innovative alternative for urban agriculture by growing herbs like parsley, chives, and cilantro.
Unlike traditional farms, the sun is replaced with LED lighting. The temperature is also carefully controlled, allowing crops to grow year-round. Farms based in cities have a smaller carbon footprint.
'Here we can harvest, we can deliver to our customers. Some of them very, very close by, in just a few hours," said Eric Nynkson, a chef at the restaurant Esca. It's one stop on their delivery route -- located just above the farm.
Nynkson uses the herbs in his signature dishes. ''It makes it very good looking and presentable," he said.
The crop concept surprises custormers like Steven Watson.
Steven Watson: 'Really? I didn't know that. I mean it tastes amazing. It tastes really good.
Reporter Gwen Baumgardner: You can't tell the difference?
Steven Watson: No, no different, really good, really fresh.
Growing underground's success has encouraged other cities, like New York, to start planting similar farms.
''There's a vast amount of underground space all over the world," Ballard said.
Meaning, the next farm could soon be growing right under your feet.
Farmers hope to expand their underground crops from herbs to full sized vegetables. The founders of Growing Underground say they don't want to replace traditional farming, just provide more alternatives for cities.
First Aquaponic Farm Warehouse Set To Launch Soon In Brownsville`
Grow Brownsville is a unique new project designed to bring locally grown food to underserved communities by way of aquaponic farming
The aquaponic farm prototype. Rendering courtesy Alexis Mena of Grow Brownsville
The Farm Will Serve As A Sustainable Local
Food Source For Brownsville Residents
by Gabriella Thalassites March 13, 2019
in Brownsville, Business & Innovation, Featured News
Grow Brownsville is a unique new project designed to bring locally grown food to underserved communities by way of aquaponic farming.
Aquaponics is a form of agriculture that combines raising fish in tanks with soilless plant culture (hydroponics). In aquaponics, the nutrient-rich water from raising fish provides a natural fertilizer for the plants while the plants help purify the water for the fish. Aquaponics can be used to sustainably raise fresh fish and vegetables to generate profit in a commercial farming venture, year-round, in any climate.
Aquaponic farming can be done anywhere, providing fresh local food that is free of pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers.
Set to launch in May, the Grow Brownsville aquaponic farming project is a shared vision of co-founders Jill Mellovin, brothers Frank and Alexis Mena, and Brittany Markowitz. It first took shape in 2017, when Brittany and Jill met Alexis while he was working on a different project for ARTs East NY.
A prototype of an aquaponic farm, created by Grow Brownsville co-founder Frank Mena. Photo courtesy Grow Brownsville.
Jill and Brittany mentioned the idea for an aquaponic farm to Alexis and the ideal space to hold it in Brownsville, and Alexis was immediately on board.
“My brother called me and said, ‘Hey, these two girls talked to me about having a warehouse, and I need your help!” Frank laughs, as he recalls the urgency in his brother’s voice.
Frank finished out his last year of teaching to fully dedicate himself to the cause, and the project officially began in August 2017.
Brownsville, notorious for its limited access to quality food, is often described as a “food desert,” with mostly fast food options. The warehouse at 234 Glenmore Ave will house an aquaponic farm, growing in-demand fruits, vegetables, fish, prawns and herbs for the community.
The farm is a true community effort. Outreach by the founders has gained support from Oko Farms and Eden Works, among others, to lend resources and assist with the build out.
Currently, the warehouse is a production venue serving local artists who rent out studios for anything from runway shows, to music videos, photoshoots or recording booths. Artists membership profits fund “Grow Brownsville.”
Grow Brownsville co-founder Frank Mena. Photo credit: G. Thalassites for BK Reader
The warehouse is swarming with creatives partnering on the project and renting out studio space. Ultimately, the warehouse will continue as a studio space for local artists, as well as serve as a hub for the aquaponic farm.
Going through the warehouse there are several different rooms of different themes, all inspired by chakras; all decorated beautifully and designed with the purpose of invoking unique inspiration for the artists using them.
After touring the space and meeting with not only the founders, but also some of the key partners of the project, the energy is invigorating. While the project is still underway, the progress it has made in such a short amount of time is impressive.
“We all had a dream and it was like, it came together. It is still coming together every single day,” says Don McCoy, Grow Brownsville brand ambassador and studio director.
Grow Brownsville will launch May 18, 2019. For more information, visit ioby.org.
Tags: aquaponic farmbk readerBrooklyn urban farmsBrownsville.food desertgrow brownsville
What Does The Future of Vegetable Growing Look Like?
What does 2019 hold for mass fruit and vegetable production? CREDIT: INFARM
21 MARCH 2019
Thanks to technology, vegetables can now be grown in outer space and deserts, even subterranean tunnels, and soon, the most hostile environment of all: supermarkets. During your rush hour shop, instead of fighting over ready meals you may find yourself in pick-your-own strawberry bliss on aisle 12, free of plastic packaging and air miles.
Energy-efficient LED grow lights, robots and internet-connected vertical farms are some of the technical breakthroughs that are revolutionising edible gardening, notably in places with no outside space at all. And with our global population closing in on eight billion - a majority in garden-less urban apartments - this futuristic tech promises to remove pressure from our natural world (and our own to-do lists) in the nick of time.
Supermarket farming aisles
German company InFarm has more than 100 vertical microfarms already in shops across Germany, Switzerland and France with plans to bring them to the UK. Shelving units with grow lights and hydroponic trays of nutrient-rich water, they resemble shop refrigerators growing live salads, veg, herbs and fruit. Staff simply slide trays in to grow and out once customers have picked everything.
One Bristol-based start-up also hopes to bring vertical farms to high streets using aeroponics that spray roots in a nutrient mist. India Langley, of LettUs Grow, says aeroponics give plants “better access to oxygen and carbon dioxide which results in them growing much faster: we have shown a 70 per cent increase in growth rate compared with hydroponics.”
Langley is keen to highlight benefits including lack of pesticides, “by reducing food miles, we can help slash food waste and reduce the carbon footprint of fresh produce, around 50 per cent of bagged salad we buy in the UK ends up in the bin.”
InFarm, German microfarm company CREDIT: INFARM
Yield per metre can be many times that of in-ground farming, making it possible to feed dense urban populations in very little space. It sounds futuristic but soilless growing has been used for decades, the step change is the cheap-to-run LED grow lights and internet connectivity.
“Our aeroponic grow beds are fully automatable,” says Langley, excited about the fact their system has central control from LettUs Grow’s headquarters, so shop staff won’t need to worry about nutrient formulas, “it makes this technology accessible to everyone.”
Restaurant kitchen gardens
Around the world many restaurants are following suit, two Michelin-starred Atera in New York has its own indoor vertical microfarm supplied by Farm.One. In the basement directly next to the kitchen, the farm grows a large variety of unusual herbs and salads for fresh flavour and choice, reducing supply cost and environmental impact.
“By communicating with the farm we are able to get herbs picked just a couple of hours before use and they are to our exact specifications,” says James Moore, Atera’s head chef, “they have so many varieties of herbs that we can sample and use the variety we want to get the best balance out of the dish.”
Australia-based Farm Wall produce another, attractive-looking vertical farm designed to be seen in cafes and restaurants, and Evopro sell an industrial hydroponic unit in the UK for a cool £8,000. Other options include hydroponic plastic towers housing ten or more plants in a column, which, like all vertical farms, can be used with sunlight (on a rooftop for example) or LED lights.
Terminology
Aeroponics
Aeroponics is a way of growing plants without soil, where the roots are watered using a fine mist. Not only does this allow more oxygen to the roots, delivering better flavour and faster growth, but it uses up to 95 per cent less water than traditional agriculture.
Hydroponics
Hydroponics is the process of growing plants in sand, gravel, or liquid, with added nutrients but without soil.
A new kitchen appliance
For those with no outdoor space, IKEA has an indoor vegetable growing solution to slot next to the dishwasher. Its low-cost hydroponic grow towers with the familiar Scandinavian aesthetic are easy to use. Customers scarred by attempts to keep herbs alive on a windowsill can look to these as a living pantry.
Tom Dixon, designer and mastermind behind IKEA’s ‘gardening will change the world’ show garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show, certainly believes in the idea. In May he and the home superstore will construct a two-tiered garden with an underground urban farm beneath a garden for wildlife and wellbeing in the Great Pavilion at Chelsea.
Robot weeding
Robot vacuums not only amuse cats, they often clean better than we ever did and the future of robot lawn mowers looks assured, but what of the neverending task of veg plot weeding? Roll forward Tertill, a weeding robot crowdfunded through Kickstarter, created by Joe Jones, inventor of best selling robot vacuum, the Roomba.
Jones explains that Tertill patrols the garden constantly with “a small weed whacker cutting down weeds that have just emerged and are under about an inch tall.” Solar powered, the device constantly weeds during the day keeping plots spick and span.
For those who find weeding challenging, Tertill could be the answer, and it’s certainly appealing for those fiddly vegetables that require regular hand weeding, such as asparagus, garlic and onions. To these Jones hopes to answer prayers of gardeners plagued by rabbits and deer with “functions that will let Tertill chase pests from the garden and collect extensive data about growing conditions and possibly individual plants.”
Automated watering and weather monitoring
Everyone forgets to water sometimes, usually in times of summer drought but Hozelock’s new Cloud Controller and irrigation systems mean you need not panic, you can water the garden from anywhere in the world using an app on your phone.
In conjunction with Netatmo, a WiFi connected outdoor thermometer and rain gauge, you can mollycoddle courgettes while on holiday. Why stop there, by installing outdoor Foscam cameras you can even watch your tomatoes being eaten by slugs.
Futuristic mass production
When it comes to vegetable technology, farming leads the way, the sector often first to adopt growing technology. In California, Naio produces three different sized electric weeding robots for crops, removing the need for herbicides. It’s the stuff of sci-fi films and Iron Ox, another farming tech start-up in California is trialing a fully computer operated indoor farm claiming to produce 30 times the quantity of lettuce of a traditional farm.
Sterling Sussex is a new hydroponic tomato farm in the UK with state of the art smart glasshouses. “We have a central computer constantly monitoring and controlling temperature, nutrition, humidity, light and CO2 levels,” explains director David Scrivens, “we use climate corridors to raise and lower temperatures, while LED lights and shading allow us to produce crops year round, even in winter.”
Drones have been trialled for spraying and large scale rooftop farms are planned for cities around the world, including London. If eating plants fed on nutrients in water doesn’t appeal, it’s worth remembering that’s how plants transport nutrients naturally from soil and the trade off is crops without pesticides or chemicals used to prolong shelf-life. As for flavour, well, there’s no technology for that, yet.
Find Jack’s blog at jackwallington.com. Follow him on Twitter @jackwallington and on Instagram @jackwallingtongardendesign
What do you think the future of vegetable growing looks like? Would you like to see these technological advances? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
Minnesota Food Bank Second Harvest Heartland Turns Shipping Container Into Lettuce Farm
It's Part of a Growing Focus on Getting
Fresh Produce to Minnesota Food Shelves
By Kelly Smith Star Tribune
MARCH 18, 2019
Eric Reller, master grower with Second Harvest Heartland, took stock of the plants growing in a shipping container at the organization's warehouse in Brooklyn Park. ANTHONY SOUFFLE – STAR TRIBUNE
It’s the busy planting season for Eric Reller all year round inside a dark shipping container in Brooklyn Park.
The freight container holds a mini hydroponic farm where he plants seeds and rows of lettuce under LED lights. But the leafy greens aren’t for sale.
Instead, the lettuce is sent to Twin Cities nonprofits that provide meals to people in need through a new pilot program from Second Harvest Heartland, Minnesota’s largest food bank.
“It’s the future of food and we want to see if a food bank can be a part of that,” said Bob Branham, director of produce strategy at Second Harvest. “There’s a need.”
Second Harvest is the first food bank in the nation to do a program like this, Branham said, adding that other food banks across the country are watching to see its progress.
As one of the nation’s largest food banks, Second Harvest specializes in “food rescue,” taking millions of pounds in produce donated by farmers, manufacturers and grocers to repackage and distribute to food shelves. And part of the nonprofit’s growing focus is on fresh produce, doubling the quantity in the last six years.
Eric Reller, master grower with Second Harvest Heartland, sorted through the columns of plants growing that hang from the ceiling of the shipping container. ANTHONY SOUFFLÉ • anthony.souffle@startribune.com
Since lettuce wasn’t as feasible because it doesn’t last long and grocers prefer to sell it, Second Harvest stepped up to grow its own, buying the container hydroponic farm last year for $100,000, paid for by a donor. While hydroponic farms aren’t new, food banks aren’t often in the business.
“What’s innovative is a food bank, usually at the end of the supply chain, is putting itself at the front of the supply chain,” said Branham, a former leader at General Mills. “We don’t have access to leafy greens in food rescue.”
A new home
The farm is part of Second Harvest’s new warehouse in Brooklyn Park, which it moved into last year after closing a smaller Golden Valley site.
On Tuesday, officials will celebrate the groundbreaking for the renovation of the 233,000-square-foot facility, funded largely by $18 million in bonding money approved by the Legislature — the largest amount of public money Second Harvest has gotten. The organization is fundraising to pay the rest of the $52 million total price to buy the building and create programming.
The new renovated warehouse near Interstate 94 and Hwy. 100, which is expected to be done by 2020, will add more space for volunteers packaging meals and more than triple the space for coolers and freezers.
That will allow the nonprofit to provide more fresh produce and protein, boosting the number of meals it supplies from a record 89 million in 2018 to nearly 112 million by 2025. Food is distributed to food shelves and pantries in 59 counties in Minnesota and western Wisconsin.
Second Harvest will share the space with the Brooklyn Park community food shelf, Community Emergency Assistance Programs, which will open a free food market there.
With the new space, Second Harvest is also starting a new initiative this year, seeking money to buy bulk quantities of chicken and beef from manufacturers that can be repackaged into smaller quantities for food shelves.
“It’s exciting to know it’s going to people who don’t have the opportunity for that kind of food,” Branham said.
The lettuce farm could also grow. Branham has mapped out where the full-scale farm could go in the warehouse, if the nonprofit chooses to fundraise for the larger operation. For now, Second Harvest’s small hydroponic farm harvests 8,000 pounds of lettuce a year. To grow 250,000 pounds of leafy greens a year, enough to supply food shelves and clients, it would cost an estimated $2 million.
Farm-to-table for all
Inside the 480-square-foot shipping container, which is the equivalent to the growing space of nearly 2 acres over the year, seeds are planted in coconut fiber and then transported into towers.
Reller, the master grower, has help from two volunteers to grow 21 varieties of lettuce and herbs such as basil, cilantro and parsley — all without any dirt, sunlight or pesticides in the 8-foot-tall hanging towers.
“The plants look pretty much immaculate,” Reller said, adding that they don’t have to ward off pests or cope with bad weather.
About five weeks later, lettuce is harvested and sent to Loaves & Fishes, which provides 3,000 meals a day at 30 dining sites in the Twin Cities, and Waite House, a community center in south Minneapolis that dishes up free lunch for 100 to 140 people a day.
A rendering of the new volunteer center at Second Harvest Heartland in Brooklyn Park.
Loaves & Fishes uses the lettuce to supplement donated bags of lettuce from grocery stores, which isn’t as fresh.
“By the time we get it, it is pretty far gone, so this lettuce is special because it’s so fresh,” said Cathy Maes, the executive director of Loaves & Fishes. “It’s genius.”
Pillsbury United Communities, which operates Waite House in south Minneapolis, also relies on Second Harvest’s lettuce, part of a broader movement to expand locally grown fresh foods to people in need. Pillsbury United Communities also has its own hydroponic farm in a shipping container to grow lettuce and herbs for its North Side community meals.
“How do we make farm-to-table accessible for everyone?” said Ethan Neal, the food systems manager for Pillsbury United Communities. “People, even if they don’t have money, should have the choice to eat healthy.”
Kelly Smith covers nonprofits/philanthropy for the Star Tribune and is based in Minneapolis. Since 2010, she’s covered Greater Minnesota on the state/region team, Hennepin County government, west metro suburban government and west metro K-12 education.
Video: How Urban Farming is Helping to Feed Tokyo
Japan currently produces just over a third of the food consumed at home. But it's hoping to raise its food self-sufficiency rate to 45%. It’s a challenging task because the number of full-time farmers has been falling.
Japan currently produces just over a third of the food consumed at home. But it's hoping to raise its food self-sufficiency rate to 45%. It’s a challenging task because the number of full-time farmers has been falling.
As part of our Leading Cities series, Mariko Oi looks at how creative urban farming is helping to feed the city’s residents.
Rhode Island Governor To Welcome New Urban Greenhouse Farm In Providence
Event on Thursday March 28
Rhode Island Governor Gina M. Raimondo, Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza, Rhode Island Secretary of Commerce Stefan Pryor, and other members of the community will join Viraj Puri, co-founder and CEO of Gotham Greens, for an official announcement and construction preview at its first urban greenhouse farm in New England, located at the site of the former General Electric Base Works facility in Providence, R.I.
The 110,000 square foot farm is slated to open in early fall 2019 and will create approximately 60 permanent and 100 construction jobs, the company said. The facility will operate year-round to supply residents, restaurants, and foodservice customers of Providence and the greater New England region with 10 million heads annually of lettuce and leafy greens.
When: Thursday, March 28 2019
10:45am - Noon
11:00am speaking program
RSVP to jackie@gothamgreens.com
Who: Confirmed speakers include:
• Rhode Island Governor Gina M. Raimondo
• Providence Mayor Jorge O. Elorza
• Rhode Island Secretary of Commerce Stefan Pryor
• Co-Founder & CEO of Gotham Greens Viraj Puri
• Providence Director of Long-Range Planning Bonnie Nickerson
Where: 555 Harris Ave. Providence, RI 02909
Please consider appropriate footwear, as this is an active construction site
For more information:
Nicole Baum
Gotham Greens
Ph: +1 (718) 935-0600
media@gothamgreens.com
www.gothamgreens.com